the tournament. In spite of no large-scale events being anticipated as taking place there following the tournament, large amounts of tax payer money continues to go toward its maintenance. Tournament History Predecessor Before the war, there was a tournament, called the Meiji Shrine Tournament, that was held from 1924 to 1943. It had no winter tournament and was held in each area of Kanto, as a general rule commencing in the outer garden of the Meiji Shrine (an area spanning what is now Shibuya and Shinjuku in Tokyo). Formation On 26 December 1945 at the Kishi Memorial Gymnasium, Ryōzō Hiranuma (director of the Japan Sports Association), Izutarō Suehiro (chairman of the Japan Swimming Federation), Sanburō Kiyose, Tatsuo Hisatomi and Keijirō Ishida, who had all held important sporting administrative positions since before the war, proposed holding a national athletics event during talks about how sporting events could take place in the post war period. In 1946, the group had informal talks with Hiromu Kasuga, the chairman of the Kansai Sports Federation, and formed a board of directors. After having their proposal examined and approval gained from GHQ, they received 400,000 yen from the government to help with costs, and the first tournament was held. Tournament History Awarding the Emperor's Cup and Empress's Cup has depend on the prefecture. In the first, second, and the special tournament in 1973, neither were awarded. In the 6th, 7th and 8th tournaments, the winter tournament was split from the summer and autumn tournament. In the 9th tournament, it was divided further by separating the swimming tournament. Any prefecture that was able to host the winter, summer and autumn tournaments have a ☆ mark at the start of their tournament names. The tournament names are generally a reference to the autumn tournament. It is possible that the winter tournaments had a different name, especially if they were held elsewhere. Tournaments in blue show where the host did not win the Emperor's Cup. Commemorative Items With the exception of the first tournament, commemorative stamps have generally been issued for the autumn tournament. For the 2nd to 5th tournaments, 4 types of stamp were issued (only the third tournament had 5 types for the winter tournament as well). From the 6th to the 21st tournaments, there were two types of stamp issued, and ever since then there has been one type of stamp released for each tournament. The