‘Record of Ragnarok’: Is Raiden Tameemon Based on a Real Person?

Record of Ragnarok is a seinen manga written by Shinya Umemura and Takumi Fukui and drawn by Ajichika. An anime series adaptation produced by Graphinica studio was produced by Netflix in 2021, with a second season scheduled to air in 2023. Now, Record of Ragnarok might not have brought too many novelties in its genre, but it is a show whose topic and characters attracted the attention of fans around the world, and because of that, we are going to talk about one of the characters from the series. The character in question is Raiden Tameemon, Humanity’s representative in the fifth round of Ragnarok, where he faced Shiva and lost. This article will tell you a bit about Raiden Tameemon and whether he was based on a real person or not.

Raiden Tameemon is a Japanese sumo wrestler and humanity’s representative in the fifth battle of Ragnarok. His real name is Seki Tarōkichi. Known as the peerless rishis, he is considered the greatest sumo wrestler in history despite never having risen to the rank of yokozuna. He possessed abnormally developed muscles from birth, so he was forced to develop an internal shell of muscles during his childhood to avoid being crushed to death. He was born during the Edo period in a village where he liked to help the weak with his enormous strength, but when the Great Tenmei Famine arrived, he left to become a professional wrestler and be able to feed the people by himself. He was based on an actual historical sumo wrestler of the same name.

The rest of this article will focus on Raiden Tameemon, one of the fighters on the side of Humanity in Ragnarok. We are going to tell you who he is and what happened to him, but also whether he was based on an actual person or if he is an original character in the series. Raiden Tameemon had a big role in the series, so we dedicated this article to him. Be careful, though, as there will be many spoilers in the article.

Raiden Tameemon was actually based on – Raiden Tameemon!

As fans of the series will know, the characters of Record of Ragnarok are quite intriguing and very diverse. Most of them are actually based on actual historical or mythological figures (despite the original takes), but a small number of original characters are still present in the series.

Raiden Tameemon is, as we have said, not an original character, which makes our job easier here. Raiden Tameemon was actually based on an actual sumo wrestler Raiden Tameemon, who was born in 1767 and died in 1825. In this article, we are going to tell you who the actual Raiden Tameemon was and how he, thus, compares to the fictional version we’ve seen in the anime.

Raiden Tameemon, born Seki Tarōkichi, was born in January 1767 in Oishi, Nagano Prefecture, and died on February 11, 1825. He is still considered one of the most outstanding sumō wrestlers in history, although he was never awarded the Grandmaster title of yokozuna.

Raiden was born as Seki Tarōkichi in a small village in the Shinano Province, where his parents worked as farmers. He is claimed to have demonstrated considerable physical power as a toddler by lugging heavy water jugs or cutting wood. The 14-year-old was given permission to practice with the mayor of the nearby town of Nagaze (now Marukocho) by his father, Hanemon, who loved both sake and sumo wrestling.

The young farmer, who was 1.97 meters tall and over half a meter taller than practically everyone around him, drew the stable master of the Urakaze-beya’s attention when he was just 17 years old. Raiden also possessed giant hands and arms; a handprint from him is on display at the Shofukuji Temple in the vicinity of Okayama, and it is 24 cm long from top to bottom.

Raiden acquired a competitive weight of 167 kg while competing as a wrestler. While he was practicing with Urakaze Kazuuki, who took him to Edo, it became more than obvious that the young fighter was not just physically gifted, as his stature suggested, but he also had enormous talent.

This talent was demonstrated in his mastery of technique, especially when the oshi-sumo, or pushing the opponent out of the field, was concerned and could execute these techniques with great speed. Soon after arriving in Isenoumi-beya, Tanikaze served as Raiden’s mentor. The moniker Raiden (“Thunder,” a sponsor-assigned combat name) first appeared on a ranking list in 1789, but its official debut wasn’t until the 1790 Fall Tournament.

He competed in this basho as a sekiwake, a common practice for all beginners at that time, and he won it without suffering a loss. After Tanikaze’s death in March 1795, Raiden received a promotion to (western) Ozeki and remained in this position for approximately 17 years. From November 1793 to April 1800, Raiden was victorious in every competition in which he took part; neither Tanikaze nor Onogawa, two other formidable fighters, were able to challenge him for a single title.

He also managed to outperform his opponents for the most part in the years that followed.

Due to his overwhelming superiority, the fight’s administrators prevented him from using thrusting methods. In 1811, at the spring tournament, the 43-year-old Raiden decided to cease competing and give up sumo wrestling. He was elected chairman of the Unshu Province Sumo Association after his resignation.

Ultimately, he settled in Edo in 1816, where he probably died. At this time, he also completed the writing for his 1789-started diary, Shokoku Sumo Hikae-cho (“Record of Sumo in Various Regions”). He was laid to rest in Asakusa, and a lock of his hair can be found in each of his other graves and those in Matsue in Shimane Prefecture and his hometown.