Just finished up watching the May tournament last night.

I had been watching the half hour videos on the NHK Youtube channel, but when I went to watch the final last night, I saw it was pulled. From browsing the NHK main site, it seems they pull the videos after a couple weeks. I was able to find the day 15 matches on some random channel, but it was a much tougher watch with the format being so different from being another station's broadcast and everything was in Japanese, so I had to watch each match and then rewatch a bunch to read what happened since I'm still new to this.

I'd been wanting to go back and watch old tournaments to see how some of the guys I like had progressed, but I'd assumed the older ones would all be on the NHK site, so now it seems I'm out of luck.

Is there a go-to place to at least get something close? I was browsing here and r/sumo and there were a bunch of recommendations, but checking out a few, they largely seemed to be commentary and not much of actual match video.

It was exciting to see Wakatakakage win. In the beginning it felt fairly straightforward for Kirishima, and it was fun watching him and all, but once Gonoyama beat him, that got me excited all over again. Ura is probably my favorite to watch because of all his surprising and fast manuevers.

My favorite rikishi though has been Hakunofuji. He was one of the ones I was first able to pick out when I started watching due to his exciting matches, and he always looks very happy, which I like. It sounds like I wasn't the only one to take notice with him, as I heard he won the Fighting Spirit prize, which I of course had never heard of before, but I felt it was appropriate when I did hear of it. 🙂

I'm glad you guys got me interested in checking out sumo. It's been a lot of fun!

i previously read commentary on sumo spectators. This got me wondering if those rangs behind the dohyo are choreographed.

There are some spectacular spectators, so distracting and interesting that i have to rewind to watch the match. But here apparently they're 2 strangers. Fan of one and the hat + shirt of another

Kirishima and Wakatakakage both have 11-4, and they're up against Ura and Fujiryoga (respectively) at 10-4. Kotoeiho and Yoshinofuji also have 10 and a match against each other. Hakunofuji is also at 10-4 battling Fujiseiun who's going for his kachikoshi at 7-7

Should make for some interesting sumo

Day 13 of the May sumo tournament in Japan finished a couple of hours ago! The tourney lasts for 15 days, so it ends Saturday night!!??!! This is a great time to start watching!

Live / Replay:

• try searching on twitch, there are usually at least 3 different streamers providing live video feeds with English commentary, and it's fun to have a community to chat with in real time. The top Makuuchi matches start around 3am US Eastern Time though. At least one of the streamers does replays all day, usually of the entire day (including lower ranks).

Video Clips:

• youtuber DonDon makes a daily video of the "best 10" matches listed in English with replays including on-screen English analysis (posted around 6am EST): https://www.youtube.com/@dondonsumo2/videos Besides the "best 10" of the top Makuuchi tier, DonDon also makes a "best 5" of the second Juryo tier.

• NHK makes a daily video that has all the top-tier Makuuchi bouts with English spoken commentary (posted around noon-2pm EST): https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/sumo/ and (possibly with additional delay) here: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/ and here: https://www.youtube.com/@NHKWORLDJAPAN/videos

• NHK immediately posts individual videos of each top-tier bout listed in Japanese with Japanese commentary.

::: spoiler click here for instructions to see the NHK Japanese videos

They are re-doing their Japanese website. I THINK that to see the latest videos on the NHK site in Japanese, you look here: https://www.nhk.jp/g/ts/Z8WRRJ9K96/blog/bl/pm1VNbJpWQ/bp/pExrRxao2y/ and click on the topmost link that says "NHK ONE", it should look like this:

Click "I understand" to acknowledge that you're not in Japan (lel) and then scroll down til you see this button:

it might look like this:

click on that and you should see all the videos?!

For the listings in Japanese, try automated translations if there's a lot of text. Alternately, look for something like: 9月14日 which in this case refers to the 9th month and the 14th day (September 14th). Automated translation doesn't work that well on sumotori names, but this is a great opportunity to learn them by sight! (The JSA web site has pictures of them all.)

:::

• JSA immediately posts individual videos of each of the highest-ranked 10+ matches listed in Japanese with no commentary, here: https://www.youtube.com/@sumo-video/videos

Additional fan youtube channels (I haven’t checked them out too thoroughly)

• https://www.youtube.com/@sumo-highlights
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheMawashiShow/videos
• https://www.youtube.com/@sumowithherbert
• https://www.youtube.com/@SumoFiles
• https://www.youtube.com/@LionSumo
• https://www.youtube.com/@Sumotop/videos
• https://www.youtube.com/@Wakanoho-8/videos
• https://www.youtube.com/@DarkCircleSumo/streams

Text Info in English:

• all results and standings and next-day schedule by sumodb

• more results and stats from sumostats, another fan site

• results and more info from the JSA

• daily writeups by The Mainichi (Mainichi Shimbun newspaper)

• occasional articles by The Japan News (Yomiuru Shimbun newspaper)

• for commentary, see the tachiai fan site

Intro to Sumo

• introductory video

• more English-language intro videos at NHK's Sumopedia

• the wikipedia article has a lot of great information including on sumo terms.

[late reposting because I fell behind due to life and such]

He repeatedly uses the same trick with a 'left outside grip' and the following shoulder thrust which seems to be difficult for his opponents to resist