Chiyonokuni

Aki 2018 Jungyo – Day 12 (Oct 14)

Herouth Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

this-year-kanazawa

🌐 Location: Kanazawa, Ishikawa
🚫 Scandal level: 0

The reason I decided to use the NSK’s official Yokozuna photo as my header is that last year, the 2017 Aki Jungyo passed through exactly the same city and the same venue, and I used that same photo as my header:

Four Of A Kind
K♣️ • K♥️ • K♠️ • K♦️

Alas, what a difference a year makes. It’s the same place and the same season, but the King of Hearts has broken our hearts, and the King of Spades is spading bone fragments out of his knee. They had to substitute Hiyonoyama for them this year.

But at least Kisenosato seems happier.

In fact, I think Kisenosato has a thing with Hiyonoyama, the lead mascot. Here he is leading him down the aisle:

kisenosato-leads-hiyonoyama-to-the-altar
Is the yokozuna… skipping…?

Well, there’s no accounting for taste. And it’s about time the Yokozuna settled down, isn’t it?

Last year, Hakuho joined the Jungyo at Kanazawa, having been kyujo when it started. The reason he chose Kanazawa as his point of rendezvous is probably that there was a special request for Enho, who at the time wasn’t a sekitori, so he arrived as Hakuho’s tsukebito (Chief Holder of Threads, later promoted to #5 VP of Rope Pulling).

You see, Ishikawa is blessed with no less than three popular rikishi who call it home:

three-stars-of-the-day
Slash, Slash and Backslash

It seems the lesson has been learned. This time they provided the rikishi with rikishi-sized sashes. Ones big enough to wrap even around Kagayaki’s big… tracts of land.

And while Endo merely came from a small town in Ishikawa, Enho and Kagayaki are both from Kanazawa itself. So they had their traditional photo together:

enho-with-kagayaki
\ & \

And when I say “traditional”, I mean these two are always photographed together. They are from the same town, have been doing sumo in the same competitions.

enho-kagayaki-2005
Enho and Kagayaki, that is, Nakamura and Tatsu, 2005

And Kagayaki is only 4 months older than Enho. They were even team mates in middle school, until Kagayaki decided to join the world of professional sumo:

enho-kagayaki-2010
Enho participating in Kagayaki’s “Nyumon” (joining a heya) announcement event.

Enho didn’t have plans to be a professional sumo wrestler, until Hakuho convinced him to do so despite his obvious height disadvantage. And thus, they find themselves in that same pose once again. And Again. And again.

All three Ishikawa men had a very busy day. In fact, Enho had an especially busy day, as he had no less than three bouts in the official part of the evening. The torikumi today had extra bouts that were specifically added to feature the local boys: Enho vs. Jokoryu before the official Juryo matches, then (for some reason) Yutakayama-Asanoyama, Abi-Kagayaki, Mitakeumi-Endo – preceding the official Makuuchi bouts.

So Enho had this bout with Jokoryu, then the “official” bout vs. Daiamami, and then he had to fill in for Aminishiki, as the veteran’s knee’s condition has worsened.

Yes, I’m sorry to say that Aminishiki has left the Jungyo as of the next day, to try to nurse his knee back to health.

So, as I said, busy day. Enho also helped Kototsurugy promote his Enho goods:

enho-promoting-enho-goods

Kagayaki was busy outside promoting Ishikawa’s new rice crop:

kagayaki-promotes-ishikawa-rice

And Endo was doing the oicho-mage tying demonstration:

endo-oicho-demonstration
Mmm… I love it when my hair is pulled taut. Give it to me, tokoyama!

They were also attacked from all sides by fans demanding that their baby be held or that their hand fan be signed:

enho-fansa
No resting when you’re about to have a match
kagayaki-right-off-the-dohyo
No resting after a hard session of keiko
endo-fansa
And certainly no rest for Endo

But hey, there are also other rikishi in this Jungyo. And they seem to be enjoying themselves:

chiyonokuni-and-shodai
Shodai and Chiyonokuni seem to be happy. Maybe because Tamawashi is far away.

Kotoshogiku also seems to be in a good mood:

kotoshogiku-enjoying-himself

Goeido seems to be having an especially good time:

goeido-enjoying-himself

It’s not really clear from this photo, but with Kyokusoten laughing behing him, this may be related to his recent running gag: he makes his tsukebito heckle Tamawashi during his bouts.

Abi was having a good time with a little friend:

abi-with-baby

Which is remarkable, because usually those tykes scream their heads off when held by even the most charming rikishi.

Abi was also having his photo taken in a sexy pose:

abi-and-mystery-bump

Ah, erm, er… OK, I declare a competition in the comments: who can come up with the most hilarious explanation for that bulge in Abi’s towel, but keeping it strictly family-safe?

I’m sure you’re feeling an Enho overdose by now, but I just couldn’t skip this one of him returning from the bath. We know Kakuryu has a funny towel wrapped on his head, while Kisenosato prefers the lopsided Mickey-Mouse look. So here is what Enho does with his washed hair:

enho-the-teletubby
His real identity exposed: He is Po from the Teletubbies!

Chiyoshoma decided to apply for assistant announcer:

chiyoshoma-as-backup-announcer

But I think it won’t work well with a Mongolian accent.

And Kisenosato somehow lost the good mood he had earlier:

kisenosato-in-a-bad-mood

What is he so angry about? I hope he didn’t discover Arikawa’s little mime act.

OK, let’s watch some practice sessions:

Jokoryu vs. Chiyonoumi:

Azumaryu vs. Meisei:

Strange tachiai.

Shohozan vs. Tamawashi:

That looked like a continuation of the basho.

Kagayaki vs. Asanoyama:

The local boys don’t get any gifts in keiko sessions.

And I have a couple of official bouts:

Endo vs. Mitakeumi. OK, it’s an extra-curricular official bout:

And the end of the musubi-no-ichiban. The tweet author says the actual bout took about a minute:

So here is your daily Tobizaru. Accompanied by Enho, because of course he is, and Tsurugisho. What do you think about this outfit combo? Oicho-mage, hoodie, and towel?

everybody-wears-a-hoodie-with-an-oicho

Aki 2018 Jungyo – Day 11 (Oct 13)

Herouth Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
venue
Venue at Toyota. What, no cars?

🌐 Location: Toyota, Aichi
🚫 Scandal level: 0

The city of Toyota is mostly known for the headquarters of a certain motor company. But if we are in Toyota, we are in Aichi prefecture again. And if we are in Aichi prefecture again, then the star of the day is once again…

akiseyama-and-nishikigi
Akiseyama! (And Nishikigi)

OK, it’s enough that Akiseyama looks inelegant in a mawashi. But that sash is certainly not doing him any favors. You see, in each event there are a few rikishi – usually the local stars if any, but others if not – stand in a corner dedicated to the prevention of violence wearing those sashes and shaking hands with the fans. The rest of the rikishi don’t wear a sash, just their practice mawashi.

But anyway, somebody designed these sashes with a normal-sized Japanese person in mind. So it doesn’t really work well for rikishi.

I mean, someone the size of Wakatakakage could look half-way decent in it.

gagamaru-just-cant-fit

But Gagamaru just had to give up.

Outside the venue, young Yobidashi Shigejiro from Kokonoe beya, who is a Jonidan Yobidashi, was doing the drumming duty for the day. But for some reason, there is a whole Yobidashi conference around him:

yobidashi-conference

What is this all about? I can’t say for sure, but take a look at the official photo:

taiko-shigejiro-seiza

Oh, a young Yobidashi in a traditional seiza posture (ouch, I can’t sit seiza for more than 30 seconds!), doing the fine traditional duty of… wait a second… is that his smartphone?

That may or may not be the reason for the rather shocked expression of the high-ranking yobidashi behind him in the first photo.

I don’t think he got too badly disciplined for this, though. In fact, he was relieved from duty for a while to have a drink of water, by no other than the san-yaku yobidashi Shiro.

shigejiro-replaced-by-shiro

Or maybe Shiro just decided that he, too, wants to watch a movie while drumming.

Going back inside the venue, let’s move along the walls and see who’s doing what.

Takekaze and Okinoumi working out:

okinoumi-working-out

I wouldn’t be surprised if that rubber strap with the convenient handles actually belongs to Takekaze. He’s been going around with all sorts of portable workout devices which I think are provided by a sponsor.

Remember I talked about Chiyonokuni’s splits? Well, judge for youself:

shodai-opines-about-chiyonokuni
Shodai: “Are you sure this is not hazardous to your future parenthood?”

Aminishiki, rather than practicing sumo, was practicing his future oyakata skills.

aminishiki-practices-oyakata-skills

Looks like he is explaining something about a maemitsu grip.

I keep showing goofy pictures of Abi. But the boy is pretty serious when it comes to customer service:

abi-serious-about-his-fansa

Or maybe he just hasn’t woken up yet.

Kakuryu was doing some push-ups at the side of the dohyo:

kakuryu-pushup

While his tsukebito, Gokushindo, was engaged in a battle of Yokozuna tsukebito off on the tarp:

gokushindo-arikawa
Gokushindo vs. Arikawa. Not fair!

Gokushindo was always at it with Arikawa this day:

Wait, these two were spitting at each other?

Speaking of Arikawa, remember that strange Kise Dance? The Yokozuna does that every day. There are miles of footage on Twitter of that puzzling little exercise. But take a look at this one:

Arikawa is quantum-entangled with Kisenosato? Or… is he making fun of the Yokozuna behind his back? Chiyonokuni must have given him a significant look as he passed there, because Arikawa hurriedly stops.

Here is a smiling Ichinojo I just couldn’t let pass:

smiling-ichinojo

And speaking of smiles, this photo is from the Chiganoura Twitter account. They had somebody take picture of their Jungyo participants this day – on duty, off duty. I think they weren’t quite prepared for the stir this photo (and the others that accompanied it) will cause:

smiling-takakeisho

This got replies such as “Takakeisho can smile? I can’t believe it!”, “Chiganoura oyakata, you’re a magician!”, “Wow, this changes my whole perception of Takakeisho”, and so on. It’s not as if Takakeisho never smiled in Jungyo, but it’s a kind of thing you usually only see in unofficial photos.

But Chiganoura seems to be a heya of smiles. This is a picture of Takanosho:

takanosho-and-omusubiman

Takanosho’s nickname is “Onigiri-kun”. Fans claim he looks like an onigiri:

Onigiri

…only with a smile. Some fan gave him that figure of “Omusubi-man”. “Omusubi” is another name for “onigiri”. And yes, there are some similarities, aren’t there? :-)

On the dohyo, Tochiozan, who started this Jungyo kyujo, joined it a couple of days before, and has been working hard since:

tochiozan-working-hard

But if you take a look at his lower body, it seems like maybe he should have stayed off the dohyo for a while longer:

tochiozan-leg

I guess that’s what happens when your oyakata is the Jungyo master.

Now let’s take a look at some of the on-dohyo action:

Here’s Chiyonoumi vs. Gokushindo:

See, that’s why I wrote above that Gokushindo vs. Arikawa is just not fair. Gokushindo is very serious and beats Juryo rivals left and right. He is literally out of Arikawa’s league.

Chiyotairyu vs. Aoiyama:

Given Aoiyama’s knee situation, he’s pretty mobile.

Kagayaki vs. Asanoyama:

Kagayaki seems to have a rather frustrating Jungyo.

Going off the dohyo again and outside, there is a new yumi-tori performer in training!

This is Awajiumi from Tagonoura beya. He is Kisenosato’s tsukebito. Remember the guy with the little wand-like stick standing in front of Kisenosato in the rope tying demonstration? That’s the guy.

This seems to be significant. In the previous Jungyo a new backup performer was introduced – Hokutoo from Hakkaku beya. But Hokutoo is not a tsukebito for any of the Yokozuna. Tradition requires that the performer should be a yokozuna’s tsukebito. Kakuryu has several tsukebito from Hakkaku beya, but Hokutoo is not one of them.

Now that Kisenosato is out of kyujo, and has passed his “probation” basho, a rikishi from his own team – and his own heya – can be introduced to the bow-twirling ceremony. I’ve seen many tweets wishing to see him installed at Kyusho, though that remains to be seen. I don’t think they depose an existing official performer unless his associated Yokozuna retires – though I don’t know what the custom is when the Yokozuna involved is kyujo.

Going back inside, it was time for Shokkiri. And the performance didn’t even begin, but the gyoji was already bursting with laughter in anticipation:

gyoji-laughs-before-shokkiri

Time for the Juryo dohyo-iri. And fans, of course, don’t settle just for the designated fansa time, but ask for autographs at all times. Enho obliges, but that doesn’t mean that Terutsuyoshi is going to let go of him for even a second:

enho-terutsuyoshi

I generally think it’s really nice to have someone always ready to hug you when you are on a long, tiring tour of the entire country, far from the comforts of home (or at least your private Sekitori room). But maybe Terutsuyoshi is overdoing it just a a tad.

By the way, lest you think that I have a bias for pretty rikishi, here is a pretty gyoji for you:

shikimori-kinosuke-attracts-the-little-ladies

This is Shikimori Kinosuke, who is apparently doing the announcer duty for this event. And he is pretty enough to attract the attentions of the ladies. Though admittedly this particular lady seems to be a bit on the young side.

So of course, all I have from either the Juryo or the Makuuchi bouts is just Terutsuyoshi’s salt throw:

terutsuyoshi-and-his-salt-throw

Come on! Where are all the aunties with the video-capable phones?

Sigh,

So here is your Tobizaru of the day.

tobizaru
Who dared blemish that face?!

 

Aki 2018 Jungyo – Day 10 (Oct 12)

Herouth Aki Basho 2018, Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yes, indeed, the Jungyo reports are lagging heavily behind schedule, but I did tell you that life may catch up to me. Mostly the fact that the European Basketball season began last week. It’s hard to keep up with two different favorite sports!

venue

🌐 Location: Yokkaichi, Mie
🚫 Scandal level: 0

Today’s is a short report – the small town in Mie prefecture did not produce many visuals. The famous representative of Mie prefecture is Chiyonokuni. But believe me or not, I could not find one fan photo of the man.

In the handshake line, the fans were treated to the two extremes of human aesthetics:

extremes-enho-akiseyama
Enho vs. Akiseyama

…OK. Now that I had my right eye surgically removed, let’s look at Asanoyama stretching:

asanoyama

Nope. That’s not 180º. They should at least have given us Chiyonokuni stretching – as he is really capable of those 180º (and probably has the second best shiko in Makuuchi).

Generally speaking, it seems that everybody was pretty tired this day. Take a look at Yoshikaze:

tired-yoshikaze
“I’m bored. When does the berserking start?”

Now let’s try Mitakeumi:

tired-mitakeumi
“Thanks goodness I have a fluffy tsukebito”

And Hokutofuji is just bummed:

hokutofuji-bummed
“When are we going back home?”

This photo was taken by Asanoyama, by the way, who started a new Twitter account.

Another green-room shot shows us Kisenosato, who also has a colorful towel:

kisenosato-as-budha

Note that the “Yokozuna zone” in the shitakubeya gets padded with foldable tatami (well, technically tatami should all be foldable, because that’s what the name means, but in reality they are pretty stiff boards rather than actual mats).

OK, let’s look at some practice on the dohyo. I’m sure most of you haven’t seen Takekaze for a while. Here he is vs. Meisei:

The old man still has it. Here is Mitakeumi vs. Aoiyama:

Mitakeumi gets that morozashi pretty quickly.

Here is our first glimpse of the man of the day, Chiyonokuni, taking on Sadanoumi:

With that brace on his knee, I think maybe Sadanoumi should have joined the growing number of absent rikishi. Sheesh.

Here’s Shodai, facing Tochiozan, who joined the Jungyo just the day before:

We tend to forget that Shodai is actually a good wrestler, because of his ridiculous Tachiai and his not being quite up to joi level. But he did not become sekitori just because of his beautiful eyes.

Onosho vs. Kagayaki.

Kagayaki doesn’t look too brilliant this jungyo, I have to say. I think he is in a period of transition between his former slap-happy sumo and something else, but not there yet.

Abi vs. Ichinojo:

Yeah, Abi is definitely adding some variation to his sumo. Smart of him not to engage in a belt battle with Ichinojo, though.

Finally, of course Kakuryu will be doing the honors of making the local hero suffer:

Speaking of Kakuryu, in the previous post I mentioned that Gokushindo is his tsukebito and about to “graduate” as he is becoming sekitori. His replacement is Shohoryu, who has already joined the Kakuryu team, so he is in this Jungyo:

shohoryu

As Kakuryu’s team seems to be a prep school for sekitori, we may be seeing this guy in Juryo soon. By the way, I checked, and to my disappointment, he does not wear his hula-skirt sagari during honbasho. :-(

shohoryu-hula-skirt
(Photo from previous Jungyo)

So to compensate for the long wait, I’m giving you two helpings of Tobizaru today!

tobizaru-2
Tobizaru for dudes
tobizaru
Tobizaru for the ladies

(Did he get caught in that nipple game? 😱)

Aki 2018 Jungyo – Days 2 and 3

Herouth Jungyo (巡業) , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I did not post an individual report about day 2, because frankly, there wasn’t much to write – even on the NSK Twitter account there were very few tweets about it. So here it is, bundled together with day 3.

🌐 Location: Ota, Gunma
🚫 Scandal level: -1 (yawn)

If you’re here for the goofy pictures, here is one by the surprisingly popular Arikawa, who is one of Kisenosato’s tsukebito, and despite his hair, is only 29 years old. Here he is accompanied by a rather demonic-looking Ryuden:

Maybe Ryuden was still upset by his earlier moshi-ai bout with Chiyonokuni, which looked like this:

For those of you who are new here: moshi-ai is a form of practice in which the winner gets to choose his next rival. This means that at the end of each bout there is a melee of rikishi vying for the winner’s attention.

There aren’t many rikishi hailing from Gunma prefecture. The most famous one is Satonofuji, but he no longer participates in the Jungyo. However, Yobidashi Shiro, the san-yaku yobidashi, is from Gunma, and therefore got to do the drum presentation today:

That’s more or less all I have from Ota. Here is a Tobizaru for you:

Almost as charming with toddlers as Harumafuji used to be

OK, now brace yourselves, because day 3, unlike day 2, was well covered. This may be because they packed a full house – they even had the “Thank you for the full house” flags hanging.

🌐 Location: Ashikaga, Tochigi
🚫 Scandal level: 0

There are two very popular rikishi from Tochigi prefecture: the Taka twins. However, due to Takagenji and Takanoiwa being kyujo they were absent (Takayoshitoshi is Takanoiwa’s tsukebito, so if Takanoiwa is not there, he is not there). Maybe the reason Kisenosato chose to give butsukari to Takanosho is that he is somewhat related… he is their new heya mate now.

By the way, of the three Yokozuna, two seem to be practicing on the dohyo at the moment. Hakuho, as usual, starts the Jungyo doing the basics at the foot of the dohyo. The two others seem to settle for doing butsukari at the moment.

Somebody brought in balance disks, and rikishi were given a challenge: do shiko on the balance disks.

Ryuden finds this a bit challenging
Nishikigi follows instructions successfully
Shohozan tries to ignore the laughter
Chiyonokuni executes well… only… his foot was out – like in the basho!

So, if you run into anybody who thinks that sumo is two big flabby potatoes in diapers flapping at each other until one falls over – hand him a pair of balance disks and tell him to try that.

Shohozan seems to have brought his invisible golf club to the Jungyo:

  • Careful! Your invisible golf ball nearly hit the Yokozuna!

Takakeisho seems to have received less attention than he got in Tokyo, which allowed him to relax and enjoy the jungyo. Like, for example, pestering Daieisho:

Also, for some reason, it seems he has never heard of wax or laser. Instead, he has his tsukebito pull his back hair, one hair at a time. 😨

Yeah, I’m serious. He actually returned the favor there, and they looked like a couple of apes socializing by picking nits off each other. Guys, please remember that you’re on camera out there in the Jungyo, always.

Here is Abi doing some san-ban. First, with Onosho:

Then, with Takanosho:

Notice something?

Abi is going for the mawashi. Again, and again. Other rikishi practicing:

Hokutofuji vs. Kagayaki
Kaisei vs. Ryuden

As the day progresses, the torikumi begin. Again, because of the shortage in Juryo wrestlers, Nakazono, Gokushindo and Tomokaze wear oicho (well, Tomokaze doesn’t – his hair is not long enough, yet) and wrestle in Juryo. Somehow, Gokushindo seems to be way too happy about this:

That smile is suspicious…
Aha. The rim is loaded with salt.

So, Gokushindo takes the opportunity of his first appearance in a Juryo bout in Jungyo to play the oldest trick in the book – giving the waiting wrestler a ladle full of salt. You see, there is no chikara-mizu in Makushita and below. That ceremony is reserved for sekitori bouts.

Actually, he was taking a risk there, because his bout was the one following Nakazono, so if Nakazono won, he could easily have returned the favor with some interest. I guess he trusted Azumaryu (Nakazono’s opponent) to take care of that problem.

I don’t have torikumi from Juryo, but I do have this photo:

Meisei vs. Aminishiki

The report is that Aminishiki fought hard at the edge, but as you can see, Meisei is the one still on the dohyo at the end. And seems very pleased about it.

In Makuuchi, I want you to take a look at the musubi-no-ichiban. First, take a look at Hakuho’s final salt throw. He always does that in Jungyo. In honbasho he settles for a modest throw befitting a Yokozuna. But in Jungyo, he goes all Terutsuyoshi, much to the pleasure of the crowd.

But then, watch the bout itself. It’s… surprising.

Whoa, what was that? Kakuryu is all “Oops… Sorry, Yokozuna, are you alright?”, and Hakuho bangs the dohyo with his fist in embarrassment. I mean, a respectable loss by yori-kiri or oshi-dashi is not uncommon, especially not in Jungyo, where the wins seem to be distributed evenly between Yokozuna (well, Kisenosato didn’t get the memo, but that’s him). But a sukuinage? Or any other kind of throw?

OK, finally, here is a digest of the day’s events. Some Yokozuna dohyo-iri. Some Shokkiri. Ryuden vs. Takanosho, Kisenosato vs. Goeido, and a glimpse of that odd musubi-no-ichiban:

But of course, I won’t say goodbye without a final Tobizaru: