The banzuke is the official ranking sheet of Grand Sumo, a single dense broadsheet brushed by the gyōji before every tournament since the Edo period. It is read top-to-bottom and right-to-left: East ranks the right column, West the left, the yokozuna's name the largest at the top. Every stroke is hand-painted in the negishi-ryū style — thick, tightly packed, and deliberately crowded, because empty paper would wish for empty seats. The voice here is woodblock ink on fibrous tan washi: weighty, ceremonial, and unapologetically vertical.