15th September 2022 - Day 5 Aki 2022
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It has been sumo time again. A time of intrigue, excitement and just 
enjoying the bouts. Aki is always an oddity of a tournament and often 
has some weird events. However, it appears that everyone came prepared 
and have been fighting to a high standard from day 1. It certainly 
makes a difference to the past few tournaments. It might be that the 
first Jungyo (travelling display of sumo) in 2 or so years did some 
good. I previously thought that the Jungyo were tiring the rikishi out 
but I have been proven wrong. 

So far, we have some clear winners and losers. On the losing side, 
Takarafuji is likely to be heading down with a 0-5 record. 
Terutsuyoshi, our salt chucking friend, is not doing great at 1-4 
along with Kotoeko and Shodai. Will Shodai repeat his performance from 
the last tournament and turn this into a winning record? I suspect not 
but hope he gambarizes. I suspect he will be kadoban again and at risk 
of demotion. 

On the winning side, we have 3 who have no loses. Tamawashi, 
Hokutofuji and Oho. Of these, I suspect Tamawashi will have the 
staying power to keep in the running for the yusho. However, he is 
chased by the likes of Takakeisho, Hoshoryu, Takayasu and Wakamotoharu 
with 4-1 records. 

Ura has been doing some amazing sumo with a fantastic winning move on 
Day 4. he managed to pull of a winning move which has not been seen 
for some 20 odd years. It was a tsutaezori. If you are clueless of 
what that means like me then it is an under arm forward body drop. 
Still makes little sense to me. Go search for it. You are likely to 
find a video now as it is an impressive move! 

Tobizaru, our flying monkey fella, has been having a good basho. He 
has managed to defeat the yokozuna, Terunofuji. This was surprising 
and a bout where he simply kept moving and out of Terunofuji's reach. 
It is great to see him get a kinboshi for defeating a yokozuna. His 
record is a not great 2-3 but hopefully he pulls through. His kinboshi 
should hopefully nab him a special prize if he gets a winning record. 

Wakatakakage was tipped to be starting an ozeki run to get the 
mysterious 33 wins in 3 basho requirement. However, he has struggled 
and sits at 2-3. Not sure if he has a chance of starting a run this 
time. 

Kadoban Mitakeumi is doing alright with a 3-2 record. He seems to be 
on uncertain ground though. Hard to tell if we will see him as an 
ozeki at the next basho. 

On a side note, there is a new sumo channel called Sumo Prime Time. 
This is a JSA ran channel with Hiro Morita hosting. You may recognise 
Morita from NHK's English language coverage. The videos are well done 
and I have enjoyed the introduction to sumo style videos. There have 
been some great interviews too. The channel does not appear to show 
matches from each day unfortunately. However, it is a great additional 
source of information. There was a video for day 1 and then a video 
for day 5. The day 5 video is rather a lot like this phlog, a summary 
of the leaders and oddities. Hopefully there is enough demand to 
encourage coverage at the same level and quality of Natto Sumo. 

Lots is going on and the quality of the sumo has been great so far. I 
think there is no clear winner for the basho yet. Lets hope the 
remaining 10 days are as great as the first 5. Hakkeyoi!