A former carpenter who became one of the first cameramen in Japanese cinema history, Tsuchiya Tsuneji travelled to North America to help in the construction of a Japanese garden and tea house at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. After learning film techniques on how to operate a camera and develop film in December 1898 he returned to Japan carrying an Urban Bioscope camera (both a projector and camera). Taking inspiration from boxing match film actualities popular in the United States he conceived the idea of filming sumo wrestlers at the Ryogoku Ekoin. This resulted in his first film Ekoin Natsu-basho Ozumo.