It took a week, but I finished translating TJPW’s Korakuen show on April 9 (here’s the recap)! I wasn’t able to finish translating the TJPW Inspiration show that happened shortly after, but at least that one is much shorter 
.
The Korakuen Hall show was fun as usual! The main event ended up stressing me out a little, but I was delighted to see Misao come out to challenge Shoko afterward. Misao and Shoko have been tagging pretty regularly for the past few years as 享楽共鳴, but Misao said that she thinks the reason why they haven’t been able to win when it counts is because of her own weakness. She thinks in order to become stronger, and to make their team stronger, she has to beat Shoko for the title. Because she is who she is, Misao then attacked Shoko with a stunner, haha (which Takagi complimented her for on twitter). If this was anyone else, this might look like a wrestler turning on her tag partner, but this is just how Misao is as a person. I liked how Shoko described her as a 極悪ヒーロー afterward, a “heinous hero”.
Something interesting was that Misao used one of her old finishers, the Vanitas, to beat Miu Watanabe earlier in the show (leading up to her challenge after the main event). This was her finisher when she was teaming up with Sakisama during her heel turn in 2019.
I want to double check to make sure I translated her comment about that correctly, because it’s pretty important. Misao said: “そのときはホントにベルトとか欲しくてたまらなくて。とっさに今日はアレが出て。まだギラギラした気持ちを持ってたんだなってことに気付いた”. I translated this as: “At that time, I felt an unbearable longing for things like titles. Today, in the moment, that surfaced. I realized I still had that intense desire.” Is this correct?
This is drawing on a lot of history that I’m not sure I’ll be able to fully explain, but basically Misao seems to be repeating some of her old patterns. Back in 2019, she really wanted to be a tag team with Rika Tatsumi (whom Misao has an unrequited crush on), but Rika didn’t reciprocate, and so they had a match where if Misao could beat her, then Rika would tag with her. Misao lost (and has still yet to beat Rika).
After losing that day, Misao just couldn’t take it anymore. She ended up joining Sakisama later in the show (who, coincidentally, had also just had a singles match with Miu), turning heel and cutting up her hero mask. The two of them won the tag titles shortly after that (they would ultimately lose them to Rika and Miu at the end of the year). During their reign as tag champs, Misao challenged for the Princess of Princess title. Shoko was the champ at the time. Misao lost.
Misao turned face again the month after she and Sakisama lost the tag belts, and then she refocused by first facing Shoko in a fun gimmick match during the 1.4 Korakuen show (the two of them having a wild match on that day would become a tradition). They started regularly tagging together shortly after that, but despite challenging on multiple occasions, have yet to win the tag belts.
So, basically, Misao seems to be falling back into her old patterns here. There’s that insecurity she feels and a need to beat her tag partner for the sake of their team, and then drawing on her NEO Biishiki-gun self, and all of the parallels to the situation with Sakisama in 2019.
I don’t think it’s likely that Misao will go back to being evil, haha, considering the fact that they’ve tried to show that she’s grown in the past few years, but it should be interesting to see her revisit these old themes and aspects of herself. It’s a really compelling story for sure.
Concerning the title match that just happened, I was a little lost with Yuki Aino’s line here, “中島さんのぶれない、自分のより理想に近づくための芯みたいなものを感じて”. The best I could figure out for a translation was “I felt something like the core of Nakajima-san’s unwavering commitment to get closer to her own ideals”, but I was not very confident about it.
My favorite match on the show was probably the tag title match. It was fun to see Yuka and Mizuki actually get serious and really show Arisu and Suzume just how much they have left to learn. After the match, Mizuki said: “2人も高め合って、お互いがお互いを越すじゃないですけど、超える気持ちでタッグとしての視野も広げていったら、個としての強さも身につくと思う。個としての強さが身についたら、タッグとしての強さも身につくと思うんで.”
The grammar here was a little confusing to me, but I think she was basically saying that if the two of them can lift each other up and seek to surpass each other, then that desire to surpass each other will broaden their vision as a tag team, and they will also become stronger as individuals. She believes that if they gain strength as individuals, they will also gain strength as a tag team.
Free WiFi (Hikari Noa and Nao Kakuta) came out to challenge them next, and Yuka and Mizuki pretended like they couldn’t hear them because the wifi signal wasn’t getting through, haha. I really liked how the recap described MagiRabbi’s response as “煙に巻いた”. That’s a fun word.
Hikari mentioned that she has always wanted to win the belts from MagiRabbi specifically because they were champs when she challenged with Miu, as well as when she challenged with Natsumi Maki (Natsupoi in Stardom). Nao said that there were rumors that she was going to leave Hikari (all of Hikari’s previous partners have left her), but she’s still here.
I thought Suzume’s comment after the match was cute. She said that in the language of flowers, daisies mean “I feel the same as you”, and she and Arisu share not only positive feelings, but also frustration and a desire to get revenge together. (Their team name is “Daisy Monkey”).
Yuki Arai and DDT’s Saki Akai (a rare appearance from Saki Akai in TJPW) teamed up for the first time, and I thought it was funny that they had gotten together a couple days before specifically to practice their entrance. I laughed when Arai did Saki’s usual pose, haha!
After the match, Saki said that depending on the timing, she wants to team up with her again and fight with her, and she’s looking forward to seeing their fates intertwine again.
The last match covered by the recap was Miyu Yamashita vs Juria Nagano, which was Juria’s second wrestling match, ever. It was a fun karate showcase reflecting both of their backgrounds. Juria, predictably, got absolutely wrecked, haha.
Afterward, she said “すごく重い、握手したときに“またやろう”って言ってくださって愛も感じましたキックだった。いろんな意味で重かった”. This was a little hard for me to parse. My best attempt at a translation was: “It was very weighty; when we shook hands, she said ‘let’s do it again,’ and I felt love in that kick. It was important for multiple reasons.”
Miyu said: “私は言わないですけど、何かおもしろいルールでやるのもいいかもしれない”. Basically she suggested that the next time they have a match, maybe they could do it under some interesting rules. The implication, I think, is that she was suggesting the two of them have a special singles match at an Inspiration show with karate rules? That would be awesome to see, even though I know nothing about karate.
Inspiration shows are really fun because TJPW gets really experimental with them and does matches that are very different from their usual house style. I’ll talk about the one they just did after I get around to translating it, haha.