37th Wanpaku Tournament (2022-10-30)

[mikawa 1,794]

The Wanpaku National Championships will be returning in two weeks' time in the Kokugikan Arena, this time with 97 teams from across Japan and also Mongolia (up from 63 teams last year). For the first time ever, there will be TWO Mongolian teams participating (instead of one). This year's tournament motto is "New Challenge", and the whole event will be livestreamed on YouTube on the Tokyo JCI's channel from 8am JST:

https://www.youtube.com/user/jciTokyo

One thing which is noticeable from the tournament schedule is that, not including Team Mongolia, there are as many as 7 participants who have Katakana names, from Ryan to Joshua to Julian. Amateur sumo in Japan definitely has more of an international presence nowadays, and at all levels of the sport, which is good to see.

 

Notable Rikishi - Grade 4

#36 - Ren Hoshiba (星場 蓮)

Winner of this year's Hakuho Cup and also of the Technique Prize, Ren is fast and tricky in the ring. His preferred move is the ashitori leg grab.

#53 - Rikuto Matsuoka (松岡 陸翔)

Rikuto has been practicing sumo for many years now at Tachikawa Renseikan Sumo Dojo. His stature might be shorter than average, but he has tons of determination.

#54 - Asuka Sasahara (笹原 吾守嘉)

When the sumo YouTuber Amita made his recent video about Irumo Junior Sumo Club, one of the members he focussed on was Asuka. It also happened to be his birthday on that day.

#87 - Kohei Abe (安部 航平)

A team-mate of Rikuto's at Tachikawa Renseikan Sumo Dojo.

 

Notable Rikishi - Grade 5

#7 - Tobushinborudo Nyamuchiru (ニャムオチル トゥブシンボルド)

Semi-finalist at last year's Wanpaku Tournament.翔

#14 - Ryuto Sasaki (佐々木 琉翔)

Semi-finalist at this year's Hakuho Cup.

#22 - Konosuke Kishida (岸田 幸之輔)

Winner of the Osaka qualifiers, and long-time rival of Raizo Taniyama (#81 below).

#29 - Yushin Hayashi (林 優芯)

The defending champion, he is huge.

#39 - Juito Hirano (平野 純勇斗)

Small but skilful, Juito is the Enho of this year group. He was part of the Komatsuryu Dojo team that won the team competition at this year's Hakuho Cup.

#72 - Mahiro Yamashiro (山城 真優)

Runner-up at last year's Wanpaku Tournament.

#73 - Jin Kishima (木島 稔)

Rikuto and Kohei's team-mate at Tachikawa Renseikan Sumo Dojo. Jin's mum maintains a blog (https://ameblo.jp/jurimam19760608/) that documents his sumo journey.

#74 - Takemoto Toki (竹本 都輝)

A Hakuho Cup semi-finalist.

#80 - Natsuhi Onuki (竹本 都輝)

A Hakuho Cup semi-finalist.

#81 - Raizo Taniyama (谷山 雷蔵)

Winner of the first event national sumo kata tournament during the pandemic, the rap-lover Raizo has made multiple appearances on Kansai TV. Results-wise, he reached the round of 16 at last year's Wanpaku Tournament, quarter-finals at last year's Primary School Championships, and came second at this year's Hakuho Cup.

It should be noted that the Hakuho Cup winner from this year group won't appear at this tournament, and neither will anyone else from traditional powerhouse Aomori Prefecture for some reason. It's strange because there will be teams from Hokkaido and other Tohoku prefectures.

#87 - Haruki Sasaki (佐々木 陽希)

Runner-up at last year's Primary School Championships, he is also huge.

 

Notable Rikishi - Grade 6

#2 - Muti Palu (パル ム ティ)

Muti is the son of former professional Australian rugby player Wycliff Palu. He was a quarter-finalist at last year's Wanpaku Tournament, and a semi-finalist at last year's Primary School Championships.

#20 - Hayate Kawarai (河原井 颯)

A semi-finalist at last year's Wanpaku Tournament, Hayate trains in both sumo and judo.

#53 - Kyuta Kumagai (熊谷 毬太)

The defending champion of both the Wanpaku Tournament and the Hakuho Cup, as well as a semi-finalist at last year's Primary School Championships. The Reuters star Kyuta is the favorite for this tournament. Along with Juito, he helped Komatsuryu Dojo win the team competition at this year's Hakuho Cup.

#79 - Junki Tamiya (田宮 純喜)

He is the younger son of ex-Kotomitsuki.

#90 - Kota Utagawa (宇田川 康太)

One of the Utagawa brothers at Kashiwa Junior Sumo Club, whose alumni include Kotonowaka and Kotoshoho.

#94 - Sera Ota (大手 星来)

Former Hakuho Cup winner and a runner-up at last year's Wanpaku Tournament AND Primary School Championships. The Shodai kohai will want to go one better this time.

#97 - Hisatsugu Sasaki (佐々木 久継)

The huge Hisatsugu is the defending Primary School Yokozuna. His potential second round bout against Sera should be interesting.

[Johnofuji 232]

Thanks for that Information. 

Do you happen to know anything about their kesho mawashi and the Wanpaku tsuna that the Wankpaku Yokozuna wears? 

I've always wondered if it's just a gimmick by the sponsors or is there an official ranking system? I have seen photos of kids posing in kesho mawashi at least 100 years ago  (the photos not when I saw them).

Are there a series of tournaments and a banzuke perhaps or is it all based on the annual event.

The kesho mawashi seem generic so maybe they are just for show to imitate a the Ozumo rituals.  

[Akinomaki 39,770]

9 hours ago, Johnofuji said:

Do you happen to know anything about their kesho mawashi and the Wanpaku tsuna that the Wankpaku Yokozuna wears? 

I've always wondered if it's just a gimmick by the sponsors or is there an official ranking system? I have seen photos of kids posing in kesho mawashi at least 100 years ago  (the photos not when I saw them).

Are there a series of tournaments and a banzuke perhaps or is it all based on the annual event.

The kesho mawashi seem generic so maybe they are just for show to imitate a the Ozumo rituals.  

The winner of each year is wampaku yokozuna for a year, the 2nd ozeki, sf sekiwake, qf komusubi. Last year's winners from 4th and 5th year still take part and do the dohyo-iri. Regional preliminary tournaments  and a national tournament once a year, that's all. http://wanpaku.or.jp/tournament/  (this page lists the 3 stages local, block and national and has the upcoming tournament charts for all 3 school years - with furigana)

The wampaku yokozuna is NSK certified, the NSK organizes this event with the JCI Tokyo and provides the kesho mawashi. The similar primary school championships with their yokozuna are by the sumo federation.

Events with yokozuna dohyo-iri for primary school kids take place all over the country, local tournaments have their local yokozuna. The older middle school and high school yokozuna don't do this - I think it's done to kindle the interest of smaller kids, later on they only get the tsuna and usually don't wear it. There are  regional (yokozuna) dohyo-iri by adults as well though - at the Fushiki basho ozumo, the top rikishi are ozeki and they do it. I've posted about several of those events in this subforum.

The tsuna is basically just like one for ozumo, just not made by ichimon rikishi

On 19/10/2018 at 16:27, Akinomaki said:

Tsuna-uchi for the east/west dohyo-iri at the 46th chibikko-sumo tournament in Hita city - the NSK supports most sumo events for kids in the country, and also the Otoi-ozumo, but not unrelated ozumo like the Fushiki-basho http://www.sumo.or.jp/pdf/kyokai/zaimu/h29_jigyo_hokoku.pdf

Edited October 19, 2022 by Akinomaki

[mikawa 1,794]

Full Results

Grade 4

Winner - Itsuki Nagata (永田 逸樹), Yamaguchi

Runner-Up - Haru Yamaguchi (山口 隼瑠), Kumamoto

Semi-Finals - Yuma Hayashi (林 祐磨), Kumamoto
Semi-Finals - Yamato Iwamoto (岩本 大和), Hyogo

Quarter-Finals - Shinnosuke Fujigaki (藤垣 心之介), Aichi
Quarter-Finals - Naosuke Koga (古賀 尚輔), Tokyo
Quarter-Finals - Ryunosuke Hyodo (兵頭 竜ノ助), Ehime
Quarter-Finals - Soshi Takahashi (高橋 奏吉), Miyazaki

 

Grade 5

Winner - Shotaro Takeshima (竹嶋 章太朗), Osaka

Runner-Up - Natsuhi Onuki (大貫 夏陽), Chiba

Semi-Finals - Konosuke Kishida (岸田 幸之輔), Osaka
Semi-Finals - Mahiro Yamashiro (山城 真優), Okinawa

Quarter-Finals - Tobushinborudo Nyamuchiru (ニャムオチル トゥブシンボルド), Niigata
Quarter-Finals - Yushin Hayashi (林 優芯), Kumamoto
Quarter-Finals - Temujin Chirugun (チルグン テムジン), Mongolia
Quarter-Finals - Haruki Sasaki (佐々木 陽希), Akita

 

Grade 6

Winner - Soshin Sugama (菅間 奏心), Kagoshima

Runner-Up - Sera Ote (大手 星来), Kumamoto

Semi-Finals - Haruhi Watanabe (渡辺 暖日), Chiba
Semi-Finals - Koki Saito (斎藤 煌生), Iwate

Quarter-Finals - Daigo Takemika (武甕 大悟), Kyoto
Quarter-Finals - Takumi Norimoto (乘本 匠), Gifu
Quarter-Finals - Daichi Mizuno (水野 大地), Kanagawa
Quarter-Finals - Keisuke Nakamura (中村 圭佑), Nagano

 

Sansho (Unofficial)

Outstanding Performance - Shotaro Takeshima (竹嶋 章太朗), Osaka (Grade 5)
Fighting Spirit - Konosuke Kishida (岸田 幸之輔), Osaka (Grade 5)
Technique - Haru Yamaguchi (山口 隼瑠), Kumamoto (Grade 4)

 

 

 

[mikawa 1,794]

Comments

This year, the organisers decided to separate the tournament into two days, with the majority of the Grade 4 and Grade 5 bouts taking placing on Saturday. This allows the tournament to finish at midday on Sunday, giving participants more time than previous years to return to their home prefectures. However, with no video for the first day of competition, we have no idea what happened in Grade 4 and Grade 5 prior to the quarter-finals.

Overall, Team Mongolia did well, but they might have wanted more than one quarter-finalist, given that they had a second team this year. However, it was probably fitting that their only rikishi to get that far was called Temujin (a fan of Genghis Khan maybe?)

A bit of history was made today as Takumi Norimoto from Gifu reached the quarter-finals in Grade 6. The commentators referred to him as "YouTuber Rikishi", as he has a channel on YouTube called "Dosukoi Takumi". A study in Japan asking Japanese students about what they want to be when they grow up has shown that "YouTuber" is now the most popular profession amongst every age group. A sign of the times?

The rikishi I was most impressed with today was Osaka's Konosuke Kishida. In all three bouts that were shown of him, Konosuke was up against a taller and larger opponent. All three bouts went the distance, with Konosuke determinedly using his low stance and lateral movement to stay with his opponents. He was eventually able to find a way to win the first two, and came so so close to winning the third (in the semi-final against the eventual winner). Kudos to him for the huge amounts of fighting spirit that he'd shown today.

A month after his club senpai Shodai finished with an abysmal 4-11 at the Aki Basho, Sera Ote goes back to Kumamoto with yet another silver medal. That's the third final in a year that he has lost. Watching his bouts today, I think the problem lies with Sera being a bit too upright at the tachi-ai. Most of the time he's able to get a force out or slap down from that position, but he was not given that opportunity in the final today against Soshin. Sera still has two more tournaments before he moves on to middle school, let's see if he can win at least one of them.

[Akinomaki 39,770]

3 hours ago, mikawa said:

A month after his club senpai Shodai finished with an abysmal 4-11 at the Aki Basho, Sera Ote goes back to Kumamoto with yet another silver medal.

The good results from Kumamoto may be a good motivation for Shodai at his upcoming home basho: winner and runner-up of the team event are Kumamoto A and B, with 2 runner-up results, 1sf and 1qf in the individuals. Team Osaka B finished 3rd.

3 hours ago, mikawa said:

with no video for the first day of competition, we have no idea what happened in Grade 4 and Grade 5 prior to the quarter-finals. 

I thought we'll get no yokozuna dohyo-iri with this, but they showed that and a speed digest of day 1 4th round bouts at the beginning of the video/stream.

Fun at the start of the day 2 part, the usual miss with the kokugikan address - the commentator misread Yokoami 横網 as yokozuna 横綱 , like we had here again recently. Yaku Mitsuru pointed it out to him.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Akinomaki

[Akinomaki 39,770]

The JCI Tokyo channel also has posted day 1 now

[Konosato 45]

Definitely watch the fight from 1.55.30

[Akinomaki 39,770]

News clip about 6th grade winner Sugama-kun from Shibushi-shi, Kagoshima, 5th grade runner-up at the Hakuho-cup this year - he had lost to same Kyushu rival Oote-kun at the Kyushu tournament from 1st to 3rd grade https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/192248?display=1

with youtube-dl

Spoiler

youtube-dl  -o wanp22.mp4 "https://variants.streaks.jp/v2/tbsnews-prod/6bee749f187a468ab17854fdee65aeb0/2e35b0e1b97f46c5b44b76393c55d514/video/4546fbfa-5908-11ed-ba7a-0af94ffff7b1/video_1667212944.m3u8?vt=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJlZGdlIjoidm9kLm5ld3NkaWcudGJzLmNvLmpwIn0.jpyypROX7tJRLzN8iCi94ot9CZO-OkpXKycj618kf6E"

[Akinomaki 39,770]

On 30/10/2022 at 10:02, Akinomaki said:

Fun at the start of the day 2 part, the usual miss with the kokugikan address - the commentator misread Yokoami 横網 as yokozuna 横綱 , like we had here again recently. Yaku Mitsuru pointed it out to him.

That miss was not in the video of the life broadcast, the JCI Tokyo channel now posted a day 2 video which starts with this wrong address, the rest is the same https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZsBw3VRkA

[Akinomaki 39,770]

From another thread

On 05/11/2022 at 14:26, Jejima said:

a new documentary on Channel 4 in the UK

The dark secrets of sumo wrestling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je3y80b9_QA

At the beginning the most interesting part of the documentary, about Kyuta Kumagai - the reporter calls him Kamagai and says his dream is to become yakozuna. He said he wants to win all 3 national tournaments - there are only 2 actually, the unofficial 3rd is likely the Hakuho cup.

On 16/10/2022 at 09:30, mikawa said:

#53 - Kyuta Kumagai (熊谷 毬太)

The defending champion of both the Wanpaku Tournament and the Hakuho Cup, as well as a semi-finalist at last year's Primary School Championships. The Reuters star Kyuta is the favorite for this tournament. Along with Juito, he helped Komatsuryu Dojo win the team competition at this year's Hakuho Cup.

In the end Kyuta wins the Tokyo block preliminary tournament for the wampaku championships, the documentary was filmed a week before that.

He lost there in the first round.

The full results in Excel format are now on the site http://wanpaku.or.jp/tournament/result.html

Edited November 7, 2022 by Akinomaki