July and September saw him demoted to jūryō once again. In September 2018 he won his first jūryō division championship after a playoff win over Daiamami. He returned to the top division in May 2019 but only for one tournament as he recorded four wins against eleven losses, a failure he later attributed to a "lack of appetite for victory" because he was content simply to be in makuuchi again. After recording eight wins in November 2019 he earned his sixth promotion to the top division and started the January 2020 tournament at west maegashira 17, making him the lowest-ranked of the 42 entrants. He defeated Chiyoshōma in his first bout before losing to Kaisei on the second day but then recorded eleven straight wins to enter the penultimate day in a tie for the lead with Shōdai. He was then matched against Shōdai and won by tsukiotoshi to take the sole lead. The final match on the last day of the tournament saw Tokushōryū pitted against the ōzeki Takakeishō needing to win to take the title: if he lost he would have had to face Shōdai again in a play-off. Tokushōryū secured a right hand outside grip on Takakeishō's belt and forced his opponent out of the ring to win by yorikiri. He became the first wrestler from Nara Prefecture to win a top division championship in 98 years and the first to do so from the bottom rank in the division since Takatōriki in March 2000. In addition to the yūshō, Tokushōryū also received his first ever sanshō or special prizes, for Outstanding Performance and Fighting Spirit. When asked if his good results in the early part of the basho had led him to focus on the championship, Tokushōryū said: "I didn’t think about it... OK, That’s a lie. I was actually absorbed by the idea... Since the start, I’d been thinking if I give it all I have, that will be plenty. If I do my best on the opening charge, I can live with the results that follow. I’d done it my way all along, and the final day was the same. Rather than say I’m already 33, I prefer to think of myself as being only 33." Referring to his visible display of emotion upon clinching victory, rarely seen on the dohyō, he said, "I might have cried too much, but at that moment I