Liner Notes

Volume 4: False Prophet

• Ozeki- The second highest rank of sumo-wrestler. The ranking for "professional" wrestler is as follows: yokozuna, azeki, sekiwake, komusubi, hiramaku, juuryou, makushita, sandanme, jonidan, jonokuchi-with "student wrestlers" in the wings practicing to be promoted to a "professional" wrestler. All ranks higher than hiramaku are grouped into "makuuchi," and any one at or above komusubi is also grouped into "sa yaku." In the world of sumo wrestling where your ranking is announced around before the season starts and is based how well you did the previous season, the sanyaku are the cream of the crop--considering that for the current season (September 2000 announced in August) there are 88 jonokuchi, 276 jonidan, 200 sandame, 120 makushita, 26 juuryou, 29 hiramaku, yet only 11 sanyaku; (2 komusubi, 2 sekiwake, 4 ozeki, and 3 yokozuna). To become an ozeki, you must be a sekiwake and have about 35 wins (out of 45 bouts) in three consecutive seasons. Being the pennant winner during one of those seasons helps improve the chances--and be promoted by the sumo wrestling association.
  
  
• Yokozuna- The interesting "mistake" about this line is that while the yokozuna rank had existed in the days Rurouni Kenshin takes place, it wasn't until the 42nd year of the Meiji era (which is 31 years later) that the yokozuna rank was properly acknowledged in the sumo wrestling association's rule books as the highest rank of sumo wrestler (i.e. higher than ozeki). An interesting side note: It wasn't until the 25th year of the Showa era (1950) that there was a committee that promoted a wrestler to the rank; and nowadays, an ozeki must win two consecutive pennants as an ozeki to even be considered promotion by the committee.
  
  
• ~zeki- This honorific is used only for sumo wrestlers; who are caller "sekitori" (as seen by Yahiko's line previous to this line). Since sumo was once considered a holy sport, I have opted to use "sir" as the translated honorific.
  
  
• ~heya- Normally, "heya" is a room, but in this case of sumo wrestling, it refers to the "room" where the wrestlers train under one master, much like a boxing gym or a martial arts dojo/school--and in such a case, I most often see "heya" translated as "stable".
  
  
• Ken-san- Since I have used "sir" for the ~san in "ken-san" for Megumi, I'm keeping it constant by using the same honorific as Tae =)
  
  
• anideshi- I have opted not to translate this because there isn't a good one-word term for this. Literally, it means "elder/senior apprentice," and therefore denotes something like "senpai" (someone of an elder class in school) in whatever concentration of study that has a master-apprentice situation.
  
  
• dosuki- A popular stereotypical uttering made by sumo wrestlers, usually with a meaning similar to "hmph/oomph" or "all right."
  
  
• Hino-ha ittou-ryu- Literally, "hino sect, one sword style." Ittouryuu (one-sword style swordsmanship) had various styles were more often that not separated by sects named after the leader/creator of that particular sect style; in of that particular sect style; in this case, "hino" is the sect name.
  
  
• shiden-no tachi- "shiden" translates into "violet lightning." "tachi" literally means a sword; or a slash from a sword, which I took the liberty to name as "blade".
  
  
• rain- If someone does something completely out of character (such as lazy-ass Sanosuke helping out with the cleaning chores) everyone will say "it will rain tomorrow." This is probably a metaphor of sorts in that because something very unlikely happened (with that person acting out of character), something very unusual will happen to the weather. (It's probably good to think along Murphy's Law-if someone who usually doesn't wash a car washes the car Murphy's Law indicates that it will rain the next day, right? ^_^;;) If something even more unusual (like, say, if Sanosuke *offered* to clean), then people say it will SNOW (or HAIL) tomorrow.