Hatsu Banzuke Crystal Ball

lksumo Aki Basho 2022

Right after the Kyushu basho, I took an initial look at how the November results are likely to shape the January banzuke. As I noted then, this is the most complex banzuke I’ve ever tried to predict, and I can’t find anything like it in modern sumo history. The range of options for the banzuke committee to consider is much wider than usual, and as a result, what you read below could end up being way off target.

Yokozuna and Ozeki

This is easy. Whether or not he fights, Terunofuji will be the sole Yokozuna, and Takakeisho will be the sole Ozeki. I have them both on the East side, as there is no precedent for a sole Ozeki (or Yokozuna) to be placed on the West side to balance the banzuke.

How many lower San’yaku?

This is the critical question for the rest of the banzuke. Three Sekiwake are locked in: S1e Wakatakakage (8-7), S1w Hoshoryu (11-4) and O1w Shodai (6-9). And there have to be at least two Komusubi. One is K1w Kiribayama (8-7), and if we keep the lower san’yaku to this minimal configuration, he would be joined by M1e Takayasu (12-3). This is the obvious solution that does not involve creating extra slots for rikishi who did not force them. However, it is hard to see how to then put together the upper maegashira ranks.

Let’s consider who would need to be placed within the top 8 maegashira positions (M1-M4). There are 5 rikishi who were at those ranks and got a winning record: M1w Kotonowaka (9-6), M2e Meisei (9-6), M3w Midorifuji (8-7), M4e Wakamotoharu (10-5), M4w Sadanoumi (8-7). That leaves only 3 available spaces. But we have no fewer than four dropping san’yaku rikishi with mild make-koshi: S2w Mitakeumi (6-9), K2e Tobizaru (7-8), K2w Daieisho (7-8), and K1e Tamawashi (6-9). Demoting any of them below M4 would be completely unprecedented, so something has to give. And even if we were to contemplate, say, placing Tamawashi at M5e, we’d then have to freeze M5w Nishikifuji (9-6), M6e Nishikigi (8-7), and M6w Ryuden (9-6) at their current ranks; while 8-7 freezes have happened, albeit very rarely, 9-6 freezes never have. Oh, and we haven’t even gotten to the yusho winner, M9w Abi (12-3). As reluctant as the banzuke committee is to create extra san’yaku slots, the sheer quantity of historically bad banzuke luck this solution entails seems even more unpalatable.

The first step to break this historically bad logjam is to create one extra slot for Kotonowaka. My preferred solution is to do so by bumping up Takayasu to Sekiwake, and letting Kotonowaka naturally slide into the vacant K1w slot, but the exact configuration (4S/2K or 3S/3K) doesn’t matter for the maegashira ranks. This solution isn’t great, as we’ll see below, but to me at least, it seems to balance opening up extra san’yaku slots and living with some fairly extreme underpromotions and overdemotions. One could keep going, of course, and add another Komusubi, or two, or even three, drawn from Meisei, Wakamotoharu, and Abi, most likely in that order. This would give us a total of 7, 8, or 9 S/K, respectively. As I noted when the November banzuke was released, 7 S/K has happened only 7 times in history, and 8 on only one occasion. With the constraints of drawing up this particular banzuke, 7 S/K would not surprise me at all, and that’s what Ryan at Grand Sumo Breakdown went with. Eight is not implausible, though 9 would be both surprising and unprecedented. My prediction below will boldly proceed with 6, which presents a tricky puzzle to put together.

Solving the M1-M4 puzzle

With Kotonowaka out of the picture, we have 8 rikishi to fit into 8 slots, which is at least not impossible but still involves some gymnastics. Meisei, Wakamotoharu, Tobizaru, Daieisho, and Mitakeumi all have rank/record combinations that have never landed below M2, but placing one of them at M3, together with Midorifuji, would not be tragic. This also leaves room for Tamawashi at M4e, low but not completely unprecedented. 8-7 Sadanoumi is frozen in this scenario, which is allowable.

The elephant in the room: M5-M6

The only ranks 9-6 Nishikifuji and Ryuden can go without freezing them are M5e and M5w, with 8-7 Nishikigi frozen at M6e. So, whom haven’t we placed yet? Oh right, Abi! There’s no way to place him any higher without either freezing 9-6 rikishi or way over-demoting Tamawashi. A 3-rank promotion for the 12-3 champion is historically stingy, but I feel like one extreme under-promotion is a price the banzuke committee is willing to pay to make everything else work. If we see more than 6 S/K, this placement would be the main reason why.

Makuuchi to Juryo

Chiyotairyu’s retirement opens up one slot in the top division. M16e Terutsuyoshi (0-15) and M15w Atamifuji (4-11) will be vacating two more. In my prediction, M8e Takarafuji (3-12) finished with a just-demotable record, so I have him going down as well, but the banzuke committee is quite likely to save him.

J3e Tsurugisho (10-5) is definitely coming back up. The other contenders, in a virtual tie, are J1w Chiyomaru (8-7), J3w Mitoryu (9-6), and J5e Akua (10-5). Losses by all three on the final day, coupled with a win by Takarafuji, left the door open for the possibility that one will miss out, in favor of keeping the incumbent. I have all of them coming up, but if one were to miss out, Chiyomaru seems the most likely choice based on recent precedents, although you can find past banzuke with pretty much any possible ordering for these rank-record combinations.

Anyway, here’s the prediction. Many choices to debate on this one.

Winter Jungyo 2022

Andy Jungyo (巡業)
Winter Tour

Jungyo is making a comeback! Well, it’s actually been back since the summer after the COVID-induced break but it’s slowly gathering up steam. That first tour had four dates, the second one in the Fall had six and this December featured an 8-day tour through 12/14. This will give way to more celebrations and events around the New Year back in Tokyo.

Reiwa 4 (令和４年)

The official schedule for these tours is always available at the Kyokai website: https://sumo.or.jp/Jungyo/schedule/. There’s also an English version of the schedule available but the Japanese version provides a bit more detail, including contact information and links to the websites in order to get tickets.

One thing to navigate over there is the most recent year is at the top on the Japanese page. As a quick history/culture lesson, according to the traditional method for numbering years, it is the fourth year of the Reiwa era because it’s the fourth year of the reign of Emperor Naruhito. The Heiwa era was that of his father, Akihito, who retired in May 2019. For hardcore sumo fans, it can be helpful to at least be familiar with this system because the birthday information on the Kyokai website or on the SumoDB and sometimes on Wikipedia will use this system. And it’s just generally good to be familiar with the Showa, Heiwa, and Reiwa names. So if you’re looking for this year’s Jungyo schedule you look for Reiwa 4 and next year will obviously be Reiwa 5. There will be a test, so pay attention. When in town, Andy literally walks around Tokyo with exams ready to hand out to unsuspecting sumo fans…so be ready. The last poor sap was completely unprepared and failed. It was as if he didn’t even know what sumo was.

Fansa

As we see from our handy-dandy map, this edition of the winter tour made a quick trek around Kyushu before crossing over to the main island of Honshu and making a bee-line in the direction of Tokyo with a couple of stops in the Kansai region for the last few dates. It’s nice. For a great rundown of what Jungyo is, please read Herouth’s excellent article. But in a nutshell, each venue hosts a one or two-day mini sumo “basho” with more of a focus on meeting fans (fansa or “fan service”) than serious sumo bouts. This is where you’ll see shokkiri (comedy sumo), and jinku (folk songs), along with demonstrations of how the hairdressers (tokoyama) tie the famous oicho-mage top-knot and traditional drumming by yobidashi.

Shokkiri

It’s hard to mention shokkiri, though, without mention of Shobushi. The sumo world was rocked by Covid when Shobushi, a well-known shokkiri performer, succumbed to it early in the pandemic. So when you search for articles and YoutTube videos about shokkiri, many of them feature Shobushi. In this video, he’s the wrestler closer to the camera while Takamisato is his partner here.

For new sumo fans who may wonder why the sumo world was shut off from the public for so much longer, it seems, than the rest of Japan, that can provide some insight.

Shokkiri is a comic routine that acts as a bit of a tutorial for folks who are new to the sport, explaining the rules and traditions in a funny manner. The new Shokkiri team consists of Wakazakura and Tochimitsuru.

As Herouth mentioned in her post, the Kyokai particularly likes to feature local wrestlers. And this tour is no different. We will see more examples below but this particular tour stopped in Kyoto, home town of Wakazakura.

For a little background on this shokkiri team, both men are 27 years old and from Kasugano-beya, home of Tochinoshin and Aoiyama. Wakazakura is a Makushita-ranked wrestler, who started professional sumo pretty late, after graduating from Takushoku University and recently changed his shikona from Kawamoto. Tochimitsuru is from Kokubunji in an outer area of Tokyo.

Kyushu

There were four stops in Kyushu: Nagasaki, Ashikita, Beppu, and Kita Kyushu. From the Fukuoka Kokusai Center, the sekitori and select lower ranked wrestlers piled into buses and headed out for Nagasaki.

Nagasaki is home to Hiradoumi and recent Juryo promotee, Tsushimanada, who we think did just enough to keep his shimekomi. They’re shown here fielding questions along with yusho-winner, Abi.

As the local feature, Tsushimanada got extra special attention from the Kyokai, fans, as well as the higher-ranking wrestlers. We got to see him doing butsukari-geiko with Ozeki, Takakeisho. I usually like to think of butsukari as a living, breathing, blocking sled.

Unfortunately, this video is taken from very far back and there are quite a few rows of fans (and rikishi) blocking most of the view. A key technique in sumo is to learn how to get low and drive your opponent up as well as back. You also hear great wrestlers talk about how they are able to dig in and make themselves heavy, almost impossible to push back. The higher-ranked wrestler will almost effortlessly block the lower-ranker from moving forward while the lower-ranker pushes themselves to exhaustion. When he gets to the tawara, or if he can’t push any farther, the higher-ranked wrestler will shrug him off to the clay.

Without a Yokozuna on the list, there’s no rope-tying demonstration and the musubi-no-ichiban was Takakeisho vs Shodai each night. Now, these are not real serious bouts. Sometimes I get the feeling the wrestlers take the butsukari more seriously than the bouts on these tours. If you follow me on Twitter, you found out that Mitakeumi would usually end up getting thrown by his opponent and rolling off the dohyo and bowling over Shodai.

Beppu is known for its hot springs but Ashikita is relatively a little-known city which brings us “sumo oranges.” As such, these tours are also a great opportunity for the Kyokai to work with sponsors and promoters. Here are Tochimusashi, Chiyomaru, and Chiyosakae chilling next to what I believe is a BMW iX, the German automaker’s new electric “Sports Activity Vehicle.”

Okayama and Kansai

The troupe headed back to Honshu for the second half of the tour. Soja-city in Okayama opened this leg with Osaka, Kyoto and Mie prefecture closing things out. Omoto was featured as the local boy. He’s spent most of his 7-year career in Makushita. He’d fallen briefly into Sandanme recently after injury but had a great time in Kyushu, achieving a 6-1 record and nearly clinching the heyagashira mantle at Irumagawa-beya. On banzuke day, we’ll probably still find Shishi at the top but the lead has surely narrowed considerably.

A whole bunch of rikishi come from Osaka but the highest ranking one is Ura, followed by Takekuma-beya’s Gonoyama. I had thought Goeido would draw more of his deshi from Osaka but so far Gonoyama seems to be the only one. Naruto’s Oshoryu is also from the area but since he was kyujo, I would doubt he made it for the trip.

So ends this abbreviated look at an abbreviated tour. I hope to bring more from the Spring tour.

Congratulations Hakuho Retirement Contest Winner!

Andy Retirement , , ,

Harumafuji’s Danpatsushiki (photo: Nicola)

The Tachiai Team would like to thank all of the entrants for the Hakuho Retirement Contest. You all had great memories of the GOAT. It was a very difficult decision but Congratulations to Shusekiyama as the winner! And we’d especially like to thank the folks at BuySumoTickets for sponsoring the contest and providing the tickets. Unfortunately, Andy did not win the Billion Dollar Powerball (as he didn’t even hit a single number on either ticket) so he couldn’t make everyone a winner and throw the giant “party to end all parties” at the Kokugikan, like he wanted. It would have been great. He’d have his shamisen, a bottle of whiskey, and a bottomless pot of chanko…but maybe some other time.

That was a lot of fun, and with Japan and the Sumo Kyokai more open from their Covid-induced slumber, we hope to be able to bring more events and contests to you all in the near future. So watch this space.

Kyokai Video: Updating Sumo Scoreboard

Andy Gyōji (行司), Kokugikan, Sumo Topics ,

The Kyokai shared a great video that provides insights into some behind-the-scenes processes. Visitors to Kokugikan will have seen the scoreboards. These backlit screens display the Juryo and Makuuchi bouts, reading from right to left, as well as listing any kyujo wrestlers (far left). A win is indicated with a red light next to the victor’s name. The kimarite is also indicated on the far right. They’re called “denkōban.” We’ve all seen this…but how does it get updated each night?

The video is great but unfortunately it’s captioned in Japanese and not in English. There are some great little tidbits in there that I wanted to makes sure to share. After the day’s action is completed, and after the bow-twirling ceremony, the clean-up crew comes in to prepare for the next day and one team comes in to update the scoreboards. Their main piece of equipment is a big, ole, lop-sided ladder.

The first little factoid that many of you probably already know is that the tiles are hand-written by gyoji. If calligraphy work is needed, like with the banzuke and this scoreboard, that’s the work of gyoji.

Secondly, the East and West sides are alternated each day. If you pay attention to the yobidashi, in particular, you’ll see that on alternating days they’ll come up on the dohyo from the East, or the West to announce the wrestlers for each bout. So it makes sense that the scoreboard order would be consistent. On odd-numbered days, the East names are on top since they’re read out first. On even-numbered days, the West names are on top.

The video here comes from Aki, I believe, before Terunofuji went kyujo. We see the plates changed from his Day 6 bout with Ura to his Day 7 bout against Ichinojo. The worker goes up and down, up and down, over and over, updating the acrylic plates. Then they validate the change and move over to the other scoreboard on the other side to repeat the process.

Safety First

I want to make a quick note about the safety culture. If this were me, I’d probably walk out there alone with a rickety, wooden ladder. Or even better, I’d go to the upper deck and hang over the edge to swap them out real quick. Safety First, or 安全第一, is a common slogan in Japan. You see it at various work places, especially construction sites, around the country. Earthquakes, typhoons, and landslides are pretty common so it’s no surprise that safety is a focus. So it doesn’t surprise me that the worker has two colleagues securing the base of his ladder, they all wear helmets, and that he even clips into the ladder. That’s quite different than this old picture we’ve got here of the worker updating the kyujo board, with no helmet.

I’m pretty happy to see that over the last year safety has been more of a focus on the dohyo, and maybe off the dohyo, too. But, as we saw with this recent yusho play-off, there is still some work to do. Thankfully, Abi won against Takakeisho. If he had lost, I’m not sure if Takayasu would have been in condition to fight. So the Kyokai possibly dodged a bullet there with Abi’s win. Let’s face it, it’s a contact sport and injuries are a part of the game. When those injuries happen, the athletes need confidence that they’re in good hands…and we fans want to know that, too. I like that the Kyokai is moving in the right direction; it’s a far cry from three years ago (Takayasu was at the center of one of those “uncomfortable” moments) but let’s keep it up!