Posts Tagged: sumo

JapanSoc — 17 Comments
27
May 08

New Ranking System – JapanSoc Sumo!

Japan’s sumo season has come to an end, but the power users over at JapanSoc are just getting started.

What is JapanSoc Sumo?

It’s a new measure for ranking users so we can see who the biggest contributors to JapanSoc are. You earn points by submitting stories, voting, commenting, saving stories as “Favorites”, and for getting positive votes on comments you write. The more points you get, the higher up the sumo rankings you’ll move, until everybody recognizes you as an almighty Yokozuna!

JapanSoc Sumo

What happened to Karma?

Karma is still there, but is now merely an indication of a user’s recent activity. If I can ever figure out the magical Karma formula, I’ll try to include more factors than just submitting stories and voting into the equations.

How do you get sumo points again?

Here’s the breakdown:

  • 10 points – Submitting a story that hits the front page
  • 7 points – Submitting a story that doesn’t make the font page
  • 5 points – Commenting on a story
  • 3 points – Voting for a story
  • 2 points – Adding a story to your Favorites
  • 1 point – Receiving a positive vote on a comment

How many points do you need to move up the rankings?

Everyone starts at Jonokuchi, the lowest level sumo rank…

  • <1,000 points – Jonokuchi
  • 1,000 – 1,999 points – Jonidan
  • 2,000 – 2,999 points – Sandamme
  • 3,000 – 3,999 points – Makushita
  • 4,000 – 4,999 points – Juryo
  • 5,000 – 5,999 points – Makkuchi
  • 6,000 – 6,999 points – Komusubi
  • 7,000 – 7,999 points – Sekiwake
  • 8,000 – 9,999 points – Ozeki
  • >10,000 points – Yokozuna

10,000 points! You’ve got to be kidding me!

I’m hopeful that JapanSoc will continue to grow and and establish itself as one of the biggest Japan-related social sites of its kind. So, five or ten years down the line, any Ozeki or Yokozuna will be like JapanSoc gods to all the new users that join. And if you’re a blogger, you can be sure they’ll start reading your blog!

The current top ten power users are…

Juryo:

Jonidan:

Jonokuchi:

… and snapping at their heels are a bunch of regular contributors who I’m sure will break into the top 10 very soon! See the full Top Users List for more.

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Addition: Points are updated every 6 hours, not instantly.

Japan — 7 Comments
2
Nov 07

Japanese Versus European Feet

I remember looking through a Japanese ballroom dancing magazine during one of my lessons and seeing an interesting comparison of foreign and Japanese feet. Whether the article discussed how the different foot shapes affected shoe size or posture I can’t remember, but I found the examples used for this foot comparison quite fascinating. Here’s my attempt to recreate that long-lost comparison.

The Thinker versus a sumo wrestler

First you’ve got the characters. Representing “Team Europe” is Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker.

Though this statue is widely known as “The Thinker,” Rodin first called it The Poet. It was part of a commission by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris to create a huge gate based on the epic poem The Divine Comedy of Dante. [Source: Wikipedia]

In the Japanese corner, we’ve got sumo wrestlers in a traditional woodblock print (ukiyoe).

Sumo prints from the 18th and 19th century prove the popularity of the sport in the past. Among the Japanese woodblock print artists are few that made no prints with subjects of sumo wrestlers. Ukiyo-e was a commercial art and was meant to sell. In the 18th and 19th century it was more the publisher who decided about the subjects than the artist. He gave the commissions, risked his money and therefore tended to publish popular themes. [Source: Artelino]

Let’s take a closer a look at these feet:

Comparison of European and Japanese feet

I’m no expert on tarsals and metatarsals, but you can see that the European foot is longer, flatter, less arched, and perhaps has longer toes than the Japanese foot. The Japanese foot is seemingly much thicker than its European counterpart.

Of course, we shouldn’t draw any conclusions by comparing feet from 19th century statues and woodblock prints. Instead, we need a real life example! Fortunately, my family agreed to participate in this scientific study (ahem) and remove their socks for the camera. In the pictures below, there are three feet. One is my very own British foot, one is my wife’s Japanese foot, and one is the foot of our Japanese-British, three-month-old baby, Rikuto. The question is, which foot belongs to who? Post your guesses in the comments!

Real life foot comparison

Now that you’ve seen some real feet, maybe the only conclusion we can draw is that foot shape is not based on nationality, but on whether you can do sumo or not. I mean, we already know that Rikuto is just a little sumo baby!

Family — 3 Comments
8
Oct 07

He’s Just a Little Sumo Baby!

I'm just a little sumo baby!With the all the negative publicity sumo is getting, and the lack of native Japanese newcomers to the sport, Mami and I felt this would be a great opportunity to let Rikuto keep this great Japanese tradition alive.

Sure, he may not be “100% pure“, but none of the top sumo wrestlers are. Apparently, at the time of writing, the top two wrestlers are Mongolian. Arudou Debito has some interesting facts on the nationalities of the top sumo wrestlers in his article, Latest Sumo Banzuke shows one third of top ranked are NJ.