Yes, indeed, the Jungyo reports are lagging heavily behind schedule, but I did tell you that life may catch up to me. Mostly the fact that the European Basketball season began last week. It’s hard to keep up with two different favorite sports!

🌐 Location: Yokkaichi, Mie
🚫 Scandal level: 0

Today’s is a short report – the small town in Mie prefecture did not produce many visuals. The famous representative of Mie prefecture is Chiyonokuni. But believe me or not, I could not find one fan photo of the man.

In the handshake line, the fans were treated to the two extremes of human aesthetics:

…OK. Now that I had my right eye surgically removed, let’s look at Asanoyama stretching:

Nope. That’s not 180º. They should at least have given us Chiyonokuni stretching – as he is really capable of those 180º (and probably has the second best shiko in Makuuchi).

Generally speaking, it seems that everybody was pretty tired this day. Take a look at Yoshikaze:

Now let’s try Mitakeumi:

And Hokutofuji is just bummed:

This photo was taken by Asanoyama, by the way, who started a new Twitter account.

Another green-room shot shows us Kisenosato, who also has a colorful towel:

Note that the “Yokozuna zone” in the shitakubeya gets padded with foldable tatami (well, technically tatami should all be foldable, because that’s what the name means, but in reality they are pretty stiff boards rather than actual mats).

OK, let’s look at some practice on the dohyo. I’m sure most of you haven’t seen Takekaze for a while. Here he is vs. Meisei:

＜秋巡業＠四日市市＞豪風と明生による稽古。 #sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/6KTOrbQzPu

— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) October 12, 2018

The old man still has it. Here is Mitakeumi vs. Aoiyama:

＜秋巡業＠四日市市＞御嶽海と碧山による稽古。 #sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/bVhYpdzRHL

— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) October 12, 2018

Mitakeumi gets that morozashi pretty quickly.

Here is our first glimpse of the man of the day, Chiyonokuni, taking on Sadanoumi:

＜秋巡業＠四日市市＞地元三重県出身の千代の国と佐田の海による稽古。 #sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/o60ybj0ZKH

— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) October 12, 2018

With that brace on his knee, I think maybe Sadanoumi should have joined the growing number of absent rikishi. Sheesh.

Here’s Shodai, facing Tochiozan, who joined the Jungyo just the day before:

＜秋巡業＠四日市市＞正代と栃煌山による稽古。 #sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/ai1g4D5jgM

— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) October 12, 2018

We tend to forget that Shodai is actually a good wrestler, because of his ridiculous Tachiai and his not being quite up to joi level. But he did not become sekitori just because of his beautiful eyes.

Onosho vs. Kagayaki.

＜秋巡業＠四日市市＞阿武咲と輝による稽古。#sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/u17nhdQ3EN

— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) October 12, 2018

Kagayaki doesn’t look too brilliant this jungyo, I have to say. I think he is in a period of transition between his former slap-happy sumo and something else, but not there yet.

Abi vs. Ichinojo:

＜秋巡業＠四日市市＞阿炎と逸ノ城による稽古。#sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/9HXVCDVyPK

— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) October 12, 2018

Yeah, Abi is definitely adding some variation to his sumo. Smart of him not to engage in a belt battle with Ichinojo, though.

Finally, of course Kakuryu will be doing the honors of making the local hero suffer:

＜秋巡業＠四日市市＞千代の国に胸を出す、鶴竜。#sumo #相撲 pic.twitter.com/T7k2PMSpLy

— 日本相撲協会公式 (@sumokyokai) October 12, 2018

Speaking of Kakuryu, in the previous post I mentioned that Gokushindo is his tsukebito and about to “graduate” as he is becoming sekitori. His replacement is Shohoryu, who has already joined the Kakuryu team, so he is in this Jungyo:

As Kakuryu’s team seems to be a prep school for sekitori, we may be seeing this guy in Juryo soon. By the way, I checked, and to my disappointment, he does not wear his hula-skirt sagari during honbasho. :-(

So to compensate for the long wait, I’m giving you two helpings of Tobizaru today!

(Did he get caught in that nipple game? 😱)