English Dub Review: Hinomaru Sumo “Barbecue”

Food is a sumo wrestler’s true challenge.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Its a day of celebration for the Dachi High Sumo Club, who, with their victory, have secured themselves entrance into the National Championship. The team gathers for some light training before they celebrate, and are met by a cheering student body, who have become fans of the club overnight after a video of them winning the tournament circulated on the internet. The one who uploaded that video was a student named Chizuko Hori, a timid girl who has become a huge fan of Dachi High’s Sumo Club. With some prodding, both her and Reina become the team’s managers, and soon after their acceptance, the team heads off to go feast at a buffet.

Once there, the team chows down on the scrumptious meats and other offerings the buffet has. The buffet’s owner, Jiro, tries to preserve his stock of meat by filling up the team with carbs, but he underestimates their appetites. Though they start to get full, once Kirihito challenges them to take in more calories in order to match the intake of professional sumo wrestlers, the team finds their second wind and starts to really go ham on the buffet food. Jiro is at a loss for words, and once their victorious meal is finished, he asks for the team’s name, which he uses to make sure they’re never allowed back there again.

The next day, training begins again proper. Kirihito has everyone break into duo training to better supplement their skills. Ozeki and Yuma pair off to fight each other, but Ozeki takes a clear advantage in all their bouts. Ozeki tries to push Yuma to hit him harder and make it tough for him, but Yuma confesses that he’s unable to use his full power against Ozeki, since he feels ashamed for the way he bullied him before he joined the club. Ozeki evens things out with Yuma by explaining they’re comrades now, and the two train each other as best they can.

Later, Hinomaru and Kirihito look over the footage they have of Tennoji. Things look somewhat grim, but Hinomaru believes he can train hard enough to stand against Tennoji. Just then, the two of them get a call from Shibakiyama, who offers them to come back to their stable, but this time they’ll be training in Nagoya.

Our Take:

This was overall a fun episode, with a little bit of character drama thrown in to keep things interesting. It decompresses us from the intensity of the tournament by giving us a fun little encounter at the buffet, which turns out to be more of a battle than expected. Having the sumo team “battle” with Jiro the restaurant manager is a fun little fight that was unexpected but certainly enjoyed. It was funny, interesting, and also reinforced the theming of pushing one’s self to the best of their ability even in everyday life quite well. The punchline at the end was my favorite part; Jiro may respect his sumo opponents, but he is running a business after all.

The climax of this episode comes in the confrontation between Ozeki and Yuma, who apparently have had some unspoken grief with each other that has gone unnoticed all this time. While I can enjoy Yuma’s feeling of guilt towards Ozeki that develops him further as being an honorable and sensitive soul, I can’t help but feel that Yuma’s shame comes out of left field. One would think that if Yuma was really feeling this guilty towards Ozeki, the show would take steps to impart that guilt to the viewer in order to further the intensity of the drama, but that didn’t really happen here. It’s not poorly done, just a bit random, and their confrontation doesn’t amount to much since Ozeki forgives him outright without too much hassle.

Chizuko’s appearance in this series presents a new arc for the series to follow since it has become obvious that she has a crush on Hinomaru. I don’t know if there’s room for such touchy-feely emotions in a show as testosterone-filled as Hinomaru Sumo, but we’ll see. In all seriousness, Chizuko is likable, but still underdeveloped, and she doesn’t have much to draw me to her character yet. In a similar boat is Reina, who, despite having been around for quite some time, doesn’t really do much. She’s funny sometimes, but her character seems to exist just to react to the actions of the sumo team.

This is an enjoyable, funny episode that keeps interest but doesn’t do enough to really be memorable. The best part was easily the comedic aspect embodied in the food buffet, but the episode teeters off towards the end. Not every one needs to be a winner, but the show could take some more pains finding interesting things for our cast to do. Not bad, but not particularly great either.