Yamanashi

Remembering our recent thread about rice going bad in another heya: where is Tokitsukaze-beya going to store that much rice?

There are a few great colleges in Oregon. If sumo is your goal, go to school there and train there. Hawaiians moved to Japan. Japanese kids pick a college that has a sumo program. If you're not focused enough to sacrifice your college choice to do Sumo, then you won't make it when you get to Japan. In that case, keep making excuses here like the last two guys and then drop off the list. With all due respect.

I found the same Youtube you did, through googling. I have gotten an error message on all three tries.

Those are the guys from the Genesis "Land of Confusion" video, right? Always found them vulgar and not very insightful (but I'm not a Brit); if you're parodying your warped image of a person, it doesn't ring very true. Pro tip: if you see your political enemies parodied and you think "that's not funny!" it probably isn't funny.

Seems to be a German company. I can't read much German and no Hebrew, but: http://rga.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/brock_1-1.pdf

All have shikona starting with T, all weigh more than Enho, all have wrestled against Chiyootori, and all have at least one foreign parent except for Takakeisho. @WAKATAKE, you magnificent bastard, I read your tweets!

Don't know if I mentioned this, but starting in March I binge-watched various documentaries online ( I found I couldn't grade tests and reports in pdf format for very long w/o wanting to jump out a window). Time Team was a revelation! My wife trained as an archaeologist, and I'm a big history buff, so these were great. I must have watched 110 of them. (They did start to suck in the last couple of seasons). Lately, I've been watching Rick Beato's videos ("What makes this song so great", etc.) and a video series on languages and linguistics (NativLang). All of it free, free, free, and not a single snarky teen or moronic social commentary. My wife is smitten with Mudlarking videos.

NHK's Begin Japanology did a show on this (poor quality sound, and all text backwards!):

Yep. (TBH, I've never clicked it before.)

You haven't been gone that long, as I fondly remember your posts and I joined in Sept. 2017. Glad to have you back in action, especially in the Haiku corner.

Great to see a rare picture of head Nekogyoji, Shikimori Harokiti.

What is his background? The name sounds Russian rather than Mongolian. Is he a Japanese citizen?

That sounds uncomfortably like the old Wrassling theme of the unbreakable hold. I remember Kinji Shibuya's Claw hold and Peter Maivia (grandfather of "The Rock") with his Samoan Suplex. Problem is, those holds are fake, and someday when they break your unbreakable Yotsu, you'd better have a Plan B.

Thanks to @Asashosakari and @Akinomaki for the references. By "endorse" I mean either directly go on a TV commercial or otherwise promote a product in return for pay. It seems like such a good idea, but there aren't nearly as many overweight people in Japan as there are in the U.S. Takanohana writing a book on healthy eating/lifestyle would definitely count. As an aside, of all the high-ranked rikishi I have seen (now or in historical pictures), Yokozuna Takanohana stands out to me as a thin man wearing a fat man's body. Every time I see that body in videos I almost gasp; he looks like he's wearing one of those sumo costumes. It's not surprising that he could shed the weight afterward.

Thanks for this. I started Sumo-watching toward the end of his career, but there is something very likeable about Harumafuji as a person that makes me smile whenever I see one of these stories.

I know, it's me, but this is really a serious question: have any retired rikishi endorsed weight-loss programs? None come to my mind, but I'm a newbie to Ozumo. It seems to me that it's a no-brainer.

The "ban" on commercial income by rikishi seems to be a little vague, but there's no doubt that it's less restrictive for an oyakata. Look at the hailstorm of commercials Kisenosato got when he became Araiso. Good-looking Kotooshu still gets a few endorsements for hot cars, cool-looking clothing and shoes. I don't know what the official "connection" is between Hakuho and Hakuho rice right now, but it will certainly be more "transparent" when he's done as a rikishi. And that's probably small potatoes (?) compared to the rest of his endorsements.

Absolutely! I bet Hakuho is green with envy seeing Araiso-oyakata in his awesome blue windbreaker.

Thanks for this. I already had done the calculations for Ichinojo, and it checks out. Over 15 days you expect to see definite trends , and there are some (e.g. Shodai and Chiyotairyu short bouts), but there's always that one bout that screws up your statistics (Tochinoshin's henka, Kotoeko bouncing off Ichinojo and out). Maybe over longer periods we can test our theories ("does Takayasu win most of the long slouch-fests?"; "Does Enho always go for short, tactical bouts?").

Kotoshogiku, In Juryo again, just like it's 2-0-0-5.

"'Flying Monkey'! Too Silly for a Sanyaku!" ... "Flying Gorilla"?

Ozeki Shodai, predicted by our prophet Kintamayama

@Otokonoyama, @Yubinhaad, @Asashosakari, thanks for the information. It just struck me as strange. Is there any such rule for announcing a Yokozuna?

"Hiroko, you got your hair done .... uh .... what's that smell? "It's bintsuke! I got my hair done at Tokotama-san's new salon, Oichomage."

Kinda. Like in Quantum Mechanics, "looking" at the thing affects the thing. Asking everyone to wear a mask and quarantining people who have a cough should significantly reduce the number of regular flu cases; then again, in the US there is a lot of noncompliance in non-job-related situations (political rallies, peaceful protests, riots, etc) so it's impossible to gauge what to expect from the term "excess" cases.