dingo

The emperor's visit is exciting news, guess it's time for him to come and take a look at the new yokozunas. Provided they are not kyujo...

Rest in peace Uchidate-san. I fondly remember her sometimes outrageous, sometimes even loony comments as a YDC member.

I don't condone violence, but if you steal money from a fellow rikishi that has a history of violence, what do you expect will happen? But all in all, same procedure indeed... Edit: interestingly it wasn't mentioned what was the official punishment for stealing money?

No bugs to report, I just want to express my gratitude to Exil and everyone involved in making the forum run. You are awesome! It feels so good to have all the functionality back and with a slicker design to boot.

Soccer club? Better teach him ketaguri quickly! Seems like these days any above average weight/height young Japanese male is in danger of being dragged to a heya by an oyakata

By low level do you mean that the Japanese public has lost interest in him?

I wonder if that means he was in Japan on a tourist visa? Those usually are 90 days long, depending on the country though. Maybe they tried to convert it on the spot and it didn't work out.

Wow, 18 months with hard labour would be a very tough sentence in relation to the crime. I expect it will end up a suspended sentence though, like most les serious cases.

When are they going to appoint someone as the ambassador for fighting against fake parking permits? That would be fun.

Due to the weekend I missed all the excitement, and what an exiting end it was! I didn't follow the kyujo list either so I was completely surprised when I saw on Kintamayama's video that Onosato pulled out of the yokozuna bout. A dream ending to the basho for Aonishiki, the future is really bright for him! With Onosato injured and Hoshoryu having no clue how to beat him, it really looks like the yokozuna rope is not too far. On the topic of Hoshoryu, I was quite convinced he would be able to figure out how to beat Aonishiki but so far he seems clueless. It's very surprising to see the usually technically proficient yokozuna so lost against one opponent. I tried to scan the recent-ish past and I didn't manage to find any case in the last 25 years where a yokozuna was 0-4 or more against one rikishi. There are a few 0-1 blips for most yokozuna but I didn't find such a loss record for any recent yokozuna. Curiously Hoshoryu is also 1-4 against Hidenoumi and 1-3 against Ichiyamamoto. No doubt he will get a win or a few against Aonishiki at some point, but at the moment it's such a stark contrast. Maybe someone who is more adept at database queries can find if there's any similar case in the past.

I felt Midorifuji was a bit too early woth his pull or katasukashi attempt as Mitakeumi wasn't fully committed forward yet. But maybe Midorifuji felt he would be pushed too upright otherwise. In any case he didn't pull it off so has to win the remaining two if he wants to get kachikoshi. Kachikoshi for Fujinokawa with the third tachiai attempt! It seemed like Abi's defeat was more due to himself than Fujinokawa. Be it as it may, I'm happy that the small dynamo has his 8 wins. Wow, Kirishima showed his power by lifting Atamifuji a few times until he was finally out. Looks like Kirishima is about to finish the basho very strong, a double digit record and sanyaku are in his reach. Aonishiki should've gotten at least a torinaoshi as there was little to separate them except the fact that Aonishiki was flying outside the tawara. But if anything Onosato seemed to touch down a fraction earlier. Yokozuna privileges I guess...

That depends on the approach. I'd say Aonishiki has the tougher challenge. Both Onosato and Hoshoryu are more than capable of beating him and should have plenty of motivation to do so. It would be a small miracle if Aonishiki ends up with the yusho.

Several early kachikoshi today as Chiyoshoma, Roga, Ichiyamamoto and Kirishima all ensure a positive end to the year. I'm quite surprised by Chiyoshoma but then again time to time he has a good basho. Nishikifuji got his kachikoshi already yesterday though he lost to Ichiyamamoto today. But maybe it's better for him to stay around his current rank and take the banzuke climb slow. Hiradoumi vs Hakuoho should've been a torinaoshi even if Hiradoumi's body was in a more disadvantageous position. Their hands touched at the same time and so would've been fair to redo. The ladies in the front row got definitely their tickets' worth of entertainment as Ura did human bowling and rolled right into them That was fun to watch even from the screen, I can't imagine how it would've been close by. Kotozakura managed to do what Onosato couldn't, successfully executing a last ditch pulldown while remaining on the tawara. It looked awfully close live but from the replay the result was pretty clear. Yoshinofuji is quite unlucky, whereas Kotozakura did a good gatekeeping job for the two yokozuna. Very nice spirited fight between Hoshoryu and Takayasu, but Takayasu is getting a bit old and tends to lose his contests with the yokozuna these days despite his positive overall record. At the end of the day the balance is more or less restored I suppose. Aonishiki has his work cut out for him facing the two yokozuna in the coming days, although sharing the lead is more than he could've expected a few days ago. Tokihayate might be fed to a few higher rankers if he picks up a few more wins. It's shaping up to be a nice and exciting last few days.

Yup, good point. I was definitely thinking about male names since the character in question is male.

I think we've known for a while that there are very few rikishi these days who can win consistently. Off the top of my head this year only Onosato, Hoshoryu (notwithstanding his injury) and Aonishiki have been able to put together decent numbers each basho. Everyone else has been too old, injured or simply inconsistent to get lots of wins. So it's no wonder someone like Tokihayate can appear in the calendar year top 10 wins. Same reason why we had lots of maegashira yusho for a while.