Sumoplay is invented by a little boy from Sumotown, a town where sumo wrestling is the major sport and every kids in town dreams of becoming a great Rakishi. The little boy’s name is Sumo Little. Just like his name, Sumo Little is small and skinny. Despite physical limitations, he still dreams to become a strong and powerful Rakishi.

Sumo Little is a genius at science and loves superheroes. He always dresses in a superhero costume because he believes it will give him power. However,  his love for science and cosplay makes him the target for bullies in school, especially the infamous gang leader - The Big Bear. But Sumo Little does not get discouraged. Instead, he decides to use his passion for science and cosplay to make himself a great Rakishi.

With his ample knowledge of science and mechanics, he starts to create a power costume that will equip him with enhanced strengths such as heavier punch, faster speed and shockproof protection. After many experiments and failures, the power costume is finally ready. He signed himself up to the annual Sumo Tournament in school, and  wears his power costume in the ring for the first time.

As he enters the ring, most of the kids laugh at him and his costume. Especially when his opponent is the Big Bear, nobody believes Little Sumo stands a chance to win. But when Little Sumo gives a final punch and wins the final victory, the audience can’t believe their eyes and burst into cheers! From that moment, the new sport “Sumoplay” is born. It allows everyone to be a Rakish, and make many kids’ dreams come true.

Sumo Classic V01 is the first Sumoplay costume invention. It has a shock absorber system that not only reduces the impact but also absorbs the impact energy and transform it into defense power. The heart shape topknot on its head is his signature. One evening when Sumo Little was very sad because all the bullies happened in school. His mom turned his topknot into a heart shape and said to him, “ This is a magic knot, it gives power to your heart. Whenever you are sad or scared, just think of the know, and it will gives you courage.” Ever since, Sumo Little always wears a heart shape topknot and so does his power costumes.

After his first victory, Sumo Little continues to compete and designed two more costumes. One is inspired by his favorite game Rock Em Sock Em and one by his favorite band The Beatles. These two costumes along with the first one he designed are called The Sumo Classic Series.

Sumoplay became an instant hit in Sumotown after Sumo Little’s shocking win. People began to design and build their own costumes for the matches. But The Sumo classic Series have become the irreplaceable icon.

This is a story about a little boy from Sumotown chasing after his dream of becoming a great Rakishi ( sumo wrestler). Being shy, nerdy and small in size,  the little boy has always been a target for bullies at school. But with a strong mind, he pursues his dream with courage and determination. This is the journey of how the little boy invented the sport called Sumoplay.

This is a spin-off project  and we have created "fan art" style illustrations based on the Sumoplay costume.

Ever since Sumo Little won the tournament, Sumoplay has become an instant hit. Every kid in town dreams of having their own power costumes. We did a round of interviews asking the kids who they want to be when they grow up and how will they want their power costumes to look like. Here are the results!

The sumo play project is the first project of Space Rabbit. It started as a few doodlings for a T- shirt design. Believe it or not, the first character was the Big Bear. Although the original design was not chosen at the end, but we loved it so much and decided to use it to create our own project. Here at Space Rabbit, we are huge fans of comics, toys, movies and street arts. And we are fascinated by the cosplayers that we see online or at places like Comic-Con. Behind the details of the costumes are the amazing craftsmanship and creativities. So we came up with the idea of a little sumo wrestler wearing a changeable costumes. Why Sumo? Because it’s cool! And we are psyched about the idea of turning it into a toy figure that we can just keep designing different costumes for.

Once we are set about the sumo character, we immediately know the Big Bear is going to be the villain here. We designed three different costumes for Sumo Little and created a short animation in Street Fighter like style for each of the costumes. The original thought for these short animation is to use them as promos for our toys. But after we made these promos, we started to talk more about the story behind these two characters and that lead us to the idea of making a short film about Sumo Little.

We’ve never thought the Sumoplay project would grow into a short animation film. We just knew to more we talked about the project to more we are connected with Little Sumo. The story of how Sumoplay begins kind of came to us one night, so the next thing we knew was that we began to write the script and lay out the storyboards. It turned out to be a much bigger project than we originally wanted. With limited resources and budget, the whole production process was difficult and took way too long to finish. But everytime we look at Sumo Little, we knew we have to finish it, because that’s what Sumoplay’s spirit is all about!

Although we spent a lot of time making the short film. The core of the Sumoplay project is the toy.  It’s our dream to create a collectible toy line that has stories that people can relate to. After all, there will always be a Big Bear out there challenging us, but we all have a Sumo Little within us, right?

The Sumoplay toy figures are still at the testing stage. We’ve finished the design for Sumo Little and his first power costume, Sumo Classic V01. We are currently making prototypes through 3D printing, casting and painting and lots of testings.  Hopefully, once we are satisfied with the final result we can then get enough funding to produce!