Sumo’s long and grueling summer regional tour came to an end last Sunday with the now yearly KITTE Basho held in the heart of Tokyo at the 38-story JP Tower. The following day, the new banzuke was released for the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament that gets underway on Sept. 10.
Despite there being just 90 honbasho days in every 365, it seems more and more as if sumo is joining sports like soccer and football in adopting a year-round calendar. Certainly the number of special events and tour days has increased along with the sport's popularity over the past few years.
As usual, some of the rankings, promotions and demotions on the banzuke brought bemusement to fans, but that's unavoidable when a group of 23 men — all with their own varying allegiances and opinions — get together in secret to decide, in one day, the rankings of roughly 680 rikishi.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.