The 🤼 プロレス thread! Learning Japanese through pro wrestling

Yeah pretty much! Kakuta (hey wait a second! 角田奈穂, 乃蒼ヒカリ… shouldn’t the names given in the transcript be either Nao/Hikari or Kakuta/Noa to be consistent? Maybe that’s on shupro… or maybe an age / up up girls thing??) makes hand gestures that clarify what she’s talking about:

気付いたらWiFi
image

の下のここが
image

私とヒカリちゃんの顔になってる
image

She’s joking that the dot in the wifi symbol (huh you’d think there’d be an emoji for that) will become their faces, that’s how much they will come to represent free Wifi.
image

The other thing I would mention is that “before you know it” would be a better translation than “When people realize it” for 気付いたら here. She’s emphasizing like, when you notice it it will already have happened:
(it becomes X) → you notice it → it is X
where in English that would be more naturally emphasized with “before you know it” or something similar.

Here I would say Hikari isn’t talking about her pose specifically but – this is their tag team cheer:
Kakuta says: 電波良好!!
And then they both put their arms in the air and go BIBIBIBIBI! as if they’re transmitting data/wifi for the audience to pick up.
image

So Hikari’s talking about how this was called ださい last year.

The
Hikari: “Like this.”
part sounds to me in the video like something like
本当?そしてこう、頑張りましょう
which I’d say is like – she’s accepting ok, let’s keep at it like this (doing this pose).
(I could also believe そしていこう、 as in like, lastly let’s leave, since that’s what they do, but that fits less with what I assume was in the transcript)

I like the implication that Misao sees legendary heroes as colleagues :sweat_smile:

She’s saying like – they lost (already) at the level of face and silhouette - i.e. Max and Heidi have far more imposing faces and silhouettes, so in a face and silhouette based match-up, Sakazaki and Endo would have lost from the get-go.

I’d also say I don’t really have a better alternative off hand, but I don’t love “that was scary” for やばかった. I’d say it’s more like “that was intense” or “that was off the chain” or “dang those two are something else” or “that was a close one” – things like that. I’d say it’s conveying less fear and more like, “damn, wow!” type of feelings.

First of all, the なすりつけた is definitely something that Sakazaki did to Endo. The けど isn’t leading into the next sentence (the period and でも would be tipoffs there’s a break there), it’s referring back in the spoken language way of like, adding a thought. Like “it was fun. だいぶなすりつけた though.”
And the video makes it unmistakable that it’s something Sakazaki did to Endo (or at least that she should take the blame for):

だいぶなすりつけたけど
image

すまんな
image

Weblio has for なすりつける:

1 なすってつける。「傷口に薬を―・ける」
2 過失などを他人に押し付ける。転嫁する。「自分の罪を人に―・ける」

And I would say likely here it’s 2, and she’s saying that she passed off the brunt of the match (and the associated punishment) to Endo, not really going out of her way to help (other than regular tag team reaching for the hot tag), and letting Endo take nearly all of the War Party’s offence.

I think this is fine – the subject is still the hypothetical TJPW wrestler (which is a pain for deciding how to deal with it in English), and she’s summarizing her response to the question as a wrap-up.
I would maybe tweak it to be like, “if we refine a strategy, I think we can pull it off” (with “we” meaning like, TJPW wrestlers collectively).

P.S.: it is all in the video although the fade to black starts midsentence :smile:

I think the translation is fine, I would smooth this part over in English a bit though: “thank you for coming again this year even when it’s that time of year…”

yep!

This isn’t gonna really be the kind of thing I can personally help with very well, since the practical extent of my usage knowledge is like “well, I’m pretty sure I saw a character call an older man he wasn’t related to お父さん on Ultraman the other day…” :sweat_smile:

Looking around for resources, funnily enough the best one I found was the wikipedia page for お母さん

「お母さん」は次の場合に用いられる:
1 子が、母親に呼びかける際に使用する場合
例:「お母さーん!」
2 母親が、子に対して自分のことを指して言う場合
例:「はい、お母さんはここにいますよ。」
3 夫が、子の父親として、あたかも子の立場にいるかのように妻に対して呼びかける場合
例:「お母さん、茶をくれ。」
4 父親が、子の母親を指して子に語りかける場合
例:「お母さんに聞いてごらん。」
5 第三者が、子の母親を指して子に語りかける場合
例:「お母さんはどこに行ったの?」
6 年配女性に対して親しみを込めて呼ぶ場合
例:「お母さんはいくつですか?」
なお、かあさんは1.~3.で用いられる。同義のお袋は1.と5.(青年間)だけで用いる。他にかあちゃん、ちゃーちゃんなどとも。

It seems to me that Shoko’s “お母さんありがとう。” could be considered 1 or 6 - either she’s playing the role of a child talking to her mother for the bit, or she’s addressing an older woman she is close with.
I would say probably since they’re talking about it more like she’s a beloved cousin than like, a third sister, the existence of usage 6 makes it fit better here, although I would imagine it does still play into their bit about her being close with the family to the point of being like a relative.

That doesn’t really resolve the problem though… I don’t think there’s any word in English that would fit both usages 1 and 6 :sweat_smile: and if I think about what would be used in the equivalent situation, it would be like “Aunt [name]” or “Mrs. [name]” or something which is awkward since I don’t know exactly what that name would be in this context…

I think I’d tweak yours a little and go: “Thanks, Yuki’s mom!”
She’s definitely playing into the “friend of the kid visiting the house and being given stuff” role, and I think that’s familiar enough to fit, where “Yuki’s mother” still sounds kind of cold.

It’s a pity they didn’t attempt a bowdlerized version like with Muta :sweat_smile:

草 is internet slang for laughing (like lol), derived from:
笑→わらう→warau→w→wwwww→草
(because “wwww” looks like grass)

Her ”まじで草” in the video clinches it for me that that’s definitely her usage her.
“We lost lol”

small tweak her is I’d say the 行こう means it’s more like “let’s go burn down her fields” :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Thank you!

That is in fact a shupro quirk, haha, and I go with what they have because it’s easier :sweat_smile:. I’ve wondered about it, too! It’s interesting because Arisu is always “Endo,” but Hikari is often just “Hikari”. Pom also is usually just “Pom”, and I think Yuki Aino is “Aino” in the shupro transcripts, but sometimes “Yuki” in the press conference transcripts on the DDT site, haha. In any case, it is inconsistent!

Ahaha I didn’t catch that implication, that’s so funny. Misao might be the greatest wrestler.

1 Like

週刊プロレス No.2207 (from early October, the end of the 5 Star GP)

Obviously, Antonio Inoki’s death is the biggest news story this issue.
He had been sick with a particular form of amyloidosis for some time, and according to 猪木元気工場, his doctor had said at some point that “その日” could be tomorrow, two days from now, a month, a year, etc. and he had ups and downs in 2022. His condition had been on an up and his younger brother talked with him the day before, but in the morning he worsened and “永遠の眠りについた.” His brother says he was sleeping a lot and it seemed peaceful.
The article talks about a video recorded posted to his youtube channel called “アントニオ猪木「最期の言葉」” Recorded about 10 days before his death, describing it as including “猪木らしい素直な思い” with regard to his expressing reluctance to record for youtube in his time of weakness, as well as a plea to stop pollution.
Oddly – the video appears to have since been privated and I didn’t find infomration why (although I did find a mirror).
My notice of “cerulean blue” is not restricted to audio it turns out, as the magazine talks about some 50th anniversary cooperation between New Japan and Inoki, but notes that 「突然の死によって燃える闘魂がセルリアンブルーのリングに還ることは、ついにかなわなかった。」

There’s a page of reactions and condolences from various Inoki-associated wrestlers, mostly notably his 愛弟子 Tatsumi Fujinami’s tearful reaction after a match, and including comments from Riki Choshu, Akira Maeda, Keiji Mutoh, Yuji Nagata, etc.

There’s then a pretty long, or very brief depending on your perspective, look back at Inoki’s life.
He emigrated to Brazil with his grandfather’s family when he was 13 in 1957 (I’ve heard immigration to Brazil was pushed as a path to a success in 50s Japan by which I mean I’ve seen a 1957 Japanese movie where the idea of leaving for Brazil was a major plot element) and worked on a coffee plantation where he was scouted by Rikidozan and returned to Japan to join 日本プロレス in 1960.
Apparently in 1966 he left to join the new 東京プロレス where he served as 社長兼エース and won his first title, the US Heavyweight Championship from Johnny Valentine, but the company folded the same year and he went back to 日本プロレス. From there he teamed with Giant Baba as BI砲, and got married, but was wrapped up in managerial scandal and left the company, founding his own, 新日本プロレス on January 26, 1972. In the 旗揚げ戦 he lost to Karl Gotch. He got his win back within the year to win his first world championship. – Incidentally, I actually have no idea what world championship this is talking about, as the sources I’ve seen including this don’t name it specifically, they just say variations on “世界ヘビー” and this is long before the IWGP name and it doesn’t look like it was NWA. It seems like Muhammad Ali had a championship with a similar red and blue design - so I wonder if maybe it’s one Inoki designed himself that didn’t ultimately catch on…? (NOTE: it seems it was the “Real World Championship”)


Highlights from there include defending against Tiger Jeet Singh, the 昭和の巌流島決闘 match against former 国際プロレス ace Strong Kobayashi, and the famous match against Muhammad Ali that was either extremely boring or a monumental beginning to Japanese Mixed Martial Arts, or both.
Now into the eighties, more highlights: the formation of IWGP in 1980 and the 1983 league tournament to crown the first IWGP Heavyweight Champion ending with Inoki losing to Hulk Hogan via Axe Bomber in a shocking image of Inoki down with his tongue out and stretchered away. Another 巌流島 match. Clashes with UWF. Beat Takeshi invading NJPW. The first pro-wrestling Tokyo Dome show.
In 1989 he won election to the 参議院 and became the first ever 議員レスラー and freed Japanese hostages in Iraq somehow.
His official retirement road started in 1994 but lasted almost four years and included the famous North Korea show, before he officially retired at the 1998 Tokyo Dome show.
He kept very busy from there though with running MMA-inflected shows and organizations like UFO or Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye, and the article diplomatically mentions his influence extended to プロレス界に与えるダメージ being stronger than what it gained from the mixing of pro-wrestling and MMA Inoki was invested in at this time. This leading ultimately to Inoki’s removal from any direct involvement with NJPW, and the video game company Yuke’s purchasing the company.
From there his main involvement with wrestling was through the Inoki Genome Federation, but he left that in 2017, it sounds like due to disputes between family.

Anyway, in other more normal news, the 5 Star GP Finals happened!

Giulia’s column is from before that though, and it’s about Stardom in Showcase, the new anything goes, “超エンターテインメント型プロレス” show brand. Giulia says when she heard 「何でもアリ」 what she wanted to do was a hardcore match.
There’s some really good stuff here where she talks about how everyone’s tastes are different, and ”プロレスってさ、そもそも定義が難しいもので” so people have a tendency to have the kneejerk reaction that if they don’t like it, it’s not proper pro-wrestling. Like she saw that kind of “allergic reaction” from people in responses to Prominence’s arrival in Stardom. Giulia rejects that reaction however:

ジュリアは思ったんだよね、「それはもったい無いよ!」って。プロレスには無限の可能性がある。スターダムにはその全ての可能性を飲み込めるブラックホールのような力があると思うから。

Giulia’s really cool

Tanahashi’s column is about Mutoh (I think the Wrestle Kingdom retirement road match with both of them in it had been just announced or just started being built towards). They chat about various aspects of Mutoh and Tanahashi’s impressions of him, like they both liked weight training a lot, or what Mutoh’s leaving for AJPW meant for their dynamic between each other. One amusing bit is the interviewer raises the possibility that some have mentioned that Mutoh picked now for his retirement shows as a way to boost the industry in a time when the pandemic is causing it hardship, but Tanahashi says that Mutoh isn’t as calculating as people think, he just does what he wants in the moment and flows with the times that way and that’s what makes him a “天才” and that Mutoh already being branded 天才 is what made Tanahashi take refuge in “逸材” via thesaurus.

There’s a very long interview with El Desperado on the occasion of that match with Jun Kasai and the マイク afterward being so good.
Sounds like he suffered no major injuries thanks to Kasai’s care so his body is recovering fine but he was emotionally wiped after being so amped up after the match and drinking a lot that night and getting a powerful hangover (in contrast to Kasai properly doing weight training and stuff the next day). So Desperado doesn’t want to say “デスマッチをやったぜ” out of respect for the people who actually do it regularly.
An interesting exchange:

ーー: そもそもデスペラード選手は、いつから葛西選手のことが好きだったんですか?
デスペ: わかんない、気づいたら好きだった。

He recounts in 2009 when Kasai won Best Bout, he heard a NJPW senpai say 「デスマッチがベストバウトを取っちゃダメだよな」 and he felt 違和感 about it, although he figured it was New Japan pride rather than prejudice that motivated the comment.
It sounds like what really awakened the idea that he wanted to fight Kasai himself was at some point when Kasai proclaimed 「くすぶってるヤツはオレが闘って目を覚まさせてやる。やりたいヤツは言ってこい。」 or somesuch, and Desperado realized that applied to him. At the time it sounds like Taka Michinoku and Taichi were doing stuff like Shinjuku FACE shows (based on some googling, rough ballpark for time he’s talking about ~2013-2017 I think) and he expressed to Taka he wanted to fight Jun Kasai, and Taka responded “who’d want to watch you fight Jun Kasai?” (although Desperado doubts Taka would remember saying this himself), and so wanting to become a wrestler who could be a viable opponent for Kasai is part of what drove his rise in stature in New Japan after that.
Sounds like their first match against each other was three years ago, but it ended in a double ringout after Desperado broke his jaw.
He says he was surprised looking back at the match to see he was laughing through the pain: もう痛すぎて、カラダが勝手に笑ってた。…後で映像を見たら、笑ってる、笑ってるって(苦笑)。びっくりして、ずっとワッハッハって言ってた。
They talk about Jun’s マイク afterward, where he touchingly implored El Desperado to not act like he was ready to die (「死んでもいい覚悟なんて、捨ててしまえ」) and Desperado says that and the big reaction online about him made him feel the way in which he looks up to Kasai: 「やっぱりオレが憧れた人だもんなっていうのはあった。レスリングで憧れてる人はもちろんたくさんいるけど、人間力で憧れてるのは葛西さんと鈴木(みのる)さんなので。やっぱりああいうエネルギーはスゴいなって」
There’s some really good (but hard to summarize) stuff that follows then about how El Desperado says there’s a part somewhere inside of himself which doesn’t cling to life, that wouldn’t be too put out if his life was all over in an accdient tomorrow, and that part made him feel all right with saying that stuff about being ready to die. But Kasai’s comments showed him that a line had to be drawn, and it sounds to me like Desperado compares it to the kinds of things you say casually and thoughtlessly as a kid, without realizing it can hurt other people, until someone sets you straight and you stop, and in that way Kasai’s words let him let go of that kind of thing.
Sounds like Desperado looked on the internet how best to preserve the rose Kasai gave him and prepared some kind of preservative, and fully intends to give it back to Kasai when next they have a match, whether he wins or loses.
Desperado says that his maskmaker made a white mask out of special blood-absorbent material, so that blood would complete it: 「血で汚れて完成します。」
Desperado makes a mahjong metaphor and says that being given main event even though it was Taka and Taichi’s anniversary show was like “裏ドラが6枚ぐらい乗ったような感じで(笑)” I get what you’re putting down, デスペさん! (the ura-dora get revealed only after you’ve gone out - so it means the mahjong went good and then super worked out good on top of that)
Near the end of this very long but very good interview, Desperado says that he and Starlight Kid talked about it and they don’t want to just team for the one eight-person tag match at Historic X-Over - they want to get that over with, and if there’s no joint NJPW/Stardom show after that, they’ll want to team at a TakaTaichiDespe show and Desperado thinks their opponent should definitely involve the wrestler strongly associated with mixed-tag matches… Rina Yamashita! Yes, please do that!! I would like to see that match!!!

Kenoh’s column is about him losing the GHC Heavyweight Championship to Kaito Kiyomiya. He says it went just like the company expected - with the pro-wrestling superstar Keiji Mutoh retiring, the plucky new rising superstar inherits his move and gets put on a path to be a new superstar. Kenoh thought he would disrupt “そんな予定調和の美しいストーリー” but in the end he helped further it: ”オレ自身がその一部になっちゃった”. But he lost fair and square. He also mentions some pride in the contents of the match - for example, it was under 30 minutes when the trend nowadays is for top-level matches to go on really long. (the interviewer points out that if Kenoh held out longer it would have been longer - ”うるせーっ!”). This makes Kiyomiya the 6th GHC Heavyweight Champion in 2022 (geez).
When asked his goals, Kenoh deadpans first that he wants to focus exclusively on his youtube channel. But that was a joke and he wants to challenge Kiyomiya at the New Year’s show, win, and close it by challenging Mutoh. And there’s 新日本で一人だけ闘わないといけないヤツ…

There’s a short feature on Tenryu Project - I’m not very familiar but it sounds like it’s Genichiro Tenryu and his family’s promotion, known for especially hard-hitting rough bouts, started in 2010, and they’re having their first Korakuen Hall show in two years, amid Tenryu’s continued recovery from health issues, and his wife’s death.
(Ever since I learned what Tenryu’s entrance music was, I’ve had to put on Rainbow Goblins when he comes up, out of respect)

Comforting to remember Atsushi Onita will always be out there somewhere, exploding.

The history column is about 国際プロレス. Apparently it ran from 1967-1981, and those years can be divided up into a money-rich first 7 years and a “国際らしい”、”カネはなかったが真の支持層を熱狂させた” second 7 years.
Anyway I didn’t really pay attention to the details (this issue is taking quite long enough as it is) but it sounds like this match, or that day’s who Korakuen show, stands out as a particular 国際プロレス highlight.

There’s an interview with Yuki Mashiro of Ice Ribbon, as she has announced she’s retiring from wrestling at the end of the year. She says she had thought she’d limit it to 3 years when she started, and though she loves pro-wrestling still and there were times she figured she’d keep doing it, she’s 21 and there’s plenty of other stuff she wants to try to do, like perhaps pursuing a medical career or traveling the world. She says she’s already decided her final opponent, and it’s someone she loves very much, the person she’s meant in life who most looked after her, who she trusts and respects as both a wrestler and a person, and who she’s glad to have met thanks to starting pro wrestling. But she’s not saying who it is yet.
Fortunately, since I’m so behind on these – her last match was with Suzu Suzuki.
She’s overcome with some adventurous spirit when talking about how she wants to try travelling overseas even though she can’t speak English:

当たって砕けろっていうか、私、当たって砕けたいんです!砕けて、心折れるけどその度に何か得るものはあるし自分自身成長できると思ってます!プロレスでも心がボリボリ、バリバリ折れましたけど、そのたびに負けたくないなって思ってきたので。私、少年なんです、冒険したい!

Her story through her career has been well covered by Shupro (I know she was one of the Ice Ribbon wrestlers high on my radar thanks to the magazine) and they have high praise here: 笑ったり号泣したりブチ切れたり。プロレスを知らずに始めたヘナチョコで摩訶不思議な21歳はすごくプロレスラーしてたなと思います。

Next there’s a joint interview with Miu Watanabe and Yuka Sakazaki from TJPW, as they both have shots at singles titles coming up.
They talk about the summer tournament and about Miu’s standout performance in it, and the expectations of cracking through the barrier of the 3 first generation wrestlers built up from it. Yuka says there’s expectations in wrestlers other than them to be the future of the company, but there’s also a sense that they need to dig in their feet and be strong as the present of the company, and that today isn’t the goal, the path can’t be too smooth for that future wrestler to break through.
Miu says her drive to do well in the tournament was born from fighting generation-mate Arisu Endo in the first round and wishing that she could have met her much later in the tournament instead. She and Arisu feel like kids still compared to Yuka feeling like a sister, or mom, or grandpa to them. And kids gotta 頑張る.
They both talk very highly of the atmosphere in TJPW for the wrestlers. And Yuka says those good vibes arose naturally, as people who loved the place joined and contributed their own love.
Yuka describes her challenge against Shoko’s Princess of Princess Championship as a bit of a complex to show strength as TJPW’s current status quo, brought on by Miu’s threat to that (and Miu’s victory over Shoko).
Talking about Miu’s championship shot, she’s very anxious about the prospect of potentially having to go overseas (Yuka, speaking as her mother, says she needs the experience), and she’s worried that Alex Windsor seems large and hard to pick up and swing around, but she has to.
Yuka says she’s glad to have foreign wrestlers in TJPW showing that it’s a good and worthwhile market and brand despite the visa difficulties and the like, and the wrestlers are like part of the family or a homestay.
Miu says she say her マイファイト from her last interview and felt bad about her English so she immediately went out to buy an English book from a book store, but not knowing what would be helpful to talk to English wrestlers, she just read a little in the store and left without buying anything… but it’s one step forward!
Yuka sagely says that there’s enough shared in pro-wrestling that you can naturally get by somehow with body language and feeling, so it’s okay.
Miu: 「ハローは言えます!じゃあ大丈夫ですね」

Looks Like Jun Kasai shared a “ディープな” kiss with Effy in GCW.
(warning: blood)

There’s an article on a pro-wrestling-related radio station that’s lasted for 30 years, ラジプロ! That’s neat! I would probably have read it more carefully if this issue weren’t already like… very full of stuff I’ve spent lots of time on.

A particularly touching Inoki tribute was Minoru Suzuki’s - he hasn’t said anything public, but at the end of a show, all he had to do was point at the sky, and mime 1, 2, 3, with the crowd filling in the voice right on cue for Suzuki’s silent ダァー! (Inoki’s catchphrase)

Mutoh’s column is about AJPW on the occasion of it’s 50th anniversary celebrations. Mutoh ended up leaving NJPW to run AJPW for 10 years in the wake of Giant Baba’s death. He says in the time before that, his impression of AJPW was of course, Baba, as well as Jumbo Tsuruta and American wrestlers. He says NJPW and AJPW were a bit like Russia and the US at the time so they didn’t interact much, but when he interacted with Tsuruta there was a little bit of a bond since they’re both from Yamanashi Prefecture (he says he doesn’t publicize it but he similarly feels some kindredness with Shingo Takagi and Yoshinobu Kanemaru for example, for the same reason). He says he left to run All Japan because he felt he could freely do pro-wrestling there in contrast to the MMA-inflected direction that New Japan was going, and also out of ambition for the 一国一城 factor of being able to run it and be the main attraction. He says the strength of the name of AJPW was still very high and that was a major strength, but it became a weakness too, since it opened up complaints about not living up to the name, or Mutoh’s AJPW not matching what AJPW should intagibly be.

The editor’s Eye Column is about the Stardom 5 Star GP and specifically highlights a triangle of three 黄金世代 wrestlers who stood out in their matches with each other in the tournament: Saya Kamitani, MIRAI, and Suzu Suzuki. It says the 黄金世代 term first came up around a pivotal 10/3/2020 Goddess of Stardom match, and even as a generation is building up with wrestlers with short careers and bright futures in their 20s, there’s already been big accomplishments like Kamitani’s white belt reign and MIRAI’s tournament win, but the generation above, like tournament finalists Giulia and Tam, and champion Syuri, don’t have any intention of ceding the spotlight just yet.

The final column is about Suzu Suzuki’s perspective on Stardom’s 5 Star GP. I really like the dynamic she expresses here, where she entered the 5 Star GP just to go after Giulia and work out those complex emotions from her departure and absence, and she’d go through even such a huge tournament just for the chance to do it, but as it turned out she ended up glad for the wait before their match together, since she got to learn about the place Giulia left for, and the surroundings of the current Giulia, not the Giulia in the past. And she found that Stardom is full of interesting wrestlers to fight, being especially struck by how the 生え抜き wrestlers fought especially hard amidst the crowd of entrants.
She sounds very very happy about freelancing, about her rapidly rising star power, about wrestling constantly all the time, and getting to do lots of her beloved deathmatches.

2 Likes

Finished the first half of TJPW’s January 15 show (the first round of the tag tournament)!

The comments for this show ended up being, uh, longer than the Korakuen show translation was :grimacing:. So I decided to split the posts into two haha so that it was a little less overwhelming… :sweat_smile:

I didn’t actually have a lot of trouble with most of these!

The first tournament match was Juria and Moka vs Toyo Mates, which ended with Juria and Moka getting the upset victory! I felt bad for Mahiro, honestly… This wasn’t the round one upset I was hoping we’d get…

After the match, Juria and Moka said:

Miyamoto: “Today I participated in the tag tournament with Juria-san for the first time together, and we were able to get past the first match. I’m so happy! This time we faced Toyo Mates, and next is Daisy Monkey. I want to beat Daisy Monkey and win the tournament with Juria-san.”

Juria: “This was my first time participating in a tournament. I was able to team up with Moka-san in our karate tag team, and I had the feeling that we were absolutely going to win no matter what it took, but… I’m so happy that we actually won! But I’m not going to just bask in the happiness of winning the first round; we’re gonna win through the next one, too. I want to seize the victory with Moka-san, so I want to work hard together.”

Miyamoto: “Let’s do our best!”

(How are you going to fight in the next match?)

“Daisy Monkey has been teaming together for a while, and their teamwork is fantastic. But we’ve been working together a lot since last year, and I think our teamwork is just getting better and better. I hope we can win by combining our strength!”

Juria: “I lost to Daisy Monkey in my debut. I was really emotional about my debut match… I have a lot of feelings attached to it, even though I lost. This time, I’ll be with Moka-san as a team. Even in my private life, Moka-san always talks to me and gives me advice, so she’s a senpai whom I love very much. I want us to crush Daisy Monkey together.”

Kamiyu and Mahiro’s comments were pretty entertaining, haha. My main question here, I guess, was more about translating tone and informal speech. Just how hard should the English translation go to match the Japanese? :sweat_smile:

Kamifuku: “What the hell are you doing?”

Kiryu: “I’m so sorry…”

Kamifuku: “Hey! The tournament just started, what the hell is this? You lost to a woman with a hairstyle that looks like the Mother of Ultra, huh? WHY!” (brief pause) “…I went too far, didn’t I? Hey, I’m just kidding.”

Kiryu: “No, but I’m really…”

Kamifuku: “Sometimes you just lose. I lose sometimes, too. Do you want to go get something to eat?”

Kiryu: “C-crab…”

Kamifuku: “Crab?”

Kiryu: “Crab omelet…”

Kamifuku: “Well, it’s cheap. Let’s go.”

I had to look up the Mother of Ultra after this, and it killed me, haha.


The next tournament match was Reiwa AA Cannon vs Raku and Yuki Aino. I… admittedly spent most of this match thinking, "I know we just had a big round one upset, but we can get a second one in a row, right? Right?? We did not get a second one in a row :pensive: "

After the match, Arai and Akai said:

Akai: “When this tournament was announced and we were chosen to enter, our feelings were completely different compared to how we feel today after our first match. We’ve lost our tag belts, and they’ve gone overseas. We have to once again start from scratch, climb up from absolutely nothing, and get our belts back with our own hands. Our opponents today, Raku and Yuki Aino, were a team we were supposed to defend our belts against in a title match. In that sense, I expected them to be formidable foes.”

Then she said, “ここでひとつもこぼすことはできないので、今日優希ちゃんとの連帯感というか気持ちはより太くなったように感じます”, and I wasn’t entirely sure about that first part, haha.

“I couldn’t make even a single misstep here, so I felt a certain solidarity with Yuki-chan today, or perhaps I should say, that feeling has become stronger.”

Arai: “I was really depressed because I lost us our tag belts at the beginning of the year… But being able to team up again with her right away like this and participate in the tournament, I think I was able to force my feelings to change. I want to keep working hard together so that we can keep climbing up and up.”

Akai: “More so than the last time we faced Raku and Yuki, they brought out some things that we don’t have in our toolkit. In that sense, they were very frightening. After all, you climb up the rounds of a tournament like this, at each stage, more and more powerful enemies will emerge, and you will get hit. We will put our pride and spirit on the line and make it all the way back to the top.”

In the next part, they said:

(Daydream are your next opponents)

“My mental image of Daydream had them holding the tag belts. We also had the tag belts until very recently, so we can’t lose to them here either. I am well-acquainted with Tatsumi, since the olden days. Yuki-chan also knows how scary Rika and Miu are.”

Arai: “I also teamed up with Moka-san in the tournament last year, but we couldn’t advance because we lost to Daydream. This year, I want to take revenge with Akai-san.”

Akai: “We are moving up the staircase step by step, so in that sense, I want to take a big step up by beating Daydream next.”

Then the interviewer asked about Raku and Yuki using the pillow to block their move, and Saki said, “あのダブル新人賞、私たちオリジナルの、私たちだからできる技なのでけっこう大事にしてたので、あんなかわされ方があると思わなかったので…” I wasn’t quite sure about this sentence :sweat_smile:.

(They blocked the Double Rookie of the Year Award with a pillow)

“The Double Rookie of the Year Award is our original move, and it’s a move that only we can do, which means we treasure it greatly. So I didn’t think it could be evaded like that… I want the referee to be a little more strict with his checks.”

Arai: “I’m mad!”

Akai: “I’m going to take out my anger on Daydream in the next match.”

In Yuki and Raku’s comments, I was a bit unsure about Raku’s last two sentences here: “今日はユキさんと一緒に闘えなかったタイトルマッチの気持ちも込めて試合に臨んだんですけど。ユキさんが最後頑張ってくれて、タッチしてくれた時にユキさんの気持ちも背負って。最後、私が絶対にいってやろうって思ったけど…うまくいかないところもあって.”

The “ユキさんが最後頑張ってくれて” part I interpreted differently when I first read the transcript, then I watched the video, and she seemed to be saying that Yuki was telling her “頑張って!” at the end? But I dunno :sweat_smile:.

Raku: “I went into the match today with the spirit of the title match that I hadn’t been able to do with Yuki-san hanging over it. At the end, Yuki-san encouraged me, and when she tagged me in, I also carried her feelings with me. In the end, I was determined to give it my all, but… it didn’t go well. Today, Pom was seconding us, and it felt like we were fighting 3 on 2. But I’m still here at (the bottom of) the mountain in 2023. We couldn’t climb up together in the tournament, but let’s go up that mountain.”

In the next part, the first chunk went pretty smoothly:

Aino: “Let’s do it! You’re so cute. This isn’t a redo, but when I challenged with Pom in November… that was that title challenge. I got one more chance, one more opportunity to face Reiwa AA Cannon, Akai-san and Arai-chan, together with Raku. Even though it was the first round of the tournament, I went into it as if it were a title match.”

Then she said, “なかなかね、枕使ったりとか何が何でも、どう思われたって勝ちたいと思って一生懸命やりはしたんですけど、やっぱりまだ高い山だったので.” I got tripped up a couple times in this sentence, then maybe figured it out?

“I tried my best to win by any means, using whatever I could think of, like that pillow, but in the end the mountain was still too high. She said that we’re still at the bottom of the mountain, so that means if we choose to climb it, we’ll be able to do it someday. We’re going to do our best, and 2023 has only just begun. I want to do it! But I wanted to face more tag teams. It’s disappointing.”

Raku: “I wanted to fight, too… Well, let’s get into the cable car.”

Aino: “We’ll ride it!”

Raku: “Actually, let’s climb up on our own two legs.”

Aino: “Yes! We’ll go at our own pace.”

And that’s it for this first half! The rest is literally just Miyu and Itoh’s comments (with a little bit from Free WiFi at the end); they sure talked a lot :sweat_smile:. I’m gonna try to hopefully get those done by the end of tomorrow!

1 Like

Tone’s fine I’d say. (she’s being really harsh :smiling_face_with_tear:)

For this part here - a small note that she kinda interrupts herself and I wouldn’t really say it’s connected thoughts. She just gets mad suddenly at Kiryu being ashamed and shoves her while asking 何やってんだよ again.
The beginning thought was going to be about how like - even though the tournament comes around so rarely (Mahiro screwed it up). I think suppose “the tournament just started” works fine in English and expresses similar frustration, just noting that it maps a little different.

Be sure to check out Ultraman Taro for more appearances by Juria Nagano ウルトラの母 :sweat_smile:

I think the only mild things that make these difficult are the sort of inherently speaking for each other nature of giving a promo as a tag team, and the tendency to drop a lot of んで/のでs while speaking and building a train of though - with both leading to picky decisions when translating.

Like. the train of thought in “I couldn’t make even a single misstep here, so I felt a certain solidarity…” doesn’t seem like it doesn’t 100% line up,
but the one in “we couldn’t make even a single misstep here, so I felt a certain solidarity…” does more. The enemy was strong, so their cooperation increased in adversity.

The train of thought in “we treasure it greatly. So I didn’t think it could be evaded like that” doesn’t quite line up either.
but the one in “we treasure it greatly and didn’t think it could be evaded like that…” does more. The value of the move to them and the unthinkability (and questionable legality) of the counter method means the referee should be stricter.

I think the meaning is grasped fine, it’s just not being confident in it and the nature of the process means you’re tied into specific granular decisions on stuff like I/we or ので->“so” makes it tricky to smooth out some of those train of thought things, which makes being confident in the meaning harder.

I see where you’re coming from since the hand gesture she makes in the video does make it look like she’s talking about someone yelling encouragement – but I don’t I can make that interpretation work grammayically. She says clearly “最後…(gestures)頑張ってくれて…” and the stuff after that pause sound like transitioning into the next part of the thought.

I would probably interepret it rather as this:
“ユキさんが最後頑張ってくれて、タッチしてくれた時”
being one time – roughly literally “the time when Yuki worked hard and in the end managed to tag me in” with the て linking the two things as in one happened and then the other.

1 Like

I had a bit of a stressful day, but I managed to get the rest of this done!

The main event of the January 15 show was Nao and Hikari vs Miyu and Itoh. I really like both teams, but found myself pulling for Free WiFi by the end. Sadly, it was not to be :pensive:. Itoh and Miyu’s comments were, uh, very long, but also really funny, haha, so I couldn’t complain too much.

After the match, Miyu’s first line after the “We won!” exchange confused me a bit. I wasn’t quite sure about this line: “忘れた頃くらいにタッグトーナメントくるからあれやったけど、勝ててよかったね.”

Yamashita: “Yes, we did it!”

Itoh: “We won!”

Yamashita: “No, we just have one win for now. It’s been a long time. The tag tournament came right when I had forgotten about it, so I’m glad that we won.”

Itoh: “Are you feeling okay?”

Yamashita: “I’m fine!”

Itoh: “Of course. When I saw your demonic side today, I knew you were alright.”

Yamashita: “It burst out. We’re a team, so I’m getting fired up, and this year for sure One to Million is going to win! Right?”

Then Itoh said, “優勝したいじゃなくてするんでしょ.” I was a bit confused by the negative haha.

Itoh: “I want to win, don’t I?”

Yamashita: “It’s about time for the tag belts… I want to win them with Itoh.”

Itoh: “Huh?”

Yamashita: “We feel the same way, right? Or maybe, your level of love has fallen? While we weren’t seeing each other.”

Itoh: “Whether or not you’re serious about the stuff you’re saying, I think that’ll become clear in the tournament, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Yamashita: “Even if there’s no tournament, I still love you!”

Itoh: “Of course Itoh wants to win it, but—”

Yamashita: “You’re ignoring me…”

Then Itoh said, “口だけの好きとかよく言ってそうだから、あんまり信用できないんだけど.” I struggled a lot with this! Maybe I got it? I dunno.

Itoh: “It’s often only your mouth saying that you like me, so I don’t really buy it.”

Yamashita: “I understand. I’ll prove it in the match.”

Itoh: “OK. Then we’ll close the show. You know, I can actually speak today. What should we say?”

Yamashita: “Limits, don’t set them! But there isn’t a response to it.”

Itoh: “Wouldn’t it be more fun for the fans to say it, too?”

They closed with,“Limits, don’t set them!” 「うおー!」

I wasn’t quite sure about how to translate the “うおー!”, haha.

Their comments backstage were pretty funny, though they talked really fast and interrupted each other a lot. They start off with:

Itoh: “We won! And welcome back, Yamashita!”

Yamashita: “I’m back!”

Itoh: “You seemed healthy, and you were at your most monstrous.”

Then Itoh says, “伊藤はね、自分がちゃんとしなくちゃって気持ちが実はちょっとあったんだけど、そんなこともなく安心しました.” I wasn’t quite sure what she was saying here.

“I’d wondered if I was going to have to do it myself, so I’m relieved that that didn’t happen.”

Yamashita: “There’s one thing that made me happy. After I got hurt, you sent me a LINE message.”

Itoh: “Naturally.”

Yamashita: “I said I was going to take some time off, and I’d be missing England, too… You said, ‘Don’t worry about it. That’s a wise decision.’ But the tag tournament was after that, and I got another message on LINE, which said, ‘Let’s do our best as a tag team again!’ That cheered me up.”

Itoh: “I’m glad.”

Yamashita: “You don’t usually text me, do you?”

Itoh: “Nope.”

Yamashita: “But you sent me a LINE, and I felt that you really had strong feelings for our tag team. That was really great, and I felt my love for you again, and I think it’s good that it soaked in before we started teaming again.”

Itoh: “Well, which of us do you like? Yuka Sakazaki or Maki Itoh?”

Yamashita: “Well… they’re different kinds of love…”

This next part is really chaotic in the video haha and I wanted to make sure I got it right, so I included the shupro transcript for all of it so that it’s a bit easier to follow:

伊藤「(爆笑)。私はなんとなく分かってるので、薄っぺらい好きが」

Itoh: (laughing) “I think I get it. Your love is very shallow.”

山下「違う! 薄っぺらい好きじゃない。ビジネスライクなの。分かる?」

Yamashita: “No! My love for you isn’t shallow! It’s professional! Does that make sense?”

伊藤「それ言っていいの? それ嫌われるやつだよ?」

Itoh: “You think that’s good to say? That means you hate me, right?”

山下「違う違う! ビジネスライクって…」

Yamashita: No! No! Professional, it’s like—"

伊藤「伊藤、すごい冷めたもん」

Itoh: “You’re so cold.”

山下「みんな変えた方がいいよ。プロレスラーとして出会って、仕事を一緒にする上で伊藤に出会えてホントによかったと思ってて」

Yamashita: “Everyone should change, right? Meeting each other as pro wrestlers and working together, I’m so glad that I was able to meet you.”

伊藤「それは仕事で、って意味でしょ?」

Itoh: “So, you mean for work, right?”

山下「そうだよ。人としてじゃないよ」

Yamashita: “Yes. Not as a person.”

伊藤「自分が伊藤麻希を使ってのし上がるために、そのためなら何でもいいみたいな」

Itoh: “That sounds like you’re saying ‘I’m just using Maki Itoh to get ahead, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get there.’”

山下「バカか! 違う。人としてじゃないよ? 仕事として一緒に出会えたことで、やっぱ2人で並ぶことで自分が輝く時もあるしっていうことなので。そういう意味でビジネスライクで愛してるってかんじ」

Yamashita: “Are you an idiot? No! It’s not about you as a person, okay? It’s just that we met each other for work, and there are times when I shine by standing side by side with you. In that sense, it’s professional, and I love you.”

The first part ends with:

Itoh: “I get it.” (laughs) “That’s nice, your purity. It’s splendid. Thank you very much. It’s professional for me, too.”

Yamashita: “I want to change people’s impression of ‘professional’”

Itoh: “In what way? Well, win the tournament, and then that you can change the meaning of the word ‘professional.’”

Yamashita: “You’re my only partner. Because it’s with you, I want to win the tag belts.”

Itoh: “So gallant.”

The next part is a little easier:

(You are in the semifinals)

“Yes. There’s no margin for error.”

Yamashita: “It’s about time we got a combined theme or something. Other tag teams are able to combine their themes immediately, but One to Million has been teaming up for a while, and we haven’t done it at all. AA Cannon combined theirs so fast, didn’t they?”

Itoh: “That’s because we haven’t got results. That’s why we get the treatment of not having a combined entrance theme. After we win the tournament, it’ll start with my song, then after I’m done singing, you’ll come out, or something like that.”

Yamashita: “That sounds good! Let’s win.”

(Next is the winner of Miyamoto & Juria vs Daisy Monkey)

Itoh: “It’ll be a challenge no matter who we face.”

Then Miyu says, “若い子たちは何するか分かんないのが一番怖いので。そこはビンビンに張ってバキバキにぶっ倒していきたいなと.” I wasn’t quite sure about the last part, haha, so I went with what DeepL had.

Yamashita: “The thing that scares me the most about the young girls is not knowing what they’ll do. I want to put up a strong front and beat them to a pulp.”

Itoh: “I think the fans at the venue are just going to support the rookies. That makes me sad, but we’ll just ignore the atmosphere in the room and win by doing our best for ourselves.”

Yamashita: “We won’t read the room.”

(Last year, you were both on overseas excursions, so did you feel distant from each other as a tag team?)

“I don’t think so.”

Itoh: “It’s like we both gained a lot of experience points over the whole year last year. That’s why we’ve been able to improvise in our matches, and our eyes met today.”

Yamashita: “Yes! We’re coming together more and more during our matches. It wasn’t like that before. It was just me.”

Itoh: “Yes! I’ve always been in my own world. But today, our eyes met a lot, didn’t they?”

Yamashita: “With that, we can have a conversation, so I think we’ll be able to show you that this year’s One to Million is truly different.”

And that’s it for Itoh and Miyu! Phew! :sweat_smile:

Hikari and Nao’s comments are much more reasonable haha. Hikari starts out:

Hikari: “I’m disappointed at the result, but this is the first time I’ve had a partner who has lasted more than a year.” (laughs)

Then she says, “去年1年はベルトにしろパートナーにしろ、時間が経てばたつほど大切なものになるので。やっぱり離れて欲しくないし、ちょっと手探りなところはずっとあって.” I wasn’t really sure about this part, haha. I think the rest is maybe okay, though?

“That year last year, whether it’s the belt or my partner, has become more and more important to me as time passes. I don’t want us to break up, and we’ve always been a bit fumbling.”

Kakuta: “Yes, that’s true.”

Hikari: “But we were able to do the tournament together again this year… Even though we lost, I think that if we can have more and more fun wrestling as Free WiFi, the results will follow. Please keep supporting us!” (cries)

Kakuta: “People have always said to me, ‘You’re not quitting, are you?’ But even though we got our matching gear together for this opportunity, and today we really put our fighting spirit into it… I’ve lost all three of my tournaments to Yamashita-san. Two years in a row with the singles tournament, and I lost to her again today. I felt sorry, but even though I’m still losing, all I can do is be optimistic about it. I’m frustrated, but I’m thinking about the future of Free WiFi, and we’re going to keep growing. I won’t quit!"

Hikari: “We have to become the poster girls, so let’s do our best.”

Kakuta: “Free WiFi is going to do our best to be positively unbreakable!”

Hikari: “Let’s do it!”

And that’s it! Just about in time for the next show, somehow! These tournament shows are fun, but they sure do love to have every single person talk afterward! :sweat_smile:

1 Like

I would probably parse it rather as like (over literally) “because it’s been such a length of time since the last tag tournament that it’s just about faded from memory, I/we did that, but I’m glad we won.”

I thought it sounded like perhaps there was a “Miyu kicked Maki accidentally” type of spot, but it doesn’t look like it, they just come very close:
image
image
My impression is she’s talking about that there, or they’re talking about how Miyu got double teamed by Free Wifi for quite a while and very nearly got pinned (which matches more with the subsequent conversation).

I would definitely say more like “It’s not ‘we want to to win’, it’s ‘we will win’!!” :slightly_smiling_face:
I’ve noticed XじゃなくてY is used a lot for like, correcting stuff that was said.
Itoh is rejecting “優勝したい” and substituting “優勝する

Yeah I feel like you just gotta unliteralize the figure of speech - 口だけ is indicating like, all talk / lip service, that kind of thing.
She’s saying it seems like Miyu just says she loves Maki all the time without really backing it up / meaning it, so she can’t really trust her when she says it now.

It’s just like, a vigorous noise. that’s all the response that they settled on.

“WOOOOAH!!” I guess is the best option? :sweat_smile: If you were to join in on the call and response, that’s what you should yell.

I would probably say rather, the ちゃんと is important - like, she was worried about keeping up with Miyu: “I better be on my A-game” but that didn’t end up being a problem.
As in like, literally 自分がちゃんとしなくちゃ - “if I don’t do this properly… (something bad will happen) (so I have to be sure to not make mistakes or oversights)”

ah, right… these two… :sweat_smile:

I know that it’s bad form to just go with the English phrase originally borrowed in all cases like this, but honestly here I think “businesslike” is a better and more direct option than “professional.”
A lot of the humor in this exchange is about how the phrase she used is such a weird one to use in that situation! And “No! My love for you isn’t shallow! It’s businesslike!” just reads funnier to me in English the same way as in the original. :smile: I suppose YMMV though.

P.S. I noticed also this tweet from Miyu where it seems like part of the problem in the backstage promo is she misunderstood what “businesslike” implied.

My read on the whole exchange is it’s exactly like when say - you and a friend are running with a bit teasing each other basically, playing to get the upper hand on each other, and one of you accidentally says something completely tease-worthy that leaves the other open to mercilessly tear you apart. :sweat_smile: Miyu’s got no hope as soon as “ビジネスライク” leaves her mouth.

This one isn’t quite wrong exactly… hmmm it’s one of those tough ones where the structure of the Japanese makes sense to me but it’s hard to express in English or even judge if the English matches it.
My best attempt at trying to structure it literally:
“is that okay to say? (because it seems like it isn’t). That’s one people hate (being told), you know that right?”

I think the biggest thing I would change about the translation “, right?” because the “よ?” I would say is more like, “I am telling you this information - do I really have to?”
Like she isn’t exactly expressing confusion at what Miyu means, she’s expressing confusion about why she said such a weird thing.
Like really roughly “my love for you isn’t shallow! It’s businesslike!” "what! Is that really what you meant to say?! that’s not better…? "

This is another one that’s hard to describe or evaluate…
She’s definitely talking about herself, since she says 伊藤, and from her body language.
image

Afterward she goes ほら、やっぱりね a couple of times and completely doesn’t pay attention to Miyu’s attempts at explaining herself while talking over her…

The transcript also I think might be missing some helpful bits of very quickly spoken language pieces…

Okay – I’m gonna go with the final answer of what’s happening is she processes Miyu’s beginning:
ビジネスライクって
and her reaction of 伊藤、すごい冷めたもん
is saying like – “see, even hearing it again there it felt super cold to me!”
Like I think the 冷めたもん is either the word itself or Itoh’s reaction to hearing it.

And so then this part is completely a victim from Itoh ignoring the rest of Yamashita’s explanation and talking over her with those ほらs and やっぱりs, because what Miyu was saying everyone should change is ビジネスライク’s イメージ or something like that. She’s going to repeat this more clearly later when Maki is actually listening at all. But in this case all that made it into both the transcript AND Itoh’s ears is “(somethingsomethingsomething)-みんな変えた方がいいよ。”

This is picky, but I would go more with “What are you even talking about?” here than “in what way?”
She’s even looking around in bewilderment to see if anyone else understands what Miyu is on about when she asks it :sweat_smile:
image

There’s an important part here missing! She says ビジネスパートナー - she’s still trying to clarify what she meant by “businesslike” and dig herself out of the hole.

more of a minor flavor note than a correction, but she’s definitely making fun of Yamashita in both of these places :sweat_smile: I dunno if it’s necessary or not to unify the translation of 潔い, but if there’s opportunity to pump up the sarcasm, she’s essentially talking to the reporters/camera in a “get a load of her” kind of way.

I think you could just say “that whole last year”

I’d say the the year is just context, and so there’s something missing in the English version to give it a subject. Like maybe “whether it’s my partner, or my belt, they’ve each” or if there’s a better turn of phrase I’m not thinking of at the moment.

The impression I get is that Hikari’s still describing the past year - those things that were more and more important to her, she didn’t want them to slip away from her, and so there was an element of like, fumbling for them to keep them with her. But that’s past and she was able to do the tournamnet this year with her partner still with her.

BIBIBIBI :smiling_face_with_tear:

1 Like

Just watching the NOAH show from today, and that line up for the NOAH Tokyo Dome show looks pretty good. Getting some TJPW on the card too

2 Likes

Yeah, I spent yesterday trying to finish up my TJPW translation, and I had it almost done and then got totally distracted by the NOAH show, haha. I wrote up some thoughts on a few of the matches from that show as well as Kenoh vs Naito from the NJPW/NOAH show the day before. I’ll probably talk a bit about them in my study log, too, but there’s a sneak preview.

Re: the card for Mutoh's retirement show:

Putting my opinions of Mutoh aside, I’m super pumped about it! At long last, we are getting TJPW in NOAH!! It’s a pretty fun match for it, too: old guard vs the new guard. I’m really looking forward to that. And DDT, too! It’s nice to see how interpromotional the show is. The big marquee singles matches also look pretty good, though Mutoh’s own retirement match is, well… can’t say I’m particularly excited about that one, though I do like Naito.

1 Like

DDT, TJPW, NOAH, AJPW, and NJPW all on that show. Hopefully they can get Stardom involved too.

I also wouldn’t mind seeing Darby v Marufuji after their brief interaction in the tag match.

1 Like

I finished translating TJPW’s January 19 show! This one was less than half the length of the last one, which is what you get when you don’t give Itoh and Miyu the mic :sweat_smile:.

The Max Heart tournament continues! First up, we had Shoko and Misao vs Kaya and Haruna, which… had a rather foregone conclusion. The comments for this whole show were a little odd, but what baffled me the most is that for some reason, shupro didn’t have a complete transcript for these. What shupro had is only slightly more than what was in the twitter captions, so my translations here are a bit incomplete.

Shoko and Misao:

Misao: “We won! They’re our juniors, so I thought we could relax, but they’ve been growing.”

Nakajima: “I felt their growth when they didn’t come at us from the front. Having that response is a victory.”

Misao: “I can’t believe they gave me a pink bald head…”

Nakajima: “I thought you changed your costume!”

Part two:

Misao: “It was unexpected!”

(About your next opponents)

“We’ve never fought AA Cannon before, so I wonder how that would go.”

Nakajima: “We lost to Daydream in the tournament last year, so I want to get our win back. The two members of AA Cannon are an odd pair. I’m curious how that might go.”

Haruna and Kaya:

Neko: “It was cool that Tori-san saved me in the middle of the match when I was in a tight spot. I thought we had their number, but they were so strong and had a lot of coordination…”

Toribami: “We still have a long way to go as a team…”

Neko: “I thought it would be good if the two of us could grow together.”

After that, for some reason, TJPW started doing something new with the comments, which is uploading a transcript of them in images on twitter, in addition to the video. From what I can tell, the transcript is pretty much the same as what shupro has. This is awesome for us because it means we all have access to the full transcripts! I do wish, though, that the text wasn’t in an image, and that this was located somewhere more permanent and archival, like their actual website, but, well, baby steps, I guess?

The next tournament round was Daisy Monkey vs Juria and Moka, which had another surprising upset! I was really sad for Daisy Monkey, but did get reassured by their comments. I think when they do finally get their moment, it’ll be a big one :smiling_face_with_tear:.

Juria’s and Moka’s comments were straightforward:

Miyamoto: “We somehow managed to get past the second round. Winning and advancing with Juria-san makes me so happy. But there’s still another round left… Next is One to Million, Itoh-san and Yamashita-san. They’re really strong, but I want to keep winning with Juria-san.”

Juria: “I never thought I’d be able to win in the second round with Moka-san. Our opponents’ teamwork was really good, but I’m so happy we were able to win. However, there’s still the next round. Our next opponents are also really tough, so I want to fight them with everything we’ve got and get the win.”

(Do you feel that your connection is deepening?)

Miyamoto: “Yes, I do.”

Juria: “Even when we aren’t training, we always talk to each other so that we can get closer and become an even better tag team.”

(Have you gotten used to the tag team wrestling style?)

“Yes. Before this point, I’d just get ripped to shreds every match, but just having Moka-san there is really reassuring. I can stand in the ring with my chest held high.”

(What is your impression of One to Million?)

“They’re a bit of a crazy team. I’ve fought both of them before, and every single one of their moves hurts a lot. But I want to win as a team with Moka-san.”

Arisu and Endo’s were pretty straightforward?

Endo: (with tears streaming down her face) “I’m sorry. I told all the fans that Daisy Monkey was going to win the tournament, and I made them expect a lot from us. Yet again, I wasn’t able to live up to their expectations… Even though I was able to do the tournament with Suzume-san, I lost again, just like last year. I’m so, so sorry…”

Then Suzume said, “なんか、こうやって負けてばっかりとか言うけど。私にとって有栖はホントにめっちゃキラキラで、私にはホントにもったいないなって思うパートナーなんですけど.” That second sentence was a bit tough, haha!

Suzume: “You’re always saying stuff like this about losing. But for me, Arisu is a truly dazzling partner who thinks she’s not worthy of me. But I don’t want her to stop being by my side. I want her to always fight together with me, for the next match and the next and the next.”

Endo: “That’s my line!”

Suzume: “There will be a next match, so let’s win that one for sure!”

Endo: “Yes!”

Suzume: “Thank you!”

Endo: “Please let me stay next to you!”

Suzume: “Of course!”

The main event was AA Cannon vs Daydream, and I was admittedly rooting for Daydream to get revenge for Raku and Yuki and take AA Cannon out of the tournament, so I did cheer for Daydream winning here, haha (though they have to lose the next one).

I had a little help from Mr. Haku on the post-match stuff.

Tatsumi: “We did it! I didn’t think they’d be easy opponents to get past, but they were a real pain! Thank you!”

Miu: “Thank you very much!”

Tatsumi: “But, now that we’ve secured this very important win, our goal is… yes, back-to-back tournament wins!”

Miu: “Yay! We’re the only ones who can do it!”

Tatsumi: “That’s right! We’re the only ones, and our next opponents are… who?”

Then Miu said, “いまなんか言ってた…でも、分かんない。カクカク順なのかな?” What on earth is “カクカク”?? I could not figure this out at all, haha!

Miu: “She was saying something just now, but… I didn’t catch it. Is it in カクカク order?”

Tatsumi: “I dunno. Well, it doesn’t matter who it is. Bring it on!”

Miu: “Yeah! We’re just gonna win.”

Tatsumi: “We’ll beat anyone! There’s still that ahead of us, and the tournament is still going on, so please keep supporting us! Well, it’s the first time in a long time that Daydream is closing a show. Yay!”

They closed with,“Daydream, let’s do our best!”

Rika and Miu’s comments were a little harder:

Tatsumi: “What a relief! But we can somehow keep aiming for the back-to-back victory! Yay, yay! I’d wanted it to end like that, but I didn’t think it’d go that way!”

Miu: “Yes! Our opponents were former champions too, and AA Cannon are really beautiful; they were formidable foes.”

Tatsumi: “If it was just Yuki-chan, we’re her senpais and we could just take control without having to worry about a thing, but, well, Akai-san was there, too. She was really a thorn in our sides, and she kept breaking us up and breaking us down.”

Miu: “She kicked us.”

Tatsumi: “It was hard! But we managed to get a win, so we’re OK… You want to get another belt soon, right?”

Miu: “Yes! A pink one!”

Tatsumi: “At any rate, I want to win the tournament, get the trophy again, and hold it close. Then, there are the tag belts, which have slipped away from us.”

Then Rika said, “私たちの元からいなくなった時点でずっと流出してるので、取り返さないとなって思っております.” I think I understood the Japanese, but struggled with how to put it into English, haha. From what I understand, 流出する is typically used to refer to a belt slipping away to outside wrestlers/promotions?

“Not only did we lose them originally, but they’ve left TJPW as a whole, so I think we have to take them back.”

Miu: “Yes.”

(Your next opponents are Kyoraku Kyomei)

Tatsumi: “Oh that’s right! It’s already set, isn’t it? I don’t like that!”

Then Miu used that word I don’t understand again, haha: “やだ! え、カクカク順でももう決まった?”

Miu: “That’s not good! Even though it’s in カクカク order, it has already been decided?”

Tatsumi: “I guess so. Kyoraku, huh? I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Miu: “They’re scary!”

Tatsumi: “I want us to work on our tricks, too.”

Then Miu said, “そうかもしれないです”, which I just couldn’t quite figure out, haha. I also wasn’t quite sure about Rika’s response: “得意分野です。いける未来しか見えないです!”

Miu: “We could…” (laughs)

Tatsumi: “It’s their area of expertise. I don’t see a future for us unless we get good at it too!”

I don’t think I have specific questions on AA Cannon’s comments?

Arai: “I lost today… I’m so disappointed that even though I was able to do the tournament together with Akai-san, it all ended here… I wasn’t strong enough. I’ll get stronger, and if I can participate in the next tournament, I want to win.”

Akai: “This was my first time participating in the tag team tournament. Today, as with the first time I teamed up with Yuki-chan, as I stand next to her, I can see that her strength is steadily growing. We wanted to take back with our own hands those belts that we let slip away, but for wrestlers, timing and luck are everything. It just so happened that today, Daydream managed to seize the right time, and we didn’t have timing or luck on our side. I think wrestlers pull such things toward themselves and make them their allies and turn them into a strength. My tag team with Yuki-chan will continue, but since we lost the belts, I don’t know when we’ll be able to work together again. I want to team up with her. By the next time, we’ll each have gotten more powerful, and I’d like you all to see an AA Cannon that is even greater than before.”

And that’s it for that show! The next one is like a week away, so I’ll finally have some time to translate some stuff from the BJW Shakespeare deathmatch shows, hopefully! There’s some cool stuff from those that I’ve been meaning to share. I’m hoping to finally actually watch one of them soon, haha!

2 Likes

The ちょークレイジー here is クレイジー not ちょっとクレイジー

I would say the こうやって負けてばっかり part is less “stuff like this about losing” and more, like, “we keep just losing” / “if we keep going like this we’ll just keep losing” that kind of thing. こうやって → 負けて (ばっかり)

I would say rather Suzume is made to think 私にはホントにもったいないな by how dazzling Arisu is - she’s still complimenting her (in a self-deprecating way).
Uhhh I’m not really sure how to phrase why though.

As a solution to my problem of wording it, I googled “おいしいと思うパン” and got plenty of hits including this one with a convenient example sentence:

パン職人が本当においしいと思うパンは、さぞかしおいしいに違いありません。

It’s not the bread thinking おいしい, you know what I mean? :sweat_smile:

Suzume’s describing Arisu from her perspective, and to her Arisu is a “partner” who she thinks “私にはホントにもったいないな” (~ I’m not worthy of her) about

Someone in the audience and a commentor I saw repeat what she says while laughing, so I think it comes across as silly/confusing to native speakers too :sweat_smile:

I think she means:
image

you know, カクカク順. Doesn’t it look カクカク-y? All those 角 and all…

This is one sentence, with both exclamation points part of the kind of mood she wanted to go for, like: でもなんかもっと(連覇だ!イェイイェイ!)みたいなかんじ
She’s saying like, she kinda wanted to finish it with more of a peppy “back-to-back victory! Woohoo let’s go yeah!!” kind of feeling. (like with an easy victory)

Also, I suppose this is maybe a bit picky but the そいうわけ in そいうわけにはいかなかったですね is the way she had wanted to go / just talked about picturing it to go. As in, she wanted a confident victory on their march to a back-to-back victory, but そいうわけにはいかなかったですね - as in like, “but it didn’t work out like that did it” that kind of thing.

it didn’t make it into the transcript, so up to you if you buy it or not.
but I feel like she says “華も(つよ)すごいし” which seems like it would make more sense as something to say here to me - like they’re a total package, elegant and strong. googling around for if that’s viable grammatically and such it seems like at least similar to something people have maybe said about fictional characters and such.

I don’t think you’re wrong about 流出する being used that way, but I think in this case she’s just talking about it 流出する’ing from them, not the promotion, and her second use of 流出 is restating/clarifying her first.
私たちの元からいなくなった時点で → ~ from the point in time when it left us,
ずっと流出してる → ~ It has been this whole time 流出してる’ing

It hasn’t been outside the promotion that whole time, but to Rika, it’s been away from its home in another way.

image
私たちの元からいなくなった (gestures that the belt is gone)
(私たちの元 here is like “by our side” / “with us” that sort of thing, not “originally”)

Ha! The twitter transcript includes a helpful note that confirms my interpretation earlier :smile:
(⇐たぶん山組みのこと)is a note in the transcript clarifying for Japanese readers what the heck she’s on about.
山組み doesn’t appear to be the most widely used itself… but it does appear to mean like, the tournament bracket.

Interestingly – there’s one other small detail that it looks like I agree with the twitter transcript a little bit more than the Shupro one I assume you’ve pasted!
I think
カクカク順でもう決まった
(twitter transcript)
is slightly more correct than
カクカク順でもう決まった
(pasted transcript)
(neither are word for word because of understandable readability cleanup)

Like, I think she’s saying, like, (in a far sillier way than this) “the tournament bracket has progressed far enough that it’s already been decided who our next match will be against?”
not “even though it’s a tournament bracket, it’s already been decided?” I don’t think she’s that confused about how a tournament works… Perhaps the shupro transcriber was more confused about the カクカク順 than, I guess, the separate new TJPW transcriber? :sweat_smile:

I’d say it’s like – slightly nervous agreement
image

Like, roughly literally “I agree maybe!”
I think “You might be right!” would be a good natural way of translating it.

I think I would say Rika’s saying it’s a 得意分野 of theirs (her and Miu’s),
and いける未来しか見えないです would be like… “I don’t see any possible outcome where it doesn’t work out!” :sweat_smile: (as in she only sees the future where things work out / they manage it)
whatever 享楽共鳴 is planning she’s already playing the comic foil for it well

“Nothing can possibly go wrong!” might be a good natural English translation, if it’s not too removed literally?

1 Like

I wrote out my impressions from the various holiday shows I watched around new year’s – pasted here directly from my notes.
(so there aren’t marked spoilers, the paragraph breaks are unhelpful, and the trains of thought are probably less composed)

Stardom Dream Queendom 2022

Of the shows around new years, this is the one I was most looking forward to by far, and I’d definitely say it delivered!
I did a good job of avoiding spoilers between when it was held and when it was uploaded to Stardom World, and amusingly, the one slip-up was I looked at twitter for a half a second once and caught and anguished-but-vague tweet from Dana – which made me think 7Upp might have actually beaten Meltear for the tag championships! But then my faith in Meltear probably winning was such that when Mina Shirakawa turned on Unagi that must have been it surely, and I went back to thinking Meltear was probably winning again… so I confess I did laugh when no yeah, 7Upp did win the championships. Good thing enough bad things happened to Cosmic Angels to throw me off the scent amirite! Never doubt a promotion co-founder I guess! I assume Meltear will be sticking together anyhow. I don’t think there’s any possibility of Club Venus being “for me” but coming back from injury to lead a (sub?)faction should be interesting for Shirakawa.
I really don’t like it when they include Kikutaro in the Stardom rumbles with the groping gimmick (Amasaki’s pretty young!! I guess good thing she went over I guess??) and when a mutual asked me for Stardom recs and I mentioned the last big show I had to go back and remember that might not be a great first impression – maybe skip to the Highspeed… but! Super Strong Stardom Machine and “Super Strong Stardom Giant Machine” joint-winning was a very good bit and I would 100% not mind seeing those two completely unidentifiable, unusually shaped wrestlers tag a bunch more together.
I didn’t know anything about Hikari Shimizu before the Highspeed match (and still basically don’t) but man, a highspeed championship match with AZM has to be one of the best spotlight spots in the business, if not the best (along with being a wrestler visiting TJPW).
KAIRI and Utami drawing makes sense – obviously KAIRI wasn’t losing, and this preserves Utami’s cool entrance from the “whoever loses has to run to the ring in your debut gear” unofficial stipulation, which I feel half-relieved and half-disappointed by.
Haruka Umesaki has been on my radar since that “Harukamania” article in Shupro, and her impact in Stardom has been interesting so far with that Karma business in New Blood (but I don’t specifically remember this Wonder of Stardom match).
And the main event!! I was really excited for Giulia’s (very not improbably) victory!
The part of the match that stands out most strongly in my memory now is after the match, I absolutely loved how nice they were being to each other! With Giulia being extremely complementary of Syuri - I loved her phrasing on 朱里はバケモノ級にぶっ強くて、バケモノかってくらい、真面目で、バケモノ級になんか超優しくて (which didn’t sound nearly as good in the English subtitles), and Syuri putting on Giulia’s belt for her… I had noticed that Syuri uses :pleading_face: a whole lot on twitter when people give her (deserved) compliments, so it felt especially fun to see the real thing in such a big moment! :sweat_smile: My immediate thought afterwards was for Syuri to take a rest!! She has so much テーピング! But then like the first thing she did was challenge Chihiro Hashimoto which seems like the opposite of taking a rest to me… but that’s professional wrestlers for you I guess.
I haven’t really been watching Stardom in the time since, due to being satiated from all the new year’s shows, but it seems like some cool stuff has been happening at the same busy rate it always does these days there! Putting my thoughts down on these shows should hopefully lead to that pause thawing and some catching up, or at least looking forward to the next big show in early February (OH RIGHT WHICH HAS GIULIA/SUZU SUZUKI FOR THE RED BELT YEAH I AM EXCITED ABOUT THAT).


NOAH "The New Year" 2023

I did watch the whole show, and enjoyed all of it plenty well. In particular I was curious if Jake Lee would turn up at any of these shows, and hey! He did, with a pair with Jack Morris being potentially the start of something super cool, with Morris being a promising but (self-admittedly in that shupro article) pretty much completely fresh talent who could potentially benefit a lot from a more fully formed star from another promotion like Lee. All Japan’s loss I guess! Sugiura and his olympic slam + Marufuji and his Shiranui are two wrestlers I grew to appreciate a lot more watching all those old Tokyo Dome shows last year, so I also especially liked that match (poor Kojima seemed tired though…). I also enjoyed Kiyomiya/Kenoh – you know, Kenoh’s kinda got a point about Kiyomiya’s hair ripping him off, huh! How… up… it gets though is I think juuuust on the right side of the line between “fun and cool” and “kinda dorky”!
But I mean come on obviously the match I’m here for is the Shinsuke Nakamura one. “The Rising Sun” will never quite mean as much to me as “Subconscious”… but I gotta admit it sure does make for a hell of an entrance! And aura-wise, neither the song nor Nakamura have lost a step since the first time I heard it, extremely excited for his debut, watching NXT TakeOver Dallas… The commentary team were talking up Nakamura and Muta a ton as larger than life figures and gods, to a point that would be silly with pretty much any two other wrestlers, but even if Muta’s aura has faded a bit more than Nakamura’s (at least to my history-uneducated eyes), it rang true here. I had caught on twitter that the sucking-out-the-mist-via-kiss spot was gonna happen at some point (and it’s happened before) but it’s one match where the Moment of it was more important than the suspense of what was going to happen, so I was plenty on cloud nine anyway.
I was hoping a little for an “一番スゲェのはプロレスなんだよ!”from Nakamura or other markers (like the name “boma-ye”) of the pre-WWE career of his I familiarized myself with recently, but I’d say on the whole he was still definitely WWE Nakamura paying a visit – which is fine! Since I mean… that is who he is…
I originally parsed Muta’s backstage comments as “[Muta says something unintelligible]” but took a second, clearer listen after fallynleaf alluded to it being homophobic and…! Yeah he sure does say that! I confess my reaction was to laugh rather than to be like, appalled, just because of the absurdity of the whole situation (trying to calculate out how to feel about what a crass nWo-flavored mystical ghost character (?) who started in 1989 WCW and I have to imagine can shoot and work speak nearly no English ended up saying amidst the ol’ pro wrestling homoeroticism did my head in). But it is certainly an unfortunate detail of an otherwise very cool occasion, and he shoulda said something other than that. Shupro’s ‘transcript’ similarly made me laugh a lot rather than decide more deeply how I feel about that particular choice


Wrestle Kingdom 17

The way I remember watching all these – I believe I watched Stardom and NOAH earlier on as part of a longer break from work (interspersed with a couple work days), and then I took January 4th off (but worked the day before), so things were starting to turn back into work at this point. I decided to give up alcohol for the new year, so I was trying out non-alcoholic beer during these shows (which it turns out is just demonstrably better than regular beer – since the trouble appears to have been I like alcoholic drinks despite not actually liking being intoxicated, fortunately instead of the other way around) and finally picked up a pizza I had been hankering for (after they were closed when I was watching the other shows) for Wrestle Kingdom! I may not be keeping up super well with New Japan these days, but that all made it feel suitably like a proper holiday!
I was worried going in that watching all those older Wrestle Kingdoms might make this one’s failings stand out way more starkly. But nope! Rather the opposite - it’s a Wrestle Kingdom all right! Toe to tip and all that. The exact same structure of New Japan Rumble → various matches intriguing enough to be interesting and potential showstealers, with titles and guests from other promotions etc. → big-feeling secondary and primary belt singles matches at the top of the card. The specific belts might be different, and the specific matches, but ultimately, that’s a Wrestle Kingdom. Even Karl Anderson is there like always…
Oh, and! I was 100% wrong when I speculated they’d stopped saying “cerulean blue” – it was like the VERY FIRST thing the commentator said! And I counted at least 6 total mentions of the fabled “cerulean blue mat.” Go figure! The things that standout with a little better comprehension and a little more context…
I was happy to again hear my color commentary top lineup of Milano+Liger+Motoi, but they swapped out commentary constantly over the course of the show. I hope Motoi in particular graduates to a less swap-outable position over time. she has a spanish-learning book that I bought… I just think it’s neat!
Lio Rush bleeding was rough but memorable!
KAIRI/Tam I remember being good but… short and not really with any build or suspense (although to be fair I accidentally spoiled for myself that Mercedes would show up and challenge KAIRI from a youtube video)… and I’m gonna try really hard not to gripe about that kind of thing since I am genuinely glad to be mostly rid of that kind of cynicism after dropping WWE… but one specific thing that actually bugged me a lot is the confusing English wording around what this whole venture is, people were saying variations of “New Japan and Stardom’s Women’s Division” which doesn’t make any sense to me at all because New Japan doesn’t seem to have a women’s division and Stardom definitely doesn’t have a women’s division! For me, they should handle this IWGP Women’s Championship business exactly like when any other promotion shows up with a title that’s defended at Wrestle kingdom, like all those GHC Heavyweight matches I saw on older Tokyo Dome shows. I guess they’ve burned that bridge already by naming it IWGP, so it’s not like Rossy Ogawa is out there holding up a star-shaped belt before matches, so it’s hard to pitch it as a Stardom championship. But I dunno, they should say like “IWGP partnered with Stardom to sponsor this championship in New Japan” or something and treat it like an “interpromotional championship.” Which is what it is, not a “division.” Unless I guess Mone (and… KAIRI…?) are like, signed to New Japan now? I suppose it wouldn’t be the first wrestling promotion with a “women’s division” consisting of exactly one wrestler!
Anyway – ultimately I’m just griping about a semantics issue that doesn’t really matter, probably mostly just caused by English wrestling terminology defaulting to describing it how American promotions have done it, and Bushiroad wanting to be as palatable to that mindset as possible. But I do hope over time they work out something that works fully smoothly and is cool. I want more people to watch Stardom because it’s neat and I hope this does end up a path that gets people to do that.
I got distracted in the tag team championship match and didn’t pay attention because I was trying to figure out Cash Wheeler’s tattoo – I think it says “夢 力量”, but with 力量 clumped together in one character slot for some reason? Seems maybe slightly fishy to me, but hey no harm done!
I recall liking ZSJ/Ren Narita – Narita could end up really really cool and it was super nice to see both ZSJ and Tama Tonga win singles championships here. Wasn’t sure how to feel about the TMDK join, but commentary mentioning their history in NOAH made it make sense.
I liked Hiromu’s eyeball suit.
The US match went probably the best way it could have! With most of the runtime involving Omega doing very painful-looking things to Ospreay, and then Ospreay’s comeback not being successful and an ending that made me cheer very loudly because I knew how happy it must have made fallynleaf. Can’t ask for much more than that! It was interesting seeing blading in the match (and I felt pointlessly smug for being like “boy they’re sure making sure to block line of sight to his head – is he blading?” right beforehand) – I feel like I don’t remember in all those Tokyo Dome matches I watched recently much of that after that one shocking Nagata/Sasaki in 2004 (although I’m probably forgetting a time or two). Also, finally, this is petty but one thing I’ve genuinely really enjoyed about switching to almost entirely Japanese-based wrestling coverage, is the vague sense that I had to pay attention to Dave Meltzer’s opinions finally evaporated, and I’m using cagematch to jog my memory about these cards and seeing his rating for this match for the first time there is very amusing. Honestly even just the concept of one critic’s idiosyncratic opinions being exclusively prominent enough to be featured prominently in a reference database feels even weirder looking in from the outside now.
And you know… there wasn’t anything wrong per se about the main event… Like I’ve been saying, it was totally in line with the format I’ve come to expect from these shows… But I found it hard to pay attention. Especially since I was a lot more interested at that point in checking in on reactions to the previous match. I think ultimately the issue is that Okada, and the “WRESTLE KINGDOM MAIN EVENT” format works incredibly well for me in situations like Okada/Tanahashi, where it feels like two potentially equally-matched titans… and less for me when it’s more the “vanquishing hero” kind of feeling (although I suppose that may be appropriate for an Inoki memorial show), and I don’t think Jay White (to my eyes/knowledge at least) has gotten nearly as much build up as that kind of equal as Omega got – he’s pretty much been in full annoying heel mode from what I’ve seen. Although I was positively surprised at the crowd cheering for him too. Tanahashi is a character I would root for to see win just for the fun and good vibes and air guitar even if it were a foregone conclusion. But with Okada it just makes me feel like it’s gonna be a really long match and I bet they’re gonna do each other’s finishers and stuff and there’s gonna be some nearfalls that totally get me for a second, and it’ll be fun by the end but in the moment at the start of the match I don’t really care. I dunno, it does feel like the kind of thing where just tweaking my perspective slightly I’d appreciate it more though, and I don’t feel like I’m ever giving Jay White enough credit.


東京女子プロレス '23

And finally, Tokyo Joshi’s January 4th show! I really liked it! It was really fun! And a lovely last morsel for the holiday feast.
I love 享楽共鳴 (surely the official tag team of this thread) and enjoyed their match a lot, especially Shoko meticulously setting up the pointiest kaiju before trying to superplex Misao into them.
I think I did see Mizuki would make it to the title challenge beforehand (while verifying that yes, the Golden Lovers contingency did indeed enjoy the finish to the US title match), but I suppose it only makes sense in retrospect anyway! Year of the rabbit and all. I’ve enjoyed all the Magical Sugar Rabbits matches I’ve seen so I’ll certainly look forward to that title match. As I enjoyed Yamashita’s shot! (though yeah – painful!)
And TJPW really does remain a great spotlight for visiting wrestlers! I wonder how exactly Wasteland War Party will eventually be defeated?

2 Likes
Reply (long!)

Ugh, yeah, I haven’t… been exactly a fan of how all of that has been handled! I quit watching Stardom at the end of 2021 for a combination of reasons, some of that being their booking style not really grabbing me, but the biggest reason was having a really upsetting thing happen in one of my friend communities that badly triggered basically every anxiety I had surrounding being in wrestling fandom, and it was unfortunately very tied to Stardom, making it really hard for me to engage with Stardom stuff after that :pensive:. I didn’t have enough of a personal connection to the company’s storytelling to fight past that, so I gave it up. It was kind of sad timing because I missed Syuri’s entire run with the belt, despite supporting her from afar, but, well, I don’t exactly have a shortage of fave wrestlers :sweat_smile:.

I’ve talked plenty about why I don’t really engage with NJPW anymore (outside of rare exceptions, like a handful of shows this year and crossover events), but naturally the labor exploitation issue has been on my mind, too, and I guess I’ve basically been worried about all of the negative things about NJPW spreading to Stardom the closer the two work together…

The sense I’ve gotten is that NJPW is unfortunately sort of copying American promotions like WWE and AEW here, and their attempts at including women are inspired by American wrestling. I could be wrong about this! But it just really stood out in a bad way when I compared this year’s Wrestle Kingdom to, say, the CyberFest shows, or even DDT Ultimate Party 2019 in Ryogoku Kokugikan, which I’ve probably talked about before, because it was a pretty seminal show in the first year of my wrestling fandom, and it made a HUGE impact on every single TJPW wrestler who was in that show (Which was all of them! They fit every single one of them on that card! And Yuka and Shoko for the PoP title was the third to last match, and Miyu and Riho were in the semi-main). The TJPW wrestlers STILL talk about that show!

Both CyberFests so far have essentially treated the PoP title as on par with the DDT KO-D title and the GHC belt. No, the PoP title has not main-evented (yet!), but they explicitly explained that the match order for the triple main event was selected based on the length of the wrestlers’ careers.

It’s just frustrating because I feel like CyberFight’s overall model is just so much better than Bushiroad’s here, and it blows AEW and WWE completely out of the water. I wish NJPW would try to copy their direct competitor a little more, rather than copying American wrestling, which is like two decades behind.

And now I’m starting to worry that (vague NOAH spoilers) NOAH might try to implement something in the same vein as NJPW, since the wrestlers in their first women’s match made comments backstage about wanting a women’s GHC title… I didn’t really like the sound of that, especially if Nomads basically ends up getting subsumed by that…

Anyway, yeah, all of that is to say that I agree with your complaining, and I have also been bothered by this! I felt so mad on Kairi and Tam’s behalf for that match, and it really ruined any lingering faith I might have had about how NJPW will handle integrating Stardom specifically, and women’s matches in general.

And don’t even get me started on NJPW adapting American wrestling’s very stupid “no intergender” mixed tag match rules… Honestly, I feel like so many of the problems ultimately boil down to wrestling companies having an aversion to intergender wrestling. If women aren’t seen as being capable of performing on the same level as men, it always seems to end up resulting in the women getting shafted…

This is one of those situations where I’m sorry to be so cynical, but I would truly love for a company to prove me wrong! Just for once!

cheese_kota

I’m glad that you thought of me, haha! Yes, I did like that ending a lot :see_no_evil:. Sometimes love is ugly vengeance :smiling_face_with_tear:.

Ugh, yeah, Meltzer is a constant thorn in my side. I feel like I’ve mostly managed to keep my complaining about him to a minimum, but he was legitimately one of the reasons why I decided to take the TJPW translations public, because he published stuff based on that one machine-translated Yuki Arai article and contributed to spreading misinformation…

He actually just got called out recently for falling for a hoaxer and publishing wrong information about Dragongate. Lots of damning stuff in there.

My opinion is that 1) he really shouldn’t be covering Japanese companies without being able to speak the language, and 2) trying to be a one stop shop for global wrestling news requires such a massive quantity of work if you want to do your due diligence on every bit of reporting, I don’t think it’s humanly possible for one person to do it. I think that heavily incentivizes cutting corners on the stuff he cares about less (so, Dragongate, TJPW, DDT, etc.), which leads to shoddy reporting that is unfortunately still taken seriously by many other people due to his reputation.

But, yeah, those are just some of the many problems of pro wrestling not having real reporters…

As far as his star ratings go, yeah, they bother me a lot, too. I do really like some of the matches that he also likes, but it’s incredibly subjective, and Meltzer is only really good at rating a certain type of match (NJPW main event style wrestling). The closer a match gets to that style, usually the better it does in his ratings. Kenny is really good at wrestling that style, so his matches of that type get high ratings (I do take some small pleasure in pointing out to people how so many of the so-called best matches ever have a decade and a half long gay love story deeply interwound all throughout them. As far as I’m concerned, the sole benefit of Meltzer’s ratings is so that I can push this agenda :smiling_imp:).

But it constantly frustrates me how he consistently underrates a lot of other match styles, like he’s clearly not a fan of a lot of women’s wrestling (unless the matches are close to the NJPW main event style), and he also doesn’t really appreciate comedy wrestling.

Plus, I hate Ospreay for a number of shoot reasons, but I also agree with Kenny’s criticism of him that he has all these 5 star matches, and none of them are actually memorable (unfortunately Ospreay now has one single memorable match for me…). He just doesn’t really do wrestling in a way that I can personally connect with at all. There’s just no real emotional core to his work, imo. It’s all flashy athleticism with none of the, like, actual reason to want someone to win. So even if his matches are athletic masterpieces, I would personally dock stars for not giving me a reason to care.

I’ve cried over a bunch of Misao matches that were utterly unforgettable matches to me, but which would probably be lucky to get 3 stars (if Meltzer actually followed TJPW) because they don’t fit into the style box that Meltzer had decided is the “best wrestling”. Also, hey, this is an area where I think a lack of fluency really hurts, because that personal investment in the characters and stories drives so much of what makes a match good, and if Meltzer doesn’t have that, of course he won’t get the full experience.

But all of that is just to say I completely agree about not paying attention to Dave Meltzer’s opinions! May we one day all be so free!

Don’t worry, haha, I think this was the overall consensus! I came into the show pretty out of the loop of current NJPW story happenings, and I got filled in a bit by people who had been paying slightly more attention, and, yep, the general opinion is that Jay vs Okada was a pretty cold feud, at least in comparison to the Kenny vs Ospreay stuff :sweat_smile:.

The match was, like, solidly Good, in the way that an Okada WK main event is always Good, but I feel like I’m just at a point where good wrestling alone just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I watch so much wrestling every month, good matches are kinda a dime a dozen :sweat_smile:.

I do like Jay and wish his reign had gone better than it apparently did, but yeah, I was pretty checked out for that match. I think his comments afterward were stronger and more interesting than the entire match, but, well, I really like seeing Jay break down and have real emotions and have to deal with the consequences of some of his past actions.

YES!

misao_shoko_let_s_do_this_fair_and_square

:sweat_smile:

Hmm, I wonder who might have been tweeting about both of those things…

ohgeezkota

I wonder this, too! They’re certainly unprecedented, as far as TJPW stories go. Some part of me wants to see them have a very long reign and then Pom just so happens to get another shot at the tag belts…

1 Like

I definitely agree on Okada v White being cold. It’s what made me so happy when I seen Kiyomiya kicked him in the face lol he was so fired up.

I’m worried Jay White has hit his ceiling in NJPW

2 Likes
Reply (not particularly long!)

I forgot to include a line I was going to say making the same comparison :sweat_smile:: “At CyberFight Festival they don’t message it as ‘now here’s NOAH and TJPW’s women’s division’ or ‘here’s NOAH and DDT’s weirdo division.’”

No, I think they’ve been explicit about it! :sweat_smile: based on the shupro coverage and stuff, my impression is the main goal driving the IWGP Women’s Championship is indeed to make New Japan more palatable to American/international expectations, since if Americans know anything about Japanese wrestling, they know the name “New Japan”, and it’s true I have in the past (albeit probably before Bushiroad acquiring Stardom, for at least the comments I’m thinking of) seen New Japan criticized for not having a women’s division (regardless of whether or not that’s a valid criticism, which I think is a whole separate tangled subject). So on some level it does make sense to try to rectify that criticism while keeping the focus on the one brand everybody definitely knows (rather than pivoting to a new umbrella “Bushi Fight” or something).
… but it definitely reads pretty grossly for now at least as New Japan leeching from Stardom to make itself look better. I hope it works out better in the future (the Sasha Banks stuff at least has some interesting promise, and one benefit of it being a separate belt so disconnected from Stardom is at least it’s easy to keep enjoying separately what Stardom’s still doing).
And I hope your negative associations with Stardom fade over time! It’s definitely more violence ‘n’ round robin driven than TJPW, but I really like it a lot. God’s Eye’s a great faction!

additional thought addendum: I wonder if part of the branding problem is worry that “Stardom”/the star-shaped belts with the corny names, etc. would have potential negative connotations to wider audiences if emphasized too much, similar to like how WWE was calling the women’s title the “Divas Championship” for so long and it was awful. If so (and it’s just speculation) I do honestly think that’s maybe kinda fair - since it was part of the initial barrier of entry to me at least, not being sure what the tone of the promotion was going to be like (although it’s the kind of concern that feels completely silly looking back on it once you are fully invested). I’d be curious if there’s a solution that maybe even includes revamping some of that stuff in Stardom… I wouldn’t necessarily inherently be opposed, as long as the promotion itself and the wrestlers are presented with respect, and it isn’t just subsumed into New Japan to make everything nice and masculine-coded.

2 Likes
Replies

I don’t think he has, personally. But finding something interesting for him to do might take more bravery and creativity than NJPW really has as a company. I’d like to see Jay have to really face his insecurities, and maybe lose his position in Bullet Club, or something!

Okay, I laughed at “DDT’s weirdo division” haha. Maybe they should make that one real. They could do a “give weirdos a chance” campaign!

Yeah, I think I might’ve talked before about having a similar experience with Stardom and with TJPW, too, when I was first exposed to them. I came at wrestling from such a strange direction: DDT → NJPW → AEW → TJPW/Stardom, so when I watched joshi wrestling for the first time, my conception of what pro wrestling looked like was defined pretty heavily by the presentation of men’s wrestling (and specifically プロレス). I remember feeling pretty turned off by the idol stuff in TJPW, and just the way that Stardom’s entire presentation worked, because it felt to me like women’s wrestling as a whole was treated with much less gravitas than men’s wrestling.

My impressions changed as I got deeper into both companies, of course. I think the big turning point for TJPW for me was DDT Ultimate Party 2019, honestly. I’d just started to really get into TJPW by that point (thanks to Misao and Sakisama haha), and I was just so charmed by all of the TJPW parts of that entire show, and stuff like Kenny respecting Miyu so much that he wanted to fight her himself, that went a long way. I feel like CyberFest probably serves a similar purpose there, showing that TJPW is a bit of an oddball company, yes, but it’s no less legitimate than DDT or NOAH.

Honestly, with Stardom, I’m not sure how I feel about the thought of changing the belts, haha. I think you’re probably right that it would improve the global perception of them, though.

I guess the main problem to me is that if Stardom is going to present itself as the number one women’s wrestling company in the world, there’s kind of a certain… responsibility, I guess, that’s inherent in that. And Stardom doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record with some of that, like the bikini fights (and bikini photobooks…), which are honestly bigger turn-offs for me personally than whimsical belts. I don’t mind individual promotions doing heavily sexualized stuff (I mean, I’m a DDT watcher haha), but I do get bothered by the thought that women’s wrestling can’t succeed without including that stuff, so in that sense, I wish there was less of a disparity between Stardom and NJPW.

That said, though, NJPW could step up with sexualizing their male wrestlers haha and it could solve that problem from a different angle, I think :sweat_smile:. That’s sort of how the DDT and TJPW dynamic feels to me. Like, yes, TJPW has photobooks and portraits and such, but their stuff is either exactly on par with what DDT puts out (they literally hire the same photographer), or DDT takes it a step further (Endo’s nude photobook, basically any Pheromones match, etc.). So it doesn’t feel like any of that is happening because TJPW is a woman’s promotion.

Even with the idol stuff, my opinion of that in TJPW evolved into me wishing more men’s wrestling promotions had more singing and dancing haha. Wrestling is a performance, after all, and I think it’s fun to combine it with other performance arts. I also wish that men’s promotions would incorporate more of the whimsy and magic that’s in TJPW. DDT sometimes gives me my wish there, but I feel like NOAH would benefit from this, too… I swear this argument is not driven entirely by my “give us a TJPW/NOAH crossover” agenda. But if I can put Mizuki and Yuka into NOAH, and Go Shiozaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima into TJPW, and write a 30k word novella about it, then I think there’s enough common ground between the two companies to make this work.

I guess really what it comes down to for me is that instead of wanting women’s wrestling to become masculinized in order to stand on even footing with men’s wrestling, I want men’s wrestling to take some inspiration from women’s wrestling, too. Wrestling is increasingly becoming distant from the old hypermasculine big guy vs big guy stereotype, and I think letting it be more feminine is honestly super healthy for the development of the medium, and would bring in many more new fans (especially fans who aren’t men) than it would turn away.

Pink frilly Riho gear Kenny forever!!

2 Likes
more replies

Yeah, I think to some extent it’s an unavoidable experience of getting into this kind of thing (specific subsection of an already niche interest, primarily in a different language), where you just aren’t gonna know what the context or the vibe is until you’ve actually invested some time into it. Without any information, suspecting a women’s wrestling promotion could turn out to be condescending or exploitative is… probably a pretty reasonable concern! And what, if any, red flags there are are a lot more distracting when you aren’t familiar with the good parts yet.

I feel like similarly – I have a hard time recommending 龍が如く or getting takers on those recommendations, because stuff like the – at best, weird – integration of the sex industry into minigames, or the handful of disappointing moments of transphobia, are much bigger turnoffs when you’re still kind of expecting the series to be like, a hypermasculine GTA-tinged crime game, instead of an extremely good-hearted game about goofy dudes being buds.

Like – the process of figuring out if uncomfortable elements are the main tone, or just occasional lapses takes a frustratingly non-zero amount of time, is I guess what I mean.

The biggest thing about Stardom that makes me personally at this point safely conceptualize its uncomfortable bits as overlookable/outlier type things rather than main distractions (and it’s worth mentioning that I get the impression Stardom has changed drastically since just before I started watching in 2020), is that at the end of the day, I don’t think any aspersions can fairly be cast at how seriously and importantly the competition itself in Stardom is presented. Like the sheer scale and prestige of just this last year’s 5 Star GP for example (26 participants! Big shows with commentary! Packed Korakuens!) surely is unique to Stardom among the current women’s promotions and divisions of the world as far as I know.

While there are still elements of the presentation that can make me uncomfortable sometimes (those spots in the rumbles sometimes, the occasional “Cosmic Rules” matches, I still don’t really know quite what to make of Rossy Ogawa and his prominent role) and I can understand why newcomers would be additionally wary of those things - when the entire rest of the card is killer big-deal women’s wrestling, it’s easier to look past it for me than it ever was when there were issues with how the women’s divisions in WWE were handled when I was watching those. Just from the sheer volume, if nothing else. I still maintain that rather than being fast-paced per se, Stardom these days more accurately just has a ton of stuff going on at all times. Which itself is certainly at least something I never experienced watching women’s wrestling in American promotions!!

I would say though… at the very least, they certainly know what they have with Mr. Tanahashi :smile:. A big percentage of their ads are just “hey if you buy NJPW merch, Tanahashi might smile at you!” And I guess the sexualization varies by participant but there is the Concurso… I do like that New Japan seems more aware of WWE at least of the idea that the audience might fairly find the male wrestlers attractive (whether or not that’s quite the same thing as “sexualization” per se).
(oh yeah – and come to think of it I just remembered the プ女子 episodes of the New Japan variety show, which are very weird in their own way, but basically just amount to a full show of women ogling the male wrestlers and talking about what makes them hot)

I think the gap between New Japan and Stardom on this particular front isn’t quite as big (again, at least these days) as it can seem when not actively watching Stardom’s actual full shows. They both do ultimately feel primarily like “check out this variety of charismatic athletes!” to me, which is at least in principle, fair, and sorta inseparable from pro wrestling whether it’s acknowledged or not.

Mildly interesting side note I thought of – I remember when I started my Shupro subscription, there was a slightly off-putting regular feature each week where there’d be a page of a gravure modeling type shot of a different female wrestler. I remember that being another one of those initially off-putting “I’m not sure about this” type of elements but it’s been gone for a long time. I wonder if it was a temporary thing I just happened to catch the tail-end of, or if the recent surge in women’s wrestling popularity has helped it be replaced with actual coverage.

I definitely agree about this! I think the ideal outcome for me to bridge that barrier of entry problem would be for these big media companies to trust the product and its appeal enough to let it earn enough fans and respect naturally that the feminine-ish elements that today can trigger “uh oh maybe the powers that be aren’t taking this seriously” fully just become accepted and a fun part of wrestling, and more and more of the need for self-consciously “gritty!!” “tough!!” presentation fades away.

like I remember being (and still maybe am) uncomfortable with Stardom’s Cinderella Tournament concept, where the winner wears a fancy dress and tiara and gets a “cinderella wish” – but I thought about it and honestly in a vacuum that’s a really fun stipulation! and if it were dropped a small something would maybe be lost – whereas if the men got a similar (or… the exact same…?) stipulation, perhaps something would be gained…

I dunno! I guess it’s no surprise that the intersection of famously complicated things, gender and professional wrestling, would be itself complicated :sweat_smile: especially when these two countries have weirdly completely different systems around it fraught in completely different ways, with incompatible terminology.

I tell ya though – back when I had the WWE Network, I tried to watch “Attitude Era” shows and WOWEE despite watching a shocking amount of 80s and early 90s wrestling and enjoying it pretty well that year, I just couldn’t do it once like, Val Venis and D-Generation X started showing up and I stopped completely. There was some stuff in there I saw that I would truly say personally was outright show-poisoning garbage… We really do have it better now than it used to be (for what low a bar that is).

1 Like
Reply

Yeah, I think Japan in general is more, I guess, aware of and willing to market to this audience regardless of gender (which is both a good and a bad thing!). Photobooks don’t really exist in American promotions in the same way, though I bet they would sell quite a few of them if they made them, haha.

But I do think that the concurso differs a lot from Stardom’s bikini stuff, for complicated reasons concerning audience gaze and identification. There are a few DDT products that I do think are comparable to the bikini photobooks, though. Like the nude photobook with the infamous fabric (link contains a, uh, borderline NSFW Kota photo, fyi!) that Kenny’s house show tights were made out of.

If NJPW starts having wrestlers start feuds in their underwear or having matches where that sort of thing is an actual stipulation, though, then yeah, that would totally be on par, haha.

There was a podcast interview with Kenny from I think 2019, maybe with Don Callis or Dave Meltzer or someone like that, where the interviewer asked Kenny about the increase in women fans that NJPW had gotten in recent years. Apparently it was, at least at the time, nearly 50% women fans, which is obviously a way higher percentage than fans in the west!

I do think that NJPW does a fair amount of catering to this audience, hence why they’re successful there, but there were definitely things on the shows themselves that I found incredibly offputting at first, like Miho Abe and Pieter. I’d be fine with that stuff if it wasn’t so… well, obviously designed around the idea that the audience is a (heterosexual) man :sweat_smile:. Like, fanservice aimed at lesbians is a thing that also exists, but that’s… not really what’s happening here. But if one of the wrestlers had a scantily clad male valet who does provocative poses, then I’d let them have Miho Abe and Pieter without complaint, haha. But as it stands, there are still just all these little reminders that they do have a particular audience in mind for their shows, and that audience is not me.

I honestly have some complicated feelings on the sexualization aspect just in general, but that’s largely due to being asexual. For the most part, I’m okay with people doing whatever they want as long as everyone is comfortable. What worries me is that there is a certain pressure, particularly on women, to exist as sexual objects in addition to being athletes, and that there are much more limited paths to success in the field if the women don’t want to go down that route.

Ok yeah the New Japan Cup would extremely be improved if the winner gets to wear a fancy dress and a tiara at the end!! I probably still wouldn’t get back into watching, haha, but I would tune in to see the winner’s outfit at the end…

Yeah, pretty much :sweat_smile:! Also, I don’t know if you ever read this, but there’s actually a really interesting interview with Effy where he talks about wrestling and drag. Here’s a quote that particularly stands out to me:

“Literally, wrestling is drag! It’s over-the-top exaggeration. Obviously for [queens], it’s exaggeration of femininity and on our end it’s masculinity. Where I’ve taken my character, I’ve played with both ends of that. They say, ‘Oh, here’s this boy in fishnets’–and then I beat people’s asses.”

This is actually something that gets further complicated when you add in Mexican wrestling and the whole concept of exóticos, which exist within a completely different cultural framework, and are in many ways sort of a direct reaction to Mexico’s culture of machismo. I’ve spent a lot of time sort of trying to grapple with the concept. Is it a positive or a negative stereotype, is it empowering LGBTQ people and issues or holding them back, etc., but truthfully it’s a situation where I don’t think there are a lot of clear-cut right or wrong answers! It’s positive and empowering for some people, and also unfortunately restrictive for others, since there isn’t really an existing framework for luchadores to be openly LGBTQ outside of that specific model.

It’s something I’m hoping to be able to do more research on when my Spanish gets better, because so far, I’ve mostly just read English language research, which is fairly limited! I have a feeling that I’ll find a lot more nuanced articles and essays on the subject being written in Spanish by people with a more direct connection to the culture…

Sorry for rambling! I have a lot of interest in the subject and have also thought about it a lot, so I have a lot to say! :sweat_smile:

1 Like

週刊プロレス No.2208 (from October, the end of the 5 Star GP)

This one’s a supplemental issue not included with the subscription, focusing exclusively on the 2022 Stardom 5 Star GP. I went ahead and bought it since I loved that tournament so much!
My impression (not having read it yet but I mean if I end up disagreeing by the end I’ll just go back and edit this out so) is that it’s not unmissable by any means, but it seems like a pretty fun souvenir of sorts if you care about the event covered.

The first big section is a page for each of the 26 tournament entrants, ordered by point total by block, with a summary of how they did across the tournament, and their personal story it tells.
I think these are neat! So I tried to summarize them.

Red Stars

  1. Tam Nakano (1st place)
    After losing the white belt in 2021, Tam was stalling with failed championship shots and injury, but fully recovered and bounced back particularly with her celebrated matches with Natsupoi and subsequent acceptance of same as a new member of Cosmic Angels, as well as a great match challenging for Syuri’s red belt. Her path through to the tournament file was marked by stopping other wrestlers’ hot streaks (as both Himeka and Maika lost to her when they had momentum), and the final with Giulia shows why that feud and Tam in particular are evergreen attractions (ロングセラー) for Stardom.
  2. Maika (2nd place)
    Maika notched impressive wins coming out ahead in rugged confrontations of attack and defense, incl. between her “fated rival” Utami Hayashishita and her former stablemate Syuri. Her Michinoku Driver II is a powerful weapon, but Tam stopping her momentum, a shocking loss to Momo Kohgo, and she and her tag partner Himeka’s first singles match together in the final ending in double KO meant she was out of the tournament. Maika certainly has the ability, now if she can only capture a belt, the Maika era will arrive.
    (P.S. they don’t mention it, but a notable memory I have of Maika in this tournament is when she got very very sunburned in the middle of it…)
  3. Himeka (2nd place)
    For Himeka’s summary, they emphasize heavily the first singles match between her close friend, tag partner, and stablemate Maika on the final show. They also talk about how after reaching the semifinal of the tournament in 2020, her singles momentum stalled (apparently in part due to back pain), but the match with Maika and an impressive red belt challenge have only deepened the expectation of big (jumbo?) things from Himeka (ひめか待望論)
  4. Risa Sera (2nd place)
    As the invading leader of Prominence, Sera surely found enjoyment in wrestling for Stardom in the tournament, based on the extremely painful looking things she did to the other wrestlers: particularly the Giant Swing on Momo Kohgo that ended with throwing her directly into the audience’s chairs (which yes, I remember!). She broke out that technique a couple of times after that, and also made (the very light) Saki Kashima look like a crash test dummy with unparalleled speed in the Giant Swing.
  5. Koguma (5th place)
    Koguma’s the type to have fun in her matches, and her tendency to either persuade or force bear poses and kuma chants out of her opponents was a memorable throughline in the tournament. Her nickname of “Highspeed Genius” was born out in victories over AZM and Utami Hayashishita however, and after lots of success in the tag team division with fellow un-retiree Hazuki as FWC (Fukuoka Double Crazy), her first singles title since returning to wrestling can’t be far away.
    (come to think of it, I’m honestly shocked she hasn’t been highspeed champion since then)
  6. Utami Hayashishita (5th place)
    Utami’s reign with the red belt across 9 defenses made her synonymous with big matches in Stardom and won her the 2021 Tokyo Sports Women’s Pro-Wrestling top prize, and so for her this tournament was an opportunity to regain that spotlight. An early match with her rival Syuri was sure to be a draw, since they had fought for 43 minutes in the past with no conclusion (30m draw + 13 minute extension ending in double KO), so how could 15 minutes be enough? Utami defeating Syuri just before the bell marked the start of that revival she was hoping for… however point-wise the end result of the tournament can only be a disappointment.
  7. AZM (5th place)
    AZM’s won technique or special achievement prizes in all her 5 Star GP appearances since her first in 2019, and she held her own in a difficult and powerful block with speed and skill, not ending at the top, but having sped ahead (さすが) and been at the top of the block standings for a long time. Her winning combination of canadian destroyer into her pinning “Azumi sushi” won victories and showed absolutely that the Highspeed Champion can hang at the top of Stardom’s competition.
  8. Syuri (5th place)
    Syuri won the 2021 5 Star GP, but actively defending the red belt during the run of the tournament may have made the path to a second consecutive victory even more difficult, and after a loss to rival Utami, and a loss to Saki Kashima’s 起死回生 despite Saki being actively Syuri-phobic, although Syuri was able to keep the possibility of advancing open to the end, she wasn’t able to see it through.
  9. Saki Kashima (9th place)
    This tournament was in a way, Saki Kashima’s blooming into a true entertainer. Her long-relied on surprise rollup move 起死回生 led her to upset victories, and her ingenuity and varied moves (like the Shoryuken she does) and storylines like overcoming her fear of having to fight Syuri, meant that although she’s a heel, she’s become very popular. Spapapapaan!
  10. SAKI (10th place)
    An outside wrestler from the independent unit COLOR’S that’s allied with Cosmic Angels, SAKI’s had a 10 year career, and despite the many matches she’s had, the tournament provided many first-time opponents and experiences, and although point-wise she didn’t end up with as many points as expected, she’s nevertheless grateful for that experience.
  11. Mai Sakurai (11th place)
    First wrestling for Stardom in 2021 after a roughly 1.5 year career prior to that, Mai was briefly in Cosmic Angels before deciding to join Giulia in Donna Del Mondo (thanks to Giulia’s inexplicably successful “attack the rookies in horror masks” plan). Shupro says she showed the most growth out of anyone in the tournament and I agree! I’m surprised it doesn’t mention her very bold goal of – I think it was just 3 or 4 losses? – that she made to her mentors Giulia and Hideki Suzuki. And while she didn’t net enough victories to avoid all three of them having to dogeza in apology, she got a lot closer than I was expecting!
  12. Momo Kohgo (12th place)
    Momo’s entry into the tournament was as a replacement for Thekla who had to drop out due to injury, with Momo earning the spot from doing next-best below the qualifying line in the rookie preliminary tournament beforehand. She fought hard, but wasn’t able to accrue a hugely surprising number of points, with two victories, against Saki Kashima and most surprisingly, Maika. She formed plenty of rivals to revenge herself on though, particularly fellow former Actwres Girl’Z member Mai Sakurai. Shupro says she has a “hurricanrana-like move” as a finisher that is continuing to be polished.
  13. Unagi Sayaka (12th place)
    Unagi shined in 2021 including with a 5 Star GP performance that won one of the special achievement awards, so her drop to last place this year is a harsh blow that suggests there may be an obstacle she needs to breakthrough to find success again.
    (She has since been traveling around freelancing quite successfully in other promotions - to such an extent that I’m not really clear on what if any direct ties she still has with Stardom other than still being a Cosmic Angels member)

Blue Stars

  1. Giulia (1st place)
    Two motivations drove Giulia through the tournament: making up for last year (when she had to drop out partway through due to injury) and her long-awaited first singles match with Suzu Suzuki since they both left Ice Ribbon (three years apart) in the final. Her first two matches were losses, but after successive victories, especially her memorable match with Starlight Kid, her confidence and form were in full force. The summary also calls out her dramatic victory over Saya Kamitani, her and Mayu Iwatani “once again” not reaching a conclusive end with a draw, and her tagging with Rina Yamashita midtournament at Stardom in Showcase.
  2. Mayu Iwatani (2nd place)
    Mayu is the wrestler with the longest Stardom career, and has become an undeniable living “icon” of Stardom, but although the 5 Star GP has been held since shortly after the promotion started (and Mayu’s been there since the beginning), she didn’t enter until 2014, after falling through entrance-deciding matches in '12 and '13. After winning the Cinderella Tournament in 2015 and 2016, she won her first 5 Star GP in 2018. And since no one has ever won the tournament twice so far, she was gunning to be the first. But being an icon also means being a target. Opponents like MIRAI and Saya Kamitani alluding to her “icon” status heavily in speech after beating her shows that although she didn’t manage 5 Star GP V2, Mayu’s synonymy with Stardom remains fully intact.
  3. MIRAI (2nd place)
    MIRAI hasn’t been long in Stardom and already won her first Cinderella tournament, and now came one step away from winning the 5 Star GP. The sheer force of her left-handed lariat made a huge impact, along with her catchphrase ”魂込めて" (“putting my soul into it”, let’s say). What’s next for MIRAI’s mirai*? Singles? Tag? Both?
    (*Translator’s note: mirai means future)
  4. Suzu Suzuki (2nd place)
    Suzu has been very active freelancing and with Prominence, and won a singles championship in Wave but also missed time due to a shoulder injury, and then entered this tournament late after testing positive for COVID. She went in with Giulia as the sole target in mind due to Suzu’s grudge against her for abandoning her when Giulia left Ice Ribbon with no warning. Although she insisted she wasn’t having fun after initial losses, by the end of the tournament as victories accumulated, it seems that Suzu couldn’t help but enjoy fighting Stardom’s wrestlers and accumulated many future rivals in the process. She may have entered only for Giulia, but by the end of the tournament Suzu certainly made her mark on all of Stardom.
  5. Hazuki (5th place)
    Hazuki played a prominent role in the tournament with 7 straight victories meaning she sped out ahead of the competition with a vertical falling brainbuster (垂直落下式ブレーンバスター) as her finisher… but then that was followed by 5 successive losses. From all appearances though, this was due less to Hazuki losing momentum herself, and more all of Stardom leveling up, she was just a forerunner of that growth.
  6. Saya Kamitani (5th place)
    While last year around the 5 Star GP, Saya leaked the identity of “X” and no one will let her live it down, this year she enters the tournament as a prestigious white belt champion, and although KAIRI saying the white belt was crying (as build to a postponed match) may have thrown her off her game, Saya made a strong showing and accumulated a number of additional challenges for her belt…
  7. Starlight Kid (5th place)
    After her turn to Oedotai the year prior gave her a huge boost in popularity and shook off the image of a lower card sidekick, SLK entered the tournament with big expectations behind her despite her small size, since her self-presentation is so strong. She’s motivated by a chip on her shoulder and a long list of wrestlers to revenge herself on. Some of that revenge might have been successful, and she’s become something of a major barrier to overcome for the younger wrestlers, but one new target for revenge was certainly created as well in the form of Suzu Suzuki…
  8. Natsupoi (8th place)
    Natsupoi is on a hot streak after betraying Donna Del Mondo to join Cosmic Angels and tag with Tam Nakano and “start a revolution,” and while she didn’t win this singles tournament, the revolution wasn’t built in a day after all, and there is surely very high expectations for Natsupoi and Tam in the tag division soon…
  9. Momo Watanabe (8th place)
    It’s the first 5 Star GP since joining Oedotai for last year’s semifinalist and (for now anyway) record holder for most white belt defenses, Momo Watanabe. She brought plenty of “Oedotainess” to the table in the form of a wrench (or spanner if you prefer), plenty of interference from the seconds, etc., seeming to show complete disregard for winning or losing.
  10. Ami Sohrei (10th place)
    Entering the main tournament having won a clean sweep of the preliminary tournament, Ami Sohrei made a very big impact for a wrestler so early in their career, particularly with her new move 雷の如く (“Like a Thunderbolt,” with the Like a Dragon echoing definitely 100% intentional). She may well be a candidate for a 5 Star GP victory in the near future.
  11. Mina Shirakawa (11th place)
    Another candidate for the wrestler showing the most growth in this series, what she may not have gained in victories, Mina showed in gain in style and ring psychology. Shupro describes her style here as a unique, classical flavored one, mentioning moves like her Figure 4 or 吊り天井 (“drop ceiling”, known in English as the Romero Special), which let her make an impact despite not placing highly. Once that impact is paired with pinfalls, singles gold will surely follow.
  12. Saya Iida (10th place)
    This is Iida’s second 5 Star GP after entering last year’s as a replacement and this year entering via the preliminary rookie tournament. The “Macho Gorilla” faced a reset in momentum after being out for injury a long time, and while she found a couple of victories with her new pinning move, a modified version of her “Iida Bridge” called the “Iida New Bridge,” further success remains a little down the road. Her most striking victory was stopping Hazuki’s momentum. A fellow member of stars, Hazuki was also something like a trainer to Iida, and so she had hoped to beat Hazuki with her teacher’s own finisher, the vertical falling brainbuster, but ultimately won with the Iida New Bridge for now.
  13. Hanan (12th place)
    Hanan went into the tournament as Future of Stardom Championship, but faced successive losses through almost the entire tournament. Showing impressive strength of spirit at just 18 though, she was able to at last get two victories in the last two matches of the tournament, and in the end was glad to have seen it through.

Next there’s a rundown of every show in the tournament. I’m not reading or summarizing all that, but they include some comments from a winner of one of the shows (probably from the post-match or backstage promo?) some of which are interesting.

  • MIRAI says she’s no icon of Stardom after beating Mayu once, but she’ll put her soul into it and become an ace of Stardom.
  • SLK characteristically pesters Saya Kamitani after beating her, saying she’s got “nerves of tofu” (豆腐メンタル) torn to shreds after KAIRI’s comments.
  • Mayu says she thinks Hanan might be a future icon of Stardom but she can’t let her be one just yet (after a match where I remember being particularly impressed at Hanan’s gumption in attacking Mayu before the bell)
  • Saki Kashima addressed her hometown crowd after a victory in Shimane
  • SLK sincerely expresses encouragement to Hanan after beating her, as they both debuted as kids wrestlers (a year or two apart), and as a former Future of Stardom champion who lost on her 5th defense, SLK knows best out of anyone how impressive Hanan’s being on her 8th defense is.
  • “I’ve grown out of Arita haven’t I?” Himeka asked former Actwres Girl’z senpai SAKI after beating her, referring to her (Himeka’s) former ring name.
  • Risa Sera helpfully points out to Koguma that she is not in fact a bear but a human.
  • Suzu Suzuki calls Iida a shit gorilla. (but acknowledges she is very strong)

The last feature in the issue is SLKの天罰完了日記, a diary of Starlight Kid’s days during the tournament. It’s pretty surface-level, but kinda fun to hear about the circumstances around a tournament like this, with mundane details like what breakfast she likes (banana + yogurt + honey + protein), an Oedotai party around her birthday, “YoungOED会inHOTEL,” a movie she saw on Hulu and recommends (竜とそばかすの姫, or in English, the much less memorable title “Belle”) or what her sleep levels on any given day were like. That kind of thing.
One wrestling-related detail I especially liked was she describes complicated feelings behind her match with Iida, because Iida was out injured when SLK was forced into Oedotai originally, so there’s mixed feelings where Iida has a hard time recognizing that Kid has changed and left Stars, and Kid was stuck both glad to see Iida return and defiantly not wanting to lose to a Stars member.
She also talks about the match with Suzu Suzuki that was postponed and that Kid ultimately lost, and she says she was looking forward to it and it was violent as expected and Suzu’s extremely aggravating but she loves that kind of person (こーゆー奴大好きなんだわ) and is already looking forward
to the inevitable rematch down the line.

Assorted pictures:






image



image

4 Likes