Hinomaru Zumou is nothing if not resolutely a traditional shounen sports manga. Given that, there was one glaring omission from the setup for the series, but that was taken care of this week. There were certainly offhand references to this trope (one might almost have detected a wink at the audience), and one could argue that Reina was sort of unofficially filling the role – but at last the Daichi Sumo Club has a cute female manager. And she appears to check another box by having a crush on the main character to boot.
That manager is Hori Chizuko (Tanabe Rui), and we’ve actually met her before – she was the girl on the train when Ushio performed his act of gallantry in the premiere. And she has an immediate impact on the story, because as the sumo club’s (only?) fan, she followed them to the sectionals and posted videos of the team’s heroism online. Nothing in sports is so fast-moving as the bandwagon effect, and soon the videos are all over LINE and the sumo club has actually gotten noticed by the school. That means an increase in budget (though Reina is peeved that no one just asked her for that) as well as an increase in fan support. Reina is also a bit peeved – and threatened – by the presence of another girl in the clubroom and the fact that she was never asked to be the manager. I don’t think she wanted to be it – she just wanted to be asked.
From there, we go to that staple of Japanese life – the tabihoudai. I do actually go to one of these “viking buffets” myself on occasion, and sometimes you get the nightmare scenario – an army of high school boys also on the clock at the same time. Sometimes there are groups of them at these things, and while they eat almost unbelievable amounts of food (fair play, no problem there) they also monopolize the meat stations and no one else can get near the niku. There’s their general rowdiness too, which may not sound like a problem but when there are 20 or 30 of them…
Of course, from the perspective of a restaurant owner like “Stamina Jiro” the problem is a more practical one – survival. I would imagine the arrival of a sumo club is close to the doomsday scenario for such a person, though Jiro takes this as a challenge. He employs the usual strategy – load the customer up with cheap carbs like rice and noodles – and this seems to work with everyone except Chihiro. But Kirihito (quite rightly) points out that the Daichi sumo club apart from Shinya suffers from a general lack of heft compared to the competition, and insists that the boys take on 20,000 (!) calories each (much to Jiro’s horror). Many cases of the meat sweats will surely follow.
Afterwards, the focus shifts to Yuuma, who Ushio has quite alertly noticed is off his feed (no pun intended). He prods Kirihito into employing a new “pairs” training regime, ostensibly (and probably legitimately) to help the boys work on their weaknesses, but mainly to get Yuuma and Shinya together. I’m not sure I buy that someone could transform to the massive extent Yuuma would have to in order to be so guilt-ridden about his past, but one can’t help but admire Shinya’s expansive ability to forgive and look forward rather than back. He may not have the traditional captain’s personality, but kindness is Shinya’s main strength so it makes sense that he relies on it as much as he does.
Meanwhile the club has gained more fans than just Hori-san – Shibakiyama is a full-on admirer at this point. And a former near-Yokozuna and head of a professional stable is clearly a very valuable ally for a high school sumo club. He offers the Daichi boys a chance to train with his stable and another during a joint session to prepare for the January tournament in Nagoya – which means a road trip for the Daichi rikishi. And in a sense I suppose that checks off another box, the training camp episode – sasauga, Hinomaru Zumou…
