Daughter Rei Shirakawa reveals…the reason for Takanohana’s slow walk, which this magazine had witnessed many times!
She said, “That’s right! Dad, you can’t kill mosquitoes. Even if they come, like this.”
Rei Shirakawa, 21, the second daughter of former yokozuna Koji Takanohana (50) and Keiko Kono (58) and a TV personality, appeared on “Hitoshi Matsumoto no Sake no Tsubame ni naru Hanashi” (Fuji TV) on April 28. Her co-star Yusuke Kamiike (44) had dined alone with Takanohana, and from Takanohana,
Takanohana told him that he always tried to move slowly even if there was an emergency in order to prevent injury.
Shirakawa then told the story of how he and Takanohana had once dined together. Shirakawa then struck a pose, slowly moving his outstretched hands and clasping them together in front of his face. Downtown’s Hitoshi Matsumoto (59), who serves as the MC, laughed and said, “What an idiot! and the studio laughed out loud. However, the reaction of the reporter who saw this was the complete opposite of Matsumoto’s. “I see! I see! I didn’t know that! I see. FRIDAY had visited the Takanohana stable (closed on October 1, 2006) to cover the event, and had seen him many times strolling around the area. His unique gait, in which he walked forward slowly at a very slow pace, at first glance made us suspect that he was in poor health.
Takanohana weighed 165 kilograms during his active career, but only two years after his retirement, he had dropped to 80 kilograms and was rumored to be seriously ill. Later, it was discovered that Takanohana had succeeded in losing weight through an exercise he had devised called “chicoa size. The exercises are based on sumo’s yomata, and have been made into DVDs and have become a staple among sumo-loving “sujos” (female sumo enthusiasts).
Although the reason for the extreme weight loss was discovered, the reason for the extremely slow movements remained unknown. So, let us look back at those days to find out exactly how slow he was….
Unexplained Behavior on a Very Slow Morning Walk
It was February 2006 when I found Takanohana walking along a shopping street near his room at 6:00 a.m. in the bitterly cold morning. It was dark, the temperature was close to zero, and not a single person was walking along the shopping street. The straight line was 1.2 km. He walked straight back, looking straight ahead without looking aside. When he reached the end of the shopping street, he turned on his heel and walked back the way he came. Twice he walked back and forth. It was quite an odd sight, but it seemed to be a familiar one to the residents of the neighborhood,
He would leave his room as early as 5:00 a.m. on the first day of the show. He once spent three hours walking from his room to the TV station where he was going to appear. He told his neighbors, “Walking gives me a change of pace. I feel like good things happen when I walk.
He said. The next time I saw him was six months later. It was early September in the lingering summer heat. It was after 8:00 a.m. and the temperature was already near 30 degrees Celsius, but he was dressed in a long-sleeved black jersey and sunglasses. A month earlier, Takanohana had collapsed in Akita Prefecture, where he was on a tour, and had been rushed to the hospital in an emergency.
Takanohana was in Akita Prefecture on a tour when he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. His eyes were open, but he was unconscious and was immediately rushed to the hospital. The diagnosis was heat stroke. The hangover also seemed to have affected him. The day before he collapsed, he was drunk on champagne given to him as a birthday present by his apprentice, Takaketsugatsu (now a member of the Tokiwanoyama stable). He should have changed his lifestyle, but he seems to be unable to stop drinking and smoking,” said an official of the Sumo Association.
Walking along the same shopping street at a slower pace than last time. Is his knee not in good condition? It was so fast that one would have thought so. Under the blazing sun, Takanohana walked without wiping off his sweat, and after walking about four kilometers, he stopped at a convenience store to buy his favorite coffee, lit a cigarette, and had a smoke. She had walked six kilometers that day and had consumed only one cup of coffee. It was hard to believe that he was so concerned about his injury and health, given that he had just been rushed to the hospital a month earlier.
Takanohana is appearing in “HITOSHI MATSUMOTO Presents Documental” Season 12 UNLIMITED, which will be available on Prime Video on May 26. At the end of last year, he also appeared in “Downtown no Gaki no Tsukasa ya Aahende! (Nippon Television Network Corporation), where he made the cast laugh with his unusual answers. He is a person who thinks and acts in ways that ordinary people cannot understand, and his health seems to be in pretty good shape right now, so it is likely that he will appear regularly on variety shows in the future. Shirakawa also has a great aptitude for baelati, so I think it is possible that father and son will appear together on Matsumoto’s show,” said a person involved in variety show production.
A new Takanohana family theater may be in the works.









PHOTO.: Yasuko Sakaguchi (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th) Kazuhiko Nakamura (1st, 7th) Ippei Hara (8th) Yuri Adachi (10th)
