Gurowake

I could have swore that Daieisho and Endo had been in sanyaku together before, but they actually traded positions multiple occasions recently, with one of the two being sanyaku over the last 5 previous tournaments. Endo's only other sanyaku appearance was well before Daieisho was a joi regular.

I don't really think there's enough talk about Takanosho. He's still pretty young, younger than Asanoyama, and in his second basho in the joi he's poised to do even better than his bare KK in his first basho in the joi, which is really impressive. True, this isn't a time of 7 Y+O tending to ruin new joi maegashira's first basho, but it's impressive nonetheless, with plenty of wins over guys who have been in the joi a lot longer than he has. He's somewhat assisted in this by not having to face Takakeisho, but that's also just as much of a good thing, since he'll never have to and will always get one easier match per tournament compared to those in other heya. I also want to see the start of a long period of there being two sanyaku from the same heya (at least), which is the normal state of affairs that has only been broken in the last few years. There've only been scattered tournaments since the breakup of Takayasu-Kisenosato, mostly Endo-Daieisho, with maybe Aoiyama-Tochinoshin; I'm not in the mood to look right now to get it perfect, but Takanosho-Takakeisho certainly looks good for the long term compared to anything else available.

13. Terutsuyoshi

12. Tamawashi

Hrm, well, I guess it's good that Terunofuji's opponent by rank (Myogiryu) will have already faced Hokutofuji, because I think there's a real chance Terunofuji will get sent further down the banzuke against another 7-2. Not that it's likely to happen this early, but at least I don't have to weigh that possibility. 11. Kagayaki

Intended as a repository of pointless bits of trivia I or others find, particularly while browsing the database. It happens a lot between basho. In a total of 5 basho since the 15-day era began, the last match was between two undefeated rikishi. Twice it was Taiho vs. Kashiwado, and they split the matches. All matches featured Y1e. No such match was a playoff (theoretically possible between stable members). Harumafuji is the only one to appear in such a bout that was not a Yokozuna at the time. No other Day-15 matches involving 2 14-0 rikishi have occurred. In Haru 1996, there was a 6-0 match in Jonidan on Day 15, but two other rikishi were also 7-0 from previous days. Incidentally, a few basho in each direction in that time period there were many Day-14 6-0 matches in the lower divisions, but none that basho and one on Day 15 instead. Only one Day-14 6-0 match took place outside that 1995-1996 window.

10. Myogiryu

9. Terunofuji

I assume they intentionally keep it full so that no one will message them.

8. Endo

10-5 Yusho. 7-way playoff won by Shohozan.

The English Google translation of 烈士 is "martyr" (both in Chinese and Japanese), which seems an inappropriate thing to call oneself. But looking at Wikitionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/烈士 there seems to be more reasonable translations usable. I'm not sure what the implications are in Japanese.

Keep in mind that the Yusho, if you look at a big enough picture, is a relatively recent invention (although it is a major prize now). The purpose of the honbasho is to determine the next banzuke, and as such rikishi mainly will fight those near to them in rank. Only in the last 5 days do the number of available rikishi ranked near to someone tend to dwindle and bouts are decided more by record than by ranking.

7. Kiribayama

6. Takanosho

There was one of these when I uploaded all the lower division matches for Aki 2014. My main digest ended up showing only the decisive bout, while I also uploaded a video with the entire non-decisive bout as an addendum for the truly insane who would want to watch such a thing. It was Byakkomaru vs. Iida on Day 15, the decisive bout presumably in part 2 of the day based on what order I uploaded them. I'm looking at it now and for some reason there are more truly insane people than I thought, as that video has the *most* views of the entirety of the basho. The average view duration has been about two minutes. It looks like it's fairly common to people to skip to near the end, as there's more viewer retention around 5 minutes than just previous to that. 19% of people watched the end of it, though I can't tell for sure if they watched all of it. They may have fallen asleep.

A bold strategy. Let's see if it pays off for you.

5. Shodai

4. Asanoyama

https://twitter.com/sumokyokai/status/1289792943226675200/photo/1 That's all I got.

I was stunned until I saw the full torikumi; the one thing I forgot was Asanoyama-Takanosho. I should have seen that coming, but I was rusty. 3. Takakeisho

I'm not seeing Kakuryu saying he's in, so I'm assuming he's out now. 1. Mitakeumi

I assume the automation will handle situations where there are no Yokozuna or Ozeki on the banzuke, but I'm pretty sure there's no way it can know whether they will all be kyujo, especially as the sekitori kyujo announcement is pretty much contemporaneous with the Bench Sumo deadline.

I can't do anything with the automation, sorry. All I do is take the results and make the banzuke.

I've managed to set up myself for this basho. Now I just need to remember to enter every day. 1. Takakeisho 2. Shodai