Month: August 2022

Kitchen Sink Banzuke

Andy Banzuke (番付)

The banzuke is a crucial element of any basho. It’s the ranking list for each tournament. While it’s formally decided a few days after the end of the previous tournament, it’s not printed out and provided to the public until two weeks before the tournament. One downside is, it’s static. It is not updated during a tournament with results and it shows a wrestler’s current position and not their history or trajectory. The illustrated banzuke is a way to put a face to a name (or a back-side to a name, depending on which illustrated version you’re looking at).

I’ve tried to address that here by taking the basic banzuke and adding more data on each wrestler’s career as well as their record. Their names are colored by whether they were kachi-koshi or make-koshi. It’s not clean and finished yet but I think it’s time for a public beta release. I’ve played around with it enough on my own so it would be nice to hear from others.

The important thing to keep in mind is that I am targeting every sumo fan with these dashboards, regardless of your love for data and technology. I joke about the Kyokai and their fax machines, yes. But I know a lot of technology freaks people out. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to use appropriate innovations to provide additional access to more information. In this case, the ability to mouse over a name on the banzuke gives more information about the wrestler. I’ve also put three dropdown filters to allow users to select a banzuke, a division, and/or a stable.

The Filters

As I mentioned above, I have three dropdown filters under the title: banzuke, division, and stable. The default banzuke here is the most recent Nagoya basho while the other two are set to “All”. I don’t encourage setting the Division filter to all, unless you have selected a particular heya. When looking at a stable, it’s nice to view all their members in one screen. Please feel free to cycle through the multiple tournaments. I’ve got the banzuke from 1958 to present because that’s the start of the 6 basho era. I need to put a massive caveat there, that the data for wrestlers’ careers starts there, 1958. So if a wrestler was active beforehand, well, I don’t have that. I know that will be a bummer for folks interested in the careers of past Yokozuna.

The Flyout

If you mouseover the name of a rikishi, you’ll get a flyover screen with additional details about the wrestler, like their stable and hometown, as well as the length of their career. But for me, the part that I find the most useful is the line graph which tracks the wrestler’s path up, and down, the banzuke. I’ve had this visual on other dashboards before. What I’ve been able to add is the kyujo tournaments (in red) and yusho (the golden kanji character for YU).

Screenshot, with Tamawashi Selected

We can see here that Ironman Tamawashi has not had a tournament kyujo. (He’s actually never had a day kyujo until this past tournament and the Covid kyujo.) He’s also won three yusho: in Makushita, Juryo, and the Makuuchi top division. I’m still working on getting kinboshi and special prize data but this is already pretty busy. If I get that data, I may just list it above the chart. Unfortunately, it’s a bit busy as it is.

I’ve called it the Kitchen Sink because I feel like I’ve throwing all the data into this, and I’ve got more to come. For active wrestlers, I have the height and weight data from the Kyokai as well as style preferences.

The Feedback

I am very interested in getting feedback for this visualization and any others. I’m thinking about hosting a Twitter Space or Zoom or something to help walk people through the dashboard as well as to talk about the data. At work, I use Teams and walk people through with the help of PowerPoint and screen shares. I don’t think PowerPoint would go over well here. I find sharing pdf and pptx files on the internet highly sus, anyway. So I’m not going to do that. If I post a video, it’s not very interactive and I can’t answer your questions, live. We record sessions at work but those aren’t as effective as live-learning. A Twitter Space would just be audio, I think, so that may not be the best option. But sometimes it’s nice to have a quick chat about data.

Well, until I figure out a better option, feel free to leave feedback in the comments. If you experience any problems, notice any bugs, let me know.

Kensho Dashboard Update

Andy kensho kin, Nagoya Basho 2022, Sponsorship ,

I’m sorry I’m late with the kensho dashboard update. I’ve been working on another one, having to do with the banzuke, and I forgot to publish my kensho update. It’s great to see Terunofuji’s senshuraku bouts regularly surpassing the highwater mark set in the first month of Herouth’s data collection. That month, Takakeisho took on Asanoyama in a bout that had 44 kensho envelopes, which Takakeisho won. Takakeisho walked away with almost 60 this past month when he sealed Ichinojo’s yusho by beating Terunofuji.

Overall this tournament was a bit thriftier than the others this year. That doesn’t seem to be unusual with a lot more hype and excitement around the first tournament of the year back in Tokyo and noticeably less in Nagoya. 1466 bounties were pledged this July, though I bet it would have been quite a bit higher if Mitakeumi and Endo had been able to stay the entire tournament, though I figure a lot of the envelopes were just shuffled around to other bouts, later in the tournament. It may have actually helped Takakeisho walk away with that huge stack on senshuraku.

Over this past two years, Terutsuyoshi claims the top spot with the most bouts with bounties pledged (180), followed by Kiribayama and Hoshoryu (178). This has more to do with staying healthy though. Other top wrestlers have missed more days kyujo. Terunofuji has clearly taken the most cash, though, with almost 2400 envelopes won. That’s 143,820,000 yen or a little over $1 Million in sponsorship money. I think I did the math correctly this time. 600,000 yen x 2397 bounties. A half million dollars in cash with most of the rest going to retirement after the Kyokai takes its cut.

Ichinojo made it into the Top 5 Kensho Winners with this yusho, after Terunofuji, Takakeisho, Shodai, and Abi. He’s been claiming much more kensho lately, and there’s been more sponsorship of his bouts, so I’m hopeful that the increase in ice cream funds spurs him on to the next level. It’s good to see Shodai back near the top. He had won three fewer envelopes in May than Wakamotoharu. Mitakeumi had still managed to be fourth. Here’s hoping Shodai sees the benefits to warming up before bouts!

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated — positive or negative — so long as it’s not personal. I already know I smell and have been wearing the same pajamas for three weeks. I get to work from home now.

Japan Sumo Association Adds An English Language YouTube Channel

Bruce H Aki Basho 2022 , ,

Oh my, this is grand. We have all secretly hoped that one day the Japan Sumo Association might come to understand the global appeal of sumo, and maybe this is a step in that direction.

I don’t know about your, but I just subscribed! This seems to be Morita Hiroshi’s project, and I am thrilled.