Finished part two of the press conference! It’s the same links as before, but for convenience: here’s the video, and here’s the transcript.
I think I got the beginning?
Arai: “The match we fought a year and a half ago at Ota Ward marked a huge turning point for me, or at least in relation to wrestling, it made me want to learn more about it and keep doing it. It was Aja-san who gave me those feelings, and now I’m about to have a singles match with her. I’m happy because it’s something that I want to do and can do. We had a match at the Nagoya show last week for the first time in a long time, and I did what I could do, but I don’t think I was able to reach her yet. If I can’t use the Finally at all, you might wonder if I’ll be alright, but I’m not going to run away, and there’s still a month to go, so I’m going to try to work hard as usual, and I want to have a match that is so impactful for both myself as well as Aja-san that when I look back on my wrestling career, I can think, ‘That match was really great, huh?’”
Aja: “Was it a year and a half ago? We fought when Arai was about five months into her wrestling career, and at the time, I was asked over and over again, ‘How was it fighting an idol?’, but they’re all top idols, so there’s no point dwelling on that. Everyone standing in front of me in the ring is a pro wrestler. I don’t care about the fact that I’m fighting an idol.”
I had to spend a while on this chunk, first trying to figure it out, then trying to translate it, haha, and I wasn’t entirely sure I fully got there: “それはいまだに変わらないことですし、今度はシングルマッチでやることになりまして、世間のクローズアップの仕方としては、“怪物”アジャコングがアイドルレスラーをどうやって痛めつけるのか。それが世間に届く一番簡単な方法ではあるのかなと思うんですけど、そう思っている方は是非当日は会場に来ていただくなり、WRESTLE UNIVERSEもあると思うので、きちんと自分の目でいかにその認識が間違っているのかを確かめていただきたいと思いますし”.
“I feel the same way now, and this next one will be a singles match, which is a great way to catch the attention of the world by showing just how the ‘monster’ Aja Kong beats up the idol wrestler. I think that’s the easiest way to reach the world, and those who think it’ll be like that will certainly come to the venue that day or watch on Wrestle Universe, so you can see for yourself how wrong that perception is. I’m not going to be taking the confrontation with Arai lightly. I’ll be stepping into the ring with a sense of danger, knowing that she could hit me at any moment. This is true even though we faced each other in a tag match last week in Nagoya for the first time in a year and a half. I was worried about taking damage, so I’ve been thinking about countermeasures since the match was set. Naturally, over the course of this month, I’ll be coming up with various plans for our singles confrontation. Arai will also be planning her strategies, and since I have been wrestling for many years, I’m going to think about what measures I should take, drawing on what I have done in the past. After contemplating a lot of things, I want to meet each other in the ring on March 18, and then as professional wrestlers, we will show the world a pro wrestling match, which I will win without fail. I don’t want to lose, so having a counterplan is paramount.”
Interviewer: “What is the significance of having this singles match at a big show like Ariake?”
Arai: "I don’t think it’s very easy to get a singles match at a big show, and having an unusual opponent like Aja Kong is also amazing. I’m still a junior in TJPW, so I want to show Aja-san how far I can go, and show that I’m someone who can spur on TJPW’s momentum from below.”
Aja: “When you see the words ‘Yuki Arai vs Aja Kong’, there are people all over Japan who know the name ‘Yuki Arai’ and ‘Aja Kong’ even if they don’t know TJPW, so in that sense, I think it’s a good tool to reach people who don’t normally watch pro wrestling.”
This next part was tricky: “言葉を考えずに言ってしまえば客寄せパンダなのかもしれないけど、私はパンダになることが大好きなので、それで十分だと思うんです。ただパンダとしての打ち出し方をされた試合を、「かわいらしいパンダで面白かったね」じゃなく、パンダのどう猛性を見てもらいたいと思いますし.”
I think she’s using パンダ as 客寄せパンダ throughout this whole chunk, but is maybe also using “panda” as a metaphor? In which case, I’ll probably just give it a translator’s note and leave “panda” in, but maybe I’m wrong about this 
? It’s also funny because this show involves a literal panda.
“If you say it without thinking about the words, it might be a draw to attract the crowd, but I love being a panda, so I think that’s enough. The match that began as a panda, I want people to see the panda’s ferocious side, not just ‘it was fun with the sweet panda’. I’m grateful that I can be part of TJPW’s big show for their 10th anniversary, and that they have graciously allowed me to participate time after time, and I hope that it will be an opportunity for TJPW’s name to get out there to the rest of the world more and more. I want joshi pro wrestling to get even more exciting.”
In the next chunk, this middle part here was confusing for me: “それがもっと世間に届いて「女子プロレスってすげえぞ」というのを出していけるきっかけになるため、ラインアップされた部分であると思うんですけど、それをお祭りで終わらせるつもりでないですし”.
“I have been doing this for many years, and I intend to keep doing it, but there are so many amazing wrestlers, and in order to get the message out to the world that ‘joshi pro wrestling is amazing!’, I think the lineup is part of that. But I don’t want this to just end with a festival. I’m not going to lose to the other matches, and I want to make it a match that people will say was the most amazing and interesting match on the card.”
Interviewer: “Arai, this is your first singles match with a big-name wrestler outside of TJPW.”
Arai: “It’s true that this is my first time fighting someone from outside of TJPW in a singles match, but that doesn’t really matter.”
The first part of her next sentence confused me: “いつもよく知っている先輩じゃないから、荒井のこともきっと普段近くにいる先輩よりは知らないと思うし、逆に私もあまり知らないんですけど”.
“I’m not like my senpais who know her very well, and I’m sure that she knows less about me than my senpais who are around me all the time, so she doesn’t know me that well, either. But that’s why I want to use this match to make sure that she remembers me, and I think when the match is over, I will have become one or two times stronger than before. I want to do my best so that I can make my presence felt in this organization.”
Interviewer: “Aja, what do you expect from Arai in this match?”
Aja: “This applies to more than just Arai, but I don’t have any expectations for my opponent. I think she’s an obstacle. However, before the last Nagoya show, she commented that she wanted me to see how she has grown.”
In her next sentence, this part in particular threw me off: “名古屋大会が終わった最後に山下選手から促されて奮起した部分もあるかもしれないですけど”.
“I’m not her teacher or her parent or anything like that, so I just had to judge by appearances, but she might’ve received some encouragement from Yamashita at the end of the Nagoya show. For the first time, she said, ‘I intend to win regardless of what anyone says’, and she finally got serious about it.”
This sentence took me a few tries to parse: “だったら私も勝つつもりですし、ただ勝つんじゃなくて、さっき彼女はいい思い出になっていたらと言っていたけど、トラウマになることになるかもしれないし、それぐらいの思いを持ってこちらも全力で潰しにいけるなと.”
“If that’s the case, I also intend to win, and not just win. She said that hoped it would become a good memory, but it might become a trauma. And with that in mind, I am going to crush her with all of my might. When I heard her proclaim ‘I’m going to win!’, I was ready to say, ‘I intend to truly win, and I’m going to truly destroy you.’ So that’s the match, huh?”
Interviewer: “About that remark from Aja just now.”
Arai: “I have a lot of pride, so I’m not going to go for something that I think I will lose, so of course I’m going to do it with the intention of winning.”
And that’s it for that entire presser!
Next up, the 2.25 VOD show (much less work, thank goodness), and then… another presser , and the live show from this week, which I don’t think has much to translate.
AEW’s about to distract me for probably most of Sunday, and then I think TJPW has one more show before Grand Princess, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to catch up soon!