I’m done with the move and hoping that my new place’s air conditioning and comfier chair will only help with reading plenty!
週刊プロレス No. 2124
(@fallynleaf)
This issue is from the lead-up to the big CyberFight Festival show so there’s a ton of interviews around that, including one with each of the champions.
The one I paid the most attention to was the one with Miyu Yamashita, where she talked about getting used to holding a championship, fighting Yuka as the challenger, and how it’s not just a fight to win, but a fight to standout and leave an impression on such a big stage.
Also – it’s always strangely interesting to see wrestlers in street clothes, and geez she pulls off this outfit incredibly well and leapt straight to the top of the おしゃれな power ranking:
Meanwhile, something bad sure must have happened to Kiyomiya!!
Warning: Blood
I feel like that’s maybe too much even with the blurring… but 憤怒の狂乱 sounds too cool to leave out…
In Giulia’s column she talks about Maika because of the cover of the magazine last week. She’s speaks very highly of her, of course, and while it’s really cool to hear a wrestler pick apart a fellow wrestler’s style, the biggest thing I’m taking away from this is that Maika used to have blonde hair??
I had a real hard time picturing that with her current look, but sure enough.
Speaking of Maika, the editor’s column talks about the cover selection process, because Ospreay complained that the cover of his match that he won against Takagi showed him taking Takagi’s finisher, and because it sounds like some number of jerks online complained about Maika getting a cover.
They say that while once there was a time where “if you put Keiji Mutoh on the cover, it’ll sell” nowadays there aren’t intensely eye-grabbing stars in the same way, and they just try to do their best to pick important things from the past week and get people’s attention. And they thought Maika on the cusp of breaking fulfilled that.
They also say that the loser of a match still getting a spotlight is one of the special things about pro-wrestling, and looking at it another way, Ospreay could boast about having taken such a powerful move and the shot shows his ability as well (and it just made more sense variety-wise to lay it out the way they did).
But it diplomatically concludes just by saying it’s understandable for wrestlers to get wrapped up in it and they’re glad people are talking about the covers.
There’s a costume spotlight column that I often don’t find all that interesting because it’s either wrestlers I don’t know or pretty straightforward costumes, but this time it hit the jackpot because it explains Unagi Sayaka’s costume, which has a LOT going on…
Sounds like she wants to stand out even if people don’t know her name yet, and hates humdrum things. So she threw everything at the wall inspired by the Sengoku figure Maeda Keiji (specifically because of the manga 花の慶次, which you know I’ve now added to my bookwalker checklist), who was apparently famously a 傾奇者 (かぶきもの, confusingly), which is the word written on her cape, and means I guess a particularly out-there person of that period.
So I guess I’d call the theme in English “flashy, sexy, weirdo Sengoku general”??
烏天狗 is another cool word to learn from this ridiculous outfit. I genuinely didn’t even notice she had one of those on her cape until now…
She says she added the bell because it felt like it might be useful.
… Oh yeah also there’s an interview about that Jun Kasai documentary, with him and one of the filmmakers. Sounds like it’s a pretty grounded look at what he’s like in and out of the ring day-to-day.
One detail I remember is he said initially he had trepidations about it since he didn’t want it to show voyeuristic home squabbles and stuff and I’m pretty sure the show he named as an example was Big Daddy, the show that Utami Hayashishita was on as a kid (about her dad and huge family).
. And blonde Maika is just incredible, omg.
Even if it starts pretty slow, I’d still say the series as a whole is one of my favourite things I’ve read so far(a big part of that is that it does a lot of things I want it to that not many other books do though, so my reasons for really liking it are obviously not necessarily something that would apply to everyone).
. Reminds me when I once spelled 粘性 instead of 年生 thanks to the ingenious inner workings of my IME. Could’ve been similar in this case I guess?
