Finished translating the January 21 TJPW show!
The first tournament match in this was Daisy Monkey vs Pom & Raku, which was a fun match, but a hard one to pick a team to root for, haha. I can’t be mad seeing Daisy Monkey win, though! The post-match comments also introduced a new translation obstacle: train metaphors 
.
Suzume: “Alright!”
Endo: “Yay! We did it!”
This was a bit confusing: “初戦？ でもシードだから2回戦突破！”
Suzume: “The first round? But with our tournament seed, we’re past the second round! Yay!”
Endo: “Let’s keep pushing forward!”
Suzume: “This year will be… We always end up experiencing disappointment in tournaments, but we beat the most dangerous tag team in TJPW, so let’s keep our momentum going!”
Endo: “Watch us!”
(Your semifinal match will be against Miyamoto & Juria)
“That’s right!”
Suzume: “I hope it’s the same for them, but for us, we’re a team with a lot of emotion invested in this, or rather we’re a team with a lot of frustrations.”
Endo: “We’re going to get revenge!”
Suzume: “Nagano-san is graduating, so I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to keep fighting, but I’m excited to get to face them like this.”
Endo: “But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to let them win.”
Suzume: “Right. No way!”
Endo: “We’re going to win, so please look forward to it.”
I wasn’t 100% sure about the wording of this question: “電車など惑わされた試合でした.”
(They waylaid you with the train in the match)
“What was that about?”
Suzume: “That was out of the ordinary, or rather, I knew they’d do something like that.”
Endo: “…Like THAT?”
Suzume: “We gave up, didn’t we? We were more preoccupied with doing our own thing as best as we could than we were with trying to come up with a counterplan. Because it’s useless trying to predict them.”
Endo: “You can say that for sure.”
Raku & Pom’s comments feat. train metaphors:
Pom: “We lost… Even though we brought in a new train car.”
Raku: “Yeah, it was a new model of limited express train.”
Pom: Yes, the new limited express, right here. The RakuPom series."
Raku: “What should we do…”
I wasn’t quite sure the best way to translate らくぽむ号 because I’m not super familiar with how 号 is typically translated in terms of trains!
This sentence was a bit tricky to put into English: “でもリニアモーターカーも実験を重ねて実装まで時間がかかるっていうなら、らくぽむ号も実験を重ねて完璧に完全なる完全体の超快速になるまで…”
Pom: “If a linear motor train takes a lot of time to get implemented after lots and lots of experiments, then the RakuPom series will take lots and lots of experiments until it becomes a flawlessly perfect build that can go super high speed…”
Raku: “Obviously this was an experimental trial run.”
I wasn’t 100% confident on this next bit:
ぽむ「試運転だった。でも、ちょっと…でじもんには勝ってもらわないとね。こんな車両もボロボロになっちゃって、大変ですよ」
Pom: “It was a test run. But… We have to have Daisy Monkey win for us. But… We have to have Daisy Monkey win for us. With the train car falling to pieces like this, it’s unfortunate.”
らく「頑張って。もう勝ってって託して」
Raku: “Good luck. We’re leaving it to you to win.”
Pom: “Shall we go for a bit of a test run?”
Raku: “Yes. Let’s do one more test run.”
Pom: “It’s important to rack them up!” (they leave the comment area riding the new limited express together)
Next up was Arai & Wakana vs Mizuki & Shino! I thought team super rookie probably had this one, and… I was right 
! I am admittedly rooting for Shino to go on a long Raku-style losing streak, so this only furthers my agenda 
.
Uehara: “We made it through the second round!”
Arai: “Yay!”
Uehara: “I’m so happy. Today was the second day of the tournament, and honestly I haven’t really faced Mizuki-san much, and it’s been a long time since we’ve fought. Obviously Shino-chan is in my class, but since we’ve barely ever faced off, today wasn’t an extension of the Next Generation Tournament, but… as I fought her, I felt like I was fighting with two tournaments on the line. And at the end, Shino-chan’s Sleeper… I use a Sleeper hold, too, so I’ve applied them myself, but I haven’t really had one put on me before. I was truly about to tap out at the end, but Arai-san really saved me. I’m very happy because we managed to win today.”
Arai: “Thank you. It was really Wakana-chan who won, and now we can advance to the semifinals. We’ve been teaming up for the past two days, but we’re really not a team that has worked together a lot. We’re going to be facing Daydream next.”
This was a bit tricky: “ずっと組んでる2人なので、先ほどの試合もすごいなーって感想が一番にくるんですけど.”
“They’ve been teaming together for ages, so the first thing that comes to mind is ‘wow, they were incredible in that match they just had.’ But I want us to push onward with our determined momentum! We’re going to do our best!”
(Are you gradually getting in sync with each other?)
“Compared to when we first teamed up together in Ota Ward, I think over the course of yesterday and today, we’ve been getting better and better.”
I also struggled a bit with this: “2人で組むことはもちろん、同じタッグにいることもなかったから、一緒にやっていく上で『ここはこうする子なんだ』とかどんどんわかってきたかなって私は思います.”
“The two of us haven’t teamed together, we haven’t been part of the same tag team, so I think as we work together, we’ve come to understand each other more, like ‘she’s someone who’ll do this here’.”
Uehara: “I was very reassured having her, so we’re going to keep up our momentum and won’t lose even to Daydream, and we’re going to try our best to aim for the final.”
Arai: “Let’s do our best!”
Uehara: “Thank you for your support.”
(What are your thoughts toward the semifinals?)
Arai: “Eh, I don’t know. They’re a week from now, right? I’m going to think over it so that when people see us, we’ll be better than we were today.”
Mizuki: (sitting down and holding hands with Shino, who is crying) “I’m sorry! Because we’re a tag team. The two of us are one. You were really super cool. Next time… well, there might not be a next time, but if we team up together again, we’ll definitely win the next one.”
Shino: “Yes!”
Mizuki: “I’m sorry. I wasn’t able to support you, so for the next one, we’ll both get stronger, and then team together again.”
Shino: “Yes! I’m going to get stronger!”
Mizuki: “Let’s get stronger together!”
Shino: “Thank you so much! It’s so frustrating!” (cries)
Mizuki: “Hey, hey, it’s alright. It’s like I’m looking at my old self. I’ll do my best not to let your tears go to waste.”
Shino: “Next time we team up, I want to win…”
Mizuki: “If you feel this frustrated already, you’ll feel even more frustrated! Let’s do this!”
Shino: “I’m going to do my best! Thank you very much.”
And finally, the main event, Kyoraku Kyomei vs Daydream! Daydream are always the de facto heels to me in any tag match, haha, and as a big fan of Kyoraku Kyomei, I’m always extremely biased toward one side over the other in these match-ups, so I was really hoping that Kyoraku Kyomei would repeat what they did last year and take out Daydream and also go on to the finals けど…
It was a great match, though! I think the best just straight tag match I’ve seen this year so far.
Here’s the post-match:
Tatsumi: “We defeated our longtime enemies! I thought they were going to be a terrible mountain to overcome, but we got past Kyoraku… Well, it was tough, but we did it!”
Miu: “Yay! Thank you!”
This next part was a bit difficult to translate:
辰巳「享楽を倒しちゃったってことはもういけんじゃない？」
Tatsumi: “Now that we’ve taken down Kyoraku, we’re good to go, right?”
未詩「これは…いける」
Miu: “We can do it.”
辰巳「いくしかない！」
Tatsumi: “We have to go on!”
未詩「いくしかない！」
Miu: “It’s the only option!”
Tatsumi: “We’ve won this tournament once, but we have a longer history than the other teams, and we’ve accumulated a lot of experience. We stand out from the rest. We’re going to win the tournament without holding back!”
Miu: “We’re going to win!”
Tatsumi: “Today is our second show in a row in Shinagawa. Everyone, thank you so much for these past two days!”
Miu: “Thank you!”
Tatsumi: “Thanks! Well, shall we close?”
Miu: “Yes, let’s wrap up these two days.”
Tatsumi: “Everyone, channel your spirit, and let’s close!”
They closed the show with: “Daydream is going to keep fighting for everyone’s dreams! Work hard, let’s go!”
Rika: “We did it!”
Miu: “Yay!”
This was a bit hard to put into English: “実質決勝戦みたいな享楽（共鳴）を相手に勝てたので、このままいけるでしょう！”
Rika: “We won against Kyoraku (Kyomei), which is practically a finals match, so we’ll be able to keep going for sure!”
Miu: “We can do it! We have momentum!”
Rika: “Who are our next opponents? Has it been set?”
Miu: “Has the match been decided?”
(It’s Arai & Uehara)
This was tricky: “これ（トーナメントの山組）順ですか.”
“Is that the order (in the tournament bracket)?”
Rika: “So that’s who it is. But we’re not going to lose to a hastily put together team of youngsters.”
Miu: “Daydream doesn’t lose.”
Rika: “I want to beat them black and blue. Then we’re going to go on to win the tournament and the championship.”
Miu: “We’re going to win!”
(You got revenge after losing to Kyoraku Kyomei in the semifinals last year)
Rika: “Yes, we did.”
Miu: “We faced them last year, too.”
Rika: “We’ve faced them every year, haven’t we?”
Miu: “We also faced them the year before.”
Rika: “So it’s been every time. We’re on bad terms with them, huh? Or I should say that we’re fated opponents. But I’m relieved that we didn’t lose to them.”
Miu: “We got our revenge.”
(The singles title challenge has been set, but Tatsumi says that you’ll also fight for the Tag Team Championship)
“Yes, that’s right. I’ll do two matches. I’m running after two hares, aren’t I?”
This part was really fun to me because I saw “二兎追っている” and I was like “hang on, that rings a bell…” so I searched for 兎 in my study log, and guess what?
I got so excited I almost leapt up out of my chair, haha.
After this, Rika says “にうさぎ”, which I’m not 100% sure I understand the distinction she’s making? Is she just trying to say “no, Miu is actually doing something definitely different from this set phrase that says she’s basically doomed from the start”? I suppose にうさぎ is the wrong way to say “two rabbits”, technically, because you probably need a specific counter for talking quantities of rabbits: 二羽, but Rika is not in fact talking about rabbits, haha, so maybe the wrong counter is sort of the joke? In any case, I translated 二兎 as “two hares” and “にうさぎ” as “two rabbits”.
Rika: “Yes, ‘two rabbits’.”
Miu: “Yes, I’m running after ‘two rabbits’. I’m running after ‘two rabbits’, and trying to get ‘two rabbits’. When I read in the last issue of Shupro that I was ‘running after two hares’, I realized that, come to think of it, I’ve been running after two hares since my debut from the start. I can sing, dance, and fight. I’m running after both hares, and I’ve been saying that I’m going to get them both, so I will get two hares, and I think I can put them together and bring them down, so I want to do it.”
Rika: “Does that mean you’re going to make them into one humongous rabbit?”
Miu: “Yes.” (laughs)
Rika: “You’re going to turn them into a gigantic rabbit and then get it.”
Miu: “It might get very big. I’ll still be able to throw it in that state! I’ll do my best!”
Rika: “I want to show the world that Daydream is an amazing tag team.”
Miu: “We’re going to make ourselves known.”
Rika: “Watch us!”
Nakajima: “We’re a wreck.”
Misao: “Torn to shreds.”
Nakajima: “I really felt just how much momentum they have. Personally speaking, Miu Watanabe won the battle royal at Shinjuku FACE to determine the next singles challenger at Ryogoku Kokugikan. I was disappointed that Miu had beaten me there, so I was very determined not to lose to her as a tag team. I wanted to win the tournament, but I also wanted to beat Daydream today at all costs.”
This next chunk was a bit tricky:
ミサヲ「ここに勝てたらというか、もちろんトーナメント優勝したいという気持ちもあったんですけど、白昼夢に勝つというのが大前提としてあったので、自分が落としてしまって本当に悔しいというのと、だからこそ勝ってマイクで言いたいことがあったし」
Misao: “I wanted to win here, or I should say that of course I wanted to win the tournament, but I had to beat Daydream on principle, so I’m really disappointed that I lost the match, and that’s why I wanted to win and get to say something on the microphone.”
中島「そのままの本当の気持ちで勝ったら言いたいことがいっぱいあったし」
Nakajima: “I had a lot of things I wanted to say if I won, with my true feelings as they are.”
ミサヲ「あったんだけど、本当にごめんなさい。この勝ったら言いたいことを言うというのを、悪いジンクスにしたくないから、やっぱり今の気持ちも絶対次勝ち取ってから本当に本当に言いたいことを言うんで」
Misao: “We had things we wanted to say, and I’m so sorry. I don’t want to jinx it, saying the things I want to say if I win this, so with my current feelings, I’ll definitely say what I really, really want to say after I win the next one.”
Nakajima: “Everyone who has been supporting us has always been saying that they want Kyoraku Kyomei to win the tag belts. They’ve been saying it for like two years. They’ve been supporting us since we teamed up around when there were no shows during the coronavirus crisis, but the two of us have still yet to win the belts.”
Misao: “I really, really don’t want to betray them anymore.”
I wasn’t quite sure I figured this line out: “だからそこの逆裏切りを応援してくれる人のためにもね.”
Nakajima: “So we’ll betray the people who are rooting for a betrayal.”
ミサヲ「いい裏切りが享楽（共鳴）には似合うと思う」
Misao: “I think a good betrayal fits Kyoraku (Kyomei).”
中島「いつか裏切ってみせるから待っててください」
Nakajima: “We’ll betray you someday, so please wait for it.”
ミサヲ「待っててください」
Misao: “Wait for us!”
I believe in you, Kyoraku Kyomei 
. After Daisy Monkey becomes tag champs (
), It’ll be Kyoraku Kyomei’s time 
!!
That’s it for that show! Just one left to go! I’m trying to get it done as soon as I can in case they also drop a press conference, haha!