[1] Kotomitsuki is a graduate from Tottori Jōhoku High School[2] and had an extremely successful college sumo career, winning a record 27 amateur national titles while at Nihon University.

Initially fighting under the shikona of Kototamiya, adapted from his own surname, he adopted the name of Kotomitsuki upon reaching the jūryō division in November 1999.

Due to his stablemaster not submitting the paperwork in time, he failed to get public injury status and fell back to the maegashira ranks.

Although he could only manage four wins at his first attempt at sekiwake, he was ranked there for 22 tournaments in total, including eleven in a row from November 2005 to July 2007.

He lost to Kisenosato on the final day, missing the chance of a playoff for the championship with Asashōryū and the first yūshō for a Japanese born wrestler since January 2006.

Having missed qualifying in 2002 due to a combination of injuries and bad timing, Kotomitsuki was seen by detractors as having insufficient will and being slightly advanced in age to attain ōzeki status.

At the age of 31 years 3 months, Kotomitsuki proved the naysayers wrong, becoming the oldest wrestler to attain the rank in the modern era.

[9] Kotomitsuki scored a respectable ten wins on his ōzeki debut in September 2007, but at the end of 2007 he underwent surgery to remove gallstones.

Entering the January 2009 tournament with a gout problem in his right ankle, Kotomitsuki took his first make-koshi or losing record as an ōzeki, breaking a run of twenty consecutive kachi-koshi scores.

In July 2009 he defeated Hakuhō and finished in third place with a fine 12–3 score – the last time he was to win more than ten bouts in a tournament.

After a mediocre 8–7 in November, he pulled out on the 8th day of the January 2010 tournament with only one win, citing injuries to his left knee and foot.

[14] The head of the Sumo Association Musashigawa Oyakata said that Kotomitsuki had received threats to himself and his family, "and that's why he couldn't (initially) admit he'd been gambling.

Furuichi, who was allegedly accompanied by a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, then demanded more money from Kotomitsuki the following month, saying that the gang had wanted 100 million yen.

[27] With his final appeal dismissed, in February 2015 the former Kotomitsuki symbolically accepted his life in sumo was over by having an unofficial danpatsu-shiki, or hair-cutting ceremony, at the Hotel Metropolitan Tokyo.

[30] He was fond of dashinage (pulling throws, both overarm and underarm), and was also one of the few rikishi to employ uchi-muso, a technique which involves tapping the opponent's inner thigh with the back of the hand to off-balance him, before twisting him down.

Kotomitsuki's eldest son, Aiki Tamiya, is seeking to follow in his father's footsteps and enter the world of sumo.