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

rodan · May 29, 2023, 7:24pm

Yeah, I really loved it!
My thoughts/notes on everything are really backed up since I’ve been busy but I suppose I’ll leave it til whenever I get around to it to say more.

I’d tweak this to “Right, Pom?” It’s more of a “confirming that Pom is on board even though she was grumpy and screaming” ね than a “hey I wanna talk to you Pom” ね

It seems like what’s tripped you up is the 今日はみんなで at the beginning, but I’d say it’s the kind of thing where a next piece of the train of thought interjects itself after that.
Like, 今日はみんなで is starting to say “today, together, we’re all going to eat yakiniku” but the comma marks an interjection of a separate reason for why that would take place.

あちらが勝手に勝ったら奢れとか言ってたんですけど would be roughly “Those guys were brashly saying ‘if we win, treat us to a meal’”
The tipoffs that it’s the other team saying Pom and co. should buy them a meal is that it’s あちら as the subject, and the 勝手に wouldn’t quite make sense if it connected to the 勝ったら instead of the 言ってた. Like, the 勝手に is emphasizing that it wasn’t like, a bet between the two teams, the other team just started saying on their own “if we win, feed us!” whereas “あちらが勝手に勝った” on its own doesn’t really make sense. So the core of the sentence is “あちらが勝手に言ってた” and what they said was “勝ったら奢れ”

As for 私たちが焼き肉を奢ってもらいます, the tipoff that it’s the other team will be buying food for Pom and co. is a lot more straightforward: it’s the もらう.
“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！” is roughly “we won, so we will be treated to yakiniku” or overly literally, “we will receive being treated to yakiniku (by the other team)”

So anyway, looking at the whole thing, I think if you look at it without “今日はみんなで” at all, it’ll read a lot clearer. I think it just tripped you up with another level of clauses to keep track of where they connect up. The 今日はみんなで connects up to the 私たちが勝った or the eating yakiniku, if anywhere, and the あちらが勝手に connects up to the saying stuff. One of those places where I think the あの and ですけれども bookending the interjecting thought are doing more to signal that kind of track switching than it might seem.

Nitpick but I’d tweak this to “growing” or “developing” rather than “growing up.” 成長 seems pretty generally used in reference to wrestlers’ growths (particularly ones early on in their career), but “growing up” seems like it specifically only applies to the growth of kids into adults.

I think something that feels subtly a little off to me is that it’s
最後に当たることになるかもしれないユカさん
not
最後に当たるかもしれないユカさん
and I feel that the 最後 in question is the end of Yuka’s time with the company, and so this feels more like “this might be the final confrontation / the last time I face her” rather than “I might face her in the end.” Like, this might well amount to a confrontation at the end (of the current iteration of Yuka and Miu’s relationship or somesuch), rather than a confrontation at the end maybe taking place or not, if that tracks.
My rough attempt: “I want to go fully head to head with MagiRabbi, and with Yuka-san against whom this might be my final confrontation, and I want to take the belts from them.”

fallynleaf · June 3, 2023, 11:48am

I finished translating TJPW’s May 27 show, which was Kamiyu’s hometown show.

It was really fun to see Asuka in TJPW again! I also really enjoyed the Shoko vs Aja Kong interactions in the main event. Kamiyu and Mahiro were also good, though I’m still a bit worried about their tag team, haha. It’ll be interesting to see if the crowd reaction to Mahiro is different in the next show after her performance at HYPE (technically this show was after that, but it was before the VOD was out, so I doubt many people at this show saw that one).

Since this was a VOD show, I could watch the closing promo while following along with the transcript, which meant I was mostly able to understand it! It made me laugh even with only partial understanding, haha. I think I was able to get most of it without too much trouble?

Kamifuku: (to Aja, who is leaving) “Aja-san, wait. …For now, I won! Wait, wait, please wait! It’s a good thing. I’m so, so grateful to Aja-san, whom I greatly respect, for coming out to my beloved hometown Shonandai today. But when you come, you take a bit of the focus away from me, so please don’t come for a while!” (while fleeing from Aja who is about to enter the ring) “Mahiro, take her out of here!”

Aja: “Can I just say one thing? You spoke very badly to me, considering that you said you greatly respect me, but… well, this is your return to your hometown. Did all of you truly come to cheer for Kamifuku?” (loud cheers and “Kamiyu” chants) “Ah, I see. In that case, OK then. I guess it can’t be helped. ‘Don’t come back again’? No, no, next time we’ll have a singles match. But, I’m sorry. I want to be on Kamiyu’s side once, so we’ll do it after we’ve teamed up first.”

Kamifuku: (replying immediately) “I want to team up. I really, really want to team up.”

Aja: “That’s it for your response, huh? But after that, we’re going to have a singles match one of these days. Since it’ll be long-awaited, we better do it in Shonandai. Because you are going to cause all of the boys and girls without dreams to have them, right? By getting to this point, you’re going to show them that they can make it this far, aren’t you? Then give them dreams by beating Aja Kong in a singles match. Well, I think that dream will end as a dream.” (she exits, and there is loud applause from the audience)

Kamifuku: “I’m just going to hold onto the good parts.”

Nakajima: “It feels like we lost even though we won.”

Kamifuku: “Legends are amazing. But really, as Aja-san said, I want the children of my hometown, Shonandai and Fujisawa City, to have more and more dreams, and if I try my best in a singles match with Aja-san, everyone will work even harder, right? Thank you so much to all the kids, parents, and the fans for coming out here today. Everyone at TJPW is going to keep showing more and more dreams, so please support us!”

They close with: “Let’s live casually!” “Peace!”

The backstage comments caused me a bit more trouble, haha. Here’s Shoko’s and Kamiyu’s. Shoko’s second sentence was a bit confusing: “棚から牡丹餅じゃないですけど、私までアジャコング選手と対戦させていただける貴重な機会をいただいて.”

Nakajima: “The Shonandai show was Kamifuku-chan’s return to her hometown. It’s not like I’m an adzuki bean mochi off the shelf, but I was given this valuable opportunity to face off against Aja Kong. Even though it was (Kamifuku’s) return, I thought this was an opportunity for me, too, and I faced her with everything I had.”

This sentence was also a bit confusing: “上福ちゃんがすごい粘って勝ってくれたので、今日の経験もまた自分の経験にして.”

Kamifuku-chan was very persistent and she won, so the experience for her today was also an experience for me. I want to do my best so that I can make my way up to the top in TJPW."

Kamifuku: “Asuka-tan also came today, and Aja-san came. Aja-san was my opponent, and my partner was NakaSho. When the match was announced, I had an image in mind.”

This part was a bit tricky: “真弥はいいじゃん、これくらいで倒せれば。で、あとのアジャさんのヒットポイントを99.9くらいなかしょーにワーってやっつけてもらって、最後においしいところだけバーンってやってアジャさんに勝って、湘南台の悪ガキたちにマウント取って.”

“Mahiro is good, if I can beat her to this extent. Then NakaSho would take out 99.9 percent of Aja-san’s hit points, and in the end, I’d hit her in the sweet spot and beat Aja-san, and get the attention of the brats in Shonandai. I wanted to tell them to listen to me because I was stronger than Aja-san, but… as you’d expect, she was too strong. But With NakaSho’s assist, and Shonandai’s power, I was able to get a splendid victory. I really want to liven up Shonandai from here on out. Fujisawa will advance, and I will push down Fujisawa’s Takeshi Tsuruno and various celebrities and become Fujisawa’s biggest star. Thank you.”

(Aja requested a tag match and a singles match)

“Unless you go through the company with that kind of thing, there’s not a chance.”

Nakajima: “Singles match! Skip the tag match. Let’s go!”

Kamifuku: “I’d like to team up, but the singles match is truly something you have to get by going through the company…”

These sentences were a bit tricky: “でもね、いっぱい若い子が増えてきたので、こういうぐちゃぐちゃになっても頑張るっていうのを新人のZ世代たちに教えてあげたいと思うので。勝つ負けるは…もちろん勝ちにいきたいけど、ぐちゃぐちゃになってアジャさんにやられる日があってもいいんじゃないかなとは2％だけ思います.”

“But, hey, there are more and more young people, so I want to teach the gen Z rookies to do their best even when they get messed up like this. Win, lose… Of course I want to win, but I think it might be okay to have a day where you get messed up and done in by Aja-san if it’s just 2% of the time.”

(She said the singles match would be in Shonandai)

“Do it again in my hometown? In Shonandai? Well, someday, the Akibadai Gymnasium, it’s the closest to Shonandai. It’s a gigantic place where other pro wrestling organizations often hold events, so if we do it, I’d like to have the singles match with Aja-san there.”

Nakajima: “Aim for a big place.”

Kamifuku: “I’ll bow my head and sell tickets like my life depends on it.”

Shoko’s reactions during that whole exchange were really funny, haha.

Aja and Mahiro’s comments were also pretty entertaining.

Aja: “Since it was Kamifuku’s hometown, I let her have the credit, but I really don’t care about this place. I was going to smash it to bits. But it’s not very destroyed, is it? It’s disappointing, but it can’t be helped.”

I wasn’t totally sure how to translate ザコ in this sentence: “けど今日は上福の地元っていうのともうひとつ、桐生真弥はザコじゃないってところを見せてもらおうかなと.”

“Today, I’m showing you Kamifuku’s hometown and one other thing, which is that Mahiro Kiryu isn’t a nobody.”

Kiryu: “Yes! I’m not a nobody.”

Aja: “That’s right. That’s why you should stand proudly with your chest out and don’t slouch. Your body is still in good condition, so you haven’t lost. Don’t stand there trembling; you can do it. Knock her down with everything you’ve got! Send her flying!”

Kiryu: “I will! I’m working with Kamifuku-san as a tag team, but…”

Aja: “When you’re facing her, that doesn’t matter.”

Kiryu: “Today, or rather from now on, if I have to face her… I’m going to crush her.”

Aja: “That’s right.”

These sentences were a bit tricky: “組んでる時も自分でも発破かけてどんどんやってやれよ。自分が率先していけばいいんだよ。いつまで自由にさせとくの.”

Aja: “That’s right. Even when you’re teaming up, be explosive and do it again and again. You should take the initiative. How long are you going to give her free reign?”

Kiryu: “I won’t let her act freely anymore. And with that feeling in mind, we’re going to keep working hard together so that we’ll never lose…”

Aja: “It’s not a friendly rivalry.”

This was also a bit confusing: “自分が上にいくんだよ。そこだよ、お前。ダメだ、お前教育し直しな.”

“You’re going up. Right there, that’s you. It’s no good; you need to be re-educated.” (she drags Kiryu backstage)

And that’s it for that one!

rodan · June 5, 2023, 9:38pm

This is sort of a nitpick, but the “for now” here doesn’t convey the same thing that とりあえず does, and feels like a dictionary gloss based translation.
“For now, I won” sounds sort of like – I won this time (although I may well lose in the future).
But the とりあえず is saying like, “putting aside for now the part of what I’m going to say that I wanted Aja to stick around for, to start off with - I won!”
“First of all, I won!” I think would be closer.

I think it would be worth clarifying that the good thing she’s talking about is the thing she’s going to say to Aja, not the fact that Kamiyu won.

This is a figure of speech meaning 思いがけない幸運に恵まれること
as in a nice treat falling from a shelf right into your mouth without your having to do anything at all.

Here the mochi would be the valuable opportunity to face Aja.
Perhaps “Not that it was completely out of the blue, but” would be a decent English substitute for its use here.

I would say the 今日の経験もまた自分の経験にして is just saying in a slightly repetitive way that like - she’s going to absorb today’s experience into her experiences and grow (just as she always makes sure to do).
The 今日の経験もまた I’d suppose accomplishes something similar to like, “今日も” like “today too (just like everyday).”

Here she’s describing how she pictured the match going ideally beforehand.
A few things:

It’s not “Mahiro is good” but rather like – “I don’t have to worry about Mahiro – I can beat her just fine as is.”
I don’t think the おいしいところ is where she’s going to attack, but rather, it’s the fun part of the match that she’s going to take for herself - the moment of victory. She’s just going to wait for the “sweet spot” and jump in to attack and win only right at the end.
マウント取って seems less like “get the attention of” and more like “assert dominance over”

Slight nitpick but the こういう would be like - her demonstrating the principle by getting beaten up by Aja Kong in this hypothetical match, so “like this” in English sort of doesn’t work the same way since it makes it sound like how much she got beaten up in the match today.
I would drop the “like this” and change “teach” to “show” to try to get the same sense.

I would say it’s rather that only 2% of her thinks that it would be okay to be beaten up by Aja Kong. Like, she’s describing her reluctance to admit that bit of babyface-style pluck, amid the more dominant part of her personality that definitely doesn’t want to have a singles match with Aja Kong.

I suppose the reason for why I think that is because the 2％だけ is after the とは, so it’s modifying the 思います and not the stuff being 思います’d.

I would probably say that in a wrestling context at least, “weakling” or “scrub” or “loser” or something would be a little closer.
From weblio:

１いろいろな種類の入り交じった小魚。また、小さい魚。じゃこ。
２地位の低い者、取るに足りない者をたとえていう語。小物。「—は相手にしない」

It seems to me that in pro wrestling, becoming a big fish and attaining high position is about winning matches, so I feel like there’s an implication that they’re a small fish because they lose all the time, and that seems like the more relevant aspect than the importance itself.
“Mahiro Kiryu’s no weakling!” is maybe what I would go with. (Nobody isn’t bad really though)

For どんどん I would say it’s less the repetition being emphasized, and more like – aggressively and continually moving forward. “Be explosive and keep attacking” or “keep your eye on the prize” or something might work better.
Per weblio:

１物を続けざまに強く打ったり大きく鳴らしたりする音を表す語。「扉を乱暴に—（と）たたく」「花火が—（と）あがる」
２物事が勢いよく進行するさま。また、物事をためらわないでするさま。「仕事が—はかどる」「遠慮しないで—相談に来てください」

They’re still talking about Kiryu and Kamiyu’s relationship here, so clarifying the “we” would make it clearly.

It would also probably be good to translate the 切磋琢磨 part the same both times they say it to show that Aja’s objecting to Kiryu’s characterization there.

What Aja is saying is that Kiryu’s goal with Toyo Mates shouldn’t be 切磋琢磨 (both improving each other), rather Kiryu must put herself on top between the two of them. (The 自分が上にいくんだよ is the tough action movie type imperative form んだ: you must 自分が上にいく)

The そこだよ、お前。 part is like, “that’s what you need to focus on / that’s what’s wrong with you” that kind of thing.

fallynleaf · June 9, 2023, 5:27am

Finished translating TJPW’s June 4 show! It’s funny; this one had more plot on it but less actual words to translate.

I’d been wondering what else they were going to put on the Korakuen show, since literally all of the current champions in the company are in one match, and, well, they answered that question!

The main event was Miu Watanabe, Rika Tatsumi, and Arisu Endo vs Yuki Aino, Raku, and Pom Harajuku. I was honestly super curious how this was even going to go, because they just did a whole tournament establishing the 三角関係 as the strongest trio in the company, but they’re also trying to build up Rika and Miu as credible challengers for the tag titles, which bodes poorly for the love triangle… Well, I shouldn’t have worried! They did something genuinely unexpected and interesting with it, and had the match go to a time limit draw!

Here’s the post-match:

Aino: “I’m pissed off! Damn it! I really wanted to win and say this, but I want to fight more people in TJPW. What Rika-san holds… what people from all over the world are coming after, that International Princess belt, I want it. Please let me challenge for it!”

Endo: “No, wait, please! I want that blue belt, too. I’ve wanted to challenge for a long, long time. Please let me challenge!”

Tatsumi: “Well… both of you are challenging me with such passionate feelings. Of course I’ll accept. It can’t be helped, so how about the two of you have a singles match at the next Korakuen show, and I’ll have a title match with whoever wins. Okay? It’s decided. By the power vested in me as champion.”

Aino and Endo shake hands.

Tatsumi: “So, what shall I do then? Should I close the show? Today, even though the match was set, I think I want to close this time. Next is Korakuen, and there are members who have matches set, and members who don’t. I think TJPW is a place where everyone plays a leading role. I hope you’ll continue to support us. Thank you very much for today!”

I think I got the first part of Rika/Miu/Arisu’s comments:

Tatsumi: “Today, our team wanted to win, but we couldn’t end things decisively, which is really frustrating. However, this means that everyone showed determination. I felt that I’d gotten stronger, so I’m really happy about that. And I was surprised that my next challenger came from inside my own team, from the side I was allying with today. But I was also glad.”

Endo: “Obviously, I’m really disappointed that we didn’t win. I wanted to challenge for the belt because I got my first singles victory this February, and that gave me confidence. So I finally decided to do it. I’m glad that I was able to say it. I’m going to win and challenge for that belt!”

Rika’s line here confused me, though: “私はフラットに待ってます。見守ってます.”

Tatsumi: “I’m waiting. I’ll be watching attentively.”

Miu: (whispering to both of them) “Please do your best…”

(Was it also significant that Suzume had challenged for that same championship at the last Korakuen show?)

Endo: “Of course. I’ve been watching her up close, so I was thinking that I’d challenge next.”

(Your choice to have a number one contender’s match felt like it was made calmly)

Tatsumi: “I am a calm champion at all times.”

Miu: “…Were you.”

Tatsumi: “I can make calm decisions.”

(Did you expect to suddenly have two people make an appeal?)

“Hey, I’m super popular, huh? I’d love to accept both of their title challenges, but unfortunately I just have one body. So the two of them can determine which of them will get to go first.”

(“Which one goes first,” does that mean you will accept both challenges?)

“Well, that depends on the match. We’ll see.”

Pom/Raku/Yuki’s comments were a bit trickier, haha. I think I got, uh, the first line:

Aino: (to Pom) “You’re quiet today.”

I wasn’t quite sure about Pom’s response: “いえーーーーーい！ご要望にお答えして”, or the first and last sentence of what Yuki said next: “ホントに腰に響くからやめて。いやぁ…とはいえ、メインでこの最強3人組で組めてめっちゃ嬉しかったし。しかも2人が最高の形で私に後を託してくれたのに、最後勝てなくて.”

Aino: “Stop, that really reverberates in my lower back. Well… that said, I was really happy that we could tag together as the strongest trio in the main event. And even though the two of you left the rest of it to me in the best way, I couldn’t win in the end.”

Pom: “You were cool.”

I also wasn’t sure what she meant with 被る here: “なんで被ってるの？”

Aino: (to Raku and Pom, who are hiding behind her) “Why are you hiding?”

Raku: “Our hearts are beating as one.”

Aino: “Thank you. I’m so disappointed that I couldn’t win in the end. But despite my frustration, I have the most fun when I’m fighting. I want to win that International belt that Rika-san has so that I can fight more and more people. But I didn’t win today, so it’s not going so well. First I have to fight Arisu… is it already next week? We’re facing each other one-on-one at Korakuen, and I’m definitely going to win.”

Pom: “You’re definitely winning!”

Raku: “Good luck!”

Aino: “I have the two of you with me, so I’ll do my best!”

(Why did you decide to challenge now?)

“I’ve always wanted to aim for that belt, but after the coronavirus crisis passed, foreign wrestlers have been coming one after another to TJPW, and we also had the LA show. There are so many people in the world, and by fighting them, Rika-san has been getting stronger and stronger with that belt. Seeing that made me want to challenge her for it.”

That’s it for that show!

There’s one more thing I wanted to translate before Korakuen, which is the poster for Yuka/Mizuki vs Rika/Miu.

Here it is:

Here’s my translation:

私は5月8日の会見で12.1後楽園ホール大会での卒業を発表しました。会見後すぐアメリカ遠征に出してまったので今回のプリンセスタッグの防衛戦は卒業を発表してから日本のファンのみんなさんの前に立つ初めての試合になります。

On May 8, I announced that I’ll be graduating on December 1 at Korakuen Hall. I went on an excursion to the U.S. immediately following the press conference, so this Princess Tag Team Championship defense will be my first match in front of a Japanese audience since I announced my graduation.

もちろんここからの試合が私にとってすべて卒業ロードです。

Of course, all of my matches from now on will be part of the road to my graduation.

今回のタイトルマッチもそう。同期で入った辰巳リカとそうして闘えるのは運命だと思うしそして渡辺未詩には、これからの東京女子プロレスを支えてもらいたい。

This title match is no different. I think it’s fate that I’ll be facing Rika Tatsumi, who joined the same year I did, and Miu Watanabe, whom I want to support TJPW from here on out.

だからこそ私はタイトルマッチ以上の思いが出るような試合をしたい。

For this reason, I want to have a match that will be more than just a title match.

ただ、プリンセスタッグ王座を譲る気はさらさらありません。

However, I have no intention of giving up the Princess Tag Team Championship.

卒業するまで、瑞希と一緒に持ち続けます。

I will hold it with Mizuki until I graduate.

そしてデ〇〇〇〇〇〇ドで防衛戦をしてやります！

Then we will defend the belts at Dis***yland!

I still don’t want MagiRabbi to lose the tag belts, so I’ll be probably the only person rooting against Miu in this match, haha.

rodan · June 9, 2023, 6:37pm

This is a little bit of a nitpick, but they laugh at Rika’s initial word choice of 身内 here, and that’s why she switches to 味方.
Jisho’s glosses for 身内 muddy the waters about what the distinction would be, so here’s the dictionary weblio cites:

み‐うち【身内】
読み方：みうち
１ごく親しい血縁関係にある人。家族。親類。「—だけで祝う」
２同じ親分に属する子分。また、同じ組織に属する者。「暴力団の—どうしの抗争」「—の不祥事を隠蔽(いんぺい)する」
３からだの内部。また、からだじゅう。「—にしみわたる」

So, 1 is family, 2 is family in the sense of like, other members of an organized crime family or similarly structured organization, and 3 is literally 内 your 身.

So they all laughed since it rather grandiosely makes a one-off trio tag team sound like a literal family or a crime family. So her swap to “ally” fits better what she was getting out.

“from inside the house” might be my attempt to translate the 身内 part? It’s sorta chuckle-worthy in English, albeit in maybe a slightly different way.

I think with the フラット she’s saying she’s waiting like, neutrally / impartially. Austerely waiting and watching while holding the belt they’re fighting to challenge. I didn’t find a slum dunk example to prove that though.

I think it’s like, “(yelling)! Ask and you shall receive!” as in she’s interpreting Aino saying she was quiet as a request for loudness and answering that request. Here’s a yahoo answer translating it as “as you request”

I guess this is sortof one of those cases where it would just kind of subtly be phrased differently in English - I don’t feel like “you left the rest of it to me in the best way” quite works for “最高の形で私に後を託してくれた”
At the end of the match, Aino and Endo are legal, and Raku and Pom successfully deal with Rika and Miu who were interfering, clearing the way for Aino to put Endo away and win the match, but Endo is able to resist and hold Aino back long enough such that the time limit expires mid 3 count, preventing Aino’s victory.
I think in English I would describe that as like, “you set me up perfectly (to take care of the rest)”
I suppose “perfectly” and the like is just how in Enghlish the formal flawlessness of the 最高の形 would be conveyed. Trying to go more literally it just sounds kind of strange for some reason.

I’m not exactly sure either, but I think she’s asking like “Why are you both hanging back?” Like I think they’re 被ってる’ing in the sense of just kind of passively +1’ing her comments while behind her.
And they kind of counter by being like – we’ll back you up, we’ll be a unified front (as a way to still just have Aino do all the talking).

“Why are you two shadowing me?” might be a good way to put it, come to think of it

Total nitpick but you could throw in an “absolutely” or a “whatsoever” for the さらさら

fallynleaf · June 10, 2023, 3:10am

Right after I finished those translations, they announced that Yuka will have to vacate the tag titles due to a neck injury . She also won’t be able to wrestle at Summer Sun Princess, so someone else at TJPW will be facing Nyla instead. The new card for Korakuen tomorrow hasn’t yet been announced.

I’m so sad…

I am glad, though, that she isn’t wrestling through the injury. Hopefully she’ll be able to recover well and finish up everything she still wants to do in TJPW.

fallynleaf · June 17, 2023, 1:18pm

Little late with this one out of a combination of being sad and also getting distracted by AJPW, of all things, but I finished the translation for TJPW’s Korakuen Hall show on June 11!

This show was a bit weird for a TJPW Korakuen show, due to losing their main event last minute, but it was still pretty good, considering! No Mr. Haku live translations this time, so I tried to cover the opening stuff, too.

Shupro has a combination of paraphrase and direct quotes:

Juria Nagano, who has been sidelined since late January due to a finger injury, entered the ring. She reported that she’ll be returning on July 8 at Ota City, and said, “I’m going to do my best to show you my powered up self, so please support me!”

Next, Sakazaki, who will not be wrestling today, appeared with Mizuki and returned the Princess Tag Team belts to representative Tetsuya Koda.

Sakazaki: “I’m very frustrated, myself.” (crying) “It’s so disappointing that I have to relinquish the belt after I’d decided to do my defense road and graduation road together like this, and I also feel sorry for Mizuki… The doctor says my neck is in bad condition, but my condition is fine, so… actually, I’m going to do it. No, no, my condition is fine after all, so I can do the match!"

(Representative Koda stops her, and Mizuki grabs the microphone)

Mizuki’s sentences here were a bit confusing: “お医者さんがダメって言ってるんだから、ダメでしょ？ユカッチの頭で考えてやったら死んじゃうから、それは一番イヤやからやめて。今回一番悔しいユカッチの気持ちと私の気持ちと…白昼夢も団体も全部汲んでくれて.”

Mizuki: “The doctor says no, so you can’t, right? If you try to do it with your head, you’re going to die, and that’s the last thing I want to happen, so please don’t. Your most frustrated feelings, and my feelings, and Daydream, and the company, please consider us all. Have faith in me. I’m not alone, so watch over me. That’s why I’m giving up the belt this time. We’re going to get it back soon, and I believe that there will absolutely be a future, so everyone please wait for us.”

At the end of the opening, the Up Up Girls (Pro Wrestling) performed their new song “Babyface”, which was unveiled at the live show the day before, and then introduced the new member, Uta. She’s a high school student from Ishikawa Prefecture, 16 years old, born on March 29, 2007. She is 150cm tall.

I wasn’t quite sure about Uta’s second and third hobby, haha: “趣味はプロレス観戦、ドリンク飲み放題、人間観察妄想.”

Her hobbies are watching pro wrestling, bottomless drinks, and observing people and fantasizing. She is soothed by seeing cute girls. Her special skills are ice cream review, badminton, table tennis, and incessant talking. She spoke on the mic and said that she’s going to do her best as a new member of the Up Up Girls and as a TJPW trainee, and she answered questions from each member. Her favorite pro wrestler is Miu, and her favorite idol is Miu. After that, the five members gave the opening call.

I really enjoyed the Pom vs Himawari match, though I kept getting distracted by trying to figure out if I could do Himawari’s hairstyle or if it would be too odd of a style for me to be able to pull off, haha. I don’t have any multicolored elastics, so I couldn’t test it out, though it looks like it would be a bit of a pain to put in, and a bit of a pain to take out. But it looked so cool…

Misao vs Mahiro was also fun, though I wish I’d been able to catch more of what was said on the mic. It’s an interesting follow-up to Hype.

Once again, not all the comments for this show got transcribed, unfortunately! Though Misao’s and Mahiro’s were both short enough, I think just about everything was in the twitter captions:

Here’s Misao’s:

Misao: “I won! Genius producer Hyper Misao has also achieved a tremendous victory in a spectacular match! Everyone, please look forward to Hyper Misao-sensei’s next work!”

And Mahiro’s:

Mahiro: “I lost to Mahiro-san… Just when I thought I’d completed the first stage after HYPE!, it’s like an extra boss suddenly appeared… I felt like I had to beat her today, but I lost… I want to beat Misao-san! Next time, I’m going to win!”

Shoko teamed up with Moka against Suzume and Haru, which was a fun albeit pretty inconsequential match. The comments for it were a bit truncated, unfortunately.

Here’s Shoko and Moka’s:

Moka: “My senpais were reassuring and they helped me out a lot, but I’m glad that I was able to get the win myself!”

I wasn’t quite confident I understood what was happening here: “今日はすごく（周りが）後輩だった。でも、もかも先輩なんだなと。下が入ることで闘い方の成長をすごく感じた.”

Nakajima: “I was surrounded by juniors today. But Moka is also a senpai. I really felt the growth in her fighting style through starting at the bottom. From now on, we’ll be rivals, and from tomorrow, enemies!”

Here’s Suzume’s and Haru’s comments, though I basically couldn’t hear a single word of Haru’s, haha.

Suzume: "She’s (Haru) really disappointed, but I think she shows a lot of promise. I think that she’s going to get stronger from now on! Today we got matching hairstyles, though they got all messed up! They made us look so cute!”

They announced that Yuki Arai and Wakana will be teaming up against the returning Sakisama and Mei Saint-Michel (Sakisama’s days in TJPW are probably numbered, huh? ). My brain is so good at separating Sakisama and Saki Arai as characters, it didn’t even occur to me until I was looking at Arai’s comments why this match was happening, haha.

She said:

Arai: “The Ota City match has been set. I’ll be teaming up with Wakana-chan and facing Biishiki-gun. I’ve never faced the two of them in the ring, so I’m really nervous to see what they’re like, but I’ve always wanted to fight them. I want to work together with Wakana-chan and show a lot of different things with the combined strength of our tag team. I’m going to do my best not to lose to Biishiki-gun in beauty and aesthetics.”

(Sakisama bears a slight resemblance to your tag partner, don’t you think?)

“Yes. I think there is a resemblance. Oh, because they look alike, since I was at Akai-san’s side, I might also understand people who look like her. In that sense, I might have a bit of an advantage.”

The originally planned main event of the show got turned into a handicap match and got moved to the semi-main. It ended up being a match that was totally unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Most handicap matches I’ve seen were primarily played for comedy, or I guess for two heels to basically brutalize a babyface in peril, but this wasn’t like that at all.

I laughed when Rika initially refused to tag out because she wanted to be alone with Mizuki in the ring, but as the match went on, it had moments where it was almost unbearably sad. Mizuki got more and more desperate, and she heroically kept going, but whenever she almost had the victory, her opponent’s partner was there to break up the pin, and when Mizuki herself ran out of stamina, there was no one for her to tag out to… . When the match got close to the end, some part of me was still holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, Mizuki would be able to last the time limit and it would go to a draw at least, but Rika did eventually get the best of her . I don’t know if I’ll ever forget this one.

The wrestlers were clearly devastated, too. I wasn’t quite sure about the first couple lines of Rika and Miu’s comments:

辰巳「（号泣している未詩に）なんでー。それはしょうがないんだよ」

Tatsumi: (to Miu, who is crying) "“Why did it have to be like that… There was nothing that could be done.”

未詩「誰も悪くないから…」

Miu: “It wasn’t anyone’s fault…”

Tatsumi: “I really wanted to fight MagiRabbi… We weren’t able to face both of them.”

The last part of this line also confused me: “う形でハンディキャップとはいえ、いまのチャンピオンのみずぴょんの強さとか、真正面から感じることができて私はすごく触発されて.”

“But even though I was handicapped in a different way, I was able to stand directly opposite Mizu-pyon the champion and experience her strength, which triggered a lot of emotions. I think I was only able to win today because I was in an advantageous position, and when Yuka-chan is properly back, we’ll definitely have a MagiRabbi vs Daydream match.”

I had to look up NG, and then I still wasn’t quite sure what she was saying here: “反対されようが、NGであろうが勝手にやるので.”

“We’re going to do it whether they oppose it or not, whether they say that it can’t be done or not. We’ll do it anywhere, even if it’s not in a ring. So, don’t worry. I promise we’ll do it. That’s all. Please wait.”

Here are Mizuki and Yuka’s comments:

Sakazaki: “You were so cool. Thank you.”

Mizuki: “Because I understand Yuka-chi’s frustration more than anyone, I spoke a bit selfishly. I’m really grateful to Miu and Rika-san, and thank you to Yuka-chi for watching over me. But I definitely want to do the match with Daydream and MagiRabbi someday. With MagiRabbi… I still want to team together lots and lots in the future. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Sakazaki: “I don’t think Daydream wanted to have the match under these circumstances, either. But considering my own selfishness, and considering Mizuki who prevented me from being selfish, I’m really glad that we were given this opportunity.”

(Will you face Daydream again when you’ve made your return?)

“Yes. Up until the very last minute, I said I was going to do it, so part of me was a bit in disarray. But Mizuki said that she’d do it alone… Normally a 2 on 1 is impossible. But Daydream understood Mizuki’s feelings and our relationship, and they accepted it. TJPW, it’s the best.”

(Why did you stick to the card?)

Mizuki: “First of all, there were people who were looking forward to the Daydream vs MagiRabbi confrontation. Yuka-chi wouldn’t give up the match unless I said something… Her love for MagiRabbi was also conveyed. I wanted to fight together with Yuka-chi’s feelings, not with someone else. Since I was by myself, I wasn’t doing this as MagiRabbi. Daydream were my opponents, so of course I was scared and anxious, but I was reassured by Yuka-chi’s love for MagiRabbi, so I fought (even though I was alone).”

Sakazaki: “Thank you.”

The fact that Mizuki used “未来” (both times) gave me a bit of hope… I’m trying not to think too much about what’ll happen to MagiRabbi after Yuka leaves TJPW, because it’d be really sad to me if that’s the end of their tag team forever, but I’m trying to come to terms with the possibility in case it does happen…

I’ve learned “未来” as meaning a more distant future than “将来”, though I guess I’m not exactly sure what kind of time frame we’re talking for either one. I believe Yuka also said “またね” when she gave up the belts, so I really hope this isn’t going to be their last run with those titles after all.

Getting back to the show, though, Yuki Aino vs Arisu Endo got moved to the main event, which was pretty huge for both of those wrestlers, particularly Arisu! I was admittedly cheering for Yuki, though, because I think she’s overdue for winning this belt. I wouldn’t’ve been unhappy if Arisu had won, though!

Here’s the post-match:

Aino: “Arisu… you’re super strong. I’m glad I was able to fight you in this number one contender’s match. Thank you.” (They hug. Endo leaves, surrounded by loud applause.) “Did you watch it, Rika-san?” (Tatsumi enters the ring)

Tatsumi: “Yes, as I promised, let’s have a title match with this belt on the line. The place will be July 8 at Ota City. All over the world…” (she looks out over the audience) "Are you watching? Are you watching us? Let’s have a hot match that’ll reverberate throughout the world.”

Aino: “I’m looking forward to it!” (Tatsumi exits) “Now, Rika-san just said it, but… She’s the current champion, so Arisu really was strong today… We’re going to bring you a hot match at the climax that’ll make all of your anxieties and gloomy feelings disappear. So please come see us on July 8 at Ota City. Thank you so much for today!”

Yuki’s comments:

Aino: “The number one contender’s match with Arisu, to be honest, it was really… if you watched it, I think you’d understand, but I took a lot of damage.”

This sentence confused me, partially because I’m not entirely sure what “バトルメン” even is: “こないだバトルメンで有栖がデビューしたての頃に闘ったやつとか見たんですけど、もう本当に当たり前だけど全然違って.”

“The other day, I watched a match on Battle Men from around the time of Arisu’s debut, and even though it’s to be expected, she’s totally different now. She’s capable of doing many different types of offense now. She can do a lot of moves that I can’t do. She’s really, really strong. I really can’t believe that that person was the same wrestler who just got her first singles victory the other day. I think she’s going to get stronger and stronger from now on, now that this fight is over. But I really didn’t want to lose to the person in front of me today, so I did my best. I really couldn’t do it alone… I was alone in the singles match, but with everyone’s voices cheering me on, and the streamers, towels, and penlights when I entered, all of that gave me a lot of strength. Thanks to everyone, even though it was really exhausting and tough and scary, I was able to do my best. It was fun. Thanks to Arisu, I think I was able to get a little stronger. I’ll go on to challenge Rika-san for the International belt. I’m going to keep going.”

I couldn’t figure out her next sentence here: “やっぱりどうしたって考えます.”

(Your match suddenly became the main event)

“I’m still thinking about it. I don’t have a lot of experience doing singles main events at Korakuen, and it’s a pivotal match. Not only that, but there were various reasons why it became the main event. I thought about it quite a bit, but… I knew she wasn’t an opponent I could beat while I had a lot of things on my mind. After I made my entrance, I really only thought about defeating Arisu as we fought.”

Suzume’s comments:

Endo: (sitting down with her arms around her knees) “It wasn’t enough… Before the match started, I was reading replies from everyone, and Suzume-san was there until the very end. Even though you all said that you believed in me… I’m really frustrated that I couldn’t live up to your expectations. But I was really able to be proactive. I’m glad that I said out loud the things that I wanted, and what I wanted to do. When I think it’s the right time again someday, I’ll be sure to properly communicate what I want.”

(It was your first Korakuen Hall main event)

“Since it became the main event, everyone’s expectations were even higher, so I had to work even harder. But it actually gave me strength.”

Rika’s comments:

Tatsumi: “Today, the number one contender’s match for this belt suddenly became the main event. I was looking forward to seeing which of the two of them would come out ahead. Yuki won, and the next match is set. I think Yuki possesses an immensely passionate heart.”

This sentence was tricky, haha: “大田区で所属同士で東京女子プロレスのリングで世界に届ける試合をするっていうのが、私がインターナショナル・プリンセスとしてタイトルマッチをする意味だと思うので.”

“Having a match in Ota City, in a TJPW ring with my fellow roster member, a match that will reach the world, I think that’s the meaning of a title match as the International Princess champion. I want it to reach the world!”

And that’s it for that show!

I am really looking forward to Summer Sun Princess! They released the full card for it, and I’m excited to see Max tag with Pom and Misao, and Asuka returning to tag with Kamiyu. I think this show might have the most trans wrestlers I’ve ever seen on a show of this size? With Nyla Rose, Max The Impaler, and Asuka all participating. So that’s neat! They should add Abadon next time and make it four trans wrestlers on one show, haha.

rodan · June 17, 2023, 10:46pm

I would probably put the ユカッチの頭で考えてやったら死んじゃうから part as like, “if just think about it from your own perspective (and do it) you’ll die”
As in like, it’s natural for Yuka to not see any danger and want to wrestle, so if you were to ユカッチの頭で考えて then it would seem like a reasonable idea when it isn’t.

For 今回一番悔しいユカッチの気持ちと私の気持ちと…白昼夢も団体も全部汲んでくれて
I’d maybe rearrange it a little in English as like, “You’re of course the most frustrated by this, but please also understand my feelings, as well as Daydream’s feelings and those of the company.” (with justification for that mainly just being the video’s original phrasing and the way she says it)

Extreme nitpick on “ダメでしょ？” - I feel like “, right?” here is slightly more uncertain.
I tried to think of a phrase that felt more spot on and came up with “surely it’s out of the question?” although I feel like that falls prey to the issue of “sounds like something I personally would say, not something the person talking would say” but I guess I’m just mentioning it since the でしょ？ feels to me like, “It sure seems to me like clearly X and I’m checking that we’re on the same page about that” whereas “right?” feels a little more to me like “I think it seems like X, can you confirm that for me?” (pretty hair splitting distinction though)

In response to Raku’s instant interrogation she also lists her favorite train as かがやき, a 新幹線 that runs through Ishikawa.
And in response to Hikari’s follow-up question she’s not scared of blood but doesn’t particularly like it.
Up Up Girls (Pro Wrestling) certainly have varied special interests, on display in their questions…

Yeah I mean, these seem fine (weird hobbies).
It seems like ドリンク has more of a soft drink connotation than “drink”'s vaguely alcoholic connotation, and it looks like the drinking age is 20, so “free refills” might be a little clearer?
The 人間観察妄想 I assume is people-watching and imagining ridiculous backstories to their lives and that kind of thing.

Roughly Misao thanks Mahiro for her role in Hype! but gets mad that when she checked online reactions, everyone was talking about how great Mahiro was and not the genius producer! And she haughtily says that Mahiro was good for that role but there’d be no use for a first installment role in a second installment, so it was time for the genius producer to take matters into her own hands and grab the spotlight.
Mahiro retorts that Misao drove her ridiculously hard and she was under the impression that she more than rose to the occasion and put her heart and soul into the show, and so Misao taking all the credit discredits her as a producer! (and her apology in the match is she apologizing for outshining Misao).
(Commentary also talked up a bit the likelihood of further Misao produced shows, saying she’s definitely got plenty of ideas, so that’s an exciting prospect)

I believe the 下 in this case means Moka’s junior, Haru.
She’s saying that she was surrounded by juniors, but the match really made her realize Moka is a senior too (even though to Shoko she’s a junior). Having Moka’s junior in the match really made her sense how much Moka has grown.

A minor flavor note I’d highlight is the なんだなと which, with an implied 思ってました or whatever, gives a sense of like roughly “oh huh, I hadn’t noticed before but it’s remarkable that X”
so like throwing in an “I realized” or “I was struck by how” or something might be more direct than just the X part itself.

Miu’s sobbing unintelligibly about presumably their having to double team Mizuki, and Rika is comforting her because it couldn’t be helped (they had to do it). So the なんでー in the transcript (tweaked from what she says) is more directed at Miu’s reaction (and whatever she actually said amid tears) than about the situation itself. “Hey, come on. There wasn’t any other option.” or something would be my attempt.

Miu’s 誰も悪くないから… is her joining in on the attempt to cheer herself up.

I would say rather, “although it was in a different configuration with a handicap”
The 違う形 is contrasting with the regular match she had hoped for.

Fun! It’s a common turn of phrase, so nice lookup to have a concrete memento of.

Yeah I’d say she’s saying like, Daydream and MagiRabbi will have a match together even if they’re turned down (by the powers that be), even if it’s out of the question. They’ll find a way to make it happen on.

It appears to be a wrestling news show on Samurai TV. I think in retrospect I’ve seen Miki Motoi tweet frequently about it.
I think I agree with how you translated it.

どうした would be I think here like, “how was it?” so she’s naturally wondering how it went (like, how they acquitted themselves in the main event).

This one I think is perfectly fine in a “I don’t wanna bother with complex clauses in English enough to try to get it any closer than it already is” sort of way

rodan · June 18, 2023, 2:02am

Got accumulated review notes for various shows.

Stardom TRIANGLE DERBY Ⅰ ～優勝決定戦～

Oh right this show! This is one that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to, and dawdled on watching, but when I did, I ended up really liking it a whole lot!
SLK/AZM, The Triangle Derby Finals, Hashimoto/Himeka, Kamitani/Hazuki I think were all totally solid, but I remember especially being surprised and kinda blown away by Giulia vs. Maya Yukihi, which I wasn’t excited for because there was clearly no plausible outcome where Giulia was going to lose and I wasn’t familiar with Yukihi more than in passing, but I thought they totally sold the stakes of the match anyway through sheer violence, adding (or reiterating) Yukihi on the ever growing list of Giulia’s extremely bitter rivals. This made me feel like I probably shouldn’t doubt that I’ll be into Giulia title matches.

Stardom New Blood Premium

The big event of course at this one was the culmination of Waka’s storyline, which was a great storyline, but at this point I had already seen what had happened at this show and beyond on twitter, so it wasn’t as suspenseful as it would otherwise have been and I don’t think I was hugely invested in the rest of the show around it (though I may just be forgetting, it was a while ago). It was still nice to see that culmination though. It looks like I didn’t end up finishing watching any shows from the Cinderella Tournament but I sure thought that was gonna be Waka’s to win.
Incidentally, I want to say it was this show and the next I’m going to talk about that made me realize there’s tons of overlap between Stardom and TJPW commentary, and Sayako Mita commentates for both and probably Haruo Murata and guy I had in my head as “play-by-play commentator who sounds like Haruo Murata” are probably both Haruo Murata. I should probably do a better job of paying attention when commentators say their names - it’s easy to forget how it’s not like in America where commentators are usually employees of a particular promotion.

TJPW Stand Alone '23

This is another show I didn’t have any particularly high expectations for due mainly to very low chance of championship changes, but that ended up being really enjoyable. The first-time referee match is A++ comedy wrestling, and Max and Pom were similarly super fun. I tweeted at the time that the TJPW roster are all incredibly good at running gags, and it’s definitely because I had just watched those two matches. That promotion is full of stuff like Mahiro’s apologies, Pom’s yelling being conducted by the referee, Misao asking for the mic, Raku making people fall asleep, etc. that you’d think would get stale but they’re great at keeping them fresh and so they end up being more rewarding the more you watch. Bit of a cult TV show energy (in a good way). (in a contrasting example, I thought that chair around the neck spot EVIL does was cool the first time I saw it and boring 100% of the times I saw it since then)
And the title matches were good wrestling matches! It was fun to cheer for Nao.

Stardom Allstar Grand Queendom 2023

Stardom’s biggest show ever! Pretty exciting! I think I remember the press conference for this one being especially good too… I believe I successfully managed to avoid spoilers.
There’s a lot in here, and I think I remember all of it being very good and/or fun, so I’m going to flagrantly not talk about any of it except the white belt match and the red belt match.
For the white belt match, Shirakawa eating a phoenix splash and managing to still win the title is one of those situations where it’s 100% the predictable story and 100% still effective. Totally worked, and while Shirakawa and Club Venus probably aren’t ever going to aesthetically be my favorite, I think I’m definitely buying what Shupro etc. was saying about Shirakawa improving a ton recently. I think she did a fantastic job and her new finisher is cool and a great fit.
For the red belt match, of course I was rooting for Giulia, but I mean, Tam winning is I think also 100% the right choice, since Giulia’s the perfect candidate for a short reign without losing luster to break the streak of year-long reigns (as much as I would have liked to see more Giulia red belt matches), and Tam continuing to be the deadly thorn in her side is totally deserved and it’s my favorite rivalry in wrestling. They also both looked ridiculously cool with their new gear for the wrestling venue. I said at the time that Tam Nakano treats entrance gear like leveling up in an RPG and I stand by that and think it’s perfect.

NJPW Sakura Genesis 2023

I believe this one I watched significantly after the fact, having heard the major outcomes, while grinding levels in Mother 1. I had a good time though! There was a bit there where I was feeling strongly that catching up on wrestling shows was definitely a match made in heaven with old RPGs, since I could pay closer attention with my eyes than when I try the background noise while working route.
In the end though I do think it still definitely probably instills too much like, structural apathy? to really be that good of a time - I still have Wrestling Dontaku up at the last match from where I petered out, and have review notes to write about Mother 1 as well after I decided to move on…
Anyway, I don’t remember anything about the Stardom triple threat but I’m sure it was good, and mainly what I remember is Aussie Open and this new stuff with SANADA being pretty interesting.

TJPW Yes! Wonderland '23

I enjoyed this one! I don’t think I have anything in particular to say about it though looking back. It’s good! I think I made sure to watch it quickly since there’d be translations to help with, which is a nice motivator.
Actually wait, come to think of it - that’s not really true, this is the show that I watched in bits and pieces while I was on vacation with my mom and sister at the shore, which is why I have such a spotty memory of what was actually happening on this show. I was a bit preoccupied, and self-conscious of my mom milling about in the background while I was watching it.
I think maybe Miu/Arisu is what I have the strongest memory of? Man, these last few weeks have really been a blur…

Stardom 福岡女神伝説2023～すいとーよスターダム～

This one I think I watched part of at the shore also, including a “hey wanna watch a wrestling show” → “sure” → not being interested in wrestling show, for part of it (although to be fair it was the opening matches, which weren’t gigantically interesting). I thought the title matches were very good though! I hope FWC wins a title at once of these Fukuoka shows someday…

ハイパーミサヲプロデュース興行『HYPE!』

I forgot to mention for that show, but definitely the most excited I got at one of the previous TJPW shows was seeing the card for this show and that Shoko/Yoshihiko would be on it. Hyper Misao is truly a genius producer!
I thought this was just wonderful, and as mentioned, not being on twitter meant that I had no idea what to expect (other than I think somehow I’d caught vague mention of Mahiro having a role in it somehow) so there was a hot minute there where I thought the last match was going to be a normal match, which made it all the more special.
I thought the 1-2-3 punch of matches on this show is a pretty perfect encapsulation of what makes TJPW, pro wrestling in general, and especially Hyper Misao specifically great.
There’s a silly hijinks tag match with wrestlers brainwashed into wanting to be Misao’s sidekick as an excuse for some good Misao cosplay. It suits the winner, Suzume, strangely well. I wouldn’t mind if there were callbacks to this version of Suzume in the future, although it’s probably for the best she rejected it as a fulltime gimmick.
There’s a genuinely athletically impressive wrestling exhibition put on by vets Nakajima and Yoshihiko. I liked for example Shoko viciously turning the ankle lock an extra turn on Yoshihiko and some of those suplexes were pretty stunning.
And then there’s that perfect blend of ridiculous and genuinely emotionally touching that is the last match. How fully behind Mahiro the crowd (and I!) got was absolutely incredible and special, and while I certainly didn’t catch every word, it was that kind of like “I get pretty much what they’re saying but wouldn’t be able to report all the details” kind of listening comprehension for me, where for example I knew that Mahiro was describing the same kind of entrypoint to wrestling as Misao and was talking about her mom being sick, but I wouldn’t have been able to say exactly how sick. My Dad was visiting at the time, and I was thinking of watching it with him, but then it ended up being me teary-eyed paying rapt attention to portions of the match that were nearly wall-to-wall Japanese dialogue so that didn’t end up happening (I made sure to try showing him the Yoshihiko match while he was around though - to snores, but hey!). Some of the alternate universes were pretty fun… I wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time in the 宝塚 one…
You know, it’s funny… I listened to Hyper Misao’s podcast recently, and it’s pretty cool! You definitely get the impression she doesn’t have a set format in mind but wants to explore putting more of herself out there (and she described it as, being an audio format, sort of like unmasking without having to unmask), and there were some interesting details I’m not sure I’d heard before like (note: self harm mentioned) partly why she wears a mask is to cover some slight facial paralysis she got from clonking her head on a gravestone after taking pills in a failed suicide attempt - but anyway, why I mention it is that in one of them she spends a really long time talking about how she’s gotten into A24 movies and she talks about The Whale and Everything Everywhere All at Once, and in retrospect, the latter is totally (unintentional?) foreshadowing - you can definitely see where the idea for this kind of thing was percolating! Really a hell of an idea to both try to enact and manage to pull off so well in a wrestling ring! I’m definitely feeling some multiverse fatigue these days, but honestly this show might be my favorite iteration on the idea, just for how fun and unexpected it was, and for how it utilizes the TJPW roster.

An unanticipated side effect of not really being on twitter anymore is that I do definitely feel less connected to whatever is going on currently in wrestling, which makes me less motivated to catch up on Shupro or get around to finishing watching earlier shows, which is a shame. And of course being extra busy and stressed recently hasn’t helped either…
Perhaps now that I’m getting this backlog of notes cleared out it’ll be easier soon though!

fallynleaf · June 18, 2023, 3:19am

Agreed!! It’s funny because I actually just watched my first 宝塚 show after the TJPW show last weekend. They made one available for international streaming (with English subtitles), though unfortunately there’s no VOD, and it partially overlapped TJPW, so I missed the first half hour. It looks like they’re going to be streaming it again in some form, though I’m not sure if my ticket still works for that or what…

It’s the same day as Forbidden Door, so I’m going to ~~have to wake up early if I want to watch it~~ probably try catching the beginning of it if I can, and maybe see if I can get my parents to watch it with me, because I think they’d be interested. It’s not really like anything else I’ve ever seen before. I’ll have to miss the end of it, though, if I want to go on a walk for the walking challenge before Forbidden Door (going after the show isn’t really an option, haha, since it’ll be dark outside…). It was a lot of fun, though!

Thank you for the recap! I shared it with a couple friends, and one of them told me to thank you for it as well.

I’m glad that you liked Hype! Totally agreed with this: “I thought the 1-2-3 punch of matches on this show is a pretty perfect encapsulation of what makes TJPW, pro wrestling in general, and especially Hyper Misao specifically great.”

I wrote a whole lot about it in my wrestling journal, haha, which is sadly behind AGAIN… . June has turned out to be a pretty busy month for wrestling, surprisingly. I’ve already written almost half a NaNoWriMo in my 2023 journal so far. Maybe we’ll be at 50k words by the end of the year…

Yeah, I can imagine that being away from twitter would sort of make you feel disconnected from the wrestling world! I’ve heard people complaining recently about Stardom being super behind on uploading shows, so I imagine that really doesn’t help the pursuit to avoid spoilers. That was already an obstacle for me before when I still followed them because getting spoiled beforehand would decrease the suspense of the matches and ruin my enjoyment of them.

Selfishly, I do miss seeing you around on twitter, though I totally understand your reasons for leaving. I’m at a point where I can’t really leave myself because too much of wrestling is happening there. I wonder all the time what modern pro wrestling would even look like without twitter…

I’m in sort of the opposite boat, haha, where I watched All Together Again and that plus getting more back into NOAH lately got me actually interested in a few of the AJPW wrestlers and what they had going on over there lately… . So I tuned in for the recent tag title match with Kenoh and Soya defending their AJPW tag belts against Kento Miyahara and Yuma Aoyagi, who had both managed to win me over in their All Together Again matches. I definitely am not going to be following AJPW at all regularly or closely, because I just don’t have the time or energy, but they do have some fun wrestlers, and I’m glad that I had the chance to get introduced to them.

(Some spoilers for announcements of upcoming crossover stuff involving various combinations of NJPW, NOAH, AJPW, and AEW)

I did end up watching Dominion, though I sort of only half paid attention to it because every time I watch a big NJPW show, the undercard is full of wrestlers I can’t stand, and this one was no exception. I was happy to see Kaito Kiyomiya and Eddie Kingston in the G1 this year, though the 4 block structure is… not exactly the most compelling for stories, in my opinion. Sadly the blocks themselves pretty much all each contain a wrestler I can’t stand, so that makes me feel even less inclined to want to watch any of that tournament, though I might tune in for select matches. Ah well.

I’m looking forward to Kento vs Katsuhiko Nakajima, which was just announced at the last NOAH show (in Katsu’s post-match comments, of all things, haha). The two of them have a kind of complicated relationship, according to my friend who has followed NOAH stuff much closer than I have. I wrote about that in my wrestling journal earlier this year.

It’s an interesting world, honestly, that we have all this NJPW/NOAH/AJPW crossover stuff happening while the NJPW/AEW crossover stuff is also happening. That feels unimaginable even as recently as 2019 or 2020. I’m not sure how long this period of time is going to last because historically companies tend to fall out with each other…

I do totally get how it can be fatiguing, though. I’ve been trying to explain some wrestling stuff to a couple new fans on this forum, and I realized just how much of a tangled web the global pro wrestling industry is at the moment, haha. If you watch NJPW, NOAH, AJPW, DDT, ROH, TJPW, or AEW, you have to also know at least a little bit about what’s going on in two or more of those above companies in order to fully follow the stories this year. If you’re like me and this is your special interest, it’s a great all-you-can-eat buffet, but if you’re a normal person or a new fan, it’s probably a little bit much, haha .

I hope you are able to relax a bit now after being extra busy, and hopefully you are much less stressed now!

rodan · June 23, 2023, 4:39am

週刊プロレス No.２２２７ (from January)

I thought it would be fun to identify what sutra Hakushi was adorned with. It’s the heart sutra. Makes sense!

Muta using his own grave marker as a weapon is pretty great

Kenoh in his column talks about the 15th anniversary of his pro wrestling debut. He joined Michinoku Pro to begin with simply because he liked the promotion so much, despite it not being a major one. He says that if he had joined NOAH at the time he probably would have joined the mix as a junior then became a heavyweight so not much would have been different, except that as a 生え抜き wrestler he would have been a shining ace championing the promotion, and so younger wrestlers’ hearts would have swelled by his example and he would have led NOAH to be the #1 promotion in the world. He says “except for YOSHI-HASHI” there are a lot of wrestlers of his generation who started at smaller promotions (among his examples are Kento Miyahara starting at Kensuke Office, and Hideki Suzuki starting at IGF).

The 2022 Pro-wrestling Grand Prix results are in! It sounds like there were 12,148 votes collected from the reader polls.
プロレスグランプリ goes to Okada by a lot: 4343 votes vs. 2nd place Muto’s 1242 and 3rd place Ospreay’s 741. It’s his fourth win of the award, although the last one was 3 years ago.
ベストマッチ goes to Okada vs. Ospreay at the G1 Finals. Second place by just a hair is Jun Kasai vs. El Desperado. 3rd place is the Tanahashi/KENTA TLC match at Wrestle Kingdom. 4th is the incredible Tam/Natsupoi cage match at Fight in the Top. My personal pick, Giulia vs. Suzu in the 5 Star GP semifinals, is 6th, and I spot some good matches like Okada/Takagi at Wrestle Kingdom and KAIRI/Mayu in there also. (Kongo vs. LIJ also placed).
女子プロレスグランプリ goes to Syuri. 100% of the names listed here are associated with Stardom, except Suzu Suzuki (who worked plenty in Stardom) and Saori Ano (who has been working plenty in Stardom in 2023)…
ベストユニット goes to Cosmic Angels, then United Empire (sure I guess), and Oedotai, then LIJ and Kongo. There’s a 涙 filled few paragraphs from Tam talking about it being the second year in a row for Cosmic Angels and it’s super important to her and it hurts lately hearing from members (like Mina and Unagi) starting to go in different directions…
最優秀外国人選手賞 goes to Will Ospreay with more than double the votes of second place, Zack Sabre Jr.
新人賞 goes to Miyu Amasaki of Stardom, beating out the youtuber Fuwa-chan.
As for the most interesting list, the pure popularity contests of 好きなプロレスラー, Hiroshi Tanahashi tops it again (so I guess Dragon Note is safe for another year), followed in the top 5 by Naito, Okada, Tam Nakano, and Starlight Kid. The next handful are also interesting: El Desperado, Unagi Sayaka, Mina Shirakawa, Keiji Mutoh, and Giulia. Looking at the top 50 I count 20 from Stardom, the most of any promotion (NJPW has 16). TJPW has Yuki Arai at 17 (a big drop but I suppose only natural) and Mizuki at 48. One wrestler placed highly at 14 who I don’t recognize is 七星 from Secret Base. I thought it was also kinda funny that Shinsuke Nakamura made it in at 40. I wonder how much of that was off of the match not technically in 2022…

In Tanahashi’s column, of course the 好きなプロレスラー poll. He had forgotten that he got first place last year too so he was the defending champ. The system is readers pick 3 names, and there’s no ranking system - all those picks count the same. So they both speculate that there were plenty of people being like “well I’m not at 3 yet so might as well put Tanahashi.” Tanahashi also claims to have forgotten that he said he would quit this column if he didn’t make it into the top 5. The other columnist, Tanaban, says he was fully prepared thinking he wouldn’t make it and they’d have to stop, but felt that it would be a good injection of freshness for the magazine. Tanaban keeps Tanahashi in suspense, and after hearing he did make it into the top 5, Tanahashi guesses #1 would be Naito and #2 Nakamura. Tanaban thought #1 was going to be woman wrestler.
They talk about how it might be the time to wrap up the column anyway but now it’s harder since he got first. If a younger wrestler had gotten first it would have been a good excuse to switch to them. Tanahashi floats the idea of making the column single-page instead of double page. And they mention El Desperado ranked highly among New Japan…

The Inoki Memorial column this week is with Masakatsu Funaki, who it sounds like was signed to New Japan from when he was 15 to 18, but during a European excursion he decided to leave to join the second UWF with Akira Maeda. He describes Inoki as his pro wrestling father for that time but is most grateful for letting him leave and chart his own course. It sounds like one of the ideas floated in discussions between the two while Inoki was still trying to convince him to stay was MMA (in the proto, Ali vs. Inoki type sense) PPVs in Vegas of him as the wrestler vs. various kinds of martial artists.

The history column relates a bizarre Antonio Inoki exploit I don’t think I was aware of: in 1979 Antonio Inoki was set to wrestle the dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin, with Muhammad Ali as guest referee - it was signed and everything. It only didn’t happen because war broke out and Amin fled to Libya within the year. In the author relating what infamous world leaders this would be like announcing a match with today, I was mildly interested to learn the kanji for a particular name, and that it would primarily be written with the kanji in Japanese in the first place: 金正恩.

In Giulia’s column, since her column is being collected into a mook (term for the halfway point between a magazine and a book that’s definitely more common in Japanese than English as far as I know), she talks a bit about her experience with the column. It sounds like she jumped at the chance when asked, and although she’s constantly caught in the deadline anxiety cycle, it’s been an opportunity to see and consider the world of pro wrestling a lot more broadly, and she’s grateful for it. And it’s not the end of the column either.

In Keiji Mutoh’s column, he reminisces about various wrestling venues. Of course, Korakuen Hall is small but the プロレスの聖地 and he talks a little about how the closeness of the audience to the wring makes it harder or less forgiving in some ways since the audience can closely see everything the wrestlers are doing. Ryogokukokugikan is larger and a sumo arena and so it’s also very easy for the audience to see. Whereas Yokohama Arena as a big arena is large but surprisingly flat, which makes visibility more difficult. It sounds like when the Great Muta was getting his gimmick and entrance down it coincided well with that kind of big arena being built in Japan and NJPW was frequently running Yokohama Arena so he associates it with that and so it’s fitting Muta’s last match was in Yokohama Arena. They talk about how once Korakuen was thought of as the smallest venue, but now more recently, smaller venues have popped up, like Shinkiba 1st RING and Shinjuku FACE, and Mutoh says that, surprisingly, he hasn’t ever wrestled in either of them.

fallynleaf · June 23, 2023, 12:16pm

A couple unrelated to TJPW things:

First, Kenoh’s 15th anniversary show is happening tomorrow, on June 24, and will be streamed live on his youtube channel! Presumably the VOD will also exist if you don’t catch it live? I thought I’d mention it for any folks who may be checking this thread who don’t have a Wrestle Universe subscription but are curious about Pro Wrestling NOAH and/or Kenoh specifically.

Also, I made a new friend lately who’s pretty into Dragongate, and he shared that they recently made a 2019.02.10 Pac vs Kzy match free to watch. Apparently they also fixed their Dragongate Network so that it’s a bit better? Will this get me to start watching Dragongate? Probably not.

Lastly, this is sort of related to TJPW, haha, but Mr. Haku interviewed Ram Kaichow. Apparently she also talks about her “marriage” with Raku in it, though I haven’t had the chance to watch it myself yet.

fallynleaf · June 23, 2023, 12:29pm

In other news, I finally finished the translation for TJPW’s June 18 show. It’s really short, so I really have no excuse for taking so many days, haha, but I was trying to work on Tobira and my wrestling journal, and kept running out of time .

The only match of real plot significance was the main event: Rika & Suzume vs Himawari & Yuki Aino. Rika and Suzume got the win here.

Tatsumi: (to Suzume) “Thank you! From today, the preview matches as we look to Ota City have started. At this rate, I’m going to win all of the preview matches and get the victory on the appointed day as well, so please watch me. I’d like to thank everyone who came today, and everyone who watched the stream. The full card for July 8 Ota City has been set… how do you feel about it?”

Then Rika said, “意気込み、せっかくなので.” I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with that せっかく, haha.

“I’m excited, because it’s finally happening.”

Suzume: “Some wrestlers will be coming back after an absence, and being able to fight together as Daisy Monkey, not to mention Rika-san’s match, it’s going to be a hot summer. Let’s be sure to see each other in Ota City!”

Tatsumi: “Let’s do it!”

The middle of this sentence was a bit confusing: “じゃあね、今日も東京女子プロレスのすばらしさをみなさんに伝えて、大田区もまだまだこんなもんじゃないぞと最高を更新していきますので、最後はよっしゃいくぞー！で締めたいと思います.”

“Well, I’m going to keep conveying TJPW’s magnificence to everyone, and I’ll keep improving upon my best with the thought that there’s still more to come in Ota City, too, so I want to close with ‘YOSSHA IKUZO!’”

Tatsumi closes with: “In the future, too, TJPW will… ready, set—YOSSHA IKUZO!”

Here are Rika and Suzume’s comments:

Tatsumi: “Well, thankfully there are still some more preview matches, and I think I was really in great condition today. Are there two more?”

These two sentences were a bit confusing: “前哨戦も全部ぶち当たって、傾向と対策をバッチリにして。大田区の勝率が100％のリカちゃんでいこうと思ってます.” I got tripped up on “傾向”, and couldn’t quite figure out what was happening in that second sentence.

“I’m going to run through all of the preview matches, and fine-tune my individual quirks and countermeasures. I’ll be going with Rika-chan, who has a 100% win rate in Ota City. 100%. Thank you for today!”

Suzume: “I was with Rika-san, who’s in perfect form, and I think this was the hottest match right now as we head into summer.”

This line was tricky: “その場所に私も立てて、めちゃめちゃ熱い気持ちが大田区、夏に向いたので.”

“I was also able to stand at that spot, that super hot feeling that is Ota City, as we head into summer. I’m going to do my best.”

Tatsumi: “Midsummer… don’t forget it!”

(Did you feel the challenger’s momentum through fighting her?)

“Yes. I really felt her momentum. After all, Yuki really, really wants that belt right now. I’d also like to see her wear a belt, but, well, I have it. Because it’s mine, I can’t really give it up.”

Yuki and Himawari’s comments:

Aino: “I lost. I lost the first preview match. Damn… it’s frustrating! Sorry.”

HIMAWARI: “I’m worthless.”

Aino: “No, no, that’s not true. You were doing your best. You were so strong.”

I got a bit confused by what was going on here: “めちゃ強かったもん。もっとね、私が助けられるところは助けて、でしゃばれるところはでしゃばって勝ちにいきたかったんですけど、悔しいですね.”

“I wanted to do more. I wanted to help where I could, and butt in where I could, and get the victory, but… It’s frustrating. Today I wasn’t a match for her. But, just facing her a little, Rika-san has a really passionate heart, so she came at me with intensity, and we really raised the energy here. I’m disappointed that I lost, but I’m really fired up. I don’t know how many preview matches we have left, but I want to raise the level even more as we head into Ota City. I will definitely win the next one!”

And that’s it for that show! Next up, they’re doing two VOD shows, and then Summer Sun Princess on July 7!

rodan · June 23, 2023, 7:03pm

She’s talking to Suzume here, and this part I would say I feel is sort of clarifying information appended to her どうですか (which made the audience chuckle a bit on its own), and I’d say Suzume’s use of そう and し in the next clause about returning wrestlers (and Rika also interjecting a そうだね there), suggests that that’s also confirming/supporting Rika’s train of logic in asking the question. Like, injury returns are the kind of thing that made it せっかく perhaps.
I feel like I would put roughly what’s being said here as like,
“Are you pumped for it? (I’m asking) since it’s taken a bit for it to come together”

This is ok, but I would tweak the middle to something like,
“at Ota City too I’ll show that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet and raise the bar even further”

Parsing wise I think you broke it out like
大田区もまだまだこんなもんじゃないぞ
と最高を更新していきます
but I’d break it out like:
大田区も
まだまだこんなもんじゃないぞと最高を更新していきます

She is Rika-chan, and the で here I would say is the て form of だ, so I’d say that it’s more like “going as” than “going with.” Like she’ll be going into it as the version of herself who has a 100% chance of victory (cagematch suggests she does not have a 100% victory rate at that venue, so I assume she means chance).

I think she’s saying that the Ota City venue (and/or the excited feeling it brings standing there) is especially suited for Summer. She maybe a word there or two. And it’s interesting the transcript went with 熱い when she definitely saysすごい. Maybe to further clarify the hot/summer connection. Or maybe just since in this context they aren’t particularly very different…
Anyway, that use of 向いた I think is a JLPT grammar point or something. An example I found is a positive salon review saying they gave the writer a “短く、さっぱりして夏に向いた良い髪型” - a nice short refreshing haircut well suited for summer.

The only thing I’d tweak is I get the sense that the もっと connects to those next bits, like, she wanted to help in more places where she could have helped, etc.

rodan · June 24, 2023, 11:12pm

週刊プロレス No.２２２８ (from January)

The cover story is a conversation between Giulia and Tetsuya Naito that spans an entire 6 pages. The occasion is the mook release of Giulia’s column, and she got to pick a wrestler to chat with and she picked Naito (if that didn’t work out she jokes she’d just have picked Hideki Suzuki) since they’ve got a fair amount in common (both faction leaders with romance language catchphrases, both won a year-end award the same year a couple years ago, both have a column in the magazine).
Naito had been somewhat aware of Giulia from Shupro since before she went to Stardom, but match-wise he doesn’t really watch other promotions. He asks her what language “Arrividerci” is, and on learning she’s half-Italian asks if she’s fluent - she isn’t, more like the level of probably barely managing to scrape through a conversation somehow if she had to.
Giulia’s impression of Naito is that she felt like his emotional connection to wrestling shone through moreso than most male wrestlers, like when his hero when he was a fan, Keiji Muto, addressed him in the ring recently his eyes lit up (and Naito says that was a real reaction since Muto not being in NJPW hasn’t had cause to address him often).
Naito says he always tries to be conscious of the fan out there who was like him when he was getting into wrestling. When he was a fan he also watched backstage interviews a lot and got annoyed when wrestlers contradicted themselves in them, so he always tries to be very clear and stick to what he wanted to say in backstage interviews, rather than be sidetracked by reporters’ questions. He also never himself uses the abbreviation “Los Ingo”, saying Ingobernables every time, partly since he has a bad memory and doesn’t want to risk forgetting the full version himself, but also again to be conscious of the people out there for whom it will be their first time hearing it.
Since Naito is going to be in Muto’s retirement match, they talk about about retirement plans or wishes. Naito says he didn’t think about retirement until his eye surgery a few years ago, and now he does wrestle while being conscious of an eventual ending in the future, and he would prefer it to be a good ending. He’d prefer a smaller venue for his retirement match than Muto’s Tokyo Dome retirement, but if it had to be a larger arena he’d pick the dome in Hiroshima because of his love for the Carp. Giulia says she still can’t picture retirement, although it sounds like she had a herniated disk that got bad without her realizing it and the doctor said it was near life threatening (but she’s fine now) and that made her realize at least that her career was short but she was going too hard in that time and health comes first.
They talk a while about Naito’s interesting turns of phrase - for example he was asked on a show to define “professional” and he said 「夢を追い続けること」. In contrast to where others might talk about pro wrestling in terms of fulfilling dreams, Naito talks about continually chasing one, and when asked about his final goals he characteristically described his current one (to finish his “de Japon” call in the Tokyo Dome, after the last opportunity he had for it pre-corona was squashed by KENTA) and said that if he didn’t manage it it would be his final one, and if he did he’d find a new one. The interviewer also says that unlike many other people, Naito wouldn’t say 「あきらめなければ夢はかなう」, he would say 「あきらめなければ可能性はゼロじゃない」, showing a realist, measured, and consistent streak rare in a business where especially in the old days the common thing was to see a wrestler when he’s a heel say like, “hey, keeping rules violations just within a 5 count is part of pro wrestling!” and then when he’s a babyface the next month say with the same earnesty “you should be ashamed of yourself!” about the same behavior.

In Giulia’s column, she previews her upcoming title match with Suzu Suzuki, she says she’s planning to change her entrance music to something completely different, and since the show will allow cheering, she talks about that as her main topic. She says a hot crowd in a pro wrestling match is an unforgettable experience, and she mentions for her own example as a fan seeing Ospreay vs. Ricochet at Korakuen Hall. Then since it may well be some of her readers’ first show with cheering aloud, she runs down a bit of basics about how to cheer at a (Japanese) wrestling show, including boldly calling out the name of a favorite in the quiet moments after their entrance has finished and before the match starts, and how as the match goes on let yourself react freely with oohs and ahs, and feel free to call a wrestlers’ name or throw in a がんばれよー or the like. A clear voiced audience member shouting encouragement can make a great atmosphere - but it can also dampen it too, so do be careful.

There’s an interview with Shota Umino. Sounds like what’s on his mind lately is meeting expectations and rising to the occasion given to him and shutting out the opinions of anyone who would read those as an undeserved push. He’s challenged Naito and wants him to show him what it means to be at the top of NJPW.

There’s a brief interview with Hiromu Takahashi around the announcement of the All Star Jr. Festival he’d proposed. It sounds like it’ll be at Korakuen, and there were complaints from some about a larger venue being more appropriate, but Korakuen as a 聖地 does add to the festival feel.

In Naito’s column, he talks about the match with Shota Umino as being like 夢☆勝ちます which appears to be an old young lion-focused type of show. He acknowledges that he was brazen in his youth and it’s good for the company for Umino to show that brashness too, but it’s his job to, metaphorically speaking, 鼻を折る and take him down a peg. Apparently Umino’s decision to become a pro wrestler goes back to his dad Red Shoes’ 20th anniversary show, and on that show he refereed a match with Naito in it (teaming with Goto against Nakamura and Tanahashi). Naito also jokes that he’s broken Red Shoes’ ribs and stuff, but Red Shoes made him drink a lot of sake when he was a young wrestler so it was just payback. It may well be an Umino handicap match if Red Shoes is the referee for their match, so if that happens he’s going to request a different referee.

There’s an interview with Good Looking Guys: Jake Lee, Jack Morris, and Anthony Green. Lee says he picked NOAH because of the wealth of new match-ups he never had a chance to have a match with before. He saw these two cool, hungry foreign wrestlers in NOAH and decided to team with them, and he emphasizes their learning from each other. Sounds like Jack Morris is constantly at the NOAH dojo training and Green thinks of NOAH as his home. Morris has challenged Kiyomiya, who’s preoccupied with Okada, but their match is first so Morris says it’s not the time for Kiyomiya to have his mind on Okada. The interviewer asks Lee about Muto’s retirement, seeing as how Lee entered pro wrestling in Muto-led AJPW, and Lee relates a weird story where over 10 years ago, Suwama invited him to a get-together over food, and there Muto told him 「Tシャツを脱げ」 and when he did, Muto said 「よし合格」. Lee was only briefly in AJPW at that time before retiring (later unretiring and returning to AJPW, by which time Muto was gone), and so he associates that time and the Muto-era AJPW with the bitter regretful feelings that in time he felt he had to return to pro wrestling to overcome.

In Kenoh’s column he talks about upcoming AJPW/NOAH crossover matches, and he says that with wrestlers leaving AJPW a lot lately, the job satisfaction there must be quite low and this surely means that Kento Miyahara, Suwama, and Yuma Aoyagi are having matches with Kongo because they’re shopping around for other employment - so Kongo will win and graciously absorb them into its ranks. He’s also looking forward to Kento Miyahara vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima, not just because they have a long history going back to Kensuke Office, but because apparently they have deep-seated issues with each other and Kenoh gossips for a while about them. He also says Nakajima isn’t in a mood to talk readily even with him backstage…

There’s an add for a prize lottery promotion in honor of AJPW’s 50th anniversary at Family Mart. Kenoh was showing off his B prize of a Suwama acryllic figure in a photo attached to his column. I kinda want a tacky Giant Baba themed beer stein for some reason.

There’s Part 3 of the young wrestlers spotlight feature for 2023, this time on smaller men’s promotions: Michinoku, Zero-1, Freedoms, Ganpro, 2AW, JTO, and Basara (but I’m not watching any of those…).

The Champ Talk promo page is from Miu Watanabe, currently International Princess Champion. She talks about how this championship in particular makes her nervous since she’s hopeless at English. She says she thought about trying to tweet in English but then she realized Twitter includes automatic google translation, so she doesn’t need to work hard at English after all! (but this is an excuse). She says she’s also found that her art gets a big reaction overseas, so with English out of the question she’ll have to communicate through art.

There’s an interview with all 5 members of Prominence, as it’s their 1 year anniversary of the group’s founding and they’re holding their first Korakuen Hall show to celebrate. It sounds like running your own promotion with just five wrestlers involves a lot of back stage logistics. Suzu Suzuki expresses the feeling that the winter time around when she was invading Stardom to begin with was such a blur that a month felt like it went by in a second. Now she’s set to fight Giulia (around whom she says she no longer has any emotional baggage) for the red belt and she predicts a lot of things will change after that. The interviewer asks them about touring outside of Tokyo and seems to want them to go to Hawaii so he can go to Hawaii to cover it, and Suzu is game but Risa Sera as leader is pretty cautious about promising anything.

The Inoki Memorial column is with Animal Hamaguchi this week. Hamaguchi came up through 国際プロレス rather than being directly involved with Antonio Inoki, until that promotion folded and wrestlers from it famously came to invade New Japan during the start of the 80s wrestling boom, with Rusher Kimura’s infamously low-key 「こんばんは」. Because of the indirect, equal-footing type of relationship and only being a few years younger than him, Hamaguchi thought of Antonio Inoki like an older brother (though naturally he says, they were rough to each other in the ring). He says Inoki defined the 「狂気と和」 of professional wrestling and he lives on since others inherited that from him.

Amusingly, the editor’s eye column this week is devoted to that one TJPW backstage promo where Miyu Yamashita dug herself into a hole by using the word “businesslike” to describe her feelings towards tag partner Maki Itoh. The editor went to ask an embarrassed Yamashita what the heck she was talking about, and she says she just used the wrong word. She was going for, like, 仕事仲間, 「いいパートナーだよ」 and was confused when everyone reacted to it strangely.
(I do think it’s funny how the TJPW backstage promos the magazine staff seem to find memorable are also ones I remember especially well from the translation help - like this or Yuka describing the cream puff she got)

rodan · July 2, 2023, 6:03am

週刊プロレス No.２２２９ (from early February)

There’s an interview with Kota Ibushi, as his return to wrestling at the American promotion GCW has been announced following his departure from NJPW while injured. He says recovery-wise he’s fine to wrestle now but he would describe his condition now as 90%, as his right shoulder still tires easily and has trouble bearing weight. As for future plans, he wants to open a pro wrestling school, comparing the idea to a technical college for something like CS, where if you go on to a job in that field that’s okay and if you don’t and decide to do something else, that’s okay too. He envisions providing room and board and setting up a dedicated dojo. He’s thinking ~80万 tuition for 6 months, and the place to look for future details is his youtube page. He says unlike when he was signed to two promotions and quit that, this time his leaving feels completely 前向き. He says he got offers from 49 promotions across Japan and overseas, and he thinks he’ll probably focus on Japan for the most part but with a lighter match schedule since he’ll be busy with setting up the school. He doesn’t want to lower his value as a wrestler since it would do a disservice to NJPW (which he thanks for the opportunities given him) to lower the value of their inaugural IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. He apologizes to Okada for not being able to answer his hope for a conclusive match after the one where he got injured ended so badly, but says that anything’s possible in wrestling so he won’t rule out completely the idea that he might show up in NJPW at some point as an unsigned wrestler.

In Hiroshi Tanahashi’s column they talk about Keiji Muto and his imminent retirement. Tanahashi was in high school from 1992 to 94 so he’s just the right age that Muto was the absolute coolest. The interviewer suggests though that Tanahashi isn’t part of 武藤チルドレン because he fully surpassed Muto’s shadow. Tanahashi jokes who’s チルドレン is he then, is he a みなしご? Tanaban theorizes that if Tanahashi had accepted Muto’s offer of going to AJPW with him, he never would have grown out of Muto’s shadow and he wouldn’t be the pro wrestling world’s ace. Tanahashi though just liked NJPW and couldn’t imagine wrestling somewhere else. Being the retirement match opponent for a great wrestler is definitely a feather in one’s cap (which oddly Tanahashi hasn’t really had), so he’s a little jealous of Naito but they acknowledge Naito as the opponent makes a better story and Tanahashi’s story with Muto wrapped up well already in 2009 and plus they wrestled on his retirement road. Now Tanahashi is the same age as Muto was then, so if he wrestles the same time as Muto it’ll be 14 more years…
They talk a bit about entrance music off of the subject of Muto’s theme HOLD OUT. Tanahashi asks Tanaban what the title means, but he doesn’t know and has to look it up (the provided answer: “「差し出す」などの意” - I mean… I guess it’s a hard phrase to translate succinctly huh). Tanahashi’s current theme is called LOVE&ENERGY but he says the first theme NJPW gave him was called STRANGE (alas I didn’t find this on youtube). They figure easier to understand Japanese names are probably best, like 炎のファイター or 爆勝宣言, or as Tanahashi suggests, マッチョ・ドラゴン…

Some good pictures from Stardom Supreme Fight

In Giulia’s column she says she was really nervous for the talk with Naito last week and ended seriously trying to learn from a 大先輩 rather than playing up anything brash. She thinks that it’s especially important for people seriously approaching pro-wrestling to talk to other people about it, and she brings up a recent example with Mai Sakurai, her sort of protege in Donna Del Mondo. They talked at Starbucks and Sakurai had been worried because she had practiced a new move to try as a finisher, the “diving rolling guillotine” and found to her dismay that comments online from fans about it included criticism about it being unsafe and that it would probably hurt someone. Giulia (internally relishing the concerns that showed Sakurai was taking things seriously, and the chance to help talk her through it) figured that the commenters were probably understandably thinking of the recent injury to Mina Shirakawa from Saya Kamitani’s misplaced phoenix splash, and she talks about how there are virtually no completely safe moves in pro wrestling. In the same way that circus performers probably wouldn’t be especially exciting if they made sure the audience was absolutely clear that there was absolutely zero danger even if performers made mistakes, pro wrestlers are performing to show the extraordinary, and that necessarily comes with risk and the corresponding training to handle it safely. 相手との信頼関係 is also necessary, which should not be misunderstood to mean 「誰がやっても安全な技しか使わない信頼関係」. Anyway, she feels she encouraged Sakurai successfully to 頑張る.

The Antonio Inoki memorial column this week is with The Great Sasuke, founder and 社長 of Michinoku Pro Wrestling, and “history’s first masked wrestler legislator” having been elected in the past to the Iwate Prefectural Assembly as The Great Sasuke.
Sasuke says that he idolized Antonio Inoki from when he was 4 or 5. He recounts the first Tiger Mask saying watching Inoki on the television was like an electric shock through his whole brain and Sasuke 100% agrees with that. “衝撃でしたね、強い、かっこいい、すごい。” and he says he can declare confidently without Inoki he wouldn’t be who he is today.
He says he can remember clearly the first time they shared a significant amount of words: although Inoki’s political party, スポーツ平和党, had close ties with the pormotion Sasuke debuted for, ユニバーサル・プロレスリング (a lucha libre oriented promotion), the first time they spoke that he can remember was in the ring for a sort of… Inoki support/image rehab show called 「猪木とは何か？」 held during a political scandal after a former secretary of his accused him in print of financial malfeasance (I think from looking this up, the book is called “議員秘書、捨身の告白―永田町のアブナイ常識”). Sasuke says all the pro wrestlers at the time felt ”世間がどうあれ”, they couldn’t help but cheer for and support Inoki. Anyway they’d made it clear Inoki didn’t need to come but he did actually show up, and said that he watched him on Cable TV and thought 「飛んだり、跳ねたりというプロレスはいかがなものかなと思うんだけども…でも、私にはできないのでいいと思います」.
After the Tohoku Earthquake in 2011, they were both involved in charity shows (and the interviewer remembers and prints a photo of both of them looking out at rubble from the disaster), and Sasuke heard through the grapevine that apprently Inoki gave Michinoku some a little preferential treatment versus other smaller promotions in terms of letting NJPW wrestlers wrestle there, and at some point said 「東北といえばサスケだろう」 (a sentiment which survives today since at least from reading this magainze Sasuke would 100% be the first name I would think of when asked to name a pro wrestler from Tohoku then MIRAI). Sasuke says he can remember clear as day the first thing Inoki said to him at the disaster site was, in べらんめえ口調, 「てめぇは震災の時どこにいたんだい？」 (Sasuke had been in a venue for an event, and it was a sturdy building but the shaking definitely surprised him).
Sasuke says that in middle school he read Inoki’s book 「君よ苦しめ、そして生きよ」 and especially took to heart Inoki’s recounting of something his dad told him: 世界一の男になれ. 世界一 is out of the question but he felt he wanted to become a 世界を見渡せるような男 at least. And he wants to feel that since he protects the Earth in the Great Space War in Michinoku Pro, he can proudly say that he has become that and in his own way continues Inoki’s legacy. He says that if Inoki saw it he would probably say 「俺はああいうのはいかがなものかなと思うんですけど」, but to that Sasuke would proudly say 「これは地球を守る闘いですから、どうかご理解ください」
Sasuke feels that not just wrestling but Japan also suffered a great loss with Inoki’s passing, not least because he always has and still feels that Inoki was the only one who could have resolved the 北朝鮮の拉致問題.

In the page of the magazine where they show bits of old issues to advertise the mobile app, this Takayama/Muta match looks wild.
WARNING: blood, I think.

In the history column this week, Nagare talks about the time in 1980 when Stan Hansen defeated Inoki for the NWF title he had held through 4 years and 27 defenses. Nagare interviewed Hansen in the hotel by chance the day before, and Hansen recounted that he had spent the night previous in jail in Sapporo, due to a scuffle with I think an audience member who threw a chair at him. Apparently, later on Hansen and the guy would reconcile and become really close friends, but at the time Hansen was understandably bitter about having not slept at all in jail before an important match. Hansen told Nagare that he hadn’t ever pinned Inoki for a 3-count (although he had knocked him out with a lariat and the like plenty of times in non-title matches) and he wanted to in the match. In the end, he won the match via ringout, and Hansen never would get a 3-count from Inoki, with Inoki expressing in interviews a resolve to never be pinned by him in particular. Nagare notes that sharp-eyed observers could take these comments from Inoki as also meaning that Inoki figured “he might go to Baba in the future, I’d better underline that he can’t pin me.”
Nagare ends the column with a strangely poetic couple of sentences about such carny doublespeak: 猪木はたくさんの謎を墓場まで持っていってしまった。これからも私は「あーでもない、こうでもない」と猪木マジックに頭をひねり続けるのだろう。

Looks like Unagi Sayaka visited Minoru Suzuki’s store.

In Kenoh’s column they talk about Keiji Muto’s soon upcoming retirement match, and Kenoh says that he sees a real drive to win it in Muto. After all, Muto as a representative of NOAH must be burning with a passion to get revenge on Tetsuya Naito for him, Kenoh. (The interviewer doubts Muto is fighting for Kenoh’s sake but Kenoh ignores him) They talk about a surprising number of wrestlers inside and outside of NOAH who won their retirement matches, including Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue, Antonio Inoki, Atsushi Onita (who pinned FMW ace-inheritor candidate Hayabusa in his '95 “retirement”). And in 2019 Riki Choshu didn’t win but he still ate a whole 4 of Togi Makabe’s finisher, the King Kong Knee Drop, before finally being pinned. “線香花火って消える直前、一瞬だけ明るくなるだろ。” says Kenoh, and after all, isn’t Muto’s Shining Wizard “線香魔術” (the interviewer says no, the reading is the same but it’s 閃光魔術 but Kenoh ignores him). Adding fuel to Kenoh’s theory, The Great Muta won his retirement match, although Kenoh didn’t like to see Muta in a wheelchair backstage. At the interviewer saying it was a flash of reality, Kenoh stops him and says not to doubt Muto’s production sensibilities - this was him already building to the upcoming final match, since it makes you wonder if his condition is ok or not. No one can know how much pain he’s in except him (it might be a lot, it might be a little, he might just be enduring as well as he can to get through his last match), and so it could 100% be psychological mind games in order to win the last match. Kenoh says that Muto is definitely aware of what a good story it makes for someone who idolized him like Naito to be his final opponent, and it speaks to the terrifying nature of Keiji Muto that he would be still so driven to crush him mercilessly. If Naito loses to Muto, it would be hard to go back to New Japan wouldn’t it? Don’t worry though! Kenoh says he’ll let Naito follow Satoshi Kojima’s example to become a NOAH regular. Thanks Kenoh!

The costume column this week is with Giulia!
She calls a wrestler’s costume a 「大事なパフォーマンス」 and she doesn’t have that many specific ideas but she wants to answer the fan’s expectations in promos and matches and costume, so that the audience thinks “ジュリアはいつ見てもかっこいいよね.” She added foam arm guards since she added a move called “イタリアンフック” and also because she hurt her own hand trying to break blocks in the deathmatch… She says 「レスラーといえばリングシューズ！」 and so she got her boots from a longtime seller, KONDOU SHOES, and she plans to always wear wrestling boots. The cutouts on the butt are flesh-colored fabric, not skin, and she didn’t realize quite how it looked until a reporter told her they were fooled by it. She’s got a few modifications and fixes planned, and mentions she’s thinking about how a white version of this costume would look (hey that’s pretty much exactly what her costume for All Star Dream Queendom was).

There’s an interview with 享楽共鳴! They’re up against Miyu Yamashita and Maki Itoh in the finals of a tag tournament. Before beginning to talk about that though, the interviewer asks a leading question about the origin of their tag team name: they took it from a Shupro headline! During the early parts of the pandemic when they decided to challenge for the tag belts with the goal of increasing the amount of fun in the air amid the demoralizing topics at the time, and a Shupro reporter (I get the impression also the interviewer) put 享楽共鳴 in a headline for the story, and they thought it fit perfectly. The interviewer was surprised when they announced it, but is grateful rather than annoyed that they used it without asking.
They theorize that their opponents, 121000000, are clearly extremely strong as individuals, but are made weaker as a team by leaving too much up to each other and ending up forgetting basic things and making mistakes, like Yamashita forgetting parts of her costume or forgetting what “businesslike” means. If they’re on the same wavelength or can push through on their individual strength they might be 121000000, but if they don’t get along they’re 0. Shoko says they should change their name to “１００：０”、“ゼロ・オア・ヒャク！”
It’s become a tradition for Shoko and Misao to have a singles match against each other on the New Year’s Day show each year (Shoko theorizes it’s because their red/green color scheme is festive), and since their’s some danger in it feeling rote they feel the need to outdo themselves each year, but in a good way. The reporter notes a possible downside being not being able to challenge for a title that day, but Shoko doesn’t see that as a bad thing and notes she’s not worried about that, but rather “how far can I go without killing Misao”, and finding that line of mutually not killing each other is beneficial as a tag team. And it’s a good stage for them to show their individuality.
Talking about the title shot they’d win if they win the tournament, they note that a match between them and Wasteland War Party would be like a Japanese/American tokusatsu movie co-production, and at that Shoko says she wants to use guns.
Hey, that match does sound fun, I hope they win the tournament!

In Genichiro Tenryu’s column, he talks about how Okada has clinched the status of New Japan and the industry’s ace, and seems to have found full confidence and is doing various things that he wants to do and having the audience react to him. As an example he mentions doing Inoki’s trademark 1,2,3 DA! at the memorial show, which might seem like an obvious thing, but with NJPW not always being keen to be associated with Inoki in more recent years isn’t necessarily so obvious. He talks a while also about Okada’s picking a fight with Kiyomiya in NOAH.
He talks a little also about the Muto/Nakamura match and says he feels the extremely strong reaction to it shows that Japanese wrestling audiences are clamoring for an ace figure to light up the scene, and while he was just talking about Okada getting that position, you can’t wrestle alone, and Tenryu found himself feeling that the foil to be the obstacle ahead of Okada would have to be Shinsuke Nakamura. He’s signed to WWE right now, but maybe in a few years…

In Keiji Muto’s column they’re talking about venues still. Having a retirement at the Tokyo Dome certainly puts Muto in a rare class of wrestlers, but Muto expresses some consternation at the Tokyo Dome’s very long entrance ramp, and says that 「料理するのはなかなか大変だ」 as in the biggest venue doesn’t always make the best match / the influence is more complicated then that, as he says that although his match with Nakamura was so lauded, he feels that it might not have been so successful, or at least would have had a different atmosphere, if it were at the Tokyo Dome as opposed to a sold out 日本武道館 (and you know, there was something about that atmosphere that extra fit the match come to think of it).

fallynleaf · July 2, 2023, 8:35am

Finished a TJPW translation just in time to break up the sequence of posts, haha! This is for their June 24 VOD show. It’s extra smart of them to put transcriptions of the comments up on the official recaps with the increasing instability of twitter lately… I got curious if DDT was also putting theirs up, and it looks like the answer is no! I have no idea why they’d do it differently for TJPW, except maybe in an attempt to increase accessibility since there’s no official translation? Who knows!

In any case, this show was more or less a regular house show. Yuki Arai faced Himawari, and I didn’t find out until looking at their comments that this was her first time facing a 後輩.

Arai’s comments:

Arai: “Today I had a singles match with HIMAWARI-chan. My last scheduled match with Shino-chan was canceled, so today was my first match facing a junior. Up until now, I’d only really fought my senpais, so I was under a lot of pressure, wondering how it was going to go. I wanted to beat the opponent who stood before me regardless of the junior-senior hierarchy, so I was given this opportunity to fight. I always use the Finally, but today I was able to win with the Scorpion for the first time, so I’m happy. Fighting her was fun, so I think I’d like to try some more different kinds of matches.”

(Did you show the imposing presence of a senior?)

“Well,” (laughs) “I don’t know about that, but my juniors have grown tremendously. I’d be happy if that was conveyed to the audience.”

Himawari’s comments:

HIMAWARI: “This was Arai-san’s first singles match with one of her juniors, so I wanted to demonstrate in the match that this rookie who debuted this year is also strong, but… the Scorpion got me somehow. It really, really hurts. I also use a Half Boston Crab, which looks similar, but in the end my senpai was strong.”

The main event was a preview for Mizuki vs Itoh, and it was also Itoh and Miyu’s first match back in TJPW after their excursions. Itoh and Miyu teamed up with Moka against Mizuki and Daisy Monkey. I didn’t realize until after the fact that this was the last real preview for the Summer Sun Princess main event. It was fun, though! I was a bit surprised (like the wrestlers) at the audience seemingly siding so much with Mizuki here.

Itoh and Miyu won, which made me scared until I pulled up the shupro transcript to follow along with their closing promo and saw that it wasn’t as long as I’d feared, haha.

Itoh: (to Mizuki, who is exiting) “Hey, you don’t have anything to say, champion? You’re not going to say anything? …OK. I’m looking forward to July 8. Also, I’m back. I’m a little pissed off. I’ve been gone from TJPW for a month, and (Yamashita’s) been gone for three. But you all booed us, didn’t you? That really pissed me off. So I flipped the switch. I think it was thanks to all of you that we won today. Thank you. Well, how was it, Yamashita? Was it tough?”

Yamashita: “It was hard, but I’m the kind of person who gets more and more excited the more difficult it is. Yes, I had fun.”

Then Miyu said, “離れたところで東京女子をユニバースで見たりして、あらためて…ちょっといいこと言うかもしれないけど、いい団体だなって思ったし,” and I wasn’t quite sure how to translate this .

“I watched TJPW remotely on Universe, and it really made me think… I’m going to say a little good thing—I thought this was a really great promotion. Moka, did you miss me?”

Miyamoto: “…Yes.”

Yamashita: “She missed me!”

Itoh: “You’re a good junior, huh? So, TJPW is having a big show on July 8 at the Ota City General Gymnasium. The full card has already been announced. Right? So I think everyone is looking forward to it. Please take care not to catch a cold in the extreme temperatures. Let’s make July 8 the best day. Thank you very much!”

She closed with: “Who’s the third cutest in the world? Yamashita! Who’s the second cutest in the world? Moka-chan! And finally, who’s the cutest in the world? Itoh-chan! Thank you very much!”

Here are their backstage comments:

Itoh: “I won the last preview match before Ota City. It was thanks to everyone booing me.”

Yamashita: “The booing surprised me.”

Itoh: “I wonder if they hate us. Aren’t we babyfaces overseas? That’s why I thought there’d be a positive reception for us today, too, but…”

Yamashita: “They booed us while laughing.”

Itoh: “I’m scared.”

Yamashita: “They were laughing and booing, so I was relieved to see their faces.”

Itoh: “Really…?”

Yamashita: (seeing that Itoh is feeling down) “She’s shocked. Maki Itoh is in shock.”

Itoh: “Because I’m Maki Itoh, right? And they aren’t happy? Why? I don’t know what it means for them to boo with a smile. But, well, thanks to all of you, we won, so thank you very much.”

I couldn’t quite figure out this: “っていうことで帰ってきましたね.”

“And with that, you came back.”

Yamashita: “Yes. I’ve been gone for three months. I was happy to see the TJPW fans for the first time in a while.”

Then Miyu said: “今日は私にとって後輩はもか…伊藤もそうだけど、離れた後輩のもか、有栖、鈴芽とやれたのも、私がいない間にもっともっとみんなも強くなってるんだなっていうのも感じたし。それは瑞希も一緒だけど.” I wasn’t exactly sure that I got this part correct.

“Today, I was with my junior Moka… I guess Itoh is one, too, but I was able to wrestle with the juniors I’d been apart from, Moka, Arisu, and Suzume, and I could feel that everyone had gotten stronger while I was away. It’s the same with Mizuki. It was really inspiring watching TJPW from America as well. I think I did my best over the course of those three months. It’s really fun being back after a long time. How are you, Moka?”

Miyamoto: “I’m happy that we got to team together for the first time in a while, and you’ve gotten a lot stronger. It made me want to work even harder myself.”

(Did you feel any changes in yourself after being away from the TJPW ring for three months?)

Yamashita: “I was able to train at many different places, and I’ve improved on a technical level. Those three months, I didn’t go there to train, but rather to bring what I had cultivated at TJPW with me on my journey. So… what was the question?”

(Do you feel any changes or growth after that period?)

“Hmm… in terms of change, I went to a lot of different places and met a lot of different people. So, I experienced a lot of things.”

This line was also a bit confusing: “大変なこともあったし楽しいこともあって、ってところで.”

“Some of them were hard, and some of them were fun. In all of that, I realized that America is very free. Anything is possible. In that respect, I became really open-minded, or maybe I should say that I became more frank. I think that was a big change. And while I fought in the match today, I think I was able to fight with a broader perspective.”

(You finished your month of training)

Itoh: “I was able to do it because I had a lot of confidence. I’ve always done it with confidence, but America was really tough this time. I overcame all of that and wrestled in ten matches over the course of that month. I got a little bit… I’m able to take a lot more punishment. So I have this one in the bag. I’m sorry. But with the condition that I’m in, I’m going to take that belt from Mizuki at Ota City.”

(Tomorrow you’ll be making your return to your hometown…)

Yamashita: “Wow! We’re fighting tomorrow! Don’t point at people.”

Itoh: “I definitely won’t lose. I mean it.”

Yamashita: (to Itoh’s raised middle finger) “Don’t do this!”

Itoh: “Fukuoka is mine. I won’t lose.”

Yamashita: “Stop! Quit it!”

Itoh: (in English) “Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck You, motherfucker! Yamashita, I’ll kill you!”

While arguing violently, the two of them went backstage as they fought.

Miyamoto: (waving at the camera as she leaves) “Sayonara~”

Shupro only transcribed the last sentence of Itoh’s English there…

Here are Mizuki and Suzume’s comments:

I wasn’t quite sure what Mizuki was saying in her second sentence here: “今日はでじもんと組んで、楽しかった。でも最後やっぱり守り切れなかったのとか悔しいし.”

Mizuki: “It was fun teaming up with Daisy Monkey today. But I’m disappointed that we couldn’t hold our lead in the end. But the two of them have grown so much, and they really push me forward. Let’s do our best together at Ota City!”

Suzume: “We’re also wrestling as Daisy Monkey at Ota City, so it’s revenge for today, and we also have Moka as an opponent. We’ll do our best!”

Mizuki: “Is Daisy Monkey the first match?”

Suzume: “I’m pretty sure?”

Mizuki: “Then you should win, and I should win in the main event. Let’s get revenge. I’m going to do my best!”

(It was the first time in a while that you faced Itoh)

Mizuki’s answer confused me a lot: “なんか、あー…そうだよな、伊藤麻希ってあらためて思ったし。そうだよな、空気持ってくのもうまいよなとか思ったんですけど.”

“I thought, ‘Ah… she definitely is Maki Itoh’. And I thought, ‘she’s really good at bringing that atmosphere.’ Well… now that I’ve been exposed to it, I think I’ll be able to handle it. I hope people will be able to see us as we are now.”

(This is your second hometown show this year, and you weren’t able to win either time)

“Yes. I won my first (singles) belt and finally came back to Kobe. I was really happy that I could finally bring a belt home to Kobe.”

I was also a bit confused by this: “やっぱり勝てなかったっていうのは自分の足りてない部分が大きいと思うので.”

“But I think the fact that I couldn’t win means that I lack something big. I have to face that and work harder than everyone else.”

And that’s it for that show! Thankfully the next one is not as long as I feared it would be when I saw that it was Itoh and Miyu’s hometown show, haha.

TJPW also put out a video recapping Itoh and Mizuki’s history, which I haven’t watched. Obviously it’s in Japanese, haha. A lot of their history was before my time, and I feel like I could probably gleam a decent amount from it with subtitles, so I’ll try to find time to give it a watch, though I’m not attempting a translation for it.

Twitter is, uh, looking especially dire at the moment, so here’s hoping it still exists by the time I finish the next translation …

rodan · July 3, 2023, 7:49pm

I think something like “This might be a little saccharine, but” might capture the feeling.
Like the ちょっといいこと言うかもしれないけど is an aside expressing a little bit of softening/embarassment while still emphasizing the genuineness of the praise.

The 笑い here is presumably smiling, since it would be a little difficult to laugh and boo at the same time, and she was relieved when she saw their faces (while boo-laughter would be audible).

I’d also say - you’ve got a tendency to translate こわい as “I’m scared.” But I’d say particularly in a situation like this it’s more like “that’s scary.” She’s not scared in the moment - she’s backstage and fine, but she’s remarking that the image she’s picturing of people grinning while booing is a scary one (and she’s thereby misinterpreting what Miyu is trying to say which she clarifies by saying she was relieved by it).

She’s concluding the booing discussion and handing off the promo to Miyu with the changed topic of their return. I might go with,
“And so we’re back, aren’t we?”
Which I think accomplsihes the same goals.

I was a little amused by her prevarication here. She starts with trying to say she felt a lot of growth from her kouhai Moka but ends up adding basically everybody in the match until it loses most of its meaning.

“the juniors I’d been apart from” specifically is I don’t think correct, 離れた後輩 is in contrast to Itoh - roughly “the juniors with a wider gap between us.”
My attempt: “I guess Itoh is my junior too, but I mean Moka who’s a newer junior, and Arisu and Suzume who fought against me for as well, I felt that they all got much stronger while I was away. And Mizuki too, for that matter.”

It sounds like she says “もかはどうでしたか” which I’d put more as like “How was it, Moka?”

The ちょっと… → ”a little bit…" is definitely a telltale translationism that might be fun to try to squash into something that sounds more natural in English. I don’t have a great option off the top of my head but a couple possibilities could be like, “I got kinda… freaking good at taking punishment”, “I got like, super resilient” or something.

It seems like the transcript mislabeled this a bit - it’s Itoh who reacts big with the “Wow! We’re fighting tomorrow!” and points at Yamashita, hence Yamashita’s comment.

I think she’s saying like, “It hurts that I couldn’t protect them through to the end” as in like, she wasn’t able to prevent a member of Daisy Monkey from getting submitted to lose the match.

An element lost a bit is that she’s saying like, that feeling was refreshed, like あらためて思った.
A somewhat over literal attempt, to try to clarify the sense:
“It made me feel anew ‘Ah, right, of course, this is Maki Itoh. Right, she’s really good at bringing along an atmosphere like this.’ etc.”

Like she wasn’t surprised by a new impression, but she felt her pre-existing impression once again, anew. All her impressions of Itoh’s strengths etc. came flooding back.

This seems fine!
The やっぱり I’d say connects with the whole thing, 勝てなかったっていうのは自分の足りてない部分が大きい, like of course that’s the inevitable conclusion (and I’m not making excuses even though I’m glad I was able to bring a singles championship home).
Technically I suppose now that I look at it closer, a nitpick is maybe that 自分の足りてない部分が大きい is I think less “I lack something big” so much as it is like, roughly, “the part of me that is lacking is big” (as in it’s not necessarily one big thing, it could be an accumulation of small things contributing to an overall big portion of lack) and so I would maybe say “There’s plenty I’m lacking” is slightly closer.

It was pretty funny to be annoyed for a day or two at their strengthening the always irritating block to make you log in before browsing individual accounts, enough to finally log in to read the couple of accounts I normally check, only to find that it was even more of a gigantic mess inside…

tewhalen · July 4, 2023, 5:42pm

Came across an interesting idiom in continuing to look through the match graphics for Yes! Wonderland from May (yes, I’m very behind).

世界を股にかける魔法少女！

Can anyone shed some light on 股にかける ? I’m given to understand that it means something like “to travel all over” but am not quite getting how to get there from 股.

fallynleaf · July 4, 2023, 11:30pm

I think it’s just a set phrase, though it’s an odd one for sure! I didn’t find an explanation for how it came to be a set phrase when I looked up the meaning, though when I added “語源” (thanks, Miu, for teaching me that one), this came up:

広く各地を歩き回る。また、各地方・各国にまたがって活躍・活動する。「この窃盗団は首都圏を股に掛けて荒し回っていた」

〔語源〕足で歩く意から。「掛ける」は、ここでは、そこで扱う意で、「手に掛ける」「医者に掛ける」などと使う。

So that explains the “掛ける”, but I dunno about the 股 part, though .