Benevolance

In training, or in the ring? :)

I'd heard of them because they collaborated with Megadeath's guitarist on a theme song for some space opera pirate anime. I guess Friedman lives in Shinjuku now, so it's less weird than it seemed when I read about it. The style of music was catchy but, um, a bit frenetic? I don't listen to a lot of J-Pop, so I'm not sure if that's a common feature.

Whenever the rikishi are holding up a victory fish, it looks like it's always the same type of fish to my highly unpracticed eye. Is this a particular type of fish used for celebration?

Wasn't Akebono the one who gave Takamisakari the Robocop nickname originally?

That's a super good explanation. Thanks! I think that back when the scandals happened, a newspaper article had reported a minister suggesting that the Association might lose it's exempted tax status, and it stuck in my head that the restructuring was still due to that. Adopting IFRS standards makes way more sense.

Tell me the mascot is in the play. :-)

Okay, after reading this thread, my google search of myoseki brought me back to this thread, so let me ask here and see if I can get this straight... Currently, in order to be an oyakata (run a stable, be a member of the JSA), you need to possess one of the 105 myoseki available. That number is entirely finite and so the myoseki has to be purchased from an existing oyakata. The selling oyakata then retires from the JSA and the purchaser assumes the myoseki/mantle of the previous oyakata? Only rikishi have the privilege of purchasing a myoseki, and only if they've met certain specified criteria (reached a certain rank, been in makuuchi/juryo X tournaments, etc.). There is some sort of time limit in which a rikishi can purchase the myoseki after he retires and as it stands, it sounds like the myoseki sells for big bucks, so it's also a sort of retiring allowance for the previous oyakata? Going forward, the JSA basically wants to nix the sale of the myoseki as part of their move to become a public corporation? The reason for the move is financially motivated, something about maintaining tax status or somesuch? Or is the reason for the decision politically motivated, and it's the Ministry of Etc. that's pushing for the JSA to reform in the wake of scandals? The myoseki would then be...what, handed out by the new corporation to members? Done away with entirely? I guess that's the part they're dragging their feet on? And now that the old government is back in power, does the Ministry of Etc. still even care? Would a Japanese yokozuna fix all of these problems and more?

If he can keep up that pace, he'll be back in Makuuchi in no time!

He was Maegashira 14 and had a 6-9 record; if he gets demoted, he wasn't giving away much. :-D

I gather it's more-or-less confirmed that Takamisakari is staying in Juryo then? His 5 wins last tournament were enough?

Those are fantastic photos.

Haruko is an english speaking tour guide in Tokyo that loves sumo. She's posted some pics of her visits to heyas on her blog. On twitter at: @haatourguide and her website bio/contact info is at: http://japanese-culture.jp/tour_guide/sumo/profile/.

Shohozan got a lot of chants this tournament after he tore through the ozeki. It's the first time I've ever heard chanting and cheering like that at a sumo venue. My wife and I were talking about that a bit afterwards. You'll get a few people or a group calling out and cheering on a wrestler before his match. But it's otherwise pretty quiet. I think the problem with getting a chant going is that not everyone in the audience likes or follows every wrestler. It's not like a baseball game where the audience is there for one team or the other and both teams are involved for the whole event. Even just watching makuuchi, there are 18 fights in a day? That's 36 wrestlers to follow and not everyone is loved equally.

I think they call it a full house because all the boxes are sold, not because the boxes are full. We bought box seats on a few of the days - we had been going to buy in advance, but the lady at the kokusai building office actually said we'd get better seats if we showed up on the day; they'd give us a four person box down front just charging for two of us. And there were boxes available right up until Saturday.

This is really neat to learn! The free internet feed is so poor, I had assumed that all the presenters were Japanese and just had trouble reading the scripts because they were nervous. Public speaking jitters and all that. :D

Anyone know what the deal is? I thought his surgery was normally supposed to be 6-8 weeks to heal? He'll be lucky if he's still in sandanme when he returns...

Hey folks. New here, but I've been following sumo for about 6 years now. Araibira keeps hyping the forums on his FB and youtube pages, so I figured I'd come see what the fun was about.

I'm all about the okonomiyaki. Hiroshima-style is best.

So does this mean that Shouhou doesn't get to do the bow dance anymore? Or will they alternate performing the closing duties?