Trivia bits

[Asashosakari 18,786]

Not 1993.  The Kyushu banzuke still had non-winner Konishiki.

[Reonito 1,335]

2 minutes ago, Asashosakari said:

Not 1993.  The Kyushu banzuke still had non-winner Konishiki.

Sorry, misread the chart! So only the second time that all O/Y on the Kyushu banzuke took all the yusho of the calendar year, with each contributing.

[Asashosakari 18,786]

1 hour ago, Asashosakari said:

#R = number of Y/O rikishi on the matching banzuke (refers to either the up to or the prev to if only one matches, otherwise to both)

Hmm. I just realized that I took something for granted that isn't actually true. It's possible that the Y/O count might actually differ between the up to and the prev to, even though both banzuke fulfill the all-winners criteria, namely in case a rikishi who has won retires or joins, leaving the lineup's all-win quality intact.

Edit: Table corrected (in a less than pretty way, but oh well).

Edited November 28, 2023 by Asashosakari

[Octofuji 327]

That is a really impressive query. I should have known better than to contemplate it might not be possible on Sumo Forum!

The 1969 group was very strong, with 3 out of 4 Ozeki going on to make Yokozuna. And I guess similar to today in that the only Yokozuna Taiho was coming to the end of his period of dominance.

[Oskanohana 227]

Daieisho, by getting 60 wins in makuuchi in a span of 6 basho, joins a very select group of rikishi who weren't at least ozeki or got promoted to those heights at least on the 7th basho of that run.

All of his companions went on to get to ozekihood in the future, some even more, except one, the unpromotable Miyabiyama, who at least had made it to ozeki beforehand if that's any consolation for him.

Query

For sake of completeness and to check for mistakes, all 60+ runs are here

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Oskanohana

[Reonito 1,335]

1 hour ago, Oskanohana said:

Daieisho, by getting 60 wins in makuuchi in a span of 6 basho, joins a very select group of rikishi who weren't at least ozeki or got promoted to those heights at least on the 7th basho of that run.

And the group gets smaller if you ask for only winning records in that span.

[Asashosakari 18,786]

Over on Reddit, somebody asked today whether Hoshoryu would possibly become Asashoryu II if he becomes yokozuna. People explained the various reasons why that's unlikely, including the fact that it would be very unusual to see a kanji that's strongly associated with one heya (i.e. the 朝 here) on a rikishi of a completely unrelated stable. A follow-up question on the concept of heya "owning" kanji like that or even entire shikona ended up with me mentioning that it's common to see branching stablemasters use the other kanji of their active shikona in such cases, e.g. Tamanoi-beya being known for the 東 part of Tochiazuma 栃東 since the 栃 naming tradition of course stayed with Kasugano-beya.

That got me wondering: Are there any cases where that process has happened twice (or more) in succession? I'm talking about something like this hypothetical case:

1) Sadogatake: Koto-x > Kotokaze >>> 2) Oguruma: x-kaze > Takekaze >>> 3) Oshiogawa: Take-x

Obviously that hasn't worked out that way; with Oguruma-beya gone, ex-Takekaze has opted to simply continue the use of 風 as his stable's calling card, although with the distinction that he is - so far anyway - going for Kaze-x names instead of the other way around.

Cases with just one branching step aren't too difficult to find (Koto-o-shu from Sadogatake to Naruto and Tochi-tsukasa from Kasugano to Irumagawa are others that come to mind), but two seems more elusive. However, I haven't thought too hard about it yet, because I figure there are probably people here who pay a lot closer attention to shikona naming trends/histories than I do...

Edited December 7, 2023 by Asashosakari

[Seiyashi 4,071]

Ok, Asojima is on the case, I can stop looking through stable histories now. 

[Akinomaki 39,798]

Speaking of shikona, I checked and found that the kanji 中 chu/naka - middle - is really shunned for shikona: nobody wants to be mediocre. Nearly all shikona with it are based on the real names of the rikishi, in which the kanji is abundant, of other cases nobody is active now and nobody made it to sekitori: for Nakatsunishiki it was the name of his hometown, one Tabata from Iwate shortly used Rikichuyama, one of the many Nakamura took Nakamaeda as shikona, Maeda is also a common name, likely a relative.

The 2 with something of a a special use of the kanji itself are Nakasegawa and one with what looks a real use of middle: Nakanosato

There are many older ones with no real name given, likely derived from the real name like Nakanokawa/Nakagawa, Nakanoshima/Nakashima, Naknomura/Nakamura.

One sekitori from China (chugoku  中国) used Nakanokuni with a different naka 仲

Edit: the kanji is bad omen with four strokes

Edited December 7, 2023 by Akinomaki

[Jakusotsu 5,815]

Four strokes?

[Tsuchinoninjin 1,249]

54 minutes ago, Jakusotsu said:

Four strokes?

[Asojima 2,870]

11 hours ago, Akinomaki said:

Edit: the kanji is bad omen with four strokes

The Chinese character for "death" has the same pronunciation as the character for "four".

Edit:  "44 dead stone lions" would be "Si shi si si shi shi zi"

Edited December 7, 2023 by Asojima

[Seiyashi 4,071]

14 hours ago, Asojima said:

The Chinese character for "death" has the same pronunciation as the character for "four".

Edit:  "44 dead stone lions" would be "Si shi si si shi shi zi"

Not exactly the same pronunciation - the tone is slightly different: death is what we call the third tone which falls and rises, while four simply falls. That said, the taboo is correct.

In other words, while it wouldn't be possible to tell someone to go and die by accident (unless you were also mangling the language), the association is strong enough that it is avoided.

What you can accidentally do is to tell someone you're sitting at their wake by sending them a clock. In Chinese, the words for gifting a clock are really pronounced the same as attending a wake. That's also why clocks are never a gift in Chinese culture. (Watches use a different word so they're fine, apparently.)

Edited December 8, 2023 by Seiyashi

[Asashosakari 18,786]

Longest streaks of consecutive tournaments with more than 2 sekiwake on the banzuke:

9 1992.09 - 1994.01

8 2022.09 - 2023.11

7 1961.05 - 1962.05

5 1943.05 - 1945.06
5 1957.03 - 1958.01
5 1972.01 - 1972.09

4 1954.05 - 1955.03
4 1959.09 - 1960.03
4 1960.07 - 1961.01

3 1896.05 - 1897.05
3 1925.05 - 1926.05
3 1941.05 - 1942.05
3 1969.11 - 1970.03
3 1985.05 - 1985.09

1959.09 to 1962.05 altogether comprised a 17-basho period which saw it happen for 15 of those tournaments (4 - break - 4 - break - 7).

And I might as well do the komusubi list while I'm at it:

8 1961.03 - 1962.05

5 1992.03 - 1992.11
5 2022.09 - 2023.05

4 1926.01 - 1927.03

3 1877.12 - 1879.01
3 1924.01 - 1925.01
3 1957.01 - 1957.05
3 1958.11 - 1959.03
3 1959.11 - 1960.03
3 1998.11 - 1999.03

[Kashunowaka 300]

18 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

8 1961.03 - 1962.05

The 10-5 promotions from M3e and M4w seem a little crazy, and resulted in a lot of over-promotions and under-demotions. Still, I wouldn't mind a little more generosity these days, when 10-5 at M2e could get you stuck at M1.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Kashunowaka

[Reonito 1,335]

I don't think I've seen this posted: Takayasu's 7 jun-yusho are second-most in the 6-basho era, trailing only Yutakayama's 8 (Ozeki Yutakayama from the 1960s), among rikishi who never won a yusho. The only other wrestler with 7 is none other than Futahaguro; no one else has more than 5 (Toyonoshima). So it really is a historic level of futility if he never gets one.

[Gurowake 3,923]

2 hours ago, Reonito said:

I don't think I've seen this posted: Takayasu's 7 jun-yusho are second-most in the 6-basho era, trailing only Yutakayama's 8 (Ozeki Yutakayama from the 1960s), among rikishi who never won a yusho. The only other wrestler with 7 is none other than Futahaguro; no one else has more than 5 (Toyonoshima). So it really is a historic level of futility if he never gets one.

Consider that Kisenosato was way in the lead in this category (12) until he wasn't eligible.

[Reonito 1,335]

41 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

Consider that Kisenosato was way in the lead in this category (12) until he wasn't eligible.

Indeed. I didn't look through the other yusho winners on the list to see how many JY they had accumulated before their first title but it wouldn't be that much work.

[yorikiried by fate 1,989]

1 hour ago, Gurowake said:

Consider that Kisenosato was way in the lead in this category (12) until he wasn't eligible.

Yeah, I'd say it's a shame that this perfectly fine record evaporated, but then I'd get roasted...

 

Well, I kind of said it...

[Jejima 1,314]

Whilst making my entry for Banzuke Surfing, I found this chap.... 

He has won on Nakabi (day 8) in all of his last 12 attempts. That seems rather a lot for a 'rank-and-filer'. Any way to check to see the record for the most consecutive wins on Nakabi? (and any other day of the tournament, for that matter?). 

 

[Reonito 1,335]

2 hours ago, Jejima said:

Whilst making my entry for Banzuke Surfing, I found this chap.... 

He has won on Nakabi (day 8) in all of his last 12 attempts. That seems rather a lot for a 'rank-and-filer'. Any way to check to see the record for the most consecutive wins on Nakabi? (and any other day of the tournament, for that matter?). 

 

That search would probably involve a fair bit of manual or script-based filtering of db results.

Unrelated, but Sazanami is the featured wrestler in Hiro's SPT videos on sumo exercises and winning techniques.

[Yamanashi 3,726]

4 hours ago, Jejima said:

Whilst making my entry for Banzuke Surfing, I found this chap.... 

He has won on Nakabi (day 8) in all of his last 12 attempts. That seems rather a lot for a 'rank-and-filer'. Any way to check to see the record for the most consecutive wins on Nakabi? (and any other day of the tournament, for that matter?). 

 

Streaky little SOB.  Career day 8 matches (I THINK ... ): 4 losses, 3 wins, 7 losses, 12 wins.  I was afraid he was going Fibonacci on us at first; will he go something like 19 losses and 31 wins over the next 7 years?

[Faustonowaka 112]

Sadanoumi and Tamawashi both have more than 20 years of experience in sumo (Hatsu dohyo 03/2003 and 01/2004)

Two rikishi with 20 or more years of experience meeting in Makuuchi is pretty rare occurence

Edit: the last time it happened was Kyokutenho vs Wakanosato almost 10 years ago.

Edited January 14 by Faustonowaka

[Sakura 1,472]

Not that I'm expecting Onosho to win the basho, but he's about to remain co-leader with a second fusen win.

The only Yusho winner in the database to win a Makuuchi yusho with 2 fusen on the record was Akinoumi.

[Reonito 1,335]

Seven top-division fusen is a lot (given how the bout query works, divide results by 2).