Featured Club / Dojo - Katsushika Shiratori Sumo Club

mikawa · October 13, 2017

Golden Generation

Location - Shiratori Park, Katsushika District, Tokyo
- Eight Hall (エイトホール, next to the Katsushika Sports Center Swimming Pool), Katsushika District, Tokyo

Keiko - Tuesdays (from 5pm), Thursdays (from 5pm), Saturdays (from 5pm)
- Every 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month (from 6pm, at Eight Hall)

Approximately 30 years ago, Sakuma Koichi (佐久間幸一) helped to convince the neighbourhood committee to build a dohyo in Shiratori Park in order to "promote a sport that teaches kids respect". That was the start of Katsushika Shiratori Sumo Club (葛飾白鳥相撲教室), who would become a major name in amateur sumo, and Komatsuryu Dojo's biggest rival. Katsushika have their own website and blog, as well as 2 different YouTube channels (白鳥すもう and masa2360s), where there are many videos of past tournaments. Another channel, akaseken, have uploaded videos of some training bouts at Katsushika.

Whilst most of their keikos take place in the (relatively) hard-to-find Shiratori Park (took me some time to find the place last year), they also hold training sessions on the other side of the Aoto Bridge (青砥橋) in a place called Eight Hall, where the dohyo is safely stored underneath the wooden floorboards. This is also where the annual Katsushika Sumo Tournament takes place.

Katsushika Shiratori Sumo Club and their members have made their fair share of appearances in videos and newspaper articles (just like Komatsuryu Dojo). First and foremost, you may recall that there was a kid called "Ryuta the Slapper" who co-starred in National Geographic's Inside: Sumo Kids. That's none other than Katsushika's Iwamoto Ryuta (岩本龍太), twice a Wanpaku quarter-finalist, who was shown to be training hard on their dohyo in Shiratori Park.

You may also have watched an advert by Akebono, where the Yokozuna was singing along to Don't Stop Believing. The 2 kids who were wrestling and later dancing along with Akebono are also members of Katsushika: Kinugasa Hideaki (衣笠秀晃, the kid on the right in the thumbnail, and who also happens to be a Wanpaku quarter-finalist); and Suzuki Chiharu (鈴木千晴), the club's ace for a couple of years, respectively.

Even CNN paid a visit to Katsushika "on an uncharacteristically warm, rainy early November evening" 2 years ago, and wrote an article on their website titled Sumo: Can Japan's national sport survive? The article talks about the state of sumo in Japan, how the club came to be, and interviews with various club members and their parents.

Katsushika Shiratori Sumo Club have produced many talented rikishi during the past 30 years, including some very good female rikishi (such as Sato Yoko 佐藤陽子 and Ishii Sakura 石井さくら), but it was their so called "Golden Generation", a term which the club themselves used in one of their blogs, which took them to the pinnacle of amateur sumo, and that was during a time when Tsugaru Sumo Club were so dominant as well.

Katsushika already had a strong team during the 8th National Club Championships in 2011, where their team of Takimoto Tetsuji (瀧本哲治), Ogasawara Reiji (小笠原麗司), Nihonyanagi Wataru (二本柳亘), Sato Yota (佐藤耀太) and Shiroishi Masahito (白石雅仁) made it all the way to the semi-finals, where they lost to Tsugaru Sumo Club.

Takimoto's only major individual achievement is reaching the final of the Wanpaku Tokyo qualifiers in Grade 5 (where he lost to Mitaka Sumo Club's Hanafusa Kai), while Sato was competing against opponents who were a year older than him, so it was likely that Katsushika would drop these 2 bouts during their matches. However, this was when Shiroishi Masahito first announced himself on the amateur sumo stage (he is now one of Toyo University's best rikishi), so he can be counted on to win the deciding bout if need be. As such, Katsushika would be sure of advancing if both Ogasawara and Nihonyanagi won their bouts, which is exactly what happened in their matches prior to the semi-finals. Here's a video of their match against Tsugaru (Katsushika are on the right):

The following year in 2012, Katsushika Shiratori Sumo Club once again met Tsugaru Sumo Club (who were defending champions at the time), this time in the final. Katsushika's team for this tournament was Takimoto Tetsuji (瀧本哲治), Anzai Yusuke (安西雄祐), Ogasawara Reiji (小笠原麗司), Nihonyanagi Wataru (二本柳亘), and Suzuki Chiharu (鈴木千晴).

This time around, whilst Takimoto still wasn't pulling his weight in matches, all of their remaining team members were more than likely to win their bouts (Anzai's size made him a tough opponent at the time). So for Tsugaru to win the tournament for a second year in a row, they needed to overcome any 2 of Anzai / Ogasawara / Nihonyanagi / Suzuki, which even they couldn't accomplish. And with that, their chances of a three-peat (as they won the tournament again in 2013) were gone. Katsushika are on the left: