Hinomaru Sumo Challenges Formulaic Sports Anime

I’ve never been a big sports anime guy, but this season’s Hinomaru Sumo lured me in with a sport I’m uniquely interested in and then captivated me with its direct assault on the classic sports anime formula.

Hinomaru Sumo is the story of its title character, Hinomaru Ushio, on his journey from high school sumo club freshman to the top of the world of professional sumo: the coveted title of Yokozuna. That sounds like bog standard sports anime. Change the sport and the title and I could be talking about Eyeshield 21, Hanebado!, Harukana Receive, or even the sports anime nearest and dearest to my heart: Keijo!!!!!!!!

But generic-sounding loglines aside, Hinomaru Sumo and Hinomaru himself bring a lot more to the genre than most specimens. And I’m not just referring to 300 pounds of solid 14-year-old muscle. The boy’s built like a refrigerator! No, I’m talking more about the multiple Yokozuna titles he held in elementary school (setting aside the laughing fit I had the first time I heard the phrase “Elementary School Yokozuna”) and the deep respect his opponents have for him throughout his career.

While other sports anime protagonists find themselves the weakest member of a team that massively outclasses them, leaving them with everything to prove; or as a fresh-faced but talented competitor that everyone underestimates, Hinomaru steps onto the stage known throughout the world of youth sumo as the “National Treasure.”

In fact, Hinomaru’s first challenge is actually to save his new school’s sumo club from obscurity by recruiting new wrestlers and training them to fight. Here, we get a bit of the shonen anime formula where antagonists and bullies become our best friends and most trusted allies within a few episodes (what I call The “Kaiba Always Duels with Honor” Principle), but it means that Hinomaru takes skilled fighters from other disciplines and translates those styles into sumo.

All of this serves to explain the arcane world of sumo to the uninitiated, namely myself. Sumo is the national sport of Japan, steeped in Shinto ritual and full of jargon, making it tricky for a foreigner with little knowledge of the sport to understand. But with Hinomaru showing us how karate, mixed martial arts, and even pro wrestling moves apply in the world of sumo, we feel like we have a way to connect with it through our protagonist.

A very important sumo rule we learn very quickly is the tournament structure of two teams going at it in best of five competitions. This means that Hinomaru’s team can lose two fights and still advance in the tournament, and for a narrative purpose means you’re never sure how a bout is going to turn out. Even if you’re confident Hinomaru’s Kitakomachi High School sumo club is going forward, there’s no way you’re confident Hinomaru himself is going to win his match. The fights keep you on your toes.

And the other thing that makes Hinomaru Sumo unique is who those fights are against. Hinomaru’s rivals are universally respectful competitors, inspired by the protagonist’s passion for the sport and excited to step into the ring with the National Treasure. Unlike other sports anime, there is no cartoonishly evil antagonist abusing his natural talent to unseemly ends. Everyone has sympathetic motivations, but no one can match Hinomaru’s drive and pure love of the sport.

That isn’t to say that our title character has it easy. He may start out near the top, but he is not quite there. He has one massive hurdle to overcome: his height. Hinomaru Ushio is just too short for professional sumo. We have a moving scene in the first episode and recounted every time in the show’s (extremely powerful) ED, where Hinomaru’s hospitalized mother apologizes for not giving him taller genes. The poor, enormous, absurdly muscular kid.

It’s tough being the world’s stoutest high school freshman in a sport where every other 14-year-old is 6-and-a-half feet tall and built like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. But Hinomaru presses on nonetheless.

It’s a fun show and a fresh take on the sports anime formula that has me keen to go see some live sumo next time I’m in Japan. But just like in Keijo!!!!!!!!, it’s all about the sport, not about the scanty, mawashi-covered butts.