Hinomaru challenges their leader and "strongest" student at the school, Yuma Gojo, to a fight to take back the dojo, and beats him with one hit.

In order to avoid having the club shut down, they recruit two more members during the two-day cultural festival; the national wrestling champion Chihiro Kunisaki, and the small, unathletic Kei Mitsuhashi.

The members of Odachi High's sumo club then enter the Kantō newcomer tournament, which is fought one-on-one, where Chihiro, Yuma and Hinomaru are all defeated by the return of the prodigy Sōsuke Kuze.

On the first day of the national Inter High Tournament at Ryōgoku Kokugikan, Hinomaru is eliminated from the individual competition by reigning champion Shido Tennoji and injures his arm.

This lights a fire within the young Japanese wrestlers and they organize a training camp together in Gifu Prefecture in order to defeat him.

After Hinomaru loses on the second and third days of the September tournament, including once to Jin'o, the old Odachi High sumo club reunites to help him strategize and stays to support him.

[12] The story he initially pitched for the manga had two protagonists; one who loves sumo like Hinomaru Ushio, and another that ended up becoming the prototype for Yuma Gojo.

[10] But the editor said, "Sumo is a sport with a long history and tradition, so if you can get over the initial prejudice of readers, it is a treasure trove of attractive material for manga.

He cited conveying why the good-looking character Mizuki Sada competes in sumo as one of these attempts to gain readers' interest.

[10] From the beginning of the series, the artist and editor were aware of the necessity of characters having special moves, but Kawada said he was always conscious of depicting it as fiction while maintaining the realism.

[13] A crossover chapter between the series and Tadatoshi Fujimaki's Kuroko's Basketball, with a script written by Ichirō Takahashi, was published in the magazine on November 9, 2015.

[58] Takashi Shimada, one half of the manga artist duo Yudetamago, revealed that parts of his series Kinnikuman were influenced by Hinomaru Sumo.

[61] In February 2015, Kadokawa Corporation's entertainment magazine Entermix placed Hinomaru Sumo at 15th on their 2014 Kore Yonde Manga Ranking list, which polled 3,000 bookstore employees.

[62] The series was ranked 14th on Honya Club's Zenkoku Shotenin ga Eranda Osusume Comic 2015, which polled 2,360 bookstore employees for their favorite manga with less than five volumes.