It has been a long couple of weeks since the end of Natsu basho and we are eager for Aki to start. I’ve been seeing sumo references start creeping into my daily life…like when I was passing by the fishmonger in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market. Beautiful fish of success, please bring us good fortune in September…
I WISH Sumo was everywhere!
oh heyyyy when were you in Philly? please tell me there’s other sumo fans here other than me!
I was there Monday to Tuesday. It was a really short trip but it was the last chance to go anywhere with the kids before school starts. There have got to be some more sumo fans there. It looked like a new izakaya was going to open (or had just closed) near Drexel and Penn…and my wife said Iron Chef Morimoto has a restaurant in town but we didn’t have a chance to go.
Morimoto’s flagship in Philly’s pretty nice, I can vouch for that! Next time you’re up here, head out into the ‘burbs to Ardmore — there’s a marketplace run by some lovely folks from Osaka. (Any Philly folk who wanna meet up there in the meanwhile?)
It’s called Maido, and they do a nice lunch, including okonomiyaki.
Just saw a brief sumo clip on the tv the guys are watching in an early episode of Friends. Looked real.
I wonder if it was an ESPN clip. Do you remember the story?
Season 2, episode 1, at about 8:10 in this video. The guys are watching TV, tere’s a couple of seconds of what looks like a real honbasho bout, and Ross says, “ironically, these are the guys who were picked last in gym.” https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mhfk5
Looks like an outdoor event to me, not sure what it might be though.
It’s at Yasukuni shrine.
Sumo is EVERYWHERE IN MY HEART, MIND AND SPIRIT!
Amen to that Zee!!!!
How about Sumo fans in Seattle? Are any of you out there?
Oh, definitely. There must be. During the Natsu basho, the Seattle-Takoma WA metro area was the #5 American city with 5.5% of Tachiai’s American users.
#1: Chicago;
#2: Los Angeles; (If any of you get to see Ty Segall at the Teragram Ballroom, I’m jealous.)
#3: The Bay Area;
#4: NYC;
#5: Seattle-Takoma;
Yay! I’m not the only one stalking the site from Seattle.
There is a growing and very surprising amount of sumo-related stuff in LA. Shinsengumi in Torrance is a good quality izakaya (chain) that does chanko as well (I may have posted about this before on here). Sumo Dog closed in Koreatown and appears to have reopened near Santa Monica but I think it was a tough concept to sell on the general public as it missed a bit in terms of authenticity of the concept.
I haven’t discovered anything in Chicago yet although there’s an odd brewery called BiXi Beer which has sumo wallpaper in the toilets.
(Teragram is not far from where I used to live actually)
+1 to Seattle
I’m curious, Andy: when you started this great English-language sumo site…did you REALLY believe that it would grow like this? We both hailed from North Carolina…and it makes me chuckled that a fellow, down-homed, born and raised Tar Heel has (with Bruce and company, of course!) created a very professional, innovative & knowledgeable place that is ALL THINGS SUMO. Was this on your Bucket List, or something? LOL
Aw, hell nah. I just wanted to find someone else who liked sumo and someone I can talk to about it. The credit goes to the team. I mean they put together more English-language sumo news and analysis than we can really find anywhere. Since Japanese newspaper editors seem to prioritize it somewhere between high school baseball and badminton, and American news sources are more interested in other things, it’s not that much of a surprise. The Kyokai and NHK have really started providing more English-language content and the Sumopedia videos which is awesome. Frustration with Abema lock-outs and lack of NHK coverage of lower ranks and “off-basho” events continues but one day the press will hopefully catch up.
Well said, good sir!
I love this site. We were lucky enough to visit the Nagoya Basho for the last 2 years from Seattle. And I relied on the site and the sumo association site to stay up to date before and after our visit.
Thank you! I’d love to hear about your trip!
Who’s from Chicago area? I am and they jus cancelled the jap station on direct tv 😦 so gotta find sumo ppls to watch w now