Shiroma (城間)
Onoe-beya 23 years old, 180cm (5’10”)/ 170kg (374 lbs). From Okinawa, Hatsu Dōhyō Haru 2023, career record: 20-1-7. Graduate of Chubu Agricultural and Foresty High School and Nihon Daigaku. Was absent his first bashō with a knee injury and fell off the banzuke. Returned to win the Jonokuchi Yūshō and went zenshō in jonidan (losing to Dairinzan in a playoff). Only career loss to former Jūryō and Sandanme champ, Fujiseiun. Has won 50% of his matches so far by yorikiri and shitatenage. Also a pusher/thruster.
He was in the top 16 in the National Student Championships and was runner up at the East Japan Student Championship +135 kg weight class and third place at the National Student Sumo Championship +135 kg weight class. He debuted at Nihon University and Onoe-beya at the same time as his stable-mate, Haruyama, but fell behind him on the banzuke due to the nagging injury at the start of his career. Having joined during the pandemic in March, he had originally skipped mae-zumo – but had to go through it after falling off the banzuke.
I remember Andy was quite happy to see him compete and think that he has been eagerly watching him rise up the banzuke. Onoe oyakata was impressed by his powerful, hard hitting sumo and says “Shiroma has something good, something shining”. His Oyakata wants him to work hard, step-by-step to avoid injury while his mother looks forward to watching him on TV. He has set his goal as makuuchi and wants to be the sort of wrestler children look up to. He has hit, and surpassed, speed bumps in his career. If he can remain uninjured, he should be able to make the sekitori ranks.
Suzaki (須﨑)
Ōtake-beya 19 years old, 170.6 cm (5’7”)/ 91.7kg (202 lbs) From Gifu, Hatsu Dōhyō Haru 2020, career record: 83-71. Last three tournaments took him from Jonidan 5 to Makushita – with a stellar 16-5 record. He started sumo in the first grade of Anzakura Elementary School at the Gifu Thursday Club, and in the fifth grade he advanced to the second round of the All Japan Elementary School Championships. In the sixth grade he participated in the National Wanpaku Sumo Tournament. He also achieved success at Midorigaoka Junior High School, participating in the National Junior High School Sumo Championship Tournament and the National Prefectural Junior High School Sumo Championship Tournament.
He had vowed to become a rikishi since he was a child, and when he graduated from junior high school, he went straight to Ōtake-beya. Being small, he has to win by technique. His most wins are by shitatenage, okuridashi, and hatakikomi. He is one of the favorites on the sumo streams! He may not have much success in this division, but I am looking forward to watching him more regularly on makushita digest videos, as I usually do not stay up late to watch lower Makushita. If you like the thin guys with good technique, check out Suzaki.
Āron (阿龍)
Nishonoseki-beya 21 years old, 185.2cm (6’0”)/ 153.7kg (338 lbs) From Kanagawa, Hatsu Dōhyō Haru 2021, career record: 66-53. Graduate of Maioka High School, originally recruited to Oguruma-beya and came to Nishonoseki with Nakamura Oyakata. He wins mostly by yorikiri and yoritaoshi (47%) and mixes in some oshidashi (23%)
He changed his shikona from his family name, Abe, to Āron (keeping the first character and using the dragon character (common in Nishonoseki) but using the reading of the dragon character from Shenron, the dragon of Dragonball.
He is famous for almost losing by Ipponzeioi to Kyokumizuno in January but the gunbai was reversed. He has made steady progress through the divisions and may find a footing in Makushita. His earlier 6-1 record (from Jonidan 86 in Nagoya 2022) was followed with a 2-5 at Jonidan 9 – so he may have taken too large a leap up the banzuke this time. However, I have a feeling he will be back as he has consistently made progress and is still quite young.
Takashōki (隆勝生)
Tokiwayama-beya 18 years old, 193cm (6’3”)/ 154.2kg (339 lbs) From Aichi, Hatsu Dōhyō Haru 2021, career record: 63-48-8. Wins almost 40% of his matches by yorikiri. He recently met Suzaki at the Nihsonoseki Rengo Keiko: https://twitter.com/sumokyokai/status/1764947995467055464. His stablemate, Takakeishō, called him “Asanoyama Junior” as they look similar. Takakeishō considers that he needs to overcome his problem of “kindness”, as it is not necessary in the world of competition. Asanoyama, himself, considers that Takashōki has long arms and will get stronger if he gets good coaching. His goal is to face Asanoyama some day.
His dream date is to take someone to Universal Japan and ride the Flying Dinosaur coaster. He began sumo at 5th grade at Toyota Junior Sumo Club and ranked second in Aichi prefecture the next year. His absences were due to a surgery for a hernia, something that impacted his performance the latter half of 2022. He has had a stellar past three tournaments (16-5) – and was in the running for the Sandanme Yūshō last tournament – also losing to Fujiseiun on day 13. I believe he will become at least a makushita regular – but have some outside hope for something higher.
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I haven’t done a historical comparison, but this basho seems very light on division debuts. There’s only Takerufuji in Makuuchi, nobody new in Juryo, and just the four in Makushita…
Maybe the return of WTK and Hakuoho is a factor in why. If they hadn’t taken two Juryo slots, would it have been two debutantes?
The two guys who might have been affected are Kayo (3-4 at Ms1e, lost to WTK) and Onokatsu (6-1 at Ms8, lost to WTK). Had they instead fought those bouts against easier opposition and won, they would have made sekitori debuts. As it is, there were no other promotion candidates, and plenty of demotion candidates in Juryo, so WTK and Hakuoho didn’t displace anyone. Let’s see if Kayo and Onokatsu can seal the deal this time.
It depends on the results of the prior tournament – that addresses two questions: 1) are there open spots in a division? and 2) are there viable candidates to occupy those spots. After that, its up to the judgement of the banzuke committee to address how to deal with those questions. Sometimes, there are lots of inter-division exchanges (with people returning to, or new to) each division.
Since I started this, it seems that there are always around 5-6 “shin-makushita” each tournament. For some reason, I have a feeling that between 4-8 seems about normal
It definitely looks that way. While the numbers aren’t exceptionally low for any individual division – okay, zero in juryo is obviously as low as it can go, but it’s not that rare – they’re on the low side everywhere this time. Makuuchi to sandanme combined are tied for the third-lowest number of division debutants in the 21st century:
https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Query.aspx?show_form=0&rowcount=3&group_by=basho&form1_year=2000-now&form1_m=on&form1_j=on&form1_ms=on&form1_sd=on&form1_debutd=on
(I’ve excluded jonokuchi and jonidan since their numbers just reflect how many shindeshi there were two/four months ago.)
In the query I read some (remarkable?) dispersion in the values of the different 2022/2023 bashos. Is this just random or are there more changes/debuts in particular months? e.g. depending on school endings etc.
There’s some effect from the fact that generally January has a bunch of high-quality recruits from the high school and college amateur programmes and March has the largest recruiting intake altogether, which means that May/July/September usually see the cream of the crop reach first sandanme and then makushita, but looking at the query and its median total of 17, I’d say that random effects are far stronger.
FWIW, over on the Sumoforum, I’m tracking long kachikoshi streaks (at least 4 tournaments) for a game, and I see much the same in that data. You can see waves of strong rookies pass through, but their numbers aren’t nearly enough to explain why the overall streak count is sometimes barely 20 and at other times well over 30.
Sumo maths surely can be fascinating. Thank you for raising my comprehension!
The formatting of this post seems rather wonky…were the macron vowels pasted in from Word or something?
likely – I drafted it in Word. Don’t know if I was consistent in the drafting/use of them and don’t know how it got translated onto the website. All misspellings and opinions are my own! I like private ownership, particularly of my own mistakes.
Døn’t wørry åbout thæt…🤓