The first tourney of 2026 starts next Sunday in Japan! I THINK that means the top Makuuchi division will be live around 3-4am Sunday (e: Jan 11) US Eastern time, and the first video clips and summaries will start appearing on Sunday morning. It’s a 15-day tournament, and as before, I will post this “how you can watch the tourney” info twice at the beginning, once in the middle, and once at the end!

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; those are listed here: 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. This video is replayed on their web site several times during the following day (kind of like an old-fashioned TV station); you can see the schedule here: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/ look for “Grand Sumo highlights.” After a day of scheduled replays, the video is put up for “on demand” access here: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/ and (possibly with additional delay) here: https://www.youtube.com/@NHKWORLDJAPAN/videos
  • NHK immediately posts individual videos of each bout listed in Japanese with Japanese commentary.
click here for instructions

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?!

  • 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
  • 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.)

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

Text Info in English:

Intro to Sumo

Image in this meme from Sanctuary.

  • Sergio@piefed.socialOPEnglish
    6·
    14 days ago

    Most recently we avoided spoilers like this:

    • if you make a POST, please don’t tell any results from that day or the previous day. You can post pictures/video links, just don’t show who the winner was. In the post, keep the title vague like “Aonishiki’s fight on day 5” and use spoiler tags or discuss it in comments.
    • if you make a COMMENT, it is OK to mention/show all results up to the day that the post is about

    Also we now have a MOD! In the East side, hailing outta ani.social, we have @[email protected] !!! If the rules change at all let us be guided by Sempai Zabadoh!

  • zabadoh@ani.socialM
    3·
    14 days ago

    Thanks for posting these!

    For access to nattosumo’s coverage of all makushita, juryo, and makuuchi bouts, pm me!

  • DV8@lemmy.world
    2·
    12 days ago

    Definitely looking forward to see how the yokozuna and the ozeki (especially Aonishki) will do! Curious if the reporting about Aonishki conditioning struggles is just traditional complaints about how he doesn’t conform to outdated practices or whether it’s valid.

    Thanks for putting this list together!

    • Sergio@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      Curious if the reporting about Aonishki conditioning struggles is just traditional complaints

      You mean the fact that he got tired during recent practice matches? It’s really hard to make predictions based on training, bc during the tournament you’re only gonna be fighting once, instead of several times in a row. Like, watching a couple matches in this video:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSH9hB3hnZ4

      it’s clear that they’re not giving 100%, bc obv. you don’t want to get injured during training.

      Aonishiki might have a bad record this tourney tho, I bet people are studying him and developing counters. Still gonna cheer for him.

      • DV8@lemmy.world
        2·
        12 days ago

        Honestly I expect him to do worse because of new obligations and requests. Not because he’s lacking in ‘spirit’.