Mitakeumi (御嶽海)

Aki 2018 Jungyo – Day 12 (Oct 14)

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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 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 – Day 9 (Oct 11)

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🌐 Location: Kasugai, Aichi
🚫 Scandal level: 0

yokozuna-face-each-other
Time to wake up, Kandayu!

The tour reaches Aichi. Many active rikishi hail from Aichi, but most of them are in Makushita and below and are not present in the Jungyo. But there is one sekitori who gets all the glory when the Jungyo hits Aichi-ken. I give you… Akiseyama!

akiseyama

Aren’t you glad that I couldn’t find any other pictures or videos of the star of the day?

With sekitori dropping like flies, this day brings some replenishment, as several sekitori catch a train to Nagoya and join the jungyo. We have Tochiozan:

tochiozan

accompanied by his heya-mate, Aoiyama:

aoiyama

And we had this guy:

Yeah, we now have a complete set of Ozeki. Nominally, we also have a complete set of Yokozuna, but we already know one of them is not in the best condition:

hakuho-stretching

Hakuho does not skip work, but he is in a bad way. You can see him limping:

But he was very diligent about his fansa:

Good bye, Yokozuna. This is the last we will see of him in this Jungyo.

Going back inside the venue, Tamawashi was having a conversation with Mitakeumi, who still seems to be fascinated with the Eagle’s nipples:

Eventually he tries to trip Tamawashi. And Tamawashi is all like “You want to trip a Mongolian wrestler? You’ll have to do better than that”.

Nishikigi was prowling the grounds, lurking, waiting for anything wearing a mawashi:

Chiyonokuni was his usual enthusiastic self, in a moshiai session with Ryuden.

But enthusiasm was not enough to win.

Since Nishikigi seemed bored, Kisenosato decided to have a sanban session with him:

Nishikigi quite comfortably manages the makikae there, and the Yokozuna does not take advantage of that to push him out of the ring. Odd. Also, he can’t defend against the makikae itself by locking his armpit.

OK, this looks more like Kisenosato.

Oops. Slippiotoshi. The yokozuna is not happy to win other than by his own power, and expresses his opinion to Nishikigi’s tush.

OK, now he’s a happy Yokozuna.

Yet another loss of balance from Nishikigi, who seems to have his ass in the stratosphere. Kisenosato gives it yet another hearty slap. At this point Nishikigi must be wishing hard he did not do so well in the previous basho, because he might actually get to meet Kisenosato and all the rest of the sanyaku in the next one.

Keiko is over. Everybody is going to get cleaned, but Kotoshogiku goes for something special:

kotoshogiku-in-onsen

It’s an onsen. In fact, this onsen:

I think that’s quite a nice way to get yourself cleaned up for the torikumi.

In the mean time we have the low ranking torikumi, and surprisingly, the only torikumi I have for the day is Arikawa’s. Arikawa, whom the fans call “Arikawa dai-sensei”, is Kisenosato’s tsukebito:

Not half-bad! Nice tawara dance.

It’s time for the Juryo dohyo-iri. And apparently, Enho changed his kesho-mawashi back to the one he received from his alma mater.

enho-changed-mawashi

My guess would be that this is in preparation for the jungyo event in Kanazawa, where that university is located (and where he comes from).

He is followed there by Wakatakakage. So where is Terutsuyoshi?

terutsuyoshi-gokushindo

Apparently, he has to touch someone, so why not Gokushindo?

Gokushindo, by the way, travels the Jungyo as one of Kakuryu’s team of tsukebito. But he is about to graduate from it, like Abi did, as he turned sekitori. The Yokozuna informed him that he will not be allowed back once he “graduated” – so stick to Juryo, pal! His replacement is Shohoryu (not Hoshoryu – Shohoryu, the guy with the hula sagari). So watch out for Shohoryu from now on.

Well, here is your Tobizaru of the day:

tobizaru

Aki 2018 Jungyo – Day 6 (Oct 8)

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🌐 Location: Minamiashigara, Kanagawa
🚫 Scandal level: 1

The day dawns on Kanagawa. People gather in for some sumo.

Abi and Tsurugisho are still off the torikumi, but Tsurugisho participates in the fansa part of the event.

I suppose it’s a rarity for both sides: there aren’t many black kids in Japan, and I’m sure the kid hasn’t seen many people Tsurugisho’s size, either.

Kagayaki lifted some weights. I mean, lifted the weight of Shonannoumi.

Shonannoumi is a local boy, but I don’t think this activity was exactly front and center.

Hakuho, as usual, was at the foot of the dohyo, exercising:

And Kisenosato… was doing his “dance”:

I still don’t know what this is, really. An attempt to stretch the scar tissue in his chest?

Tochinoshin, being Tochinoshin, was on the dohyo, giving some love to Shodai:

I’m not sure the kawaigari was Shodai’s biggest torture this day, though. Here is a very suspicious game some of the rikishi invented. Do rock-paper-scissors. The loser gets one of his nipples busted. Serious ouch. The first victim is Yutakayama.

First, I would think this is the last game Kagayaki would want to get involved in. Second, from the way they arrange a barrier of rikishi when they do the deed, I think they know they are over the line.

Next victim is Shodai:

Now Yutakayama is doing the barrier thing – but that doesn’t stop him from signing an autograph while Shodai learns the meaning of pain.

In the next exchange, Yutakayama has a very worried face and very defensive stance. I wonder how many of those he lost. But this time, the head criminal, Tamawashi, is the one who loses. And he doesn’t take that very well.

Eventually, though, he straightens up and growls at Shodai: “Do it. Do it already!”, and Yutakayama turns around and guards the scene.

Mmm… I wouldn’t recommend showing any of this to your kindergarten kids. They may get ideas.

Rikishi abuse didn’t end at the dohyo-iri, though. Here is Ryuden pinning Arikawa to the wall. The other day I thought that Arikawa was Shohozan’s tsukebito, but as it turns out, he is Kisenosato’s. Hence the white gloves.

This must be right after or right before Kisenosato’s dohyo-iri. Ryuden is already in his fighting mawashi as his torikumi was the second. Kagayaki seems to be still in his kesho-mawashi (he is Kisenosato’s tachimochi).

The only bout I have is this rather low-quality video of Onosho vs. Shohozan.

The first time I watched it I thought I was watching a bit of shokkiri. Only after the announcer calls the kimarite and says it’s Onosho’s win that I became somewhat convinced that this was an actual match.

Here is your Tobizaru.

Tobizaru in a bona-fide sumo moment on the dohyo.