I had a busy weekend, so this was delayed a little bit, but I did finally finish translating the recap/comments from TJPW’s Grand Princess show on March 19! All of it combined ended up being almost as long as both press conferences, at 7600+ characters 
.
The main recap is here, though unfortunately (maybe fortunately for my time?) it left out a lot of matches, including the one that made me cry the most. I worked with what I could, though!
Shoko Nakajima beat Miyu Yamashita for the Princess of Princess title in a really great main event. I liked what Shoko said backstage about how despite the fact that they debuted at the same time, Miyu always stands above everyone else, at the very center, and wins again and again no matter what. When Shoko realized just how far away she was, she wanted to catch up.
Shoko also said that she wants to represent TJPW at CyberFight Fest this year. I really hope she gets to be in the title match there! It occurred to me that her career is actually almost as long as Tetsuya Endo’s (this is his 10th year, I believe), so it’s cool to see both of them at the top of their respective companies at the same time. Last year, at CyberFest, they picked the order of the three main events based on combined length of the wrestlers’ careers (hence why it went TJPW, DDT, then NOAH, considering the fact that Jun Akiyama and Keiji Mutoh were champs at the time, and they’ve been wrestling for longer than many people in TJPW have been alive ), so depending on who Endo and Shoko’s opponents end up being (assuming they still have the titles), TJPW could maybe get the semi-main event spot instead…
During the tag title match, one of my friends asked me about the name of Yuka’s finisher, since the English commentary team translated it several different ways, which were different than how Mr. Haku had translated it. When I read the recap, I was able to answer her question! Yuka’s strongest finisher is the 魔法少女にわとり野郎. Mr. Haku translated it as the “Magical Girl Chicken Dude,” but I’ve also heard it translated as “Magical Girl Chicken Bastard” and now “Magical Girl Chicken Son of a Bitch”. I had a suspicion that the tricky word was 野郎, haha, and sure enough, yep, that’s the word she uses.
I did have one question from Yuka’s post-match comments. She said, “全然余裕の勝利じゃなかったけど、あんなに一進一退の、本当に紙一重で勝てた。今はもう最高です” I think I understood the first part well enough: “It wasn’t an easy win at all, it really could have gone either way, and we won by a thin margin.” But her next sentence was a little tricky for me. Is she saying essentially “We’re the best now.”?
I really liked the way the recap described the beginning of the International Princess title match between Maki Itoh and Yuki Arai: “伊藤の場外での洗礼を受けた荒井だ”. I love how it described Arai as receiving Itoh’s “baptism” outside of the ring. She’d never had a match go outside the ring like that before, so Itoh initiated her into the real pain and suffering of this world.
The match itself was interesting because it was sort of Itoh’s first time in this spot, where she is the dominant champion and not the underdog trying to claw her way to a victory. It really fits with the way she and Yuki Arai are sort of each other’s shadows in a sense.
I also loved how Itoh described Arai afterward: “パワー、スタミナ、根性もある。一つだけ足りないものがある。素材としてはいいけど、料理人としてはまだまだ。” My translation was: “She has power, stamina, and guts. There’s just one thing she lacks. The ingredients are good, but as a cook, she still has a long way to go.” I think it’s a really great way to describe someone who’s a bit of a prodigy but also a rookie.
Juria Nagano’s debut match was fun! I didn’t realize that she was a nurse on top of a former karate world champion and an actress and all of the many other things she’s done! In her post-match comments, she mentioned that she lost her last karate match before she retired (at 18), so she was frustrated to lose her debut, and wants to keep wrestling because she doesn’t want to end on a loss there as well.
Hikari Noa vs AEW’s Hikaru Shida was fun! I’m glad to see Shida wrestling in Japan again. After the match, they both said they wanted to have a hardcore match next time (Shida originally won the AEW title in a hardcore match with Nyla Rose). Hikari said that the gap between them was even further than she’d imagined.
Those were the only matches covered in the recap.
Working from the comments videos shared on twitter, I really liked this one from Nao Kakuta. I liked the way that she described that her team was four people who weren’t good at asserting themselves. She confessed that she didn’t actually want to get involved with GanPro, but then she was disappointed when the match ended, and found herself wishing for a next time.
Yuna Manase was not impressed, haha. She said that she’s not convinced, and she knows that TJPW can be hotter. She said they’re holding out on her, and told them: “出せよコラ！！今出さないでいつ出すんだ！” If TJPW doesn’t bring it out now, when will they bring it out?
Kamiyu and Asuka thankfully appear to still be on good terms after their match, and Asuka said she wants to keep teaming with her. Kamiyu said that even if she loses in wrestling, she will never lose in drinking.
After Nodoka Tenma’s first and last match with her sister Yuki Aino, she said, “妹は子供の頃から病弱って言われて控えめな子だったけど、負けん気はあるんだなって。” If I’m understanding correctly, she basically said: “Ever since she was a child, it was said that my sister had a weak constitution and was a reserved child, but she has proven to have such a competitive spirit.” From having watched Yuki’s matches, I never would have guessed that about her as a child! She fights with so much heart, and incorporates a lot of power wrestling into her style. I’m going to miss her team with Nodoka so much, though I’m looking forward to seeing what she does as a singles wrestler.
From the post-match comments of everyone involved in the NEO美威獅鬼軍 match, it seems to me like they’re hinting pretty heavily that Marika might join the faction if she ever ends up deciding to come back to wrestling (unlike Nodoka, Marika seemed to leave the possibility open). Sakisama hinted that there might even be a NEO美威獅鬼軍 member lurking among you. And Marika said that maybe Sakisama giving her the rose at the end was her way of showing respect. She said that normally, she’d tear it up, but today, she took it home with her… She also said, “実は愛がある人なんじゃないかなって”, which is a sentence I think I understand in Japanese, but really struggled to translate, haha.
This match also resulted in some fun interactions on twitter between Ram Kaichow and Raku. Raku entered with a new headpiece that looks like a wedding veil, and she and Ram made their entrance together like they were getting married. Afterward, they started talking about being married on twitter, haha, and also hinting that they wanted to challenge for the tag belts together (Ram is not a regular member of TJPW, but has been showing up recently for their big shows). If you looked closely, you might have noticed what’s at the top of Raku’s headdress. It’s Doctor Yellow, the train she named her finisher after, which is a tester train that is rarely seen in Japan, but is said to bring good luck to whoever sees it.
Out of everything on the show, I think the match that left the strongest impression on me was Hyper Misao vs Sanshiro Takagi, the buildup to which I have already talked about. Sadly the best part of the match, which was what was said in-ring afterward, was not transcribed anywhere that I can find . I had to go off of the translations from the English commentary during the show.
They certainly lived up to their promises for bringing the most nonsense into the match, haha. Takagi showed up with his full body painted to match Misao’s gear, and he brought his trademark plastic crates to the match, as well as his Dramatic Dream Mobile (Misao faced off against him on her Hyper Misao Mobile). He also brought the chair tower stacking knowledge to TJPW’s rookies (the DDT rookies built one exactly like it for his match the next day against Michael Nakazawa in DDT).
The match was a falls count anywhere match, of course. All of the most significant matches in Misao’s career end up being falls count anywhere matches because watching Jun Kasai vs Sanshiro Takagi in a falls count anywhere match was the match that quite literally saved her life.
One of the things I love the most about wrestling is how it can be utterly over the top ridiculous and also so incredibly serious and real at the same time, and boy did this match accomplish that. In the end, Misao managed to beat Takagi! She cut a very teary promo afterward. She told him that he should stay immature, stay “Peter Pan”, and as long as he is still Peter Pan, she will come for him. She asked him to please stay as ridiculous as he is, because he gives people like her hope.
Takagi tells her that just as Jun Kasai and Takagi inspired her, she is the hero now, and she has to be the one to show the dream from now on. She has to be the one who puts smiles on people’s faces.
All in all, the show was so good, and I’m so glad that I know at least some Japanese now so that I could follow the lead-up to it, as well as where they’re going from here.
I still have another recap from last week’s show (Nodoka’s retirement show) to translate . I was very grateful that Mr. Haku took pity on us and did another live translation thread just for that match. He actually has a few potential wrestling translation projects in the works, and I will share more information about those as it comes!