I seen the Yuka Sakazaki thing but didn’t wanna post here due to spoilers until you guys did haha I agree that it might be a mistake with how AEW book their women’s division. Obviously she’s accomplished a lot though in TJPW and I can see why she’d want to move on.
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From my perspective, at least, announcements like this that happen outside of a show and don’t contain immediate show spoilers (like sometimes announcements pertain to the results of a particular title match) are totally fair game to post whenever!
For other stuff, like spoilers for a show that just happened, or for a Stardom show or another VOD show that can’t be streamed yet, you can post about it under a “show details” cut or blur it out, making sure that it’s labeled so that people know not to click on it if they don’t want to be spoiled for that show.
There’s not really a set spoiler window in this thread, though maybe we should have one? It takes me long enough to translate TJPW shows, I feel like by the time I finish them, the people who really want to see them unspoiled have probably already watched them. But I dunno, is that enough of a window?
For me personally, I watch pretty much everything that I want to see live as it happens, so spoilers aren’t a concern, except for when I was following Stardom, and I guess TJPW and DDT and NOAH VOD shows. Or AEW/ROH stuff that’s recorded in advance. But I realize that not everyone has the fortune/misfortune of being able to arrange their schedule around wrestling 
.
Is there a particular window of time for spoilers that folks would like to see respected?
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Honestly, I don’t mind. Whatever is good for you guys as you’re the ones who make up the majority of posts here
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I’m only especially sensitive to spoilers in the time between when a show happened and when it’s uploaded (like with Stardom World), or the time between when a show happened and a reasonable time to watch it the next day in whatever timezone (if it was uploaded live),
and only then because avoiding spoilers or anything remotely related to a show is part of how I gin up excitement to make it feel like I’m watching a show I was looking forward to live even when I’m not (since my habitual sleep schedule doesn’t remotely line up to Japanese wrestling show times). Otherwise I don’t particularly mind. (and I agree outside of ones made like, as part of a show, I wouldn’t consider news announcements spoilers)
I think the best rule of thumb is to just feel free to discuss whatever, but when in doubt, or when it does definitely relate to what happened on a particular show, no harm in throwing spoiler tags around it like this
[spoiler]like this[/spoiler]
or even better, putting it under “show details” with super duper outright spoilers still potentially blurred out just in case
like this
blah blah show was great go see it! it was wild when Orange Cassidy won the IWGP heavyweight title despite not being part of the match
[details="like this"]
blah blah show was great go see it! [spoiler]it was wild when Orange Cassidy won the IWGP heavyweight title despite not being part of the match[/spoiler]
[/details]
I think the same goes for reading threads and book clubs elsewhere on the forum too.
I know some folks in those threads for example like to be able to trust there’s double spoiler marking under the jump so they can peep people’s thoughts about a book if they want but not hear about say, how it ends, unless they decide to on top of that.
I figure it doesn’t hurt to scatter those tags around a little more than strictly necessary. I think when I was talking about those early 2000s NJPW shows I at least sometimes even blurred out specific results when they came up, which is surely silly, but hey, no harm done.
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I had to take a bit of a break after translating that presser, but I did manage to finish the translation for Inspiration on May 1! The comments are once again transcribed on the website, which is helpful.
This show contained Mahiro vs がばいじいちゃん, which was a very funny match, and which got me afraid that I was going to have to translate weird old man speech afterward…
No old man speech! Mahiro did give comments, though. Her first couple sentences were a bit confusing (especially because じいちゃん could be his name, “grandpa”, or just “old man”… I’m assuming the お here means it’s the more generic use and not referring to him by his name?): “なんだ、あのおじいちゃんは。なんか…思ってたのと違うかもしれない.”
Kiryu: “What’s with that old man? I dunno… maybe he’s not what I thought. I mean, mentally, I’m a bit of a grandpa, too…” (At this point, Gabai Ji-chan barges in and makes an appeal to Mahiro to win the belts with her?) “…Friends? What? Belt? Wh-what are you talking about? Grandpa, I don’t really understand.”
The middle part of this sentence also confused me: “すげえ、何も分かんないけど、何も分からないプロレス、楽しかったです.”
“Wow, I don’t know what’s going on, but pro wrestling that I don’t understand at all, that was fun. I’m going home.”
The main event was the real star of this show: Hikari vs Sawyer Wreck in a light tube deathmatch, a very uncharacteristic match for TJPW. I’m not the biggest deathmatch fan, but I ended up not being able to take my eyes off of this one. Hikari took some painful looking bumps and Sawyer ended up looking super powerful and a really intimidating opponent for Mizuki to have to face.
After the match, Sawyer cut a short promo in the ring (she tried to leave without realizing they were expecting her to speak for a bit, haha):
Sawyer: (in English) “I cannot say thank you enough for this honor of being your first deathmatch. It means… You came in here, and you danced with death, and you proved yourself as a deathmatch wrestler. So thank you.”
Then she handed the mic off to Hikari. I had a bit of help from Mr. Haku for translating this:
Hikari: “Today, another one of my dreams came true. Being able to fulfill my dream surrounded by the people I love, in the promotion that I love, it feels like living in luxury. I’m a very fortunate person. Having said that, the company is crazy for booking me against such a large person. But you’re all even crazier for coming out to see us on a Monday night at the start of your week. But I want to be crazier than everyone, so I think TJPW and I will continue to take on more and more new challenges. I hope you’ll continue to support us. Thank you so much for today!”
My main question was I guess how hard to go for translating this line: “なんか…こんなおっきい選手と組む団体はすごく頭がおかしいなって私は思って…だけど、こんな週の初めの月曜日の夜から見にきてるみんなはもっともっと頭がおかしいと思います.” Mr. Haku’s translation was: “Having said that, TJPW is fucking crazy for booking me against such a big person, but you are even crazier for coming out on a Monday night to watch a deathmatch.” I was a bit surprised by his choice to go with “fucking crazy”, but I guess maybe “すごく頭がおかしい” has that same sort of slangy vibe? I’ve gone back and forth on whether I should keep it in my translation or not, haha.
Sawyer’s post-match comments were in English:
Sawyer: “I wouldn’t have known that was her first deathmatch by the way she participated in that ring. She brought that fight to me like she’s a veteran. And I can’t wait to see what she does next. That’s a bad bitch. I don’t know what to tell you. Thank you, thank you for allowing me to come. I appreciate you all.
(Did you feel that Hikari is suited to deathmatches? What did you think of her first deathmatch?)
“This is her first deathmatch! Oh, she did so good! So fun! I love getting in the ring with other women, and just being violent with each other. There’s power in that, and she brought that, she has power.”
(I did laugh at seeing “バッドビ●チなので” in the transcript, haha)
Hikari’s comments were a bit harder. I think I got the first part:
Hikari: “I just said it in the ring, but I’m so blessed to be able to do what I love in the company that I love like this. It’s something that I’ve been saying I wanted to do since I debuted. Being able to make my dreams come true little by little, and getting to do what I want to do like this, I feel like I’m living in luxury. There was a time when the cheers from the crowd couldn’t be heard, but now they call my name. I’m happy that I can do what I want to do in this environment. Though I never thought I’d face such a big overseas wrestler in the style of match that I wanted.”
This line was tricky: “でも私のデスマッチ人生はこうやって、すごくハードなのかなって思うとこれからも楽しみだし.” Is the “ハード” referring to hardcore? I couldn’t quite make sense of it in either meaning .
“But I think my deathmatch life is going to be very hard like this, and I’m looking forward to the future. At first I thought I was going to die because she was so tall, but when I crashed into that first light tube, I thought it was fun. ‘I’m not dead yet,’ I thought. I want to keep doing it. I want to fight lots more international wrestlers in deathmatches in Japan. Thank you so much for today.”
I couldn’t really make heads or tails of her next sentence here: “やっぱり自分が想像してたよりははるかに痛いし、肩上げるひとつでも重心がマットにつくところがもっと刺さってきたりして、めちゃくちゃ痛くて.”
(What’s different between the deathmatches you’ve seen and the one you actually did?)
“Well, it hurt way more than I’d imagined, and even just lifting my shoulder where the center sticks to the mat stung more, and it hurt like hell. The pain was way more intense than anything I’d experienced. But it was something I’d been longing to experience, so the fun won out.”
I was also confused by her sentence here: “1回の夢で全部叶えちゃうともうそれが最後になっちゃうかもしれないので、次は有刺鉄線を使いたいです.”
(What is your next dream?)
“If everything gets granted in one dream, it might be the last one, so next time I want to use barbed wire.”
(For TJPW, this was an irregular match type, so how did you feel about the reception it received?)
“To be honest, I was scared. There are members of the audience who have seen a lot of deathmatches. What I’ve seen and what I do are completely different… I wonder if there are some harsh opinions. But I want to do more!”
This question confused me, haha: “これからも攻めていくと.” And this line from Hikari’s answer: “それこそデスマッチやれるのかなって団体のところもあったと思うので.”
(Will you keep attacking?)
“Yes! I think there were some groups wondering if I could even do a deathmatch. I think in TJPW, you can fulfill all of the dreams that you want to do, not just deathmatches. I hope that many more dreams will come true, both for the younger girls as well as my senpais.”
That’s it for that show!
Korakuen is next, and then whatever translation needs to be done for the upcoming VOD show.
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I mean, his name is less an actual name and more of a joke name that’s a description, like sort of roughly “wild old guy from Kyushu” - the intermediate book club read a book that seems to be pretty famous called 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん and so presumably it’s a play on that.
I’d say all of how she addresses him would just be the same as a friendly old man so anything that would work for that in English would be fine.
This is a nitpick, but I feel like “mentally” here makes it sound a bit like she’s denigrating herself a little bit like she forgets things a lot or that kind of thing.
“psychologically” or “by nature” I think would probably be closer to what she’s getting at.
This is one of those things to translate where it would be really great if English’s noun modification was remotely flexible or fun to use.
What she’s saying is that like, she can’t make head nor tail of what’s going on, but this head-and-tail-obfuscating wrestling match she just had was fun.
“Wow, I’m completely bewildered, but this bewildering pro wrestling was a lot of fun.”
is my attempt.
hey, X-Ray Spex! neat
I think that it’s a mix of 頭がおかしい being fairly strong language, and also how well she uses it in her promo, getting big crowd reactions from using it as a punchline twice in a row, with her deadpan and posture making the flippancy of it catch you off guard. It’s really effective!
That aspect kinda makes me want to try to preserve that rhythm and impact (even though it probably wouldn’t survive transcription vs. audio anyway), like maybe “Having said that, booking me against someone so huge… is fucking crazy. But you coming out on a Monday night to watch a deathmatch makes you all even crazier.”
Well it’s not ハードコア, but I suppose it would probably be closer to that in connotation than 難しい or つらい or whatever.
The aspect I think your translation is missing a little is a little closer connection with the と like more of a consequential, or at least with かと思うと like a “just when I thought X, Y” type of sense.
I’d put it probably as something like roughly “when I think that my deathmatch life is going to be hard in every sense of the word like this, I look forward to the future anyway / all the more.”
I would say what she’s saying here is like, even just raising a shoulder (肩上げるひとつでも), meant that the places where her center of gravity touched the mat (重心がマットにつくところ), would get pierced even further (もっと刺さってきたりして). As in like, shifting around would cause the shards and deathmatch whatnot to dig in deeper and hurt more.
Also P.S. this is a total nitpick but I feel like it would be natural to translate “やっぱり” as “of course” here. She expected that it would hurt more than she pictured beforehand (and it did), and I suspect all of us would probably agree in the same position…
I think the part that isn’t rendered great here is the もうそれが最後になっちゃう part.
I’d put what she’s saying as roughly
“If I realize every dream at once, it would feel like well, that’s already the end of it. So next up I want to use barbed wire.”
The transcript drops “東京女子で” in the question for whatever reason, and I feel like that’s more what the question is about. “So you’ll keep pushing forward in TJPW?”
the translation for the 団体 isn’t right because of that – she’s talking about TJPW.
TJPW had aspects of a デスマッチやれるのかなって団体 - like, a promotion that made you think “I kinda doubt you’d be able to have a deathmatch there?” (so having a deathmatch there supports the conclusion that fulfilling any dream is possible there)
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週刊プロレス No.２２２６ (from January)
In Giulia’s column she talks a little about all ten opponents for the challenge match she’s doing with 10 mini 3 minutes matches with ten different opponents. The most interest tidbits I suppose are the ones where she’s a bit critical, like she questions what Saya Iida has been doing since returning from injury (“ただの面白筋肉キャラになってないか？”) and says Natsupoi post DDM is lacking something ("たむのフォローをするためにコズエン行ったのか？一番目指すためなんだろ？”). She declines to say anything about Tam - ask her in the ring.
There’s a Shingo Takagi interview mainly about his mixed feelings being involved with the not-really-quite-treated-like-a-championship King of Pro-Wrestling this last year, after his year in the main event title scene before that. He uses the phrase 臥薪嘗胆 in reference to this past year.
In Naito’s column he talks about backstage at イッテンヨン, like razzing Takagi about being done quickly (since he just had a preshow match) and then together bothering a very nervous Hiromu before his championship match.
The show had Naito’s 8th 干支-based entrance mask, so he’s gone through 申, 酉, 戌, 亥, 子, 丑, 寅, and now 卯, which makes next year 辰, and they joke about how Takagi will get mad at Naito for ripping him off and Naito will get mad in return since it’s not like he can change the ancient calendar.
In Kenoh’s column he talks about LIJ ahead of the NJPW/NOAH Wrestle Kingdom show, and he’s especially mad about LIJ’s conduct at a then recent press conference (I think this one), apparently because it wasn’t serious or exciting enough, as Kenoh’s displeasure seems to be that no one would want to watch it if he hadn’t thrown a table over (and he wishes he’d gone farther), and that LIJ’s actions “even lowered the value of the genre of pro wrestling itself” and Kenoh wants to hold an apology press conference about the bad press conference.
There’s part 2 of the feature where they highlight promising young wrestlers in various promotions to keep an eye on in 2023, this time covering the women’s promotions.
For Stardom, the ２０２３イチオシ is Ami Sourei. Sourei was previously an actor, and performed with Waka Tsukiyama on stage sometimes, and so it was through the latter joining Actwres girl’Z that the opportunity came up for Sourei to be invited to join too, as it was around the time Himeka was about to leave and so they wanted a big wrestler. By the time Actwres stopped active promotion, Sourei found that she wanted to keep being a pro wrestler, and so she ended up in Stardom where Himeka had also gone. The end of the article is a bit weird to read in retrospect, as it talks about negative fan opinions they heard about their similiarities (mainly that they’re both tall and from Actwres which doesn’t sound like that much similarity to me) like “if Ami’s here who needs Himeka anymore” and the article builds up the idea of a singles match with Himeka based on this. Looks like this did happen, so I suppose probably they knew what they were doing here, although I don’t believe Himeka’s retirement was public knowledge at the time. Anyway, Sourei want’s to 牽引する her new generation in Stardom, and her finisher is called 雷の如く.
For TJPW, the pick is Arisu Endo. For her 2023 key phrase she picked “パワースポット” because she wants to be a power spot for the audience as in like – like a spot that gives you power, like she talks about a particular big tree in her home town that she feels like charges her up when she touches it, or the castle in her hometown, or her family’s house, or non-location things like her family, etc. And so she says she draws so much power from the audience it feels like she’s going to explode so she needs to redirect that back at the audience and so she wants to give people energy through her matches. She’s only won a match through her own power once however, so she wants to win more and give her tag partner Suzume the same feeling of victory that Suzume gives her often. A minor tidbit I forgot to mention is apparently people born in '98 are a bit of a promising new generation for TJPW, with Yuki Arai, Moka Miyamoto, Suzume, and Arisu Endo mentioned here.
For Prominence, the pick is Kurumi Hiiragi. She debuted in Ice Ribbon when she was in elementary school, so although she’s 22 at the time of this article, she wrestled for Ice Ribbon for over ten years, and says she considered retiring at the ten year mark, but Risa Sera invited her to become freelance with Prominence, and so she’s glad she didn’t quit. She doesn’t have any regret about leaving Ice Ribbon. She says she’s a 0 or 100 type of person so she wants to look back on 2023 and thing it was 100.
(the picks I didn’t read as closely are just based on what I personally have context for are Kaho Matsushita for Ice Ribbon, Yurika Oka for Sendai Girls, Maria for Marvelous, and Kohaku for wave).
This week’s Suzu Suzuki deathmatch picture is sure something.
WARNING: unpleasant
BJW ran an interesting looking venue: 日比谷野外音楽堂
In Genichiro Tenryu’s column he discusses Jake Lee’s departer from AJPW and appearance in NOAH. He says he can say from experience departures like that are rarely clean and there’s probably baggage involved whether it gets aired or not. He characterizes Lee’s choice as a wrestler’s desire for 刺激 in not a bad way and it sounds like Tenryu approves of his choice of NOAH rather than NJPW as there’s more of a chance of making a real splash there when all too often wrestlers making this kind of move end up as one of the pack. He heavily criticizes Suwama and AJPW in contrast for centering the company around this silly, smalltime Voodoo Murders angle, which hardly provides the reassurance audiences will be looking for that AJPW is fine without Lee.
Tenryu also talks about Suzuki-gun disbanding, and he expresses how impressive it is that the faction lasted 11 years, with Suzuki the leader not signed to NJPW. He hopes to see a new flavor of Minoru Suzuki and trusts he can do it.
The Antonio Inoki memorial interview this week is with Yuji Nagata, an important protege of Inoki in the late 90s and early 2000s who got the short end of some MMA losses thanks to Inokiism. Nagata says Inoki treated him especially harshly in front of others and he and the interviewer discuss whether that was because he was an important pupil used as an example to show the others lessons, or just because Inoki thought he was especially useless, perhaps leaning charitably towards the former. Nagata says the MMA matches were intended to put truth to the “strong style” and “king of sports” monikers but it didn’t work since he lost twice. He says a standout memory is when Inoki publicly criticized Nagata’s 敬礼ポーズ (the salute he does) and said in an interview he’d asked Nagata why he did it and didn’t get an answer - Nagata says now he can say that he heard no such thing, and he kept doing it since fans asked him for it, and Inoki relented and said if he keeps doing it to at least keep it taut. Nagata says Strong Style is what makes NJPW different from other promotions and says it’s an abstract concept but defines it as “怒りとかスイッチが入れるとキレるというか。” Nagata’s 55 now, the same age Inoki was when he retired, but Nagata will still be wrestling for NJPW, and they discuss Inoki looking down on him from heaven and Nagata says when he dies and sees him again he’s going to get yelled at, but that feeling of being watched harshly by Inoki is a sort of comfort rather than a stressor.
In Hideki Suzuki’s column, he talks about the NOAH new year show and says that Muta/Nakamura (and to a lesser extent Hiroshi Hase’s appearance) was far and away the main event, totally upstaging Kiyomiya/Kenoh and putting a lie to the old “double main event” canard. He watched it on Wrestle Universe though, immediately leaving the arena after seconding for Timothy Thatcher. Throughout the column, Suzuki is strangely smug about insisting on watching Great Muta matches on video when he could easily have stuck around and seen him live, scandalizing the interviewer. But he spins it into a Wrestle Universe pitch.
He’s also clearly smug about the one response to his “postcard or fax only” request for people to write in suggesting future plans for him (it doesn’t say what the one response said).
In WWE news: “WWEが売却される…？ ステファニーが会長兼共同CEO辞任、そしてビンスが会長返り咲き”. The recap notes that Vince had resigned due to “不倫口止め料を会社資金から支払っていた問題” but “まさかビンスがまさかのWWE取締役会復帰。” and it sounds like WWE will be bought but “焦点は誰が買うか、だ。”
The copyright notice for the WWE pictures is now (formatted slightly weirdly? And there’s an extra period after Vincent) “Special Thanks to WWE,Mr.Vincent.K.McMahon and Mr.Paul Levesque”
The Editor’s Eye column talks about a comedian with a Masahiro Chono impersonation. Chono’s name is written (surely the frontrunner for the opposite of the 石井 effect, the least fitting name kanji) 蝶野正洋, so the impersonator’s character is named 蛾野正洋 and his catchphrase is 蛾ッデム.
The column at the end of the magazine is about Giulia and her red belt victory in Stardom. She talks about how DDM’s roster changes (with lots of wrestlers added and then lots of wrestlers departing) is a good thing and keeps them from being stale, and about how mentoring Mai Sakurai is positive experience for her as well, and becomes a part of her story too if they fight in the future. She says if a pro wrestler thinks only about themselves, they quickly hit their expiration date, and so she sees bonds and relationships with people as especially important (a lot of why Giulia is my favorite wrestler is how good she is at collecting eternal foes). She says as champion she doesn’t intend to have a 落ち着いた感じ like Syuri or Hayashishita before her, so she’s going to keep being Giulia. She wants to show 女子プロレスの神髄 and since drama is important to pro-wrestling, she wants to be a dramatic champion.
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Got about halfway through the May 5 Korakuen show! They didn’t transcribe most of the comments for this one, so a lot of what I have is incomplete.
First was Shino vs Himawari, which was a fun rookie match! Shino got surprisingly emotional afterward.
Here are Himawari’s comments. The only part that confused me was “最後ギチギチに腰をやってやりました！”, which I wasn’t quite sure about.
HIMAWARI: “I had a singles match with Shino-san, who I’m particularly close with out of everyone in our class. There’s only a small difference between us, and I made my debut first, so I felt like I couldn’t lose. I gave her no room to spare at the end! Fighting Shino-san today made me want to also tag with her!”
Shino: “I had a singles match with HIMAWARI-san, who is in my same class, and we’ve been working hard together since we were trainees, so I didn’t want to fight…” (cries) “But I’m glad I got to know how HIMAWARI-san is in the ring, too! I want to face her again and show her how much stronger I am next time!”
The next match was something of a Children’s Day special, haha, with Misao being put in charge of the two youngest trainees. Here are their comments:
Misao: “We won! Both of you saved me with your dropkicks at the end, which allowed me to get the total victory, so I think you have what it takes to be promising heroes in the future. Will you be heroes again?”
Runa & Haru: “Yes!”
Then Misao said to the camera, “騙せてるみたいです……！” which confused me a bit, but considering the context of just who Misao is as a person, I think I figured it out…
Misao: (whispering to the camera) “It looks like they can be tricked!”
Toyo Mates got split up for the next match, with Mahiro teaming with Toga, and Kamiyu with Wakana instead. English comms were pretty pessimistic about the fate of Toyo Mates’ team afterward, but I brushed it off as nothing to worry about. Then I listened to Kamiyu’s comments and started to worry about it…
Uehara: “Since we won, I think the meal today will be really tasty!”
These two lines from Kamiyu were a bit confusing: “真弥は普段パートナーなのに闘うとどうこうとか全くないの。凍雅ちゃんも真弥につくなんてもう知らないよ！”
Kamifuku: “Even though Mahiro is my regular partner, I have no idea what to do when we fight. I don’t even know if Toga-chan will stick with Mahiro! Mahiro isn’t my friend anymore! Today, we’re over! From now on, it’s the era of gluttony!”
Mahiro’s comments were much more optimistic:
Mahiro: “Today I had to fight Kamifuku-san, who I team up with as Toyo Mates, and I thought I had to win in order to grow, so I took on the challenge, but it was difficult… I know Kamifuku’s habits after teaming with her for years. This was Toga’s second Korakuen Hall show, and I hope we win our next match! Positive!”
Ryo Mizunami made another guest appearance, and this time the highlight was her interactions with Yuki Aino in the tag match they were both in. I would love to see them get a singles match. Maybe Yuki could be the first person in TJPW to actually beat Aniki…
Ryo’s normally pretty straightforward to translate, but this time her lines gave me a bit of trouble, haha. I wasn’t sure about these lines: “おそらく真面目なんでしょうね！ くすぶっている感じがメチャクチャ、私の5年目に似ている！ 彼女がどうとらえるかわかんないけど、すげえ面白いもの秘めてますよ！”
Mizunami: “Yuki Aino, I heard it was your 5th anniversary? You seem to be pretty serious! That smoldering feeling is unbelievable, just like my 5th year! I don’t know how she’ll take it, but she’s got something really interesting hidden inside of her!”
I think I got Nao and Yuki’s comments:
Yuki: “I’m frustrated!”
Kakuta: “It’s your anniversary, isn’t it?”
Yuki: “I don’t think the company was thinking about that, but I’m grateful that I was able to fight Mizunami-san at this time. I’m really frustrated! It’s frustrating! It was so frustrating, but fun!”
Then Miu faced Arisu, which was a super fun singles match! I was really confused by Miu’s comment just from the twitter caption, but I think maybe I managed to get enough clarification just from listening to it that I was able to figure out what she meant by bringing up Rika and Suzume?
Miu: “Arisu has great momentum this year, so I felt that I shouldn’t let my guard down in this match. Our partners are having a match today, but aside from that, I’m satisfied that I was able to just enjoy Arisu’s individual strength. I’m going to be wary of things heating up in the season ahead.”
And here’s Arisu’s comment:
Arisu: “I lost… But I was able to avoid the Giant Swing at least, so I think I’ve grown a little. During practice, I’m always looking at her back, so I resolved to to work harder and get even bigger.”
Next was Yuki Arai’s second anniversary match, where she teamed with Itoh against Shoko and Yuka (I’m trying not to think about this being probably one of the last times we’ll see the MiraClians together).
This one has a transcript! It’s also transcribed in the official recap, too.
Shoko’s second line was a bit confusing, haha. Maybe I got it? “この2人で組み始めた当初…みらクりあんずって名前の由来はですね、いまは負けるチームだけど奇跡を起こしていこうっていう気持ちをこめたんですよ.”
Nakajima: “It’s been a while since we’ve been the MiraClians. When we first started teaming up, the origin of the name ‘MiraClians’, it was to instill the feeling that even though we were a losing team, we intended to make a miracle happen.”
Sakazaki: “That’s right.”
Nakajima: “Today, I was convinced. The two of us can still make miracles happen together.”
Sakazaki: “Yes!”
Nakajima: “We’re going to keep making more and more miracles happen, so please watch us!”
Sakazaki: “Watch us!”
(It was Arai’s second anniversary match after her debut)
“Yes!”
Nakajima: “She’s cocky!”
Sakazaki: “She’s done well to make it two years.”
Nakajima: “I commend her.”
Sakazaki: “She has a lot of guts.”
Nakajima: “Actually, I’m scared of her…”
The first chunk of this exchange confused me:
坂崎「昨日もライブで忙しくしてる中で、こうやって2周年っていう節目の闘いであんなに心ぶつけてくれるっていうのがね」
Sakazaki: “Yesterday, while she was busy at the live concert, being in her second anniversary milestone match like this, that really struck me.”
中島「嬉しかった。ふたつの仕事を分け隔てなく同じボリュームでやってる。これは私たちにはできてないこと…（プロレス）1本だから。そこはない部分として、ものすごく尊敬の気持ちは持ってます」
Nakajima: “I’m happy. She’s doing two jobs at the same intensity without picking favorites. That’s something we haven’t been able to do… (pro wrestling) is one thing. I have a lot of respect for the part of her work that we don’t have.”
坂崎「ホントにすごいと思う。しかも性格も歪んでないし、まっすぐ」
Sakazaki: “I think she’s really amazing. And her character isn’t warped, she’s straightforward.”
Nakajima: “She can ride the Flying Nimbus.”
Sakazaki: “Yes! She’s a national treasure. Everyone, take care of her.”
Nakajima: “I’m going to mess with her, though.” (laughs)
Sakazaki: “I’ll mess up her hair and face.” (laughs)
(What element of Arai’s growth did you feel?)
“I think it came across just by watching her, but she doesn’t hesitate. She’s very resolved.”
I didn’t quite know what to do with this sentence: “普通、人を蹴るとか投げると勝手何もしない人なら抵抗あると思うんですけど。そういうフィルターを乗り越えてきてる？”
“Normally, someone who doesn’t do any wrestler things like kicking or throwing people would be resistant to that. Has she gotten past that filter?”
Nakajima: “Personally, I’m surprised by her relative strength.”
Sakazaki: “Yeah. I think you can tell by looking at her, those back muscles. She’s working hard, and I think that really shows in her body. She’s truly amazing, huh?”
Nakajima: “Yeah, she is.”
Itoh’s and Arai’s comments were a bit easier, though I think there’s a portion in there that didn’t make it into the transcript?
Itoh: “It’s your second anniversary, and you lost.”
Arai: “I lost. But… it was over too soon. I really enjoyed it, or something. But even though I lost today, I was happy to team up with Itoh-san. More than ever before, I didn’t want to lose today. I knew that Yuka-san and Nakajima-san were really strong, but I wanted to beat them so badly, I worked as hard as I could until the very end without giving up. I think this was how much I’ve grown in two years, so I’m looking forward to my third. I’ll do my best.”
Itoh: "Itoh: “Please do your best.”
Then Itoh said, “でもよくプロレスを続けたなって伊藤は思う” and it took me a couple tries to parse.
“I’m thinking about how you’ve stuck with pro wrestling. Because when I made my debut, I thought I’d quit immediately. Truly. You know, I really wasn’t any good. I wasn’t any good when I debuted. I was truly a nobody. So I thought we were sort of in the same boat there, and that you would quit immediately, but you surprised me.”
Arai: “Thank you very much. But I thought I’d do my best after watching you.”
Itoh: “Well, Itoh is going to work even harder than Yuki Arai.”
Arai: “I won’t lose.”
Itoh: “Fine. Please come at me anytime.”
(This was your first time teaming up with Itoh, just the two of you)
Arai: “For these two years, we’d only teamed up in 5-woman teams and such, so I was wondering if we’d be able to team together one day. I wanted to do it a little.”
Itoh: “Yamashita’s not here now, so we can team up.”
Arai: “Really?”
Itoh: “But I think she’ll get angry.”
Arai: “How was it? Teaming up with me.”
Itoh: “So-so. Well, maybe there will be another chance.”
Arai: “Yes. While Yamashita-san is away.”
Itoh: “She’s gone off somewhere. I don’t even know when she’ll be back.”
Arai: “And in the meantime, Itoh-san and I…”
Itoh: “I’m looking forward to it.”
(You said, “Who’s the cutest idol in the world?”)
Arai: “I was in the mood to do Itoh-san’s ‘who’s the cutest in the world’ thing together, but… she’s my senpai.” (laughs)
Itoh: “Is that what you really think? You’re definitely, unconditionally the cutest in SKE, right?”
Arai: “…”
Itoh: “You just said that you’re the cutest in the idol world, didn’t you? Do you get what that means? That means your AKB48 senpais, or Morning Musume, or whatever. You’re standing at the top and crushing all of those other idols.”
Arai: “…Yes. That’s what I mean.”
As usual, the last two matches are like half of the whole thing, so I’m hoping to finish the rest within the next couple days. Then I’ll have the VOD and the upcoming show to do, and hopefully I’ll be caught up before Misao’s produce show, haha. That’s my goal!
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First, I wanted to mention that TJPW uploaded an English subtitled version of the presser with Yuka’s graduation announcement, and I watched it mainly to see the translation quality because I was curious who they have doing this sort of thing. I don’t think it’s Mr. Haku, because the wording is a bit odd at times, and he’s typically really good at avoiding that.
In any case, I think we did a better job, honestly! 英訳共鳴、イチバン！
In other news, I finished the second half of the May 5 Korakuen show! (If you’re still busy, rodan, don’t worry about getting around to it right away. It’s already late and I don’t think it’s super pressing, haha)
The semi-main event was Suzume vs Rika, which I thought was a great match. I was rooting for the bee, but sadly Rika wasn’t going to let Suzume beat her again. Maybe next time… 
In Rika’s comments, her second sentence confused me: “いままでやってきた時は、多分どこか余裕があって。今日だって楽勝で勝ちたかったんですけど…けっこう追い込まれたなっていうのが正直な印象で.” (I think the post-match comments for both of these matches are transcribed in the recap linked above)
Tatsumi: “Well… she was strong. The way things had been going until now, I probably had some leeway. Even today, I wanted an easy victory, but… my honest impression is that she really pushed me. I felt firsthand how strong she’d become. So this win is a very important one. My defense road continues, for a long time… I think I’m just going to have to keep defending for the rest of my life. And I have an opponent I want to fight when the time comes, so please don’t take your eyes off of me yet.”
(You didn’t shake her hand at the end?)
“Of course there’s respect, and there’s love.”
This sentence was tricky: “私がこの道に引きずり込んでしまった相手でもあるから.”
“My opponent was someone whom I pulled in to walk this path. She’s such an important opponent, but… I recognized her strength, so I didn’t dare to shake her hand. I hope we can fight again someday, and shake hands then.”
Suzume’s comments were easier:
Suzume: (sitting on the floor with tears streaming down her face) “I came to TJPW because I admired Rika-san. There were times where I wondered if it’s okay for me to be here among such sparkling people. But Rika-san shows me new dreams time and time again, and I yearn after her every time. And the audience always supports me, no matter how many times I make them feel frustrated. So, because of that, I don’t think I can give up on anything. I won’t give up chasing after Rika-san, and I won’t give up on the belt. I have a view that I want to show. I hope we can fight together again. That belt that suits Rika-san the most in the world, please keep defending it. I will challenge you again.”
The main event was Mizuki vs Sawyer Wreck, which turned out to be a blast, haha. Sawyer looked super powerful and Mizuki looked like the biggest underdog imaginable against her. The hardcore spots really added to it and made Mizuki seem extra tough.
After Mizuki won, Maki Itoh came out and challenged. This is probably everyone’s most anticipated opponent for Mizuki (except I want Rika more), though I was a bit shocked to see it happening this soon. Which is funny, because Mizuki and Itoh both commented on it taking too long to happen, haha.
In any case, here’s the post-match. I had some help from Mr. Haku on this part:
Mizuki: “I defended it! I was worried because this was my first time facing such a big wrestler, but I wanted to give her a full taste of what TJPW had to offer so I did my best… she was strong! But, the fact that I could beat someone like Sawyer means that I was stronger than her, even if only this time. I’m going to keep defending this belt, so please keep following me!”
At this point, Itoh arrives.
Itoh: “I am here! I’m here to challenge for the Princess of Princes belt!” (An “Itoh” chant breaks out)
Mizuki: “Maybe I’m late in saying it, but aren’t you late in getting here, Itoh-san? Years ago, you said that if I won the belt, we’d have a title match. Well, years have passed, and I finally did it. I’d be very happy to fight you. Let’s do it at Ota-ku in July with the belt on the line!”
Without saying a word, Itoh puts down the microphone and stands in front of Mizuki. Mizuki raises the belt, and Itoh raises her middle finger and they separate. Itoh leaves.
Mizuki: “It was thanks to Itoh-san that I became able to use strong words like this. Ever since losing to her for the first time in the tournament, I’ve thought that I absolutely have to win, and I don’t want to lose to her. I’m going to keep defending the tag belt and the singles belt, too. Let’s spend the hot summer together!”
She closed the show with “Eat hamburger steak!” and “HAPPY HAPPY!”
Here are Itoh’s comments:
Itoh: “So the Princess of Princess title challenge, Maki Itoh vs Mizuki, is set for July 8 at Ota City General Gymnasium. Two years ago, I got a direct win over Mizuki in a singles match, and won the tournament. At the time, Yamashita was the champion, and precisely because of that, I challenged her at Ota City General Gymnasium, but I lost. So I’m definitely winning this next one.”
I couldn’t figure out this sentence: “で、普通にいまのままいっても…まだ確証が持てないので.”
“Even if I go on as usual… I can’t be sure yet. It has just been decided that I’ll go to the U.S. around May 19 or so. I think I’ll be staying in the U.S. and training until the Fukuoka show (June 25). I’m sorry, everyone, but I have to do this in order to win the belt. I’m going to the U.S. to train for a bit. Sorry. The Itoh fans will probably miss me. But this is something I want to do to achieve my dream. People who can’t follow me, you don’t have to do it. I have to win that belt, so I want to get stronger. That’s why I’m going to train in America. I will do my best.”
(Why did you challenge at this time?)
“Originally, Mizuki won it at Ariake, and I was already thinking about it. Then she won the tag belts in Los Angeles, and I was thinking about it even more. At that time, her match with Nao Kakuta had already been decided. And the next one Sawyer Wreck set on her own. So this was the shortest amount of time I could do.”
(What is your view of double champion Mizuki?)
“I know that it took her a long time to finally win the white belt. I genuinely think she’s amazing. There must be a lot of pressure on her, and she must be very resolved. That’s why I want to go to America and get stronger so that I won’t lose to that resolve.”
Mizuki: “I defended it! I feel so relieved now. This was my first title match against a foreign wrestler, and she was really big.”
This sentence confused me: 'とんでもないの組やがったなって思ってたんですけど."
“I was thinking that she was an impossible opponent. I could feel her strength, and I think I’ve become a level stronger. I’m happy that she was able to experience what TJPW is like.”
(Was there a hardcore aspect?)
Mizuki’s answer for this next one confused me a bit! She said: “はじめ取り出された時にやばいって思ったんですけど、木曽さんが止めてくれたからちょっと安心したと思ったら…イスに突っ込まされて。そして途中でイスがリングにひろがってるのを見て、やばいって思って。でも、やられるならよりやった方がいいと必死になりました。そしたら痛かった…（笑）。もうハードコアはごめんです.”
“When she took them out at first, I thought ‘oh no’, but Kiso-san stopped her, so I felt a bit relieved… and then she threw me into the chairs. Then I saw the chairs spread out all over the ring, and I thought ‘oh no’. But I thought it was better to be the person doing it than the person taking it, so I got desperate. And then it hurt…” (laughs) No more hardcore, sorry."
(By defeating a wrestler with such a hight disparity, did you gain confidence as a champion?)
“Yes. I really did. I was so full of anxiety because I was fighting someone I didn’t know and I didn’t know what she could do. I felt that all of the experiences I’d accumulated up until this point hadn’t been in vain. I somehow managed to win this time, so that gave me confidence.”
(Concerning Itoh’s challenge)
“I probably should’ve nominated Itoh-san to be the first challenger… I’ve had that thought running in my head this whole time. And then Itoh-san came forward, and it feels like it’s finally happening. Doing Mizuki vs Itoh at such a big venue like Ota-ku, in the main event with the belt on the line, it feels like a new wind is blowing for us. To keep that wind blowing, I absolutely will defend my belt.”
(Itoh said that she is going to the U.S. to train)
“I’m afraid of her growth during that time, but I don’t have just the singles belt; I have the tag belt, too. I’m growing super fast right now. I won’t lose.”
(You’ll be able to concentrate on the tag belts until Ota-ku)
“That’s right! As long as there are no interruptions, I will focus on the tag belts. Though our next tag team challengers haven’t been decided yet. Both belts are important, and the belt I hold with Yuka-chi is very, very important. So I will do my best to stay double champion.”
And finally, Sawyer’s comments were in English!
Sawyer: “It was a dream come true. I obviously wish that I had come out on top, but it was a beautiful experience to be able to have that match in Korakuen Hall.”
(How was Mizuki as your opponent?)
“Oh my goodness. That’s a tough bitch! I kicked the shit out of her and she kept kicking out. She just kept kicking out. She has a fighting spirit.”
And that’s it for that show!
There’s not a whole lot to translate for the VOD, and I don’t think tonight’s show has a lot, either. Yay!
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That is interesting! I agree it doesn’t sound like Mr. Haku.
I’m amused that I would have also given them feedback about 心が揺れる. I wonder if maybe that even suggests a similar workflow (although I assume from the other direction nativeness-wise)?
I’m pretty sure that the idea behind a 逆エビ固め is that it locks and hurts like, your lower back, i.e. your 腰. [English wikipedia](https://Boston_crab even claims it was at first called the “backbreaker.”
And so anyway, since HIMAWARI won with her Half Boston Crab, I would say that this would be her 最後ギチギチに腰をやってやりました:
“I just about did her back in at the end there!” might work pretty directly. It’s meant as in like → we’re close but やっぱ I wanna win so I didn’t let up at all. That kind of thing.
(the contrast with Shino’s promo is amusing…)
The full video is a bit clearer with the train of thought - but the main thing I’d change is:
“There’s only a small difference between us, and I made my debut first”
should be
“There’s only a small difference between us, but I made my debut first”
yep!
Well… that said, it’s getting a bit into the grammar weeds where I’m not super comfortable, but I believe with the 騙せてる rather than 騙せる there’s an implication here that like, Misao is actively tricking them or in fact has already tricked them, in that uh, ている sort of way that’s hard to describe.
Maybe “They seem gullible!” or “looks like they’re buying it!” or “looks like they’ve bought it!” or something along those lines might be a little more natural or accurate because of that.
In “真弥は普段パートナーなのに闘うとどうこうとか全くないの” I believe she’s complaining that although Mahiro is her regular partner (“真弥は普段パートナーなのに”) Mahiro showed / (or maybe Kiryu felt) absolutely none of the (very common in pro wrestler when tag partners have to fight) “oh, I have to fight you, what do I do??” type of thing (“闘うとどうこうとか全くないの”). As in, Kamiyu is haughtily complaining that Kiryu wasn’t more reluctant to fight her / that there wasn’t a feeling of going up against a tag partner and feeling emotional about it.
For the “凍雅ちゃんも真弥につくなんてもう知らないよ！” part, it’s paraphrased from parts of the video I can’t perfectly make out so I’m not 100% sure, but I read it more as like, expressing indignation in “凍雅ちゃんも真弥につくなんて” and saying essentially, like, Toga’s also a stranger to her now because of that in “もう知らないよ！”
I found some sources that give the nuance for もう知らない a bit better than what I put above:
weblio has an example:
彼がそんなことをすれば, もう知らない[面倒を見てやらない].
And this English help page is really good and thorough about it
親しい相手と喧嘩などした際に
そんなこというならもう知らない！という感じの割と感情が高ぶっているときにいうフレーズを教えてください。
…
回答：
Have it your way.
〔訳〕好きにして。/勝手にして。
It seems like a “if that’s what you’re going to do, then fine!! See if I care!” kind of phrase.
“And Toga, if you’re going to stick with Mahiro then fine! Mahiro isn’t my friend anymore!”
would be about the idea.
Ryo’s speaking style is appropriately over the top and aniki-ish with lots of rolled r’s and so it might sound weird if someone else said it but you’ve pretty much got the sense right here.
The one thing I’d add is the transcript missed a 今日 before 彼女がどうとらえるかわかんないけど, so Ryo is saying that she isn’t sure how Yuki will take today’s loss.
Yeah she says that probably she and Arisu both wanted to win to support their partners in a way in this preliminary match before their partners’ match against each other. You could probably throw in a clause like “Our partners are having a match later today, and I’m sure we both wanted to win ours to support them, but” or something like that, to clarify it.
I think this is more like roughly “In training, I always looked up to her”
見続けていた is past tense and I feel as though 練習中 means like, while training for a debut, analogous directly with “in training” vs. “training.”
And the “looking at her back” feels like it could probably do with some unliteralizing in English - the idea probably still gets across but it sounds sorta weird. The idea is Miu was ahead of her as someone to aim for, like a runner ahead of you in a race.
yeah you got the sense fine.
A nitpick I’d make is that in the 気持ちをこめたんですよ part, it’s them putting the feelings into the name, not picking the name in order to instill the feeling.
I suppose it’s probably just to make the transcript easier to read that it’s rendered third-person, but Nakajima does point directly at the camera and address Arai directly here.
(the transcript also appears to omit the amusing tidbit of Nakajima having forgot it was Arai’s second anniversary)
I would say the 中 here is less like literally while, and more like – considering, amid, that sort of thing.
And I would say it isn’t “that really struck me” so much as it is like —
こうやって2周年っていう節目の闘いであんなに心ぶつけてくれるっていうの
is roughly literally “that she went that hard in such a milestone as a two year anniversary like this”
And she’s raising that as a subject that Nakajima then fills in - like “to think that X…” “yeah, it’s great.” that kind of thing.
the 心ぶつけて is Arai like, lit. smashing her heart against theirs for them / putting her heart into it. And so it’s remarkable that she was able to do that even amid being busy with the live event the day before.
The 1本 here is this definition sourced from Weblio:
５ （名詞に付いて）そのことだけに、目標や態度などを絞ること。いっぽんやり。「芸—に生きる」「進学—にしぼる」
She’s saying that she and Yuka are プロレス1本 - they’re only focusing on pro-wrestling.
And so she’s saying in the later part that from the perspective of not having that second thing, she especially super respects it.
Also, a nitpick but I would probably sooner put “we aren’t able to do” moreso than “we haven’t been able to do” – I don’t think she’s saying or implying that she wants to hold two pursuits like this, she’s just so focused on pro wrestling she can’t conceive of having to juggle that and another thing.
the meaning here is fine, it could just probably use with maybe a little massaging to make it sound more fully English.
“straightforward” isn’t really exactly right here – from weblio for まっすぐ:
３ かくしだてのないさま。正直。「—な性格」
so “honest” would be closer here, since it doesn’t mean like, blunt or uncreative.
They’re essentially saying she’s pure of heart.
like – in Dragon Ball, 筋斗雲 (and I mean, presumably originally Journey to the West but I gotta imagine Shoko’s talkin’ Dragon Ball and that’s what I know too), Goku can ride 筋斗雲 because he’s pure of heart, while Bulma, Krillen etc. comedically fall right through it because they’re perverts.
So anyway they’re extoling her pure innocent good-heartedness.
95% sure there’s a transcription typo that makes this harder: 普通、人を蹴るとか投げると勝手
should be: 普通、人を蹴るとか投げるとかって
You got the basic idea though - she’s saying, following along on her praise about Arai not hestitating, that Arai is overcoming the filter where people are naturally resistant to kicking and throwing people if they don’t do that normally.
Note though: This isn’t a question.
The question mark / rising intonation in そういうフィルターを乗り越えてきてる？ is showing uncertainty in her phrasing and seeking confirmation, not suggesting uncertainty directly in whether it’s happened or not.
“She’s gotten past that filter?” or “you could say she’s gotten past that filter?” or something else like that would be more accurate than the direct question of “Has she gotten past that filter?”
I’m suspicious of this (“or something” feels like more often than not a reflection more of the relative ease of phrases like とか in Japanese than what was conveyed) but I can’t tell exactly what she says.
I’d put it more as like roughly “I think though you’ve really stuck well with pro-wrestling.”
Maybe Itoh’s referring to herself in the third person (plus the odd timing of the は particle in speech) makes it look a bit weird but this is essentially the same as all the って思います everyone tends to do a lot while expressing what they feel.
This is sort of a nitpick but this feels a bit unnatural to me because in English this feels a bit like a neutral statement that she wanted to tag a little bit, whereas in Japanese I get more of a “and plus truth be told I wanted to tag with her ” sense.
Maybe putting something in for the まあ and the も would be enough, like “Well, plus I wanted to do it a little.” Changes the tone a lot somehow.
(there’s an omitted question where I think the reporter is like “were your senpais strong” and Arai is like “yes they were strong” so you’re not missing any juicy tidbits there)
It sounds like she says やあ not まあ so I feel like “wow” or “geez” would fit better than “well”
I feel like in context this would be more naturally translated as like, “I have respect for her, and love”
This is less even than a nitpick and more a very minor style consistency thing but it seems like if the venue is called Ota City General Gymnasium later, this might as well be Ota City here.
I think she’s saying that currently as is she doesn’t have like, anything that proves she’ll be able to back up her words and win the belt. (so that’s why she needs to go to america to train)
In the video she says とんでもないカードを組みやがったな so the transcript ended up dropping an important noun. “I thought they sure booked a hell of a match” or something would be my attempt.
The reporter in the full question does mention chairs, so that’s why she’s talking about chairs immediately without mentioning them specifically.
Bit of a nitpick but I think “Then later on” would be better than “then” here, since with the 途中 she’s talking about later on in the middle of the match (after talking about near the beginning).
The chairs she got thrown into are these ones at 2:40:06
While he chairs she’s transitioning to talking about are 6 minutes later on
This is a grammar point (I think in one of those JLPT grammar books?) meaning like, count me out - I’m done with this, I refuse.
So tweaking this to “No more hardcore for me!” would be more accurate I think.
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I’m trying to work out translations of some of the wrestler info graphics that popped up during Yes! Wonderland, and I’m a little stumped as to what this is trying to tell me about Haruna Neko:
TJPWの癒やし系!
Firstly, how do people actually read these tiny kanji on their screens? Secondly, she’s a “healing system”? Baffled.
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Sometimes I get in trouble when my window is too small haha and I try to read the Abema stats when watching NOAH and end up with, say, 毒霧, which looks very much like a blob on a small screen . But I was able to figure that one out by the general shape of the radicals, plus knowing a bit of context (this was for the Great Muta, who has a poison mist attack. I figured out 毒 and was squinting at the second kanji, and then was like “well it looks sort of like the fog kanji—oh wait hang on”). So your brain will get better at filling it in with lots of exposure to the kanji and just a general familiarity with words that are likely to be used with the wrestlers, I think. If you’re watching on Wrestle Universe, you can also sometimes get clues from the Japanese fans posting in the chat, because sometimes the kanji will also be in their comments.
As far as “TJPWの癒やし系!” goes, 癒やし (and the verb it comes from) are often used for emotional healing as well. One of the Japanese definitions that comes up on Yomichan for me is “心の悩みをやわらげること.” So, something that eases your heart’s worries. 系 is often used for like type or group, so I think “TJPWの癒やし系!” is saying that she’s part of the category of TJPW wrestlers who are emotionally soothing.
I don’t know if you’ve tried to read the second sentence yet, but just in case you want to give it a shot on your own, I’ll spoiler guard the explanation: “猫のような見た目と動きで盛り上げる！” says that she livens up (TJPW) with her cat-like appearance and movements.
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I have decided that taken together, this means that TJPW’s health plan for their employees consists of making them look and act like cats. These wrestlers badly need a union.
Technically, I think it would be more that their health plan consists of making the wrestlers watch wrestlers like Neko who look and act like cats, haha. But joke or no, I do think pro wrestling badly needs unions…
Honestly, though, I personally see 癒す and 癒される used more for emotional healing than physical. Fun fact: Chris Brookes and Antonio Honda named their tag team 癒されるズ because 癒される is Chris’s favorite word in Japanese.
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Finished translating TJPW’s May 13 VOD show! All of the comments are transcribed on the DDT site for this one.
The main event was the only match with real plot significance here. It was Mizuki & Yuki Arai vs Kamiyu & Maki Itoh, and it honestly made me want to see Mizuki vs Kamiyu, haha. She needs to retain the belt so that Kamiyu can challenge…
Mizuki and Arai picked up the win, so they got to close out the show. I was immediately a bit confused by Mizuki’s second sentence, haha. She said: “なんなんこの人ハッピーオーラは…”
Mizuki: “Arai-chan and I won! What’s with this happy aura…” (laughs) “Thanks to her, I was saved when it looked like I was about to lose. Look at everyone. 90% of the audience is wearing Arai-chan’s T-shirts. Arai-chan, take the mic for a bit."
Arai: “Today was my first time in a show at Hamamatsu, and my first time tagging with Mizuki-san… I’m so glad we won! We did it! I’ve never lost in Hamamatsu, and I’ve also never lost when tagging with Mizuki-san. We’re on a roll, so please defend your belt!”
Mizuki: “Thank you!”
Then Mizuki said, “まぁみなさん、色々あると思いますが…瑞希がやろってかんじなんですけど.” I wasn’t quite sure what she meant here .
“Well, I know you all have a lot on your mind, but… I’m going to do it!” (laughs) “Itoh-san will be away for a while, but I want us to fight earnestly in our singles match at Ota City. So everyone, please be sure to come to Ota City!”
Arai: “You must come!”
Mizuki: “Look, Arai-chan says so too. Wait, this is Shizuoka, right? Today, we’ll definitely have hamburger steak, right? It’s the best place to get them.”
They closed with, “Eat Sawayaka hamburger steak!” and “HAPPY HAPPY!”
I had to do a bit of research, but it looks like Sawayaka is a restaurant that is particularly renowned for their hamburger steak. It’d be really funny if they booked Mizuki to win specifically so that she could close out the show that day haha.
I got the beginning of Mizuki and Arai’s comments:
Mizuki: “Yay! We won!”
Arai: “It was my first time tagging with Mizuki-san.”
Mizuki: “It’s strange, huh?”
This next part was a bit confusing. I couldn’t figure out who Arai was referring to with 3人, since it was a 2 vs 2 match, and Mizuki’s next sentence also confused me, haha.
荒井「3人はめっちゃやってたんですけど…」
Arai: “The three of us were really doing it, but…”
瑞希「割と試合でも当たってるし、変なかんじやけど」
Mizuki: “We hit each other a lot, even for a match. It feels strange.”
Arai: “It was a great feeling.”
Mizuki: “It was a very happy feeling, and I got caught up in it, too. That’s why I almost went the wrong way at the entrance gate. …It was perfect.”
Arai: “Perfect! Happy! Mizuki-san, how was it?”
I couldn’t figure out what Arai meant by “私回しますよ？” The next paragraph also confused me a bit, but I think maybe I managed to get it?
“I’ll turn it around, right?”
Mizuki: “SKE’s Arai-chan has come out.” (laughs) “This was the first match since it was announced that I’m going to have a title match with Itoh-san. I know that she’s not the same person that she was before. But I know that I’m not who I was before, either. I can feel it. I’m full of confidence now, compared to before, but Itoh-san is the type of wrestler who really shakes my heart. I often wear my heart on my sleeve, so I wanted to be especially careful about that.”
Arai: “But today…”
Mizuki: “Arai-chan really helped me. It was fun!”
Arai: “It was a good day, huh?”
(Itoh is training in the U.S. for a month?)
Mizuki: “Today there were a lot of wrestlers absent, and wrestlers who have gone to America, so I was the only person here with a belt. But even at times like this, I have to keep things going, or rather I have to hang in there. Yuka-chi is leaving… but I really feel like it isn’t the time to be sad. Because if I don’t keep it together, she probably won’t be able to complete the road to her graduation with peace of mind. So many things have happened since I won the belt, like the title match and the tag title match. There are so many things, and I feel like now is the time for me to work really hard. I’m going to do my best to keep moving forward with these strong feelings. Please support me.”
Arai: “…OK! I’ll be right beside you.”
(Does Sakazaki’s graduation announcement affect your own title match?)
Mizuki: “Please don’t ask me too much about Yuka-chi’s graduation…” (cries)
Arai: “Please stop!”
Mizuki: “It’s not nice!”
Arai: “She’s crying!”
In Itoh and Kamiyu’s comments, I wasn’t quite sure what Itoh meant with the 別に here: “前哨戦、あと何回できるか分かんないんですけど、今日はちょっと負けたんですけど…まぁ別に.”
Itoh: “I don’t know how many preview matches we have left, but I lost today… well, not really.”
Kamifuku: “It’s on me.”
Itoh: “It’s on you? You were kind of useless today. Why?”
Kamifuku: “I was weak. This kind of thing happens when you reach your thirties.”
Itoh: “You can’t use your age as an excuse. You’re the one saying it the most.”
Kamifuku: “I really shouldn’t say it.”
Itoh: “That’s right.”
Kamifuku: “That SK-Ⅱ feeling, I get it.”
Itoh: “Huh? What?”
Kamifuku: “It’s an anti-aging skincare product. That aside, I’m sorry that I lost today. It’s just, after today’s preview match, you’re going to the USA again for a long time, right? Are you gonna be okay?”
Itoh: “Yes, I’m going. I’m going to have all these opponents who are tougher than the people I face in Japan, so I’m definitely going to come back to Japan in pieces, but Mizuki is my opponent. So I think I have to work that hard in order to win. I want to have my fill of strong opponents and get stronger myself. So please give me your support.”
Kamifuku: “I am!”
Itoh: “As my friend…”
Kamifuku: “How convenient for you. You only say ‘as my friend’ at times like this.”
Itoh: (laughs) “Say something nice.”
Kamifuku: “Nice?”
Itoh: “Something to encourage me to do my best. It can be your favorite English word.”
Kamifuku: “Well… there’s ‘by the way.’”
I think by “切り替えられる”, she was referring to what ‘by the way’ can do?
“It can be used to change the topic.”
Itoh: “…I know that one.”
Kamiyu totally lost me with this, though: “これすごいボケたつもりだったんだよな…”
This next part was a bit hard. I think I figured out the soy sauce part, considering the context, but I wasn’t sure about the line before it.
伊藤「今日はもうダメだね」
Itoh: "Today you’re no longer useless.
上福「今日はもうダメだけど、日本人ってソイソース臭いってよく言われるから」
Kamifuku: “Today I’m no longer useless, but Japanese people are often told that we smell like soy sauce.”
Itoh: “Is that okay?”
Kamifuku: “No, it’s not.”
Itoh: “They were just bullying you, right?”
Kamifuku: "Yes. They called me ‘sushi girl’. When you have a bad match over there, apply soy sauce. Use this to intimidate them. Put on some ginger. Promise me you’ll do it.”
Itoh: “…Got it.”
Kamifuku: “I’ll keep your seat for you.”
Itoh: “Thank you. Well, for the time being, I’m gonna do my best!”
That’s it for that one! It doesn’t look like I’ll finish the next show before Misao’s produce show, haha, but looking at the schedule, it seems the next couple are VOD shows anyway, so I’ll have a bit of extra time .
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She’s reacting to Arai, who is indeed extra stoked.
An overly literal translation of “なんなんこの人ハッピーオーラは…” would be like, “what’s with this person? Happy aura-wise I mean…”
“What’s with this girl’s happy aura” or “what’s with her happy aura” or even “why does she seem quite so happy…?” would be options for tweaks.
Not 100% sure but I think what’s happening here is that she’s transitioning back to closing the show after passing it off to Arai because supposedly 90% of the audience had Arai t-shirts.
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(She looks over the audiences and gauges their shirt percentages)
“Well, I suppose there’s all kinds of supporters(’ shirts) here after all”
(the audience laughs)
and Mizuki acknowledges that her roundaboutedness has been rumbled: “it’s like I’m saying ‘I’ll close the show myself!’”
I think that matches up with the actions and reactions at least.
3人は here is the subject of trios tag matches themselves (in contrast to regular tag matches).
Arai is saying they’ve been in tons of trio matches with each other.
And Mizuki is saying that they pretty often oppose each other in matches too.
So they’re both remarking on different reasons that this tag team combination is an unusual and novel experience for them.
I think this is this definition of 回す on weblio:
５ 物事をとどこおりなく進める。「仕事をうまく—・す」
I think maybe what’s happening is that they posed for pictures, but instead of a reporter asking a question, Arai quickly asked a question, making Mizuki laugh (more). And their explanation of the scenario and why it’s amusing is that Arai’s moving things along, because I guess her idol show presentation instincts kicked in.
It’s like “eh, who cares” or “doesn’t matter” or “meh” or that kind of thing.
Along the lines of this quick example where B isn’t interested in pro wrestling:
A: プロレスには興味がある？
B: 別に。
Although it’s not attached to anything specifically here, I’d say it conveys that same kind of implication of a negation / lack of interest / not mattering. With the implied ending being like 意味がない or something along those lines.
I think she’s saying like, roughly, “you were trying to get me to say something ridiculous like this huh”
In manzai, the ボケ says ridiculous things and the ツッコミ interjects with reactions highlighting them.
So Itoh’s blunt 知ってる is a successful ツッコミ barb that gets a laugh from Kamiyu and makes her feel like she played into Kamiyu’s hands as the ボケ in not coming up with a more interesting English word to mention. (manzai terms come up pretty often when people are bantering with each other and end up commenting on their banter and that becomes part of the banter too)
今日はもうダメ is rather, roughly, “today’s a wash” – like, 今日 is now ダメ and there’s no saving it. They’re remarking on how their banter has collapsed in on itself and isn’t really going anywhere.
There would have to be a negative in there for it to mean “no longer useless” - and I feel like with this combination of words that would feel strange somehow too anyway.
(the stuff that follows is Kamiyu’s attempt at fulfilling the english word brief with a less ツッコミ-able bit)
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Got to 花 in Level 4 today, and this mnemonic was kind of a yikes for me, especially this week.
The leader can’t stop planting flowers though. He’s going crazy. Maybe it’s the pollen? He comes up to someone named Hannah (はな) and starts planting flowers in her face, probably killing her in the process.
HINTS
Do you know anyone named Hannah? Any famous people, perhaps? Try to come up with someone you know of named Hannah that you can imagine to be in this mnemonic, to help you remember it better.
Finding these a little confusing…
パワーファイトに磨きをかける！
what’s getting polished here?
決まるか、UBV!
Is this about her new gear looking rad, or about a decision she needs to make?
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Her power fighting! 磨きをかける doesn’t necessarily mean physical polish, so I think it’s saying that she’s refining her power fighting.
I believe the use of 決まる here is one of those pesky wrestling-specific meanings, haha, where it’s asking if the result of the match will be decided by her successfully hitting her finisher (the UBV).
Here are a couple definitions other folks gave for 決める to give you an idea of how this set of verbs are sometimes used in wrestling:
技を成功させた時が「決める」です
試合に勝ちを「決める」
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We got some more sad wrestling news a few days ago, unfortunately 
. Saki Akai announced that she’s going to be retiring in November of this year… The DDT English account translated the press conference. I was glad I didn’t have to translate that one, too… I’m obviously a pretty big fan of her, so I’m super bummed that I won’t get to see her in DDT anymore, and probably won’t get to see Sakisama in TJPW again after this year, either.
I have learned to live in fear of a joshi wrestler’s 10th year wrestling anniversary… I guess luckily Mizuki’s passed without a retirement or an announcement that she’ll be leaving the company.
It made me think back to Misao, too, and how lucky we are that she decided not to retire in 2020. I haven’t had the chance to watch her produce show yet, because it was uploaded at a terrible hour last night and I was busy watching Double or Nothing today, but I’ve super been looking forward to it because I’ve heard a lot of awesome things about it. It sounds like it might be a genuine show of the year contender for me.
Rodan, you’re super lucky because I think it’ll be a real treat for you since you’ll be able to follow what’s going on and probably haven’t seen any spoilers for it if you’re still staying off of twitter.
I’m probably not going to do any translation for it, because Dramatic DDT recapped it pretty thoroughly, and I’d just be using the same shupro recap that he uses to source my translation, but I might change my mind and do the post-match promo at the end of the show, I dunno (there are no post-match comments).
I did finish the May 20 show translation, finally! Which means that I’m caught up until the 5.27 VOD goes up.
This show was a bit cursed with misfortune going into it, as they had to do some rearranging of the card due to lots of wrestlers being absent for various reasons, but I thought it was a surprisingly fun house show, all things considered. Ryo Mizunami’s match in particular was great (ilu アニキ).
I also had less trouble with the translation than usual, I think? Less sentences where I felt totally lost, at least .
The show opened with an announcement from Yuki Arai (who had just gotten injured in an SKE practice):
Arai: “Today I have a minor leg injury… I’m sad and disappointed that I can’t participate in my match. I will take a short break and come back stronger, so please wait for me, everyone!”
After that, the first match with post-match comments was Raku/Yuki/Pom vs Nao/Hikari/Wakana, the team that didn’t make it into the trios tournament. The wrestlers treated it like it was a bonus tournament match, which was fun! There was some sort of informal stipulation they added where I think the winners would get dinner, but I wasn’t exactly sure how that arrangement worked out, haha.
Pom/Yuki/Raku won, proving definitively that the 三角関係 is the best trio in the company. Here were their comments:
Pom: (screams)
Aino: “Too loud!”
Pom: “At the beginning! You left me behind!” (screams)
Aino: (ignoring her) “Supplemental program for the 6-woman tag team tournament… what? We managed to secure the total victory!”
Raku: “Second time winners!”
Aino: “The three of us joined forces, and we won again. Yay!”
Raku: “Yay!”
Aino: “Hey, Pom?”
Pom: “…Yes.”
This part was a bit confusing because I wasn’t exactly sure who was being treated to dinner and who was doing the treating. It seems like it would make more sense for the winners to get treated to dinner, but that’s not what the grammar seems to say? “今日はみんなで、あちらが勝手に勝ったら奢れとか言ってたんですけど、私たちが勝ったので…私たちが焼き肉を奢ってもらいます！”
Aino: “Today, we all said that if they won on their own, they should treat us to dinner, but since we won… we’ll be treating them to yakiniku!”
Pom: “Yakiniku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku yakinuku!” (she heads backstage while making a lot of noise)
Kakuta: “What did you want to eat?”
Uehara: “Kalbi.”
Kakuta: “Yakiniku, huh? I wanted to see you stuff yourself.”
Hikari: “Got along well, huh?”
Kakuta: “I think so.”
Hikari: “The other side?”
Kakuta: “Huh, them? Not us? No, for us, even though it was our first time as a trio, it went well. It was fun, wasn’t it? Even though we lost…”
Hikari: “But if we win next time…”
Kakuta: “Then it’ll be the victory celebration party, Hikari’s treat, at an all-you-can-eat yakiniku place. You want kalbi, right?”
Uehara: “Yes! Top of the line kalbi!”
Kakuta: “I’m looking forward to it.”
Hikari: “I’ll go at YU-M Entertainment’s expense.”
The main event was Mizuki and Moka vs Arisu and Miu, which featured a particularly incredible giant swing spot, haha. I didn’t really mind the change to the card here, because I think Arisu being in the match instead of Rika made the result a little more up in the air.
Mizuki got the win. Then she said:
Mizuki: “Moka-chan and I won!” (to Miyamoto) “Is there anything you’d like to say?”
Miyamoto: “I’m happy to win with Mizuki-san!”
Mizuki: “Well… there were a lot of changes to the card, but I’m so happy that so many people came to see us despite that. Even though I’m the champion, I was really inspired by the strength of Miu, Arisu-chan, and Moka-chan, and I realized again what a wonderful organization this has become. People with poor health can get relief and peace of mind, and people who want to chase their dreams can pursue them. Even in these conditions, many TJPW wrestlers are shining brightly. Watching everyone fighting from behind the scenes, they’ve really become strong, and they’ve made me really want to do my best, too. So I really love this organization. Do you all like us too? Thank you! I thought maybe we could close the show a little differently than usual…”
She closed with: “I’m thrilled and excited to be with TJPW from here, and…” “Happy happy!”
Here were Mizuki and Moka’s comments:
Mizuki: “Yay! I really wanted to win with Moka-chan. She was really reassuring, and I’m happy.”
Miyamoto: “I was also very encouraged by Mizuki-san, so I’m glad. Miu-san also showed a lot of power and passion in the preview. Arisu-chan’s power was also great, but I didn’t want to lose, so I’m glad that Mizuki and I were able to win.”
(You took that Giant Swing outside the ring)
Mizuki: “As we saw, Miu has momentum, and Arisu-chan and Moka-chan, too. There are a lot of younger girls coming in now, and the ones who used to be the youngest are getting stronger and stronger. I felt thrilled and excited, or rather I should say that I’m looking forward to what comes next. There are people like Miu who are able to pull out something like that out of the blue, so I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to do my best to run out ahead so that I don’t get overtaken, so that they don’t catch up with me more and more.’”
(I can feel your sense of responsibility as champion from your recent words and actions)
“Yes. There are only three people holding belts in the first place, but Rika-san is absent due to her health, and there are girls absent due to injuries, schoolwork, and so on. I want this to be a place where they can return with peace of mind. People who are chasing their dreams, like Mii-chan, Itoh-san, and Yuka-chi, can also come back without worrying. But I wanted to show that we are also growing up in the meantime. I hope we can continue to grow together from here, along with the audience members who came today.”
I got most of Miu’s and Arisu’s comments, I think:
Miu: “Today was my first time facing Mizuki after the MagiRabbi vs Daydream match was set. Rika-san stayed home today to get well, but having Arisu here with me was very reassuring. She’s gotten super strong lately, and she was very strong in our singles match the other day, so I was very glad to have her there. But I still felt that double champ Mizuki-san was also really strong.”
The beginning and end of this sentence were a bit tricky, though: “やっぱりより自分が…いままでマジラビと当たる時は割と私が後輩って立場だったんですけど、今回はリカさんが先輩っていう風に引っ張ってもらうじゃなく、こうやって前哨戦もひとりだし、自分から引っ張ってマジラビに…最後に当たることになるかもしれないユカさんにちゃんとぶつけてベルトを取りたいなと思いました.”
“More than I expected, I… up until this point, when I faced MagiRabbi, I felt like such a junior in comparison, but this time I don’t want Rika-san to be my senpai and lead the way. Just like how I was on my own in this preview match, I want to take the initiative on my own accord against MagiRabbi… I want to win the belt by taking down Yuka-san, whom I might have to face at the end. Arisu, thank you for teaming with me today.”
Endo: “Thank you! I’m so sorry that I lost…”
Miu: “When I look at you, your (hair) is too flashy…” (laughs) “You’re showing off.”
Endo: “I’m going to live my life flamboyantly. I’ll do my best!”
And that’s it for that show! I am finally (briefly) caught up, though not for very long, haha. Unless I cave to the temptation of trying to translate some additional stuff from Misao’s produce show…
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