Sumida River the oldest and most famous firework displays in Japan, are launched from barges across the river, between Ryōgoku and Asakusa during Summer, a festival is also held at the same time. The poet Matsuo Bashō lived by the Sumida River, alongside the famous banana tree (Japanese: bashō) from which he takes his nom de plume. The Sumida River appears in a haiku by Issa from 1820: "spring peace--a mouse licking upSumida River" The Sumida runs through Tokyo for 27 kilometers, under 26 bridges spaced at about one bridge per kilometer. Amongst these, the principal ones are: Sumida River The is
Toru Arakawa Toru Arakawa Tōru Arakawa(, " Arakawa Tōru "; November 1932 in Gifu Prefecture, Japan; – 20 June 2015) was a karate master of the style Wadō-ryū. He was one of the few karateka ranked 9th Dan in Japan. Tōru Arakawa began karate training at the Nihon University at the age of 18. At the beginning of the 1960s he traveled to Europe and America together with Tatsuo Suzuki and Hajime Takashima to make karate in the western countries popular. Arakawa served as the manager of the JKF Wadōkai from 1962 to 1979. In 1982, he played a major role in