English Dub Review: Hinomaru Sumo “The Forgotten National Treasure, Onikiri Yasutsuna”

The sumo professor steps into the ring!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Kirihito would be one of the strongest wrestlers on the Dachi High team, save for one problem: his crippling asthma. Despite his incredible technique and ability, he can’t endure the extreme physical strain required to fight in sumo for more than 20 seconds. The entire arena is surprised, then, when Kirihito steps up to fight. His opponent, Leon, is a strong fighter, too, but not prepared for the level of intensity Kirihto brings to the fight.

Once the match begins, Kirihito jumps in headfirst to try and make a strong advance. His skill is in countering attacks, so he tries to pull back and get Leon to make a move towards him. However, Leon knows Kirihito’s strengths and doesn’t give him what he wants until absolutely necessary. Kirihito hits his 20-second limit and starts to feel his health catching up to him. He decides to push through his limitations and win the battle, despite his suffering. He manages to push Leon down with a quick takedown. However, Kirihito needs to win the second bout to take the match. Ready to pass out, Kirihito accepts the bout, much to everyone’s dismay. Despite nearly suffocating, he uses a quick spin to send Leon rushing to the ground, resulting in his victory.

The next fight is Yuma once again, who are fighting against the reserved sumo wrestler, Yomoda. He doesn’t look like much, but once the match begins, it’s clear that this guy has some incredible strength. However, Yuma surprises him by managing to push him towards the ring with his impressive strikes. But Yuma’s advance turns out to be a trap. Once Yuma goes for a deep lunge, Yomoda turns the tables and counters Yuma by grabbing his belt. However, the ref steps in and stops the fight with a time out, because Yomoda is bleeding profusely from his nose.

After the time out, the fight begins again, and the two fighters clash immediately. Yomoda uses his strength of stomach to lift Yuma and bring him to the edge. Yuma struggles to try and break free from the grab, but it’s too late. Yomoda throws Yuma out of the ring, and the fight ends with Yuma’s loss.

Our Take:

The fights just keep on a-coming here on Hinomaru Sumo, the shounen sports anime that keeps pushing itself to become one of the most intense fightings shows out there today. Two big fights go on here with Kirihito and Yuma as their stars, and the episode does a stellar job on both of them. While these fights would no doubt be better off with an entire episode to each one to help them develop and play out better, they’re still incredibly entertaining and emotionally powerful.

Kirihito faces a unique challenge from the rest of the Dachi High wrestlers. By struggling with asthma, his battle isn’t just against his opponent, but himself. He needs to push himself to dangerous levels of exhaustion just to keep up in a single bout, and that shows extraordinarily well here. The show uses the visual metaphor of Kirihito drowning to try and bring this point home, which is a striking way of putting it. There was more I think could have been done in this fight, but it wasn’t bad by any means, though I wish Kirihito had suffered some more consequences from him pushing himself too hard. That kind of self-damage can’t come without some tragic suffering.

Yuma’s fight, while less physically intense, is more interesting from a combat perspective. We get that great moment where Yomoda physically wrenches Yuma’s hand from his face, in a move that’s both cunning and brutal. I knew when the fight began there was no way that Yuma could continue to win matches this late in the game, but having him go down in this way was a great sequence. A great character deserves not just great victories, but losses as well, since no one person will find themselves able to overcome any challenge.

There are only a couple episodes left in this season of Hinomaru Sumo, and it’s been a truly wild ride to enjoy so far. As this tournament continues, it begins to feel like this was the true purpose of the entire season, to get everyone to this point where they can truly test themselves against each other. To that end, great pacing and action sequences, combined with solid voice acting and a couple of brilliant moments is making these last few episodes the best in the series so far.