Kinoko Narisuke

Under the paper-lantern gloom of a Nō stage no one remembers building, the chorus shuffles in, fans raised, already suppressing a smile. For tonight’s tale is the venerable tragedy—no, comedy—of Kinoko Narisuke, the only sumotori in history whose legend rests not on strength, lineage, or divine favor… but on a mawashi tightened so disastrously that half of Japan still debates whether he was brave, foolish, or simply badly supervised.

The chant begins—B°… Dm… C… Em… G… F… Am…—each chord a careful step toward that glorious moment when Narisuke enters: tiny mushroom-crest emblazoned on his ceremonial apron, breathing shallowly, already bluish. His mawashi, wound with monk-like zeal, squeaks ominously. The audience titters. The drummer coughs to hide a laugh.

And yet—yet!—the instant he charges, the gods appear to pity him. Rivals fly like bamboo leaves in a typhoon, for what adversary dares grip a man whose face is turning plum-colored by the second? Victory after victory blooms from this constant near-fainting, until Kinoko Narisuke becomes a national treasure: a warrior who proves, once and for all, that sometimes tight underwear makes the man.