After the fairly modest event we had up north in Ibaraki, the Jungyo returns to Tokyo for one of its permanent events – the dedication sumo event at Yasukuni Shrine.
As John Gunning mentioned in his recent article about Jungyo, this event is free of charge, and allows about 6000 spectators to enjoy a day of sumo right at the heart of the big city.
The upshot of all this is that there were a lot of visuals on the ‘net, and you are in for one long post. Clear up a couple of hours of your time, folks. Prepare a bento box, visit the toilet, tuck in the kids.
The Jungyo arrives at what has become a regular stop in the Haru Jungyo – fifth time in a row – Shizuoka city, where they call this event “Mount Fuji Shizuoka basho”, no less.
Along the walls we can see rikishi exercising and stretching. Enho, for example, is both stretching and diving:
Ichinojo is stomping shiko together with his Tsukebito. I believe this is Oka, formerly known as Minatoryu:
Ichinojo is not getting anywhere near the dohyo at this stage, but he is more than happy to pose for photos for the fans:
Much the same can be said about Yoshikaze, come to think of it.
Wakamotoharu is making good use of his remaining time as sekitori, also posing with the fans with his tsukebito – who is actually his big brother Wakatakamoto. Yes, all three Onami brothers are together this Jungyo:
The dohyo being occupied, Yago and Daieisho do their sumo away from (most) of the public eye:
Asanoyama surprisingly got him there. But the soon-to-be Ozekiwake is full of energy.
Practice over, and it’s time to hit the bath. And of course, on the way back the fans demand attention. Toyonoshima is among those most sought after, though he is not a local man in any way:
Hakuho yukata, with “63” motif.
Dohyo-Iri in Jungyo is a lot more relaxed, even on the dohyo itself. Here is the Juryo dohyo-iri. Gagamaru is making faces at some kid in the crowd:
Makuuchi bouts about to start. Wrestlers waiting outside for their turn, practicing their favorite facial expressions:
Terutsuyoshi – his salty face. Daishoho – his kawaii face. Tomokaze – his puzzled face. And Ishiura just shows off his fine… traps. That’s it… traps…
So here is a summary video from the Japanese TV. You can see some of the local boy of the day, Tochikodai from Kasugano beya, in his bout vs. Tennozan. And there are the bouts between Takakeisho and Tochinoshin, and between Goeido and Kakuryu.
As for that bout between Takakeisho and Tochinoshin… ahem… ahem. Takakeisho is still not practicing on the dohyo but he said he will start doing so soon.
And to seal this day, here is Asanoyama in the pin-up corner:
Sonkyo is this crouching position which is performed during the shikiri (and also to accept the gunbai and possible kensho envelopes). It’s also quite useful to have a talk with someone sitting on the ground:
But for some reason, he is not that popular in this event. This may be because there is a real home boy – one from the very city of Nishio: Kaisho, from Asakayama beya (Kaio’s heya).
The thing is, Kaisho is not a sekitori. He is in Makushita. And the only reason he is wearing an oicho-mage in this picture is that the torikumi guys arranged a Juryo bout for him to please the spectators.
Being a member of Isegahama ichimon earns him the privilege of getting kawaigari from Aminishiki. The spectators really love this – Aminishiki seems to be popular all over Japan. And with their home boy, oh boy!
One gets the impression that winning 10 bouts might not be beyond Tochinoshin’s capabilities the next basho.
Practice over, and lower-ranked rikishi get their hair redone:
Imagine if these tokoyama could sing in harmony. They would be a real… wait for it… barbershop quartet! [crickets]
And here comes the big news of the day. Our big ice-cream man has joined the Jungyo, as his herniated disc improved. And he got teased quite a lot for cleverly joining it on his birthday, because that means he gets lots of free cake!
The cakes are from the reporters. And Ichinojo is a good boy. He blows away the candles, and then does it again just to please a cameraman who didn’t get a good shot the first take.
I suppose he was then given an instruction to eat his cake like a good hungry boulder:
Um… is he really going to eat it with the plastic collar still on? And the candles? But well, the reporters said “do it”, so…
Although he participated in the dohyo-iri this day, he did not participate in the bouts and apparently not in any keiko, either.
Note how much more popular Aminishiki and Enho are, compared to local-born Akiseyama.
Enho and Yoshikaze still don’t participate in any bouts.
Time for Makuuchi dohyo-iri, and someone asks Tamawashi to hold a baby. The baby is not very happy about this.
As the kid starts an air-raid siren going, Abi decides to match him note for note. Mwaaaaaa!
Takarafuji, if you note, is all like “I was hoping I’ll get a little peace and quiet from baby cries in the Jungyo. Sheesh…”
Hakuho is on his way to do his own dohyo-iri. He does that without that supporter on his arm – for aesthetic reasons, I guess. But this fan caught him feeling up his injured arm:
That torn muscle, it is not going away.
Finally, it’s time for the bouts… but I don’t have any bout footage, sorry. Instead, here is Aoiyama, who found a back room with basketball equipment:
And here is Takakeisho, who is way too happy about this ladle his giving to Tamawashi.
Could it possibly be… the shin-ozeki… is doing the salt trick? He must know that revenge will come – and rather swiftly, as they are doing their matches in the same order every day.
Here is the yumi-tori shiki from this day:
And for our pin-up corner, how about a rather puzzled Yoshoyama?
The Jungyo doubles back to Mie prefecture where it began. This time to the beautiful city named Tsu. And I was very excited to receive a treasure of photos and videos from this event courtesy of Simon Davies and Blanca Bolea, who got up at 4:55 in Hasunuma and took no less 4 trains and a local bus to get to Tsu. Simon says it was worth it.
There were also many Japanese Twitter users who posted about this particular event, so this may turn out to be quite a long post. Brace yourselves, here we go!
