 Two retired stars of the amateur and professional sumo game with a future yokozuna? As Editor-in-Chief of SFM, while it gives me great pleasure to welcome you, the reader, I wish to first start by thanking all the contributors and staff writers who made this online magazine possible. I have no idea how many hours of lost sleep were needed to produce all that you see before you today but want them to know just how appreciated it is and hope they are as proud as I with the site we have put together – together. To the reader, I am sure you can imagine just how happy we are to be bringing SFM onto your computer screen wherever you may be but, as is the case with magazines the world over; nothing would be possible without an audience to read that which we put out. To that end, I hope your own role will not end merely with the click of a mouse, having read the pieces that whetted your appetite. As much as it is our job to try to make SFM the kind of place you will visit often to learn about sumo or to view the sport from the angles we take on issues pertaining to a given basho, rikishi, yusho race, and more, I also hope it will serve as an avenue for your own contributions to the broader sumo-following world. Let me therefore, of behalf of SFM ask you to interact as much as you see fit with the magazine so that at least some of what you see and read represents your own direct input. In the coming months and issues we will brainstorm projects based on ideas sent in by yourselves and will throw these ideas against the wall of creativity to see if they stick or slide. In the long run, only you will be our judges. Finally, I think no English language magazine focusing on the sport of sumo would today be in existence were it not for the three decades of interest in the sport generated by Sumo World. With the apparent sad demise of SW (although it is still occasionally sold in the Kokugikan) in recent years and the subscription problems some of you may have experienced I believe it is left to Sumo Fan Magazine, in no way, shape or form connected to SW, its staff or contributors, to fill shoes left vacant, to pick up the banner, and carry English language sumo magazines into the 21st century. A difficult task indeed but one that will be made all the easier with your patronage and support. Mark Buckton Editor-in-Chief Sumo Fan Magazine |