Kaminariyuki

I have a good friend, not an enormous gal but a solidly built woman, who taught English in a small village up in Iwate. She'd done her laundry and gone to work one day, but when she returned from school she found all her delicates had been snagged from the clothesline. She was furious and knew immediately that because Japanese women are somewhat smaller than westerners, the missing articles were going to be very difficult to replace. Then her female neighbor came over with half of her laundry in a basket. It had started to rain and she brought half of my friend's laundry inside. I'm amazed this mawashi incident happened in Japan.

I do enjoy reading John's tales, particularly engaging since he's been in the ranks himself.

Might as well start looking for another Shiko Star now...

Ah, it's the Olympics Tokyo 2020 t-shirt. I wonder if they're still selling them at Narita...

I'd have to agree, sitting here wearing my Tokyo 2020 t-shirt as I type.

So, the humorous aside is: I think that's him in the background of my profile shot! And, I've posted a video of him doing asageiko in January, with Hokaho and Ishiura doing shiko and watching. Is that him? If so, I have 3 or 4 more videos I can post if you're interested.

I hope you are all correct. Indeed, my Japanese pals seem to feel the same way, so you're making me optimistic.

Anybody got video on this Hokuseiho kid? I'd love to see a match... OK, maybe it's just withdrawal again, but TigerBoy1966 has me intrigued.

Indeed, a shame. If the kyokai wants to have appeal to a younger audience, I think they need to reconsider some of the social media brow beating. Abi wasn't one of my favorites, but I liked his style. He will be missed.

Yes, my guess is that Kakuryu, Harumafuji and Kisenosato would have all had shots at being dai-yokozuna had Hakuho not been around. I'm glad there are dissenters (most of my Japanese sumo-fan buddies, actually), but I'm with the crew that loves seeing him go out there in his mid-30s and still win bashos. Two of the last four, as I count 'em. I was a big fan before I actually got to meet the guy. I liked him, and love to watch him wrestle, and I'm cherishing the end of the era as long as he's good to climb up on the dohyo. He doesn't like to lose. There are strong sanyaku rikishi coming up, IMO, and the mightiest of flesh and fleetest of foot can not stand against time. He's planning on retiring, in any case, as we've seen in the press and as I heard him say myself. I suspect the virus and Olympics rather stymied his plans. The kids are coming, but until then: Hakuho banzai!!!

So, like most of you, I loved this one. Partly because the sumo was awesome and partly because I'd done without for more than four months. Sadly, I'm highly dubious of an Aki basho. It deeply pains me to admit it, but if I'm going to guess, I will go with the next basho being Haru 2021, but pushed back to April 4, 2021. I love getting you arm chair prognosticators on record (not that I do so well myself). What do you think? It's clearly anyone's guess. Pick a day, any day.

Thanks for that. He is, indeed, a very big boy and it's awfully impressive to win one's first basho!

OK, maybe a dumb question: Why was there no playoff for the Makushita yuso? It looks like Ura and Suzuki were tied at 6-1, but on scanning the final scors maybe I missed someone who was 7-0?

Can't find a picture of the kid, but I did notice that he's not Mongolian. The official Grand Sumo web site lists him as from Hokkaido. The only list I see of Miyagino personnel is this, but I thin it's a little old as Miyagino only has one gyoji at the moment, or so I thought: http://heyaaz.nagioff.com/2020/Heya/Miyagino.html

Hey, if you've seen the future of sumo, post a photo. I'm wondering if I saw him asageiko in January. We were so clueless and it was all such a surpise that I didn't know all of the rikishi, I have to admit, I only knew the makinouchi trio.