Day 2 of the July sumo tournament in Japan finished a couple of hours ago! The tourney lasts for 15 days, so this is a great time to start watching!

Video Clips:

• youtuber DonDon makes a daily video of ALL matches in the top Makuuchi tier, as well as a video of the second-rank Juryo tier, listed in English with replays including on-screen English analysis (posted around 6am EST): https://www.youtube.com/@dondonsumo2/videos DonDon also posts "Top 10" highlights here: https://www.youtube.com/@dondonsumohighlights

• Broadcaster NHK makes a daily video that has all the top-tier Makuuchi bouts with English spoken commentary: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/ and here: https://www.youtube.com/@NHKWORLDJAPAN/videos These are usually delayed by a day, but are a great intro.

• 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

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).

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.

Holy swizzle sticks, Batfang, I'm watching Don Don's 2nd match in the day #2 video and seeing a guy 5'9" ("Asasuiryu") going against a guy 6'4", with the shorter guy being outweighed by ~130lbs. Sure enough, the shorter guy absolutely blasts the bigger guy out of the ring, where he lands on a bunch of spectators. oO

Side note: I wonder how many fans have been seriously injured by stuff like that? I also kinda suspect that few would want to complain about it, and news coverage would prefer not to comment on it, Japan being Japan.

Also really cool that the replays feature quick analysis about the techniques used!