English Dub Review: Hinomaru Sumo “The One Loved by the Sumo Gods”

A battle of the gods.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

After last week’s stunning victory by Chihiro making him a National Treasure, the rest of the Dachi High sumo team steps up to continue the tournament. They get some excellent wins and build momentum, but Kei falls short, since his special technique fighting has been discovered and countered by his opponent.

Following the end of Dachi High’s matches for the day, Kuze and Tennoji face off against each other in what is to be the match of day. Meanwhile, Hinomaru engages with a spar with Sada to try and push himself to a higher level.

Kuze and Tennoji begin their match, and the two are titans of the sport. Each of them fight each other tooth and nail, using the abilities that they’ve gained over a lifetime of sumo training. Tennoji fights with the vicious strength of a demon, while Kuze has the serene composure of a god. The fight is a true spectacle, but by the end of it, Kuze comes out the victor, cementing his place as the god of the high school sumo world.

The Dachi High School team is unintimidated by Kuze’s victory, having readied themselves to beat both of them at the tournament if necessary. They rest for the night and plan for the next day, which will no doubt prove to be an incredible challenge.

Our Take:

Hinomaru Sumo puts on a good show this week, delivering an episode that offers the best qualities of this series but still falling short on a couple of speed bumps that have also been present since the series has started. There is a strong action core to the Tennoji vs Kuze fight, and a lot of fun to be had in seeing the Dachi High wrestlers continue their rise to the top. Sticking through to the end of this episode yields a good time for all, and is the kind of quality that should be expected from this series every week.

The strongest aspect to the episode is the visual impact of its animation. There is quite a bit more movement and flow to the actions of the sumo that we don’t always get. Too often in past episodes have fights been reduced to still shots with lots of exposition laced over them; its rare that we get to see the hit, counter-hit action of a good sumo match. This is especially important here because the visuals lend a sense of power to the Tennoji/Kuze fight that is much needed.

However, the Tennoji/Kuze fight is the only thing in the episode worth showing up for. Too much of it otherwise is spent in exposition and reaction shots that pollute the episode with their obviousness. The visuals of a show should try to speak for themselves as best they can, with exposition only used to explain the finer details of things. If we can’t keep the steam of a fight going for more than 30 seconds, then how are we expected to keep attention?

All that aside though, I really enjoyed this episode. It was entertaining, even if it had problems, and made me really like both Tennoji and Kuze in a way that hasn’t been done for me in this series before. Kuze is shaping up to be a great villain for this series and rival for Hinomaru. And that’s good, because Hinomaru Sumo really needs to up its game if it wants to keep up with other sports anime in its later episodes.