【Hinomaru Sumo】 Sports! Nominated for Best Shounen Manga at the 39th Kodansha Manga Awards!! The story about the High-School Sumo begins!!

Hinomaru Sumo is a Japanese Martial arts/Sumo manga series written and illustrated by Kawada.

The manga series was serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump magazine from May 2014 to July 2019. It’s individual chapters are compiled and collected into 28 separate volumes. The series has been divided into two parts, Part 1: Student Sumo Arc and Part 2: Professional Sumo Arc. It was nominated at the 39th Kodansha Manga Awards for the Best Shounen Manga and landed 5th place at the 2015 Next Manga Award.

An anime television series adapted by Gonzo was released in 2018, consisting of 24 episodes.

Ushio Hinomaru, the protagonist of this story, is heading to his first day of high school. He gets on the train but is having difficulty navigating his way due to his short stature. As he is pushing past other passengers, he notices a high school girl trembling in fear, and immediately realizes that the man standing behind is molesting her.

“God can see everything, you know? “, says Ushio, as he drags the molester out and calls the officer.

The crowd is staring at his Mawashi, a piece of cloth worn by Sumo in a fight. The officer arrives and seeing the Mawashi, grabs him instead.

At Daichi High, Oozeki, captain of the Sumo club, is having a bad time recruiting students, as they just make fun of his Mawashi, when he bumps into Ushio.

Ushio enthusiastically requests to join the club while expressing his desire of becoming Yokozuna, the highest rank in the world of professional Sumo wrestling.

Ushio requests to see the Sumo dojo so Oozeki reluctantly takes him, where it is revealed that Gojou Yumma and his gang, the delinquents of Daichi High, have taken over the dojo.

Seeing what they have done to the ring, Ushio gets infuriated and challenges them for the dojo. The delinquents not taking him seriously, make fun of his height. One of them approaches Ushio to intimidate him, but with monstrous strength Ushio grabs him by the collar and brings him down on his knees, Shocking everyone.

Rest of the delinquents come after Ushio but Oozeki intervenes at the last moment and apologizes to everyone. He takes Ushio away and shows him the ring he made to practice, which really cheers Ushio up. But little do they know that Yumma’s delinquents are keeping an eye on them for revenge.

The next day, Ushio and Oozeki find the ring destroyed by the delinquents, which breaks Ushio’s patience as he rushes to class and grabs Yumma by the collar, “Bitch! Do you know no shame? God can see everything, you know? “.

They both decide to fight after school, with the winner taking the dojo.

Oozeki grabs him by the collar, trying to stop him from fighting Yumma, but Ushio remembering his mother’s words, is dead set and confident.

“...... in this life, there are things unachievable...... that’s exactly why I’m here......to crush that damn illusion. “

After school, the match is about to take place. Yumma sets the condition that if Ushio can stand up after being beaten by him for 10 minutes, then he can have the dojo.

Match beings, and right off the bat, Yumma throws a punch to Ushio’s face. Ushio is standing still, barely even faced by the punch. He then removes his clothes, revealing the bruised and scar filled body of his.

“Up on the heaven, even God would scream that name, the name of the great Yokozuna...... try to bring me down, you son of a bitch! “.

15 minutes have passed, Ushio is still taking Yumma’s punches without budging an inch.

Irritated by this, Yumma again punches Ushio.

“Sandbag time is over”, says Ushio, as he dodges the punch and head buts Yumma in the gut, knocking him out with a single strike.

Thus, Daichi High’s Sumo club makes its first move and reclaims the dojo.

What awaits him , as he starts his journey to become the Yokozuna?