Got a bit distracted by, uh, other news last night, but I miraculously managed to get both VOD show translations (almost) done! I haven’t really looked much at the match recap portions, though, since I prioritized the actual comments from the wrestlers. If I find anything notable or confusing in the rest of the recaps, I’ll make another post about it later, haha.
First off, the June 25 show! Here’s the recap.
One of the fun things on this show was the team of three Yukis: Yuki Arai, Yuki Aino, and Yuki Kamifuku (Kamiyu). Little touches like that are part of why I love TJPW, because even on the road to one of their big shows, they’ll throw together a team purely just for the fun of the concept.
Yuki (Aino) gets the win here, but Yuki (Arai) gets a taste of what she’s going to be up against with Yuka.
Here are the post match comments for the Yukis. A fun touch that I loved is that whoever captioned this listed their names as 優希, ユキ, and ゆき instead of using their surnames, which is what it typically uses.
Yuki (Arai) comments that Yuka was there, and she was so powerful, and Yuki (Aino) says that she thinks it’s great that Arai fought her and didn’t lose. Yuki (Arai) says that in the two weeks that remain, she’s going to do her best to compete with Yuka in power as well as other areas. Then Yuki (Kamifuku) condescendingly says, “えらい！ 花丸”. Basically, “Great! You get a gold star!” (花丸 was a fun new word to learn).
Saki wasn’t present for the preview matches. Arai said something that confused me a little bit: “不安ですけど、赤井さんが見た時に、組んでいけるって思ってもらえるように頑張ります.” My best attempt was: “I’m anxious, but I’m going to do my best so that when Akai-san sees me, she’ll think that we can work together.” I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with 組む here.
Before I looked at these comments, I thought there was probably not going to be anything especially interesting, since it’s just a small house show. Well, Rika proved me very wrong!
Here are her comments. I’m just going to post the whole caption and then my translation. I got a tiny bit of help already on one line.
リカ「もっと中島翔子には辰巳リカで頭のなかいっぱいにさせたくて。もっと夢中にさせたいって思ってます。７・９はメロメロ…ではないな。虜にさせたいと思ってます。その上で、狂い咲き。タッグのベルトも取りにいきたいと思っているので、見といてください」
Rika: “I want to completely fill up Shoko Nakajima’s head with Rika Tatsumi. I want her to be more obsessed with me. She’s… not exactly head over heels about July 9, huh? I want to make her a prisoner of love. And then, I will bloom crazily. I think we’re going to win the tag belts as well, so please keep your eye on me.”
My personal read on it is that she’s projecting a bit here. She’s hoping that Shoko falls for her the same way that she has fallen for Mizuki, because she knows just how debilitating that kind of love can be. Rika frequently loses the ability to think clearly in matches with Mizuki, especially when they’re tagging.
Naturally, the part actually quoted in the recap was not the fun part, haha. They managed to break up her comment in such a way that it really confused me, though. Lots of grammar I’m still not that familiar with.
Here was the paragraph that really confused me:
「前哨戦はすべて勝つで全勝戦」としてやったりの辰巳。足攻めも「いけちゃうんじゃないかと思った」と手応えを掴んだ様子。「中島翔子を虜にさせた上で狂い咲く」と辰巳ワールドで完全凌駕しての頂点取りを狙う。一方の中島は「しっかり辰巳リカに向き合って防衛したい」とコメントした。
And then my very unsure translation:
Tatsumi managed to “achieve a complete victory by winning every single preview match.” She also achieved a good effect with her leg attacks, saying, “I thought I could do it.” She is aiming to reach the summit by perfectly surpassing Shoko Nakajima in Tatsumi’s world, saying “I will make Shoko Nakajima a prisoner of love, and then bloom crazily”.
Shoko’s comments were a pretty hilarious contrast. She said: " 次のタイトルマッチにちゃんと向き合えてたかを今日は思い知らされたというか。私は辰巳リカにしっかり向き合えてたのかどうか、すごく反省しました。気持ちを切り替えて、しっかり辰巳リカに向き合って大田区での防衛に向けて全力でいきたいと思います."
I think this is what she said?
“Today made me ask if I was facing my next title match properly. Or I should say, I reflected a lot on whether or not I was facing Rika Tatsumi the right way. I’m going to renew my preparation, face Rika Tatsumi properly, and use all of my power to defend the belt at Ota Ward.”
And that’s it for that show!
The other show was the next day, on the 26th. Here’s the recap for that one.
The highlight in this show was Maki Itoh and Miyu Yamashita teaming up again for the first time in a while. Here’s how the recap summed up their comments. It made me do a bit of a double take:
試合後、伊藤は「地元でタッグタイトルやったら勝てるんじゃない？」と色気を見せ、山下は久々のタッグ結成に「私は離れていても好きだから」とキッパリ伝えるも、伊藤からは「いいです、そういうの。やめてください」と一蹴されていた。
After their match, Itoh said that if they fight for the tag titles in their hometown, they could win, couldn’t they?
Then, uh, と色気を見せ. I definitely misread this part as “showing her sexual(/romantic?) interest”, though I don’t think this is the intent 
. I’m blaming the fact that I added 色気 to my Anki deck initially in a Pheromones context.
Then Miyu tells her, “I love you even when we’re apart.” But Itoh brushed her off. I translated her response as: “Okay, that kind of thing. Please don’t do that.”
(This is not the first time that Miyu has told Itoh she loves her, and it is also not the first time that Itoh has responded like this.)
I watched their comments, but didn’t gleam much more out of it, unfortunately. This is one of those times where I really wish my listening comprehension was better . But, well, I’ll take what I can get.
I was a little confused by their first few lines quoted in the tweet. Miyu said: “普段はタッグとしての意識があんまりないね？” I translated this very uncertainly as: “You’re normally not very conscious of being a tag team, are you?”
Itoh responded: “何かを一緒にやろうとするのが常じゃないから。やろうとすればできる、みたいな.” My (also uncertain) translation was: “Because trying to do something together is not the usual state of things. If we try, we can do it, right?”
The other match covered in the recap was the last preview match for the tag title match.
Arai said: “今日初めてマジラビさんの連係を受けてしまったんですけど、いろんな連係があるのは強いなと改めて思いました.” I think this means, roughly: “Today was the first time I was subjected to MagiRabbi-san’s tag team moves, and I was once again reminded that it’s powerful to have so many tag team maneuvers.” (Here’s the comment video on twitter for posterity.)
Arai also announced that she and Saki have new tag team moves. She said that they have tag team moves that MagiRabbi still don’t know about, moves that only Saki and her can do. She also vowed, “私たちの未知数で無限大な可能性を大田区でしっかり出して勝ちます.” This is another one where I think the main struggle I had was trying to word it in English. This is what I went with: “With all of our hidden secrets, we’re going to show our infinite possibility at Ota Ward.”
Yuka commented that Arai has guts and a competitive spirit, so she wonders how she’ll be with Saki. Then she said: “自信も持ってくるとうざい部分がある.” This is where I got lost . DeepL said: “There’s a part of me that’s annoyed at the confidence she’s bringing.” This made sense in context and sounded like something she’d say, but I couldn’t figure out where it was getting “annoyed” from. I couldn’t figure out とうざい.
Mizuki said she’s never had a match with both Saki and Arai, so she wonders how it’ll go. According to the caption on twitter, she also said that they have to go to space, so they’re going to defend these belts.
And that’s it! I’ve translated nearly 9,000 characters in the past week, and I am very tired . Excited for the show tomorrow/today, though!
Thank you again for all of your help, rodan! You’ve done so much to help me improve my Japanese and also get more out of TJPW, and you’ve helped a handful of other people also understand these storylines.
I’ll get a tiny break after this next show, so I won’t be posting nearly as many things in a row, then the Tokyo Princess Cup is going to start . I doubt I’ll be able to get those translations done in time at all, but we’ll see.