RabidJohn

It's a not-uncommon pitfall of colour balancing in digital reprographics. Daieisho's pics show his garb as charcoal grey in four of the pics, but one is deep teal.

To be fair, Terunofuji has looked more like an ozeki than any of the incumbents since he got back into makuuchi, so an eminently understandable error, IMO.

No big deal, but I wasn't expecting to see him back in this thread until May...

I don't know about "flashy and loud", as I've only seen the above photo, but she does traditional Japanese very well. I wonder if she might one day become the first former Mongolian okami-san.

What's brought this on? Have I missed something?

I hope I didn't come across as suggesting they do! It's merely the definition of 'incur'.

Are you trying to say she smacked her kids? 'Incurring' suggests they deserved it/brought it upon themselves, and 'domestic violence' could be anything but it's a phrase I associate with wife/husband beating.

You saved me asking about the very frequent references to Saitama Sakae in recent commentary, but I don't trust the translation of the article (which renders Hokutofuji as 'Kitakatsu Fuji). So, is that a record for the school, or is it a record for all high schools having alumni in makuuchi?

And it's covered in sand and salt for the extra graze and sting factor! But that's the dohyo surface, which is not the subject of this thread. Thinking about it, a playbark surround for the dohyo would only be possible at the Kokugikan where I believe the retractable floor is already of composite construction. I don't know what the floor at the Osaka or Aichi Prefectural Gymnasiums is made of, but I suspect it's solid concrete or asphalt.

+1 for that. Thanks, Pierre. I was unsurprised to find Kirishima (one of my faves back in the day - saw him at London in 1991) confirmed as the ozeki with the oldest sanyaku debut. I was surprised to find Asanoyama as 'runner up'. I think of him as being young, probably because of his relatively short time in ozumo since his Sd100 start.

That's what I said yesterday. Stands to reason really. I know I'm ignorant about many things Japanese, but the Kyokai having the power to impose forced labour on one of its shareholders seems unlikely. A financial sanction (significant as it may be) is all they have.

Playbark (actually a rubber material) is commonly used in the UK as a flooring surface for kids' playgrounds. It's designed to minimise injury when they fall off swings, roundabouts, slides, etc., so it would seem ideal as a surface to use around the dohyo without overly changing the aesthetics.

That doesn't quite tell the whole story (like anything does in ozumo). Abi was instructed to submit his resignation by his oyakata. The fact that Abi accepted his suspension tells me he wants to stay. If Tokitsukaze doesn't want to stay, the Kyokai can't force him to.

I got the impression Abi's punishment was intended to push him towards resigning. If so, it didn't work, and he's accepted the punishment because he wants to continue as a rikishi. If Tokitsukaze wants out, the Kyokai can't do much more than impose some penalty on his severance agreement.

This discussion is brought to you by rikishi superstition. At least according to Chris Gould it is. Daieisho started out as Daishoei, but was apparently advised that shikona ending with 'ei' tend to result in lower body injuries!