is a Japanese game based on rock–paper–scissors. Three players compete. The host cries out "Play ball". The contestants dance to music played on the

shamisen The , also known as or (all meaning "three strings"), is a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument derived from the Chinese instrument . It is played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usually b ...

and

taiko are a broad range of Traditional Japanese musical instruments, Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese language, Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various J ...

. The host chants "Runner ni nattara essassa." ("Hope the batter gets to run"). The crowd cries out "Out! Safe! Yoyonoyoi", as the three contestants show a fist, and then "Jankenpon" as they reveal the gesture they chose. Once the winner is clear, the crowd cries out "Hebo noke Hebo noke. Okawari koi" ("Losers leave, and newcomers come"). If there is a tie that needs breaking, the players shout "Aiko de bon!" ("Tie, so again!"). By the late 1950s, it became common for the loser to have to remove an item of clothing. ''Yakyūken'' gets its name from a

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

chant which is still a local

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

today. It is quite common to see ''yakyūken'' on Japanese television

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp� ...

s especially at New Years.

Origin

The game of strip

rock-paper-scissors Rock, Paper, Scissors (also known by several other names and word orders) is an intransitive hand game, usually played between two people, in which each player simultaneously forms one of three shapes with an outstretched hand. These shapes a ...

is mentioned in 甲子夜話 Kasshiyawa, a Japanese collection of essays first put out in 1719.高橋浩徳 (2014-06-30). “日本の拳遊戯(中)”. 大阪商業大学アミューズメント産業研究所紀要 (大阪商業大学アミューズメント産業研究所) 16: 202-203. The term 'yakyuuken' originated from a Shikoku

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

game in October 1924, between the local teams of

Ehime is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Ehime Prefecture has a population of 1,334,841 and a geographic area of 5,676 km2 (2,191 sq mi). Ehime Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the northeast, Tokushima Prefecture to th ...

and Kagawa. The Ehime team lost the game 6–0, and its manager, ''

senryū is a Japanese form of short poetry similar to haiku in construction: three lines with 17 (or , often translated as syllables, but see the article on for distinctions). tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and a ...

'' poet , improvised a

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense Physical exercise, physical activity. It can be performed to motivate s ...

dance from the tune of classical

kabuki is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...

to boost the morale of his humiliated team. This dance later became an iconic feature of the Ehime team. In 1954, singers like and from

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

, and from

Nippon Columbia , often pronounced ''Korombia'', operating internationally as , is a Japanese record label founded in 1910 as Nipponophone Co., Ltd. It affiliated itself with the Columbia Graphophone Company of the United Kingdom and adopted the standard UK C ...

, and from Victor Japan each adapted the dance and its lyrics into record

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

s named "Yakyuken" (lit. "baseball fist"), and the term quickly became known nationwide. In 1966, the city of

Matsuyama 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, in Japan and is also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243,541 h ...

, where the cheerleading dance originated, introduced it as a representative

dance for Matsuyama in Shikoku's annual August banquet. In 1970, the banquet dance was transformed into the more popular ''

sansukumi-ken Sansukumi-ken (三すくみ拳) is a category of East Asian hand games played by using three hand gestures. Ken games went into a period of decline in Japan after World War II. One of the few surviving sansukumi-ken games is jan-ken, which was brou ...

parlour game A parlour or parlor game is a group game played indoors, named so as they were often played in a parlour. These games were extremely popular among the upper and middle classes in the United Kingdom and in the United States during the Victorian er ...

that continued to today, which the Matsuyama people regarded as '' honke'' (lit. "senior branch" or "orthodox") ''yakyūken''. In 1969,

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as (NTV) or Nippon TV, is a Japanese television station serving the Kantō region as the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned and operated by the , a sub ...

introduced a skit as part of its hugely popular ''

owarai is a broad word used to describe Japanese comedy as seen on television. The word ''owarai'' is the Honorific speech in Japanese#Honorific prefixes, honorific form of the word ''warai'' (by adding o- prefix), meaning "a laugh" or "a smile". '' ...

comedian A comedian (feminine comedienne) or comic is a person who seeks to entertainment, entertain an audience by making them laughter, laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolishly (as in slapstick), or employing prop c ...

Kinichi Hagimoto is a Japanese comedian. He is active as a stage performer, emcee, and manager of the amateur Ibaraki, Ibaraki, Ibaraki Golden Golds (''ibaraki goruden gōruzu'') of the Japanese Baseball Association (''nippon yakyuu renmei''). Born in the Tait ...

and

Jirō Sakagami was a Japanese comedian, actor, and singer. Career Sakagami was born in Kagoshima Prefecture but spent most of his childhood in Manchukuo. Winning an NHK song contest at age 19, he headed to Tokyo to try to make a name in the entertainment busin ...

, where beautiful female guests were invited to play ''sansukumi-ken'' on stage, and the loser would undress and auction off her clothes to the

studio audience A studio audience is an audience present for the recording of all or part of a television program or radio program. The primary purpose of the studio audience is to provide applause and/or laughter to the program's soundtrack (as opposed to canne ...

for charity. This skit was successful enough in terms of ratings that later in the year it became its own separate show called , named such as Hagimoto was a keen baseball fan. ''Yakyūken'' came to associated with

strip game Strip games or stripping games are games which have clothing removal as a gameplay element or mechanic. Classification There are two broad categories of these games: the first are sexualized, and getting other people to remove their clothes ...

s. Because of this, Hagimoto himself personally visited Matsuyama in 2005 and apologized to , the fourth-generation ''

iemoto is a Japanese term used to refer to the founder or current Grand Master of a certain school of traditional Japanese art. It is used synonymously with the term when it refers to the family or house that the iemoto is head of and represents. Th ...

'' of ''honke yakyūken'', for unintentionally distorting ''yakyūken''. ''Yakyūken'' ''

eroge An ''eroge'' (, ''eroge'', or , ''erogē'', ), also called an H-game, is a Japanese genre of erotic video game. The term encompasses a wide variety of Japanese games containing erotic content across multiple genres. The first ''eroge'' were crea ...

'' are also popular in Japan and many

East Asian East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

countries, with the first ''yakyūken'' video game being created by Hudson Soft for the Sharp MZ-80K in 1981. ''Yakyūken'' as a stripping game was further propagated by the prolific Japanese adult video industry, which often used the ''yakyūken'' chant in their videos.

References

{{Reflist Japanese games Nude recreation