MATCH OF THE DAY: Churanoumi and Midorifuji took to the clay for an incredibly long bout today, where Midorifuji eventually emerged the victor. As the president of the “Chu-Chu” fan club, I was not happy with this arrangement, but the Chu-Chu train ran out of steam faster than the little Green Monster. There’s a lot of great things about Midorifuji, but I’d say his stamina is extremely impressive–and of course, it reminds me of his great match with ex-Hokuseiho almost exactly two years ago. Churanoumi, on the other hand, is probably the most average of rikishi and is on his second loss. Bother.
KIMARITE OF THE DAY: Wakatakakage shocked the crowd by pulling a henka in front of Aonishiki and sending the Ukrainian stumbling to the ground with a shove on his back. I… am finding it difficult to express my anger with Wakatakakage in this moment. I have great respect for Wakatakakage, but doing that against a younger rikishi who never fights dirty or aims for injuries? There’s a negligible weight difference between the two. Aonishiki is a terrifying opponent to face, but just because you’re frustrated about your streak of losses, Wakatakakage, does not mean you need to be handing Onosato a yusho! Poor Aonishiki. I have lost a lot of love for the youngest Onami. His (cruel, malicious) win by okuriotoshi, rear pull down, is not exactly the rarest of kimarite, but I felt the need to discuss this bout as well as Churanoumi’s. So there.
PINK MAWASHI DAY FIVE: Ura is always a ray of sprightly pink sunshine in an otherwise cloudy day. In this case, Watakakakage is the cloud, and Ura broke away the storm with his win against Kotozakura. I can’t say it was a great bout, as much as I want to; Kotozakura is no easy foe, and certainly not easy to push around, but when he acts like this, it’s easy to do pretty much anything. He barely struggled while Ura got under and pushed him out. I do want to mention that NHK has been doing a fantastic camera shot of the Ozeki and his tsukebito (personal attendant), Kotodaishin, who somewhat infamously does Kotozakura’s pre-match routine in the hallway in sync with him, and Kotozakura nods to him in the back before every bout. Talk about cute. On that subject, talk about Ura! He looks pretty good. He’ll probably make up for Waka’s crimes, as he’ll fight Aonishiki tomorrow.
THE YUSHO REPORT: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but our sole leaders are Onosato and Maegashira 12… Fujinokawa! I mean, Onosato, of course, is fantastic, and young, and kind of annoying me. But let’s talk Fujinokawa. He is twenty years old. To put that in context, he is half the age of Tamawashi, which speaks to the excellence of both rikishi. Fujinokawa made his debut a month after his eighteenth birthday, in March 2023, and has rocketed up the banzuke to debut as a sekitori one year ago. He debuted in Makuuchi in July, with the new shikona (it had been Wakaikari before) and got a fighting spirit prize at 10-5. And he has half those wins already on Day Five! He was a teenager in his first sekitori match, one year ago, and he still has another basho to go before his twenty-first. A lot of them start young, but he’s such an impressive rikishi, especially considering his size. Best of luck to him, as he might have some harder matches for the rest of the tournament.
OVERALL SUMMARY: Well, I’ve talked Churanoumi, Midorifuji, Fujinokawa, Ura, and Wakatakakage, so who else is there really? There’s Shodai, who lost to Yoshinofuji. There’s Kinbozan, who ate a faceful of clay against Tobizaru. The aforementioned Yoshinofuji is 4-1 along with Asakoryu, Nishikifuji, Tokihayate, Atamifuji, Takayasu, Hoshoryu, and poor, poor Aonishiki. The first five are all young Maegashira, which is nice to see. Some of them will be fighting each other in the next few days to narrow the candidates before they’re thrown up to fight sanyaku. Thanks to Wakatakakage’s folly, our only winless rikishi are Tomokaze and Takanosho. Hang in there, guys. And don’t henka.
As we’re now one third of the way through the basho, it’s time to take a look a little down the banzuke at the second division of Juryo. Obviously, Juryo has already come up already this basho with the drama surrounding Mita’s kyujo. However, I haven’t dug into the yusho race yet. It’s been a relatively straightforward one: we have a leader! Ex-Goshima, a highly successful makushita-tsukedashi, is now Fujiryoga and rocking quite possibly the craziest hairstyle ever seen on this side of the 80s. It’s fantastic. I love it. And it’s working, because he’s 5-0 so far. Chasing him are wily and wiry veteran Tamashoho and the Polar Bear, the inexplicably popular Shirokuma. Asahakuryu, Daiseizan, and Fujiseiun are all younger guys at the top of juryo looking at promotion to Makuuchi next year. Former prospect Takerufuji, notably, isn’t doing quite as well at 3-2. He’s still a little hurt, it seems, but not a disaster.
Today’s fun fact is about the other eternal ray of sunshine in Makuuchi, Atamifuji. Whilst vacationing in London, Atamifuji (and, apparently, Shodai) went to a Starbucks to order something to drink, and evidently, one employee found Japanese a little difficult and did their best to spell out Atamifuji’s name. They ended up with Adamisu.
He ordered an English Breakfast tea, which I think says a lot about his personality.
Thank you, Atamifuji, for being such a gift. And thank you to everyone who read this far. Join me in manifesting the Ura win tomorrow, and good night!