Ryoshishokunin

They're certainly trying to socially engineer. Culture makes a huge difference.

By letting women who have careers have children and vice versa. In Japan it's often seen as a binary choice--either you have kids, or you have a job, which makes a large number of women not want to have kids. It also lead to barriers to re-entering the workforce for women that already have children.

They obviously should do it every basho, as it solves a multitude of problems: getting the 7-7s matched up is otherwise down to chance, which leads directly to yaocho issues. The top-rankers are usually in their round-robin, but just for getting suitable matchups lower down it would make me happy.

It does in sumo. It's damn near a prerequisite to have been Yokozuna to become rijicho. It is a prerequisite to become a coach to have a kabu, which requires substantial sekitori experience. It's also a prerequisite to have a kabu to be a shimpan, or a bunch of other things. This system is unlikely to find the best coaches, managers, or ringside judges, but it's the system. If you're not an excellent rikishi, you aren't even eligible for the other jobs. On the subject of Hakuho in particular, the success of Ishiura and Enho bodes well for his skill at scouting and/or coaching.

I'm always surprised that the Shimpan don't ever seem to go and look at the sand around the edge of the ring while having a monoii, particularly on calls like this one. Surely the physical evidence is at least worth considering.

15. Nishikigi

14. Myogiryu

Goeido v. Shodai seems like they missed an opportunity to get another sanyaku matchup in Ichinojo v. Goeido. Apparently the schedulers don't think much of Ichinojo's status...

13. Daieisho Apologies for missing a day. I left my laptop in a café, now thankfully recovered.

11. Giku

10. Giku

9. Mitakeumi

8 Aoiyama

Nah, mon. My query-foo is not up to looking it up, but the one Yokozuna randomly getting a sanyaku match on day five was not on my radar. 6. Ichinojo

5. Kotoshogiku