＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
１．A promising new star “Enho(Flame Peng)” appears.
With yokozuna Hakuho absent from the tournament, lone yokozuna Kakuryu and the ozeki ranks were in a listless and somber mood in the May 2019 tournament.
However, even more popular and notable than Asanoyama, the winner of the tournament, was the 24-year-old Enho(Flame Peng)“” the 14th rank in the west maegashira division.
He is also called “Ushiwakamaru of Reiwa. He was a handsome young man with a face like a May doll despite his small stature, and his Mai-no-Umi-like moves and quick moves played tricks on the big men, exciting the audience and the TV audience.
However, the final result of the May tournament was disappointing, with a losing record of 7 wins and 8 losses.
However, I am very happy to see the emergence of a Japanese rikishi with great expectations for the summer tournaments and beyond. There seem to be many ladies who are fans of sumo, and I hope that the popularity of sumo will be boosted once again.
I hope that Asanoyama, Takakeisyo, Goeidoh, Takayasu, Mitakeumi, Endo, and Ikioi who dropped from sekiwake to juryo will all make a strong showing.
２．A Look Back at Past Sumo Tournaments
（１）The Golden Age of Sumo
When I was a child, the “Tochiwaka Era” of Wakanohana and Tochinishiki (1950s) and the “Hakuho Era” of Taiho and Kashiwado (1960s) were the golden era of sumo.
In recent years, the era of Chiyonofuji, a.k.a. Wolf, in the 1980s and the “Wakataka Era” of Takanohana and Wakanohana in the 1990s were also interesting times, with the success of Kirishima, Terao, Mai-no-umi, and others.
（２）The heyday of Mongolian sumo
After that, however, I stopped watching sumo so much because my interest waned due to the domination of yokozuna by Mongolian wrestlers such as Asashoryu, Hakuho, Haruma Fuji, and Kakuryu (2000s-2010s), as well as the disappointing performance of Japanese wrestlers.
（３）The birth of the first Japanese yokozuna in a long time
Kise-no-Sato became the first Japanese yokozuna in 19 years in 2017 after eight attempts to win the tug of war, but he was forced to retire after a short period of time after repeated absences due to a lack of board ability, albeit partly due to injuries.