Appendices

General knowledge

Wikipedia has a list of winning techniques like oshidashi, yorikiri, etc and a sumo glossary, the heaviest grand sumo competitors ever, and an English-language page for just about every sekitori there is or was.

SumoDB has the entire banzuke in both Japanese and English. SumoDB also contains information about historical results and head to head matchups.

Nihon Sumo Kyokai (Japan Sumo Association) links: current rankings Japanese/English; yobidashi (ushers & attendants) Japanese/English; gyoji (referees) Japanese/English; oyakata (coaches) Japanese/English; heya (training stables) Japanese/English. NSK homepage in English; retirees - Japanese only but only requires hiragana knowledge

Fred Pinkerton's promotion/demotion charts show who's moving where in top division.

News sources and blogs: Tachi-Ai sumo blog (in English); Japan Times sumo coverage (in English); Nikkan Sports sumo articles (in Japanese); Sponichi sumo articles (in Japanese); Chunichi sumo articles (in Japanese). Hochi.news sumo articles (in Japanese). Useful Japanese terms to search in the highlights page for: 休場 (kyujo, absence); コロナ (korona, COVID).

Japanese language resources: DeepL for translating entire articles; Jisho for looking up specific words and kanji; the 10ten extension for Firefox lets you mouse over particular Japanese text of interest on websites.

Curiosities: that time half a stable went AWOL because the stablemaster's wife was being too harsh on them; interview with a yobidashi; countdown until Onokuni reaches mandatory retirement age

And finally a list of amateur sumo events around Japan (in Japanese).

Videos

Miscellaneous

A comprehensive gallery featuring head shots and bios of rikishi, oyakata, gyoji, yobidashi and more (correct to the beginning of 2023). Pre-bout rituals explained; What do the gyoji say?

Sumo match announcements

  1. Yobidashi sings the names of the rikishi about to bout in turn, then rikishi ascend the dohyo
  2. Once rikishi are on the dohyo, gyoji hollers their names in turn while gesturing their way
  3. Announcer clearly announces each rikishi's starting side (nishi/higashi-gata rikishi), name, place of origin (-shusshin) and training stable (-beya) as they perform shikiri and throw salt
  4. Once timekeeper judge says to begin, gyoji commands rikishi into position, then officiates the match
  5. (optional) If the outcome is unclear or in dispute by a judge, a mono-ii is called and head judge reports on their findings; gyoji announces a rematch if that's what the judges want
  6. Gyoji announces winner's name turning to them and possibly giving them envelopes full of sponsor cash.
  7. Once winner is decided, announcer says who won and what the kimarite (deciding technique) was (technique de rikishi name no kachi) - this can be delayed by up to a few matches if the technique is hard to determine!

Understanding the judges' reports

Mono-ii reports are very formulaic! They're usually a couple of long run-on sentences that go something like this:

  1. Now we're going to explain our conference. Tadaima wa kyogi ni tsuite setsumei itashimasu or similar
  2. The gyoji pointed (one way or another), but.. Gyoji gunbai wa higashigata/nishigata/(rikishi name) arimashita ga..
  3. We had a conference about (something that affects the outcome of the match), the result of that conference was.. (???) mono-ii ga tsuki, kyougi shita kekka..
  4. (The findings of that discussion) (???)-te ori/orazu
  5. (The outcome of that discussion and the rightful winner of the bout if one was determined.)

Matters for discussion and findings may include a touchout (te ga dete ori/orazu..), a simultaneous landing for both rikishi (doutai or ryousha), or even a disqualification (hansoku).

Helpful words to listen out for to get the gist of the report:

Body parts

Actions and other stuff

Verdicts

The outcome can go three ways:

Who's that shimpan (ringside judge)?

Click the name of the shimpan to see what they look like. Thanks to the maintainer of this page for providing these images!

Shimpan groups

Stablemasters have * after their name; everyone else is a coach.

Senior shimpan

Members of this senior group join up with other shimpan groups to act as head shimpan after the juryo ring entrance ceremony & intermission. This month's senior shimps are:

Who's that off-schedule yobidashi

The official program only lists sekitori yobidashi from Soichi onwards. Even after their match-calling shifts, these youngsters work throughout the day as attendants.

There's a slightly outdated gallery of yobidashi headshots with bios at Heyaaz - it's missing Kumajiro because he debuted during 2023.

To help spot them, here's links to screencaps of the non-sekitori yobidashi in their order of appearance, including onscreen bios in Japanese: