Eikokurai

Sad if that's the case. A funeral is about the person who died. As a grown up, you put that stuff aside for them. You don't even need to talk to anyone, just be present.

Just saw this on the Guardian and of course had to log in to acknowledge it. 54 is no age at all. So sad. Sumo loses too many of its greats at too young an age. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/pioneering-hawaiian-born-sumo-champion-akebono-dies-aged-54

Where other sports have their 'Grand Slam', sumō has zenroku basho seiha (全6場所制覇). The ultimate variant of this is the nen(?) roku basho kanzen seiha (年6場所完全制覇). Meaning 'total dominance of six basho in a year', it refers to the accomplishment of sweeping all championships in a calendar year. To date this has been achieved by only one man: Asashoryu in 2005. Others have come close, including Hakuho twice in 2010 and 2014, but have always fallen short at five yusho. Besides the two Mongolian greats, eight other rikishi have secured the equivalent of a 'career grand slam' (zenroku basho seiha tassei 全6場所制覇達成), winning all six honbasho at least once, only non-consecutively. The first man to achieve this feat was Taiho, who clinched his first title as a sekiwake in November 1960 and later completed the set of six with his 11th yusho overall in May 1963. From first to last, it took him 15 tournaments. The fastest anyone has reached the milestone is 11 tournaments. Again, this honour belongs to Asashoryu, who between November 2002 and July 2004 picked up eight yusho, securing his career slam with victory in Tokyo. Of course, just a year later he went on to accomplish the grand slam proper, as mentioned above. In contrast, it took Musashimaru more than five years and 32 tournaments to fill his trophy cabinet. He does, however, have the unique distinction of doing it with exactly his first six yusho. Chiyonofuji and Kitanoumi did it the 'slowest' in the sense that they didn't seal the deal until their 13th career yushos. Of the ten men, Hakuho stands alone as the only one to have a career grand slam of zensho yusho (zenroku basho zensho yusho 全6場所全勝優勝). He (has) won each of the six annual tournaments with a perfect 15-0 record at least once, completing the feat with his record-breaking 33rd championship in January 2015. Hakuho's remarkable career has actually seen him complete the career grand slam four times over, a record he shares with the legendary Taiho. No man has ever completed the grand slam in chronological order. That is, nobody has won six yusho in the order Hatsu > Haru > Natsu > Nagoya > Aki > Kyushu. Asashoryu had already completed his set of six before his full-year sweep in 2005, so it doesn't count. Among currently active rikishi with yusho to their name, Terunofuji is closest to making it. He has won three of the six honbasho, having won Natsu twice. Mitakeumi has ticked off two, but Takekeisho only one as he won both his yusho at the November Kyushu tournament. Of course, several others are on one yusho apiece only, so I won't bother mentioning them. I made a couple of tables charting the progression of the ten Yokozuna's career grand slams that I thought may interest some of you as a reference. Enjoy (finding mistakes)! https://ibb.co/GPhCCxY

I'll have to update my infographic now. Terunofuji's win in Hatsu means he has now joined the small group of Career Grand Slam achievers. He has won at least one yusho in all six honbasho now. (Although, it will still need the asterisk for VENUE given the remarks above about the July 2020 win not being in Nagoya. I'm still giving him the CGS though as he still won that honbasho. The location is a detail.)

Hey. I didn't see much of the basho (though I did follow the results and caught a few key bouts), but of course I noted that Terunofuji won the yusho. This means he's now equal with Harumafuji for career total with 9, and the most popular choice in this poll has been reached. Can he reach the benchmark ten, as predicted by around 1 in 5 of forum users? By the way, in winning Hatsu, Terunofuji also completed the Career Grand Slam; that is, he's won at least one yusho in all six honbasho. I'll have to update my infographic when I get the chance.

As of May 2021, Terunofuji has four yusho, just two less than recent retiree Yokozuna Kakuryu and five fewer than Harumafuji. Who of these will he surpass and how many can he manage in total?

Hey, all. Long time no see. I can’t quite say why but I lost my passion for sumo around the time NHK and NSK began cracking down on the YT digest channels. That wasn’t the reason I lost it—I guess it had been slowly on the wane for a while—but it was a natural break and I never got the bug back. I keep forgetting basho are even on, though I have at least checked the banzukes and final results even if I haven’t watched a single bout for months. I’ve missed a lot of changes! People gone, rookies on the rise. Yet I just can’t muster the enthusiasm I once had to watch the daily recaps. Are they even still available? It’s becoming harder to follow this sport.

Thanks. I'm going to try and drag myself back into it.

Hey, guys. This is a personal request. I’d like to connect with an old girlfriend of mine in Osaka, but have no idea how to trace someone living in Japan. She’s not on Facebook and her old emails all bounce back. She had bipolar disorder, and was often in periods of deep depression, so I want to see how she’s doing. It’s been 13-14 years since I last saw her. I’ve tried a few times over the years to find her again, but no luck. I know her name and vaguely remember the street she lived on, but I don’t have much else to work with. Anyone know how to find people in Japan short of flying out and lurking on her old street to see if she passes by (where she might no longer live anyway)? Any tips would be welcome.

I’ve worked around this by following online chess.

The only question is whether that’s motivating enough for people like Kintamayama to do. Small audience, no likes on YouTube, etc.

Or even just a Google drive link. I have a guy who uploads uncensored issues of The Economist (which aren’t sold in China) to a Google drive link and his followers can get them there if they have a VPN (he used to put them in a Chinese cloud server but felt it was too risky).

Is it possible to create an FTP site with videos and just share the link with a private group of members?

Just saw the video of his final 'bout' against his son on Twitter and I'm not going to lie, I choked up a little. It made it final. When he retired, it was post-tournament so we didn't know we'd seen his last fight at the time we watched it. Although this one was a humorous exhibition, it was still emotional knowing it was the last time we'd see him on the dohyo in a mawashi. For me personally, that's significant because my time watching sumo began shortly before his Yokozuna promotion (Haru 2007, when he won the first of the two Ozeki yusho), so basically the entirety of the Hakuho era was my era as a sumo fan.

Leads me to wonder what the record is for number of shisho and heya. That must be up there.

No complex calculations required: that’s a promotion. We’re talking about a guy with a solid record of JYs backing up three existing yusho, not some new kid on the block. That string of records there is unambiguously a promotion run.

With Takakeisho’s newfound love for kotenage (his two this basho account for 50% of his career total), I wonder if he’s learned from Tamawashi, another pusher-thruster who makes use of that kimarite when the oshi attack fails.

We have only two historical precedents of an Ozeki going 12-3 twice in a row with a Y>JY/D or JY/D>Y sequence, and they were both in 1956 and actually the same guy doing it twice over three basho: Wakanohana between March and September. (Fewer tournaments in those days as this was pre-1958 reforms.) For D>Y or Y>D specifically, same as Takakeisho, there is only the one precedent. http://sumodb.sumogames.de/Query.aspx?show_form=0&columns=3&form1_rank=O&form1_wins=12&form1_y=on&form1_yd=on&form1_jy=on&form2_rank=O&form2_wins=12&form2_y=on&form2_yd=on&form2_jy=on Also, re: soft promotion. That ignores all the other context about his previous 2 yusho and 8 jun-yusho, of which 3 were dotens. He’s not starting from nothing.

On Takakeisho, I’m not fully convinced a 12-3 would be enough for everyone in the Kyokai, but I think he’d still have sufficient support to get the nod. 13-2 or above will do it for sure. He has two yusho to his name already, both part of Y>JY or JY>Y combinations, so not like he’s a new arrival in sanyaku making his first attempt. He’s also been in very solid Ozeki form recently. His previous three records are 11-5, 10-5 and 12-3D. He already has a better-than-Kisenosato-like case with 2 x Y, 3 x D and 5 x JY. Add a third Y and it should be a straightforward ‘yes’.

Sad. Sounds like a career-ender, tbh. If he’s weak enough to fall two whole divisions in two basho, how does he come back?

What’s up with Terutsuyoshi? 0-15 last time around in Makuuchi and now 1-7 at J10. Makushita bound if this continues.

Shodai didn’t even try to regain his Ozeki rank this basho, did he? 2-6. I don’t think he’ll even be a Sekiwake in March.

Ha! True. Double Yokozuna-Ozeki in March?

Very exciting bout but not sure Midorifuji’s strategy was the wisest. Getting into a harite exchange with Takakeisho is the Ozeki’s game and not a great way to try and move him. It looked great, but Taka absorbed it all fairly easily. Mido was also too immobile, even pausing mid-bout to reload, which also gave short-stamina Takakeisho a chance to breathe. Taka his no sideways mobility, so instead of returning to a slapfest head-on, Mido should have used more lateral movement. Still, top marks for entertainment!

Shodai has to survive 8 days unbeaten. Not going to happen. We are about to permanently lose our second Ozeki in as many basho.