As readers will recall, Uncle Sumo, aka, the Prince formerly known as Aminishiki retired during the Natsu basho after suffering a knee injury. The resulting kyujo would have dropped the beloved henka-artist into the Makushita division for the first time this side of Y2K.
When the apocalypse did not come, Aminishiki was promoted to Juryo. Rumor has it, this is because all records kept by the Kyokai at the time were all painstakingly calligraphied, anyway, and all historical footage was on 8mm and VHS. It wasn’t until the iPod came out when everything was quickly transfered to minidisc.
Coincidentally, this last kyujo was exactly 12 years after he first reached the rank of Sekiwake, a rank he last held in the Spring of 2012. Since then, he mostly managed to hang on to his makuuchi status until last year when he was demoted to Juryo for the final time. This past tournament was the first since the world met the Teletubbies and Harry Potter, The Notorious B.I.G. died and your humble correspondent graduated high school, without the gregarious rikishi.
Ex-Aminishiki (Ajigawa oyakata) made the announcement on his blog. That entry also linked to his new retirement website: http://aminishiki.jp/ where tickets are now available to the ceremony at Kokugikan and the after party at the Royal Park Hotel.
Ahh that new-fangled MiniDisc. What incredible technology! Maybe they’ll come up with a way to shrink video onto something like a smaller version of LaserDisc, soon? My LaserDisc player takes up pride of place in my mancave, along with my rear-projection TV, stereo and big amp, along with my Sega Genesis (MegaDrive) and the awesome new Super Nintendo.
Ok, seriously though, great to see Aminishiki putting up a website for his retirement. He’s got a lot ahead of him and he deserves many hearty donations for his contributions to sumo over the years.
I miss my Sega.
Herouth has to go to the shiki and after-party! And report back!
Me? The one person in Tachiai who actually hates going to a restaurant in Japan, and you’re sending me?
At least you’d be trusted to look at a kanji menu w/o a chaperone. I can only order from items in hiragana or katakana.
I’m going to Miss uncle sumo…. I had hopes he’d touch the top division just one more time before his final decent to retirement.
You can fool some of your body all of the time, and you can fool all of your body some of the time, but you can’t fool all of your body all of the time…
Is some of this article missing? This sentence:
When the apocalypse did not come,
seems out of place.
Thanks for the update on Aminishiki.