I think the idea, or at least the image conjured, is like this picture from google image search:
And another source I found has this bit:
まあ、「股に掛ける」という言い方に違和感があるとわれわれも感じるせいか、あるいは、日本に片足を置いて各地に出向くイメージがあるせいか、「世界を股に掛ける」のは主に日本人であり、海外の人々の活躍についてはあまり言われない。
suggesting it conjures the image of like, one foot planted in Japan and then the other foot heading elsewhere, so I’d say image-wise it’s a little like “straddling two worlds” or something like that (but more actively walking around)
A non-TJPW thing: NOAH put up Katsuhiko Nakajima & Kenoh & Manabu Soya vs Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi & Suwama from Muto’s retirement show earlier this year for free on youtube, though it looks like it’s only available for a limited period of time. It’s a pretty good match (I wrote about it in my wrestling journal)! Recommend checking it out if you’re interested in the upcoming singles match between Kento and Nakajima.
As far as TJPW goes, I finished translating the June 25 VOD show! This one was a bit more work than the last one, haha.
Yuki Aino and Rika Tatsumi had a preview match, with Aino won.
Aino: “I finally won a preview match! I’m really happy that I was able to win. With this momentum, I want to say that at Ota City on July 8… But I didn’t beat her directly today. And I don’t think Rika-san will go into the title match like this, either. I’m going to tighten my focus without getting careless, and study Rika-san even more over the next two weeks and get as strong as I possibly can. But the fact that I was able to win today, I’m going to hold onto that and let it fuel me, and spend the remaining time preparing for Ota City. I couldn’t win all of the preview matches, but I’m really happy that I finally won today. That gives me confidence. Having Raku and Pom with me, they were a great support. And there were so many people in the crowd today, I felt your amazing enthusiasm, and I’m so happy to have your support. Thank you so much. I’m going to do my best at Ota City!”
(You were both getting pretty passionate, but at Ota City, will you fight with even more passion than this?)
Her answer to that last question was a bit confusing, but it seems like I’m not the only one who might be confused, haha. She said: “こんなもんじゃ足りないですよね。だから私とリカさんは当日、燃えて灰になると思います。灰になるけど私がひとかけら残ります。そういうことか分からんけど…（笑）”
“This is not enough. So I think on the actual day, Rika-san and I are going to burn to ashes. I’ll be reduced to ashes, but there will be a small piece of me left. I don’t know if that makes sense, but…” (laughs)
Rika’s comments started off right away with a sentence that confused me: “3度目の前哨戦の今日こそはユキの首を直接取りたかったんですけど、逆にユキにやられてしまう形になってしまって…” I think she’s speaking a bit metaphorically, but I couldn’t figure out a good way to translate it 
.
Tatsumi: “For this third preview match, I wanted to grab Yuki by the neck and take the win from her directly, but she beat me instead… I experienced Yuki in serious mode, so that got me more and more pumped up. After that, if I just get the win in the match, the belt will come back to me. I definitely won’t let it slip away. Also, doing the shows yesterday and today with someone’s hometown crowd, I was able to experience the warmth of the local audience. I also have my first hometown show in Matsumoto, Nagano in September, and I want to bring the belt home, so I will definitely defend it and let it take in its fill of the delicious air in Nagano!”
(You weren’t able to win all of the preview matches)
“No. It’s very regrettable. I’m feeling a bit depressed right now. But if I can put those pent-up feelings into action on July 8, I think I can do it. I can see it.”
The main event was Shoko and Miyu vs Itoh and Kamiyu, and it was pretty fun! It has been a while since Itoh and Miyu fought each other, and I’d forgotten how great their chemistry was as opponents. I wasn’t exactly surprised to see this one go to a draw, haha.
Itoh and Miyu had some fun interactions afterward, naturally.
After the match, Yamashita immediately said, “Let’s go for another round,” and Itoh said, “Rematch!” and they both demanded that the match go into overtime. Nakajima admonished the crowd for clapping, saying, “Stop! The audience is really irresponsible… We can do it again anytime, right? I vote for a temporary truce.” Kamifuku agreed.
Nakajima: “There we go. Today is a draw, so both sides win, and both sides lose.”
Itoh: “I’ll never team up with you ever again!”
This line from Miyu was a bit tricky: “それ一番言っちゃいけないことだからね。知らないよ？”
Yamashita: “That’s the worst thing you could say. Don’t you care? Alright, let’s shake hands for now. It’s business, right? Business.”
The two of them shook hands. Nakajima and Kamifuku praise them on the mic, saying, “Excellent!”
Itoh: “At any rate, we’re in Fukuoka, the place where Itoh and others were born and raised. I don’t think we need to fight today. So, for now… just because so many people came to see us.”
Yamashita: “No matter what you say, I like you. Okay, you can close the show. It was a draw, so we both won, but Itoh is the best, so she can close.”
Itoh: “Got it. Well, thank you so much to all of you for coming out here today.”
I had a bit of trouble parsing the first part of this sentence and wasn’t sure that I’d managed to figure it out: “コロナでちょっとだけ福岡来れなかった次期とかあったんですけど、去年よりも全然多い人がここに集まってくれて本当に嬉しいです.”
“With covid, it was a bit hard to come to Fukuoka again, but I’m really happy that more people came this time, compared to last year. You know, next I’m going to… what is it? Something like the International Conference Center. …the International Center! I want to wrestle for TJPW at the International Center. So, I want you all to follow me.” (to the loud cheers) “Thank you. Itoh and everyone else are going to do our best to have a lot of matches, get super strong, and get more and more people to come to our shows.” (to Yamashita) “Sorry about today. Let’s do it again. And with that, I think I’m going to close now. Thank you all so much for coming today!”
Here are Itoh and Kamiyu’s comments:
Kamifuku: “Welcome back.”
Itoh: “This sucks. I was THIS close to winning. It’s really the worst. What should I do with this feeling?”
Kamifuku: “If you call it the worst, your words will become real.”
Itoh: “Because it was the worst!”
That conversation about 最悪 was a bit tricky, but this line in particular from Kamiyu threw me off: “そんなこと言わない！”
Kamifuku: “I won’t call it that!”
Itoh: “Then what should we do?”
Kamifuku: “We’ll make a plan for the next one.”
Itoh: “Next year, in this place, Yamashita and I…”
Kamifuku: “You said you wanted somewhere big.”
Itoh: “The International Center. The main event in the International Center will be Itoh vs Yamashita.”
Kamifuku: “That’s wonderful. You can team up together or fight, and you can have a friendly rivalry in Japan as well as overseas. You’re so blessed.”
Itoh: “It may be fate that I was able to meet someone like this. I’m very grateful to have her. But she gets more fired up when she’s standing in the opposite corner. That’s why I want to do this again and again at each turning point. While tagging sometimes, though.”
Kamifuku: “Also, Ota City is coming up soon.”
Itoh: “Yes. The next match is in Ota City. Itoh vs Mizuki. I don’t think I have to say it, but it will definitely be an interesting match. I have nothing more to say, and I already know what there is to know about Mizuki. So, look forward to it. What about you?”
Shupro helpfully provided “（須山さんをマネて）” here, but I’m not quite sure who 須山さん is?
Kamifuku: “Me?” (imitating Suyama-san) “I’m totally at ease!”
Itoh: “No, your Ota City match.”
Kamifuku: “Ah, the match? Sorry, Suyama-san has run away. At Ota City, I’ll be with my good friend Asuka. Our opponents will be the ordinary Kakuta-san and Mizunami-san.”
Itoh: “Mizunami-san isn’t ordinary. That woman is not normal.”
Kamifuku: (imitating Mizunami’s movements) “Her entrance is crazy. I’ll think about it.”
Itoh: “But as far as Nao Kakuta goes, you’ll be fine. You’ve already won.”
Kamifuku: “Thanks. Then, go ahead and close.”
Itoh: “OK. Well, everyone, thank you all for today. Bye-bye.”
(You were booed yesterday, but today you received loud cheers)
“It’s a bit unusual, huh? Even Yamashita was really popular here. Well, even including me, it’s not often that I get a chance to get cheered, so I felt like I was a very popular person today. Fukuoka is great. We’ll come back again.”
Here are Shoko and Miyu’s comments (featuring the cameraperson laughing in the background for most of it).
Nakajima: “Fukuoka was Yamashita’s triumphant return to her hometown, so there were a lot of people in the crowd who seemed to be her family members who were yelling out her name. When I heard that, I felt that this place has some kind of wonderful power, and I myself felt full of fighting spirit. Both myself and Miyu Yamashita will be celebrating our ten year anniversary in August. So I’m really happy that I was able to team up with her here in the midst of that. Both Itoh-chan and Yamashita have become wrestlers who are active overseas. I received such amazing power, and even though we didn’t win today, it was still a lot of fun.”
Yamashita: “We won. It was a draw. So it’s a win on both sides. Well, a draw is the most frustrating result. But like Nakajima said, the audience was really passionate, and it was really heartening to be able to team up with Nakajima in my hometown in our tenth year, and I felt really happy. And our opponents were Kamifuku and Itoh. Itoh and I have the same hometown… I was Itoh’s opponent for her debut match in Hakata. Since her debut, we’ve made many memories outside of our hometown. So, after all of those times, we fought each other today. With Kamifuku, too, I think it was a lot of fun that we could have a match with the four of us. But there was a moment when she said something like ‘I’m not going to team up with you’. I resent that. Please tell Itoh that.”
Then Shoko said, “これだからミリオンはってめっちゃ言うんですけど。ハッシュタグはやらせといてください。「#これだからミリオンは」これで.” I was not sure at all how to translate that hashtag, haha. Sometimes short bits of Japanese are the hardest…
Nakajima: “That’s why we say, ‘this is why One To Million’. Please use the hashtag. ‘# This Is why One To Million’. Let’s fight again.”
Yamashita: “It’s a draw, so I want to do a rematch.”
Nakajima: “The same team configuration?”
Yamashita: “Yes.”
Nakajima: “I see. I thought you wanted a 1v1.”
Yamashita: “No! I’d rather do it with these members.”
Nakajima: “It seems that it’ll be the same match configuration again.”
Yamashita: “I don’t know if it will be, but it was good to come back to Hakata for the first time in a long time. It was fun.”
Nakajima: “After this, I’m going to eat something delicious!”
(Itoh said that she wanted to do a TJPW show at Fukuoka International Center)
Yamashita: “That’s, well, she said something a bit nice there. That’s enough to counteract her rudeness… are you familiar with the International Center?”
Nakajima: “No.”
Yamashita: “It’s really big.”
Then Shoko said, “スターレーンとどっちが広い？” and I wasn’t sure what exactly she was referring to with スターレーン (and google wasn’t the most helpful).
Nakajima: “Bigger than Star Lanes?”
Yamashita: “No, no, you can’t compare them.”
Nakajima: “Ah, okay. I didn’t know that!”
Yamashita: “It’s like Ryogoku (Kokugikan) in Tokyo. I want to do a big show there, in Hakata. That’s a good thing she said. I think it’s something we should aim for.”
(Itoh said that she wanted to have a singles match with you on that stage)
“Did she say that?”
Nakajima: “You have no choice but to do it.”
Yamashita: “I want to do it. I agree with her.”
Then Miyu said, “伝えといてください。直接はちょっと、しばらくは” and I wasn’t entirely sure who the 伝えといて was aimed at.
“Please let her know. Not immediately; wait a bit.”
Nakajima: “He won’t speak for about three days.”
Yamashita: “About three days, I think.”
And that’s it for the last show!
I was feeling happy about finishing that, and then I saw that there’s a press conference to translate, haha, so I’m going to be working pretty hard on that over the next few days if I want to finish it before Summer Sun Princess . I’m hoping to get the draft done in just two days, but we’ll see 
.
I think this is fine, but it might be good to include the temperature part in the translation of the question so the line of thinking makes sense, like “will you turn up the temperature even higher at Ota City?” or something. She’s just stretching the heat metaphor to its breaking point in her answer.
I think that the 首を取り image here is more like, taking a head in the sense of taking an enemy soldier’s head. As in like, she wanted to specifically be the one to take her out and get credit for the direct victory (by being the one to pin or submit her).
“I wanted to take down Yuki myself” or maybe something with a hunting metaphor or something like “I was hoping to bag Yuki myself” could work probably.
I think this is maybe like “That’s the #1 thing you shouldn’t say. Who knows what will happen?”
The よ？ is like, “You know (apparent thing X) right?” and so I suppose here it’s as in like, (whether or not we’ll team again in the future) 知らない (so that’s why you shouldn’t say it). Maybe, anyhow.
There’s a minor part not in the transcript where Itoh responds べつにいいよ which I think fits okay with that interpretation as in like “I don’t really care (about that reason)”
The 次期 is presumably meant to be 時期, like there was a period for a bit where they couldn’t come to Fukuoka.
I’d also put in a “way more” or something for the emphasis provided by the 全然.
This seems literally okay, but I do feel like declaratives with negative adjectives or verbs are sorta a lot more natural in Japanese than in English in some cases and this seems like maybe one of those.
Like I suppose more literally it’s “I don’t say that kind of thing!” but that sounds a little weird in English maybe?
“Don’t say it like that!” might be an acceptable tweak to make it sounds more natural in English? Or maybe specifiying out “like that” a bit more like “I’m not so negative!” might be acceptable? I guess I don’t know the best option.
Seems like it’s probably 須山浩継, a sports writer currently focusing on indie and women’s wrestling who Kamiyu is friends with.
博多スターレーン is a big bowling alley that used to be in Fukuoka (but closed) and, weirdly, it had an exhibition hall that TJPW among other wrestling promotions ran at least one show in, so presumably Shoko is aware of it from that.
This sounds like she’s saying that it isn’t bigger, but I’d say rather she’s saying it is bigger, to the point of not even being on the same scale. Hence her 倍々 and Shoko’s impressed reaction.
It’s directed at the press people.
The 直接 isn’t “immediately” - the “immediate” definition is “immediate” as in like, “immediate family” or that kind of synonym for “direct.”
She’s saying like, roughly “please let her know for me. I’d tell her myself but I should probably avoid that for now” Like talking her to directly is gonna be “ちょっと…” in the not-ideal / not convenient kind of way for a while (because they were just fighting).
And I’d say then the 3 day comments is about that recovering, rather than when the press should tell Itoh - Yamashita should avoid talking to Itoh for around 3 days
Thank you for your help as always!!
Do you have any better ideas for translating “#これだからミリオンは”? I feel like I’m probably missing some nuance with my translation, but maybe there’s only so much that can be done with it in English, haha
Not really, sorry!
If I blatantly ignore a comment it’s usually just since I didn’t come up with anything to say about it one way or another…
I thought it might be a set phrase from something or other she was riffing on but I didn’t find anything.
It did seem like what would be after the は would usually be something like “好き” so maybe if there’s an English hashtag format for like, highlighting stuff you like about something…
Been slacking a bit on my study log, Tobira, and the dictionary club to work on this and have been sacrificing some sleep since my brother is visiting and I don’t want to be too antisocial…, but I did manage to get the July 3 presser translated in time for the show!
I also started a new master document for the last half of 2023, since the first one is 300 pages and over 50,000 words (in English) of translation… I guess at this rate, we’ll have the equivalent of a 100,000 word novel at the end…
Here’s the video and the transcript!
It starts with Itoh vs Mizuki, and I got confused by the second line in, haha. Itoh said: “瑞希については闘いすぎてね、伊藤は何がきても大丈夫かなと思ってます.”
Itoh: “This will be my fourth time challenging for the belt, but I’m determined to win it. Concerning Mizuki, I’ve fought her too much. I think I’ll be okay no matter what happens. I’m ready to take it all, though I know full well that she’s not an easy opponent to beat. I think it’ll come down to which of us drops first. And, well, Itoh has been training in the U.S., so I have a lot of confidence. I’m just getting results at this rate, so I’m going to win and take the belt from Mizuki, and finally finish the Maki Itoh vs Mizuki story that has been going on for ages.”
Mizuki: “Ever since I won the belt, my days have been hectic and so much has happened, but I think I’m still only part of the way there.”
This line from Mizuki gave me some trouble: “過去とかをみんなは見ると思うんですけど、私はその過去を自分の気持ちだったり、応援してくださってるみなさんの気持ちだったり、対戦相手だったり、すべて愛を持って闘ってきたので、その過去さえもちゃんと愛せてるなと思っています.”
“I think everyone sees our past, but my feelings for my past, for everyone’s support, for my opponents, I have fought with love the whole time, so even my past is something that I’m able to love completely. And so for this, too, I want to fight in my own way, with love.”
――“What are your impressions of each other at this present point, not the past?”
Itoh: “Concerning Mizuki, I would say… I think that she’s someone who has a stronger sense of responsibility than anyone else. Even when her partner Yuka Sakazaki decided to graduate, even then she showed that she had the will not to give up. I think she also feels responsible as the champion. As I watch her, she’s a wrestler who’s not only strong, but who also has a strong sense of responsibility.”
I think maybe I did alright with it, but I wasn’t totally confident I understood what she was saying with 世界線 in this: “伊藤さんは私と本当に真逆の世界線にいる人だなと思っていて.”
Mizuki: “I think that Itoh-san is someone who is on the total opposite side of the planet from me. But Itoh-san is so amazing, so strong, and so frank, and there are so many areas where I wish that I could be like her. But I feel that we’re really from different sides of the planet, that I’m someone who’s truly living in a different world, and our paths don’t normally cross. But only in the ring, it’s just us, and we can fight in a space that is ours alone.”
This line was also a bit tough: “本当に伊藤さんの気持ちとかって闘ってみないと毎回わからないなって感じるので、本当にまっすぐな人だなと思います.”
“I really feel that you can never understand Itoh-san’s feelings until you fight her, so I think she’s someone who is very frank.”
――“What did you gain from training overseas?”
For Itoh’s answer here, I feel pretty good about my translation, but this is one of those “prime candidates for getting taken out of context” quotes, so I want to make extra sure I got it right, haha .
伊藤 海外はスケジュール通りにいかないんですよ、すべて。日本だとちゃんとリングで体のコンディションを整える時間があったりとか、対戦相手が集合時間にちゃんと来たりとか、そういう普通のことがちゃんとできてるんですけど、海外はやっぱり飛行機のトラブルとかもあるし、集合時間に対戦相手がいないこともあるし、体のアップとかもできないまま試合することもあるし、いきなり対戦カードが変わることもあるし。その中でやっていって、なおかつ自分より大きい相手しかいないので。それでも東京女子では受けないような技とかも受けるので…打たれ強くなったと思います。
Itoh: “Overseas, not everything goes according to schedule. In Japan, there’s time to condition your body properly in the ring, and your opponent shows up on time, all those usual things happen how they should. But overseas, you’ll have flight problems, your opponent might not be there at the appointed time, you might have to do a match without warming up, the card for the show might change suddenly. And on top of dealing with all of that, my opponents are all bigger than me. And I take a lot of moves that aren’t the kind of moves I get subjected to in TJPW… I think I’ve gotten good at taking punishment.”
――“What do you think will be the difference between victory and defeat in this match?”
I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant in the first part of this sentence: “技とか簡単な見やすいものでいうと、伊藤は渦飴を受けたことがないので.”
Itoh: “In terms of moves and easy to see things, I’ve never taken a Whirling Candy. I still don’t know how much damage it’ll do, so I think that’s one. I don’t know what else, but I think I’ll lose if I let down my guard even a little, so I want to keep my focus tight. If I let any soft parts show even a little, I’m going to lose, so I think it’s important not to relax even for a single second.”
This one’s more of a wrestling move question than a Japanese question, but the Itoh Deluxe targets the back, right? Is that what she’s saying here? : “私は前回トーナメントで伊藤デラックスで負けているので、それの怖さ、腰攻めの強さっていうのはわかってます.”
Mizuki: “I lost to the Itoh Deluxe in the last tournament, so I know how scary it is and how much pressure it puts on your back. But more than anything, it’s really about feelings. If my heart feels that I am no match for her, I’ll surely lose. I intend to go into it with strong feelings.”
――“As Itoh mentioned earlier, this match will be happening in the midst of your partner’s graduation announcement, and having to relinquish the tag belts.”
Mizuki’s first sentence was tricky: “私がユカッチの卒業に対して触れたら泣くことを知ってて、そうやって意地悪な質問をしてくるんだろうなって思いますけど.”
Mizuki: “I knew that if we touched on the subject of Yuka-chi’s graduation, I’d cry, so I thought I’d probably get asked a mean question like that. It’s probably the hardest for Yuka-chi right now, since she’s the one who can’t fight. Ah, I didn’t want to talk about it because I knew it would be like this.” (crying) “…But I’m really happy that I’m able to keep going. I hope that by watching my match, Yuka-chi will recover quickly and feel energized by it. Even though I lost one belt, nothing has changed.”
That’s it for that match! Next is Rika vs Yuki for the International belt.
This sentence took me a couple tries to (maybe?) parse: “挑戦表明をしてから約1ヵ月、いろいろ考えたんですけど、やっぱり私にあるのは「もっと強くなりたい」「熱くなりたい」という気持ちです.”
Yuki: “It’s been about a month since I announced my challenge. I’ve thought about it a lot, and what I’m left with are feelings like ‘I want to get stronger’ and ‘I want to burn hotter.’ Also, right now, I have the most fun when I’m fighting. So I want to win the belt so that I can fight more. I want to have a match with the fiercely hot Rika-san that will reverberate throughout the world, as befits the International Princess Championship, and spark a strange fire in Ota City.”
I wasn’t sure what Rika meant by this: “夏を終わらせにまいりました、辰巳リカです.” I didn’t watch the twitter space, and also wouldn’t have been able to understand a whole lot even if I had, haha, so I’m not sure of the exact context here.
Rika: “I’m Tatsumi Rika, who has come to put an end to summer. I talked about this a little in the last 10-hour Twitter Space, but at this rate, Yuki and I will both flare up and burn each other out.”
I also wasn’t sure about this: “もうその後は優雅に涼しく過ごしたいと考えております.”
“I’m already thinking about spending time in a cool and graceful manner after that. Also, Yuki and I are good friends in private, and we spend a lot of time together and know each other well.”
The verb at the end of this gave me a lot of trouble (and when it came up later on as well): “それにこの前の前哨戦3回を経て、もう完全に見切りました.”
“And after the last three preview matches, I’ve already seen enough. So I want to be the last one remaining in the end.”
――“There is a tournament happening after Ota City, but you feel that you want to end summer despite that?”
Rika: “I’m only thinking about what’s right in front of me. Summer Sun Princess in Ota City, Rika Tatsumi vs Yuki Aino, isn’t that alone just too hot? So I want to fight there with the intention of burning out.”
――“What about being in a singles match in the semi-main event of a big show?”
Yuki: “I think it’s a chance that doesn’t come around often. It’s a big show, so of course there will be a larger crowd than usual, and being able to have a singles match with Rika-san, whom I have a lot of trust in, with the belt on the line, my excitement for that exceeds everything else.”
――“As far as you can tell, are there any weaknesses that you know about because you are close to each other?”
Pretty much every sentence of Yuki’s here was a bit confusing to me, haha: “プライベートでも仲良くて、リカさんのことをよく知ってるからこそ、知ってるはずなのにリカさんっていうのは底知れない怖さがって。だからリカさんの弱点って思ってる部分があったとしても、リカさんってそれを試合で「それ苦手じゃなかったの？」って思ってた部分を余裕で翻してくるので。私はそこでペースを持っていかれないように、自分に気を付けることで、やってやろうと思っていますが.”
Yuki: “We are good friends in our private lives, and I should know Rika-san really well because of that, but I’m afraid that she’s still unfathomable. So even if there’s a part of her that I’d consider to be a weakness, she can easily turn it around during the match and do something that makes me think, ‘Wasn’t she bad at this?’ I’m going to try my best to watch out for myself and not cede control of the match to her. That’s not a weakness of Rika-san’s, though.”
Rika: “Yuki is just a serious, reliable type, constantly plugging away. She’s gentle, at any rate, so I hope I can marinate in her kindness during the match as well.”
――“The champion said earlier that she has seen enough.”
Yuki: “First of all, I’m afraid of that statement… I wonder what she has seen. But after the preview matches, I haven’t faced Rika-san in a singles match since she won the International belt. I haven’t had many occasions to fight her with everything I have like this. I’m grateful to have had three chances to get to know a little bit about the current Rika-san before the match. Also, this is a mental thing, but in the last preview match, even though it’s a tag match, I was able to beat Rika-san’s team, and I’m going to fight her with the confidence I received from that.”
――“If you defend the title, you’ll tie the defense record.”
Rika: “Ah, really? Already, huh? I wasn’t really thinking about the number of defenses, so I’d just decided to defend it all the time.”
She made the “ending summer” thing even more confusing with this, haha: “そしてこの第10代目の私の代で終わらせようとも思ってますので。夏も終わらせるし、10代目で終わらせます.”
“And I’m thinking about putting an end to it with the 10th generation, my generation. I’m going to put an end to summer, and I’m going to end it with the 10th generation.”
Lastly, they interviewed Miyu about her match with Sawyer Wreck, which is now for the EVE belt.
The first sentence was a bit tricky: “自分の要求もソーヤーもOKしてくれたということで.”
Yamashita: “Both my request and Sawyer’s were given the OK. I won the belt last November, and I’ve already defended it six times over the past eight months, but I haven’t done many title defenses in Japan this year. I really felt that with Sawyer as my opponent, I wanted to put the EVE title on the line in our upcoming match at Ota City.”
Namba: “The contract signing for this title match will be held after Sawyer arrives in Japan. I’d like to ask you a few questions. The EVE Championship match will be contested under Spirit of EVE rules. The match will go to one fall with a 30 minute time limit, and no count-outs.”
I don’t really understand Spirit of EVE rules, haha, so I wasn’t sure about this part: “ただし、レフェリーの忠告後に闘う姿勢を見せなければ戦意喪失とみなし失格となります.”
“However, if a wrestler doesn’t show a fighting attitude after the referee’s warning, she will be disqualified on the grounds of having lost the will to fight. Since it’s no-count-out, there’s a chance that outside the ring, Sawyer Wreck might bring out the hardcore wrestling that she’s known for, which might put you at a disadvantage. How do you feel about this?”
Yamashita: “You think I’ll be at a disadvantage?”
Namba: “That’s what is written (in my notes)…”
Yamashita: “What is Ba-chan’s impression?”
Namba: “I think you’ll be fine!”
Yamashita: “I don’t think I’ll be at a disadvantage.”
The first part of this sentence was a bit tricky: “ソーヤーの日本で試合を見た上でEVEのルールにあってるなって思って、それも踏まえて次の大田区でソーヤー相手にこのベルトを懸けようと思ったので.”
“After watching Sawyer’s matches in Japan, I thought it was in accordance with the EVE rules, so I decided to put the belt on the line in our match at Ota City. I don’t think the rules are unfavorable for me. So, I want to fully take on the challenge of facing Sawyer where she’s strongest, and then take her down with a Skull Kick at the end.”
Namba: “After returning from your three month excursion in America, you immediately traveled to Kobe and Fukuoka for a regional tour, and then departed for the UK without a break, and returned to Japan this morning. And, after this press conference, you’ll be making a guest appearance on Samurai TV. Then three days after that, you’re scheduled to wrestle at the Ota City General Gymnasium. I know it must be quite hard on you, so are you worried about your condition?”
I wasn’t quite sure about Miyu’s line here: “そんなスケジュールしてたんだ私って思うくらい、体感的に感じてないので大丈夫です.”
Yamashita: “No. Physically I haven’t been feeling like I’m on such a schedule, so I’m fine. I’m doing great. It’s not a problem.” (in English) “No problem.”
――“It has been a long time since you’ve had a match in Tokyo.”
Yamashita: “This will be my first match in Tokyo since I came back from America. Of course, I’ve been watching TJPW on (Wrestle) Universe from America. I thought, ‘the promotion I’m in is amazing, isn’t it?’ I’m excited to have a match here again. I’m really excited that my first match in Tokyo will be at Ota City. That’s all.”
――“Do you think the size difference between you and your opponent will be a key point?”
Yamashita: “I have the impression that she is tall, but I’ve been facing big opponents in the U.S. for the past three months, so I don’t think that’ll be a problem. But her reach is long, so if it comes to a strike exchange, I don’t think I’ll be able to block what can be blocked. So that’s a point of concern, but if I’m able to kick her down in the end, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
――“Considering the no-count-out rule in a large venue like the Ota City General Gymnasium, do you have an idea in mind of how you want to use the space?”
Yamashita: “I don’t see myself using the outside of the ring. I’m fundamentally someone who wants to fight inside the ring, so I don’t really see myself doing it, but the venue is certainly large. So if Sawyer puts it to good use against me, I think I might be in a bit of danger, but that’s what’s exciting. I’m looking forward to it.”
――“On the other hand, if you don’t let her use the outside of the ring, will that be a quick path to victory?”
Her whole last answer is a bit tricky, but especially the last sentence: “そうですね。外に出さないようにするところもカギになるんじゃないかな。外に出てしまえばあっちの方が上回ってくる部分もあると思うので。外に出さないことも考えたいと思います.”
Yamashita: “Yes. I think the key is preventing her from going to the outside. Outside the ring, I think there are aspects where my opponent is better than me.”
And that’s it! Whew!
I’m going to try to translate the match posters as well, I think, though I wanted to prioritize the presser because it’s what is most important.
They sure like to spring these press conferences on us last minute .
I finished translating all the posters, or at least attempting to, haha. There were really only two that were tricky; the rest were pretty straightforward, though boy did the cursive kanji test my reading ability…
復帰
Comeback
8 WOMAN TAG MATCH
(That’s it, huh )
(Considering how relatively little text this has, I’m kind of amazed that this one has two kanji that I don’t know, and a third that isn’t in WK (but which I have in Anki already.)
私の夏はきっと来るー。
My summer will surely come.
夏に最も近い人の隣に立つ！
いや、、、
もはやアニキは
夏そのものだ!!!
夏だ、祭りだ、
暑苦しいほどの熱を
見せつけてやろうじゃないの！
この試合から私の夏は始まります!!!
さぁ、大アニキコール！
大カクタコール！
みんな準備はできてる???
角田奈穂
I’m standing next to the person closest to summer!
No,
Aniki no longer;
she’s summer itself!!!
It’s summer, it’s a festival,
why don’t I show you
the sweltering heat of the summer!
My summer starts after this match!!!
Come on, chant loudly for Aniki!
Chant loudly for Kakuta!
Is everyone ready???
Nao Kakuta
励ましあって、讃えあって、
顔面蹴り合って、
絆を深めあってきた私達
数々の必然みたいな偶然で出逢い、
元気と華で勝負してた私に
「強さ」という「華麗さ」を
教えてくれたのは横にいる親友です。
夏！大田区！VENYU!
完敗しても乾杯したい！
いや、やっぱ完勝して
お前の実家ご飯が食べたい！
上福ゆき
Encouraging each other, praising each other,
kicking each other in the face,
we’ve deepened our bond.
We’ve met many times like it was inevitable,
I won or lost with beauty and spirit,
and the one who taught me “strength” and “splendor”
is the close friend at my side.
Summer! Ota City! VENYU!
Even if we’re totally defeated, we’ll want to go for drinks!
No, we’re going to win
and go eat dinner at your parents’ house!
Yuki Kamifuku
IS THE GAME OVER?
この夏、最大の
スペクタクル超決戦！
This summer, the biggest
super showdown spectacular!
世界の扉
The door to the world
大巨人
大田区に出現。
A big giant
has appeared in Ota City.
ワタクシれらの美しさの
恐慌に溺れるがいいわ。
Drown in fear
of our beauty.
沸点
突破
boiling point
breaking through
世界がうらやむ熱い夏ー。
A hot summer envied by the world.
TJPWはファンのみなさんに
元気や笑顔を届けたいと思います。
プロレスラーはただ闘うだけの現在ではないと信じています。
私たちのプロレスを見て「明日も頑張ろう」とか
「元気をもらった」と思ってもらえることが何より大切だと、
常に心に秘めてリングに上がります。
ファンのみなさんの生活を少しだけ豊かにすること。
国境を越えてどこまでも。
そのブレない信念を新たに、
10年目もTJPWらしく闘っていきます。
今のまま、上に行く！UPDATE TJPW!
TJPW wants to bring energy and smiles to our fans.
We believe that pro wrestlers in the present day aren’t only about fighting.
The most important thing is for people to think “let’s do our best tomorrow” and “that cheered me up” when they watch our pro wrestling, and we enter the ring with that in mind.
We aim to make the lives of fans a little richer.
No matter where we go, crossing national borders.
Renewing this unwavering belief, we will continue fighting in the TJPW style in our 10th year.
As we are now, we’re going up! UPDATE TJPW!
It finally happened, haha
I’m kind of sad they didn’t go with “The 
ポールズ thread! Learning Japanese through POLL wrestling”. I have… actually seen poll wrestling before (because of course I have). Or at least I’ve seen twitter polls used in a DDT match before, not to mention NJPW regularly using them to decide on KOPW stipulations…
I’d say the translation hear loses the softening sense from the ね, and the connection between the two ideas from the て. I’d compare it maybe to sort of like, “Given that X is true, right, I think I’ll be A-okay.” like quickly setting up a baseline for the reasoning.
I would put it more like “I’ve fought her so much that I think I’ll be fine no matter what she throws at me.”
I didn’t really come up with tangible grammar things or criticisms, but here’s an attempt:
“I think everyone looks back at the past, but for me that past holds my feelings, it holds the feelings of everyone kind enough to cheer for me, it holds my opponents, and so on, and through all of it I’ve fought with love. And so I believe that I can even manage to love fully that past itself.”
I found a blog saying that among otaku and online people (and speculating that it’s starting to be in more general usage too), 世界線 can mean “parallel world” - which seems to match Mizuki’s usage here. “opposite world” would be closer in that case than “opposite side of the planet.”
I think the
でも本当に違う世界線にいて、本当に違う世界にいる人
part is probably based on her gesture, her replacing an unusual word with a more common way of saying it, I think. Like she starts with “でも本当に違う世界線にいて” then the “本当に違う世界にいる” is amending that to say it more clearly and attach directly with the continuing part that she thought of (and so if so the double phrasing could be dropped from the translation).
This isn’t exactly wrong but the reasoning in English doesn’t seem like it makes sense in this version (if she’s frank, you’d think she’d tell you her feelings without having to fight her).
My attempt might be:
“Really every time with Itoh I find that I don’t understand her feelings until I fight her, and so I think she’s really a straightforward person.”
Like I think probably the まっすぐ is in the sense of like - there’s a straightforward way of dealing with her and understanding her, and that’s to fight her.
And I think stuff like the 毎回 thrown in there is taking more the position of like, Mizuki’s own experiences in dealing with her.
seems all right to me!
I think she’s saying as in like, straightforward stuff an audience can watch out for while enjoying the match (since that’s presumably why the question was asked, to inform what the audience looks for)
So maybe like “In terms of moves or easy to spot things like that,”
I don’t think I’ve seen the Japanese name for Whirling Candy before… Cool name cool move!
Yeah I think anything with that エビ shape is targeting the lower back, i.e. your 腰, since that’s where the fold is.
I’d say the person knowing and the person asking the question are the same here.
So I’d put it like “I knew someone would ask me a mean question like that, knowing that touching on the subject of Yuka-chi’s graduation would make me cry!”
this is okay, but I’d maybe tweak it slightly to “I’ve thought a lot of ways about it, but at the end of the day what I feel inside is”
I think this is ok. I assume she’s just riffing off of Aino’s constant heat metaphors and is taking the role of stamping that out as the defending champion. And so as she says after this she’s expecting to flare up one last time and then have things nice and cool since she snuffed out the flame, so in that way she’ll be ending the summer heat.
seems fine!
The 怖さがって part is a typo - it should be 怖さがあって
Hmmm it’s kinda hard to phrase 底知れない怖さがある in a way that sounds both good and not over the top in English… “in Rika there lurks unfathomable horror” is probably a bit much “unfathomable terrifying strength” might be a passable hack to try to make it clear that it’s like, intimidating/strong 怖さ rather than horror movie 怖さ…
I dunno, the point is I think it’s the 怖さ that’s 底知れない. (and that Rika has that 怖さ)
(the rest seems ok)
She’s talking about ending the interview / their signing, for one (rather than “it”).
And 第10代目 isn’t “10th generation” but rather “10th champion” since she’s the 第10代目 International Princess Champion.
And finally, for the 私の代で part there’s probably a way I could search to find some kind of definition or grammar point or whatever, but I feel like here it means like, “in my purview” and here’s a hinative post that I’d say confirms that.
And so you’re presumably gonna lose out on the 代 pun, and so it might be unclear exactly why she says it, but I’d say she’s saying “And with that, I thought I would close out this ceremony in my purview as the 10th (International Princess) champion. After all I’m going to close out summer, so I’ll close this as 10th Champion as well.”
seems fine
She’s saying like – you can’t just be like “screw this I’m leaving” even though it’s no count out. So if the referee prompts and a wrestler doesn’t show that they’re ready to fight, they can be disqualified for that reason. Wikipedia says the Spirit of EVE rules allow for a lot of leeway, and that’s kinda the mechanism how - it’s more about the referee’s discretion in continuing the match than it is about specific rules that need to be followed.
I think it might be more like “I thought the EVE rules suit her” moreso than “it was in accordance with the EVE rules”
Not a language comment I was just amused at how angry she still is at Nanba here for reading that off a card!
This one’s a lot clearer in the video since the transcript shortened it a bit:
スケジュールを聞いて
「そんなスケジュールしてたんだ, 私」
って思うくらい
She’s saying to hear her schedule read out like that, she was even like “geez that’s how busy my schedule has been?” - that shows just how much she hasn’t been physically affected by the strenuousness of it, so she’s fine.
I think in the middle part she’s saying like, along the lines of “if we end up on the outside, some of her strengths will be amplified.”
It seems like 上回る generally is referring to an amount exceeding some expectation/something else. And I think in this case the implied contrast is if they were inside the ring, rather than the contrast being compared to Yamashita.
(I assume the missing translated line is just for the quote)
I would put this more like
“No, rather,
Aniki is utterly
summer itself!!!”
It might be just artfulness on your part but I don’t think the original rejects Aniki’s present Anikiness.
I would tweak “won or lost” to “competed” since I would say that’s closer to the verb form 勝負する.
I wanted to try preserving the pun a bit more, and I kinda like:
“Even if we taste defeat, I want to drink a toast!”
My attempt would be
“Nah, of course I want to win
and eat dinner at your family home!”
I think the て form in the winning connects up with the たい later.
The 享楽共鳴 one with Raku asleep is so good! They really knock these posters out of the park don’t they!
Dang, the flavor lost here is tough, but I can’t think of any improvements… Oh well! So it goes with translation sometimes!
There’s a transcription mistake!
現在 took the place of 存在.
We believe that pro wrestlers don’t exist just for fighting.
(roughly – maybe too literal about the 存在 but I feel like it’s one of those things like 姿 where it wouldn’t usually be a noun in quite that way in English so it’s hard)
I‘m just a quiet observer, but this one actually says ワタクシたち
But you figured out the meaning either way 
Oh, whoops, yeah, it looks like it got cut accidentally. Here’s the full last answer:
山下 そうですね。外に出さないようにするところもカギになるんじゃないかな。外に出てしまえばあっちの方が上回ってくる部分もあると思うので。外に出さないことも考えたいと思います。
Yamashita: “Yes. I think the key is preventing her from going to the outside. If we end up on the outside, some of her strengths will be amplified. So I intend on not letting the match go outside the ring.”
I wasn’t sure about the last line but ended up not having time to ask about it before the show started. If that looks wrong, though, I’ll still fix it!
Thank you so much for all of your help with this! I was able to get them all up in time (ギリギリ…)!
Haha, thank you! That’s what I get for trying to rapidly transcribe and translate a bunch of things at 5am .
And welcome to the thread! 
Fallynleaf on a poll match
I’ve been very distracted by certain AEW happenings, but I managed to finish one TJPW translation!
Still have a lot of work to do on the Summer Sun Princess translation, and there’s no way I’m getting it finished before the next show, so I thought I’d focus on translating the comments the wrestlers gave when they did the drawing for the Tokyo Princess Cup on July 10.
Here’s the link to the video, and here’s the official transcript.
I translated the summary they gave at the beginning, and most of it was pretty straightforward:
The random drawing for the tournament bracket was held on July 10 at the Kanda Myojin Office basement hall in Tokyo. Due to a scheduling conflict, Yuki Arai’s first round match was scheduled for July 22 at Ryogoku KFC Hall, and the remaining 15 slots were decided by randomly chosen envelopes.
I wasn’t quite sure how to translate the 所用 in “なお、らくは所用で欠席となり、残った数字がらくの枠として割り当てられた.” I guess maybe “had a prior engagement” might work better? I dunno.
In addition, Raku was absent on business, so the last remaining number was assigned to her. The first round match-ups and the wrestlers’ motivations are as follows:
I think I got the start of Miyu’s:
Yamashita: “This is my tenth time doing this tournament. That means that I have failed to win it ten times.”
This sentence took me a couple tries to parse: “この事実をしっかり受け止めて、今年こそ10度目の正直で今年こそクジで引いた1番、この文字通り優勝したいと思います.”
“I will take that fact to heart, and this year, for the 10th time, frankly, with the number one slot I drew this year, just as that number says, I’m going to win. My first match is against Mizuki, and I was thinking that I’d had bad luck with the random draw up to this point, but I think this is my chance. If I can have a good match against the current TJPW champion and beat her, I think I’ll be able to have a great lead over everyone else, so I want to be sure to beat her.”
Mizuki: “Thank you very much, Ota City. I was feeling really excited for the summer tournament to start, and this is my first time entering it as a champion, so there’s a wrestler I want to nominate when I win it! I think there is a vision of TJPW that only I can show, so I want to win the tournament, and I’m going to start the summer by exterminating a monster! I will do my best!”
Misao: “Moka-chan is my first match, and I think we had a singles match in the past, but she hasn’t left a strong impression so far. But I’m a little scared if I let my guard down here, so first things first, I’m going to win this match. Whoever wins the next one will be an unpleasant mountain to face either way, but on the other hand, I hope Mizuki-san makes it, so please do your best, Mizuki-san! Please exterminate the monster!”
I was a bit confused what Moka was asking about here at first, but I think maybe I figured it out? “3連戦の一日目ですよね？”
Moka: “This is the first day of a three round tournament, right? My singles match with Misao-san was a long time ago, and she said that I didn’t leave a strong impression, so I’ll show her that I’ve gotten stronger. Also, I’m going to try not to let her trick me. She’s very strong, so I will do my best.”
Rika: “I put an end to summer in Ota City, but it was surprisingly pleasant, so I’m planning on starting a second summer in this tournament.”
Rika totally lost me here, haha, “初戦の相手がらくということで、一、二を争うぐらい闘いにくい相手なんですよね.”
“My first opponent is Raku, and she’s one or two of the most difficult opponents to fight. I say that, but maybe it’s just an assumption, so I’d like to dispel it. And I want to achieve the ultimate Grand Slam! The ultimate!”
Suzume: “For my first match, my opponent is the Big Kaiju, and she has a very large presence, but I want to be big this summer, too, so I will do my best. And beyond that point, no matter how far I go, there are only tricky individuals, so I’m going to be a hornet who’s capable of stinging any opponent.”
Nakajima: “I’m Shoko Nakajima, and this summer, I’m celebrating my 10th year as a pro wrestler! I’m not really the kind of person to care much about anniversaries and such, but pro wrestling is really, really important to me, and I want to cherish that number 10 milestone anyway. So I want to get results at all costs! In any case, I want to win for my own sake, and my first match is against Suzume. I already know very well that she isn’t merely a junior. I know quite well that she’s an opponent who has become a threat to me in recent years. Because of that, I can’t lose to my junior! I’m going on a rampage anyway, so please pay close attention to me, everyone!”
Kamifuku: “Every year I say that I really hate tournaments and I don’t want to wrestle anyone, and that I truly hate working hard, but we’ve recently gotten some new rookies, and they’re gen Z, so if I say that sort of thing, when those girls participate in tournaments in the future, they’ll say ‘Kamifuku-san said she didn’t want to do it, so there’s no point,’ and I thought that would be a bit annoying, so I’m going to stop saying stuff like that and will try to take it seriously this year.”
Kakuta: “My summer only just started in Ota City, so I’m going to try to make it the hottest summer of my life and win, win, win.”
Yuki: “For me, this feels like fate. Last year, I faced Nao-chi in the first round of the tournament and lost. And before that, I faced Miu and lost.”
I had absolutely no idea what she meant with ボボボーン here, haha: “しかも、かみーゆってお互いですけど、大事なところでメチャメチャ当たる縁のある相手だから、私はこの山を制して、ボボボーンと8月の12日・13日、準決勝、決勝を闘いたい、そこで優勝したいと思ってます。頑張ります！”
“Not only that, but Kamiyu and I have a history of facing each other at pivotal moments, so I want to conquer this mountain and go on to fight in the semifinals and finals on August 12 and 13, and then I’m going to win.”
Miu: “I was the runner-up last year, and I fought Yuki-san a while ago. I have lots of opportunities to have physical confrontations with Yuki-san on a regular basis, so of course I don’t have any intention of losing this year, either. After that, I’ve still never had a singles match with Kakuta-san, so I’d like to face her. So far, I’ve finished in the top 8, top 4, and top 2, so this year I will try my best to aim for winning the whole thing!”
Arisu: “My first time participating in this tournament, my first match was against Mahiro-san! But I lost, and not only that, I’ve participated in three tournaments, and I’ve lost in the first round of every single one of them. So this time, I definitely want to win and get past the first round!”
Mahiro: “I’ve taken part in this tournament several times, but I don’t feel like I’ve been able to get good results, so this time I want to do the best I can so that I can show the results of my hard work.”
I wasn’t quite sure what Mahiro meant by いい勝負 here: “そして有栖はいい勝負をしている印象があるので楽しみです！”
“And the impression I have of Arisu is that she’s someone who has good matches, so I’m looking forward to it! When I look at the schedule, our tournament match is the one after the first three shows. So, I’m going to take a good look at Arisu Endo as I raise my spirits during those three shows.”
Hikari: “Ever since I made my pro wrestling debut, my memories of summer have been bittersweet. At Ota City, too, I felt disappointment, so this summer in particular, I want to shine brightly and enjoy the summer more than anyone else. I’m going to do my best.”
And that’s it for that! A pretty breezy press conference, compared to some, haha.
On a sort of related note, the promotion 666 has an upcoming big show that Raku and Pom are going to be involved in (I think Hikari too, maybe?), and they did a press conference for it, which I sadly had to miss, but which was advertised as a “婚約会見” (or at least the Raku and Ram portion of it was, haha). Mr. Haku said that he’d be adding translations and posting the video later on his youtube channel, so I’m really looking forward to that!
666 is a pretty wild company, if you’ve never seen anything from them. I’m not exactly sure how to watch their shows, though someone I know said that they’ve been streaming them on NicoPro recently. They can be, uh, kind of raunchy, haha. I’ve only ever seen scattered gifs, not a full match. So I’m not sure at all what to expect for the TJPW wrestlers’ match there.
I think that seems fine.
Hmmm well, technically that doesn’t follow (if it’s her 10th time doing the tournament, then she can’t have failed to win it ten times yet, right?).
Her own wording might have been a little weird along those lines though? Everyone does start chuckling at her a little later… although I’m not sure if it’s about that or the 10度目の正直で (I think I’m leaning towards the latter).
Maybe preserving the present tense of 逃している for like, “that means 10 times over, victory has been eluding me” or something would be a good balance?
Also: it’s the 10th iteration of the tournament overall, she’s just presumably been in all 10 of them. I would translate トーナメント10回目 more directly for that reason as “The 10th Tournament…” or something.
I think maybe what makes people laugh here is that the 10度目の正直 part is saying like, this is the honesty of her 10th time saying this, she wants to win.
Like “for the tenth time I say sincerely that I intend to win,” I think – that’d probably get a chuckle in English too.
Not quite!
連戦 is used for shows in the same place on back-to-back days.
For a quick example, I found a youtube video from 2020 with “来年も東京ドーム 2連戦！” in the title, referring to the announcement that 2021’s Wrestle Kingdom in the Tokyo Dome would be a two-day show like in 2020.
So she’s talking about how the first shows of the tournament are on July 15, 16, and 17, all at KFC Hall, and she’s confirming that since they drew the highest numbers the matches they’re talking about will presumably be on the July 15 show.
(I think a wrestler would need to win 4 matches to win this tournament anyhow)
You’re pretty much onr the right track.
一二を争う appears to mean like, the thing in question is in serious contention for 1st or 2nd most whatever.
So in this case she’s saying Raku is one of the most difficult opponents to fight in the tournament (to the point of being at worst second most difficult).
The one issue is just that “she’s one or two of the most difficult opponents” doesn’t make sense, and should be “she’s the #1 or #2 most difficult opponent” if phrased that directly. (but honestly I feel like you got close enough that an English reader would probably gloss over the odd phrase and get the right meaning )
It’s just the sound of her 制’ing the 山
In the same way スパパパパーン is a sound effect one might make up for suddenly and surprisingly pinning someone in a flash,
ボボボーン is a sound effect one might make up for the rumbling of an overwhelming force taking a mountain or a tournament bracket by storm.
My feeling is that a “good match” as in a 20-stars from Meltzer pro wrestling classic, would be an “いい試合”
For supporting evidence, here’s a yahoo answers question of someone asking for examples of wrestlers who got worse over time:
普通プロレスはベテランになるほどいい試合をする傾向にありますが
逆に新人、若手時代の方がよかった選手はいますか？
In the above I get the distinct impression that the questioner is asking from the perspective of a fan wanting to see exciting matches, and the top answerer in mentioning Iizuka talks about how starting out he did flashy top rope moves but those were replaced by dull sleeper holds and then he became a silly heel character.
My feeling is also that a “good match” in the sense of “that was a good match, kid - you nearly had me there”, being about the competitiveness of the match-up itself, would be “いい勝負”
For supporting evidence, here’s how a backstage comment from Gabriel Kidd was translated on NJPW World from a 2021 New Japan Cup match:
“I went 17 minutes with Zack Sabre, Jr., and now I feel like I’m taking back steps”
The above reads like an accurate translation to me, because his point in saying he went “17 minutes with Zack Sabre, Jr.” is that he was able to have a competitive match with a great wrestler (but now he’s upset that his performance in the match he just had wasn’t so competitive).
So, all in all, it’s not a giant distinction (I would imagine most good wrestling matches are also competitive), but I would say that Mahiro here with “いい勝負” isn’t complimenting Arisu directly on her workrate, so much as she is playing up her role as senpai here and saying like, she’s showing gumption, she’s being competitive, she’s making every match into a real competition (even if she isn’t winning very many). Mahiro’s attitude is unusually authoritative, and they’re very much playing into the senpai/kohai dynamic (with a little bit or irony just since it’s Kiryu).
週刊プロレス No.２２３０ (from February)
I feel like I should remember better that this was a NEVER 6-man team.
In Naito’s column he talks about a recent “challenge match” with Shota Umino. He says that Red Shoes, Umino’s dad, didn’t show any particular bias towards him in the end, showing his professionalism. But when addressing him in the ring Red Shoes called him “Shota” instead of “Umino” making Naito think about how he must have always scolded him the same way. Naito says Shota Umino has a lot of elements that resemble other wrestlers, and he should find his own way more, (and it’s a similar path Naito had, so he speaks from experience). There was also rumblings of uncertainty from LIJ member SANADA in the in-ring promo…
In Kenoh’s column they talk about the upcoming Tokyo Dome show for Keiji Muto’s retirement. Kaito Kiyomiya kicking Kazuchika Okada in the face has caused a bit of a stir, and Kenoh says it’s just because Okada sees Kiyomiya as beneath him and now he’s angry and afraid of him. They also talk about how the same show will feature Nosawa Rongai’s retirement match as well as Muto’s. Kongo definitely isn’t going to lose to AJPW.
There’s an interview with Himeka, who has announced her retirement.
She says she always had a limited wrestling career in mind, and had been thinking 5 years and told her family that, but that would have been last year when she challenged for the red belt, so she felt obligated by the fan support to keep going, until in subsequent challenges for the white belt and IWGP belt tournament she started to feel it was her limit. She’s fine condition-wise with no major injuries (give or take some an incident of knee pain earlier this year) and so she figures it would be better to leave with resolve then linger and wait until a major injury decides it for her.
Her father passed away suddenly in July of last year, and that also influences her decision. She says that the death made her think about regrets she would have if she weren’t able to act on potentials in life, and she feels 「プロレスだけで人生を終えたくなかった」. Asked if her father cheered for her, she says he didn’t even know she was a pro wrestler. He had cried when she told him she wanted to become one. And so she never told him once she did. (geez). She says that that’s wrapped up in why her priority is to not cause worry for people, rather than 「頑張ろう」. But she definitely wonders when she’s alone what he would have thought if he’d seen her wrestle. But he was working alone in Kyushu, so she doesn’t have a clear picture.
Asked what dreams she wants to accomplish in the future she says she wants to live happily, treasure the people who treasure her, and not be in the public eye. The interviewer thought since she was an idol before becoming a wrestler maybe she liked performing in front of people, but she says no way, she’s going to become an ordinary person again.
She says she had talked to her tag partner Maika plenty as fellow athletes about future retirement, including the plan she’d had about retiring at 25, so she felt Maika wasn’t surprised, and she didn’t try to dissuade her. In fact, no one did, everyone was supportive, and she’s glad of that since if they’d tried to stop her she wouldn’t have changed her mind anyway. She says Maika was a huge support these last 2.5 years and her heart probably would have been in tatters without her and she likely would have made up her mind to retire sooner.
Talking about Stardom specifically, Himeka says that although she grew as a pro wrestler, the larger shows and difference in scale of crowds meant more pressure and made things like crowd cheers land more directly. And that weighed on her very frequently. Asked about stand out matches of hers, she tries to think and comes up with none. The interviewer mentions some like the red belt challenge, the 5 Star GP finals, etc., and she says that they’re all memories within her, and she thinks so strongly in terms of 「自分でもいい試合を残せたかな」 that she can’t pick between them.
Stardom Executive Producer Rossy Ogawa had apparently often said about her 「欲がない」 and so she had felt 欲を出そう but supposes now that’s not exactly the same thing, and now that she’s decided on her retirment she’s able to at least raise several opponents she wants to face on her retirement road. The interviewer wonders what it would have been like if she had had “底なしの欲” like Mina Shirakawa or Starlight Kid and she says (with a laugh) probably she’d be at the top. She says she would have liked to have held a singles belt, but truthfully she can’t picture it having happened in Stardom, since she’s seen first-hand how much of a strain and responsibility it is on the champions, and she says she definitely wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight or live up to the expectations.
The interviewer mentions something they wanted to ask about: earlier in February Maihime said after a match that they wanted to challenge for the belt again. Was that a lie? Himeka says no, they wanted to, but although she’d decided her retirement, she wasn’t thinking about the timetable and responded to the fan’s cheers without thinking.
Her last 欲 for Shupro is she was hoping to achieve a solo cover picture… and she’d like a 対談 feature with her 師匠, Jun Akiyama, as well. The interviewer will see what they can do…
In Giulia’s column she talks about rookie wrestlers debuting for Stardom at an upcoming Korakuen show, mainly high-spirited but a bit generic talk about her high hopes and expectations and all that.
It looks like that AJPW adjacent women’s promotion run by Suwama and Ishikawa, Evolution, has three trainees shooting for a debut this spring. There’s some pictures of them training.
This week the Antonio Inoki memorial column is with his younger brother, Keisuke Inoki. Keisuke recounts some of the last days with him. He also recounts their moving to Brazil as a family in 1956, and his brother’s fated scouting by Rikidozan. It sounds like they were working manual labor in agriculture fields at the time (even though Antonio was 14) and his brother was influenced by an older brother of there’s to take up track and also had been scouted by a sumo club in Japan, so he was thinking about being a wrestler already, and a new story about the sibling’s track accomplishments in Brazil in which Antonio appeared was seen by Rikidozan and contact was eventually made. It sounds like the family stayed in Brazil even as Antonio went back to Japan, and they would get late copies of 週刊プロレス’s predecessor, just called プロレス to read happily the limited coverage of rookie Antonio’s exploits. It sounds like Keisuke went back to Japan around the time of Antonio’s wedding and to help with New Japan’s founding in 1972, and was involved back and forth between Japan and Brazi with Antonio’s various exploits, including the tobasco importing. He was also reportedly there for the infamous incident (that’s come up previously in these magazines) where Tiger Jeet Singh attacked Inoki in a public place. The reporter and Keisuke joke a little about how there’s no visual artifacts of the incident, because it was before smart phones, but also because it probably would draw a lot of criticism today.
I kinda like how they share a strong resemblance, but also don’t seem like they look alike at all since with Antonio Inoki the chin draws so much attention…
In the history column, Nagare pinpoints Antonio Inoki’s peak year as 1974, and describes it as starting with the announcement that Strong Kobayashi was leaving 国際プロレス to become a freelancer. It sounds like at the time it was a bit camoflauged what he would be doing, but it would build to the famous feud between him an Inoki.
(since this has also come up previously, between this and that Tiger Jeet Singh shopping mall attack, I’m feeling pretty good about my ‘big moments in Japanese pro wrestling history’ literacy that I was immediately like “oh yeah, Strong Kobayashi becoming freelance, I see where that’s going, that’s a big deal”)
ah bummer they didn’t win
In Hideki Suzuki’s column, they talk about the Mutoh Retirement Tokyo Dome show, and the interviewer opens by mentioning Suzuki’s not on the card, to which he objects ”のっけから死人にムチ打つような話を…” but says it’s because it’s an all-star show and he’s not a star. He says the card is loaded with not just NOAH but NJPW, AJPW, TJPW, etc. because there’s bound to be curious people watching since Muto is the last true television not just wrestling star, and so it’s a good opportunity to show those people this is what wrestling is nowadays. They also talk about Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Kento Miyahara, which will be their first match together in a very long time, after they came up together in Kensuke Office and were rumored to not like each other.
I’m not finished with the Summer Sun Princess translation yet (there’s been too much wrestling recently…), but I’m more than halfway done, and I thought it might be better to split the show into two posts, haha, since it’s so long!
Shupro actually transcribed the UUG part at the beginning, so I translated that as well (I have no idea why they refer to Miu by her surname here and then by her given name later on, haha):
Watanabe: “We have an announcement! Last month, we revealed that we’d added a fifth member, and I’d like to introduce her to everyone here. Uta-chan!”
Uta enters from the walkway.
Uta: “Hello! I’m Uta, the Up Up Girls (Pro Wrestling)'s new member, from Ishikawa Prefecture. My specialty is doing ice cream reviews. I recommend Papico’s chocolate coffee flavor. Pleased to meet you.”
Watanabe: “Now that the young and innocent Uta-chan has joined, we’ll be performing all over as an idol group, so please check us out. Uta-chan is aiming for her pro wrestling debut, so please support her. And with that, I’d like to start the show, so everyone get ready to raise your right hand. Okay? Let’s start the show with a cheer as loud as you can do. Let’s go, TJPW, start!”
The first match was Juria’s 復帰 match, though I admit, I was rooting for Daisy Monkey, haha. Fun match either way, though!
In Arisu and Suzume’s comments, Arisu’s second line immediately confused me, haha. She said, “じゅりあさん復帰戦で、もかさん＆じゅりあさんのタッグとでじもんは3回目で1勝1敗だったんですね.”
Endo: “I won! It was Juria-san’s return match, and our two teams went into our third match together with one win and one loss each. But I…”
Suzume: “You got your win back!”
Endo: “I got it back. I did it! Not only that, I’m so happy that I was able to get that win myself on such a big stage. I think I was able to do it because of Suzume-san’s assist.”
Suzume: “It feels like it’s been a while since we tagged as Daisy Monkey, doesn’t it?”
I wasn’t quite sure about the last part of her sentence here: “でもこういう大きい大会で私たちで始められたっていうのはすごい嬉しいし、私は有栖と組むと楽しいけど自分のダメなところがいっぱい見えちゃうから.”
“I’m so happy that the two of us could kick off such a big show, and I enjoy teaming up with Arisu, but I can see that I have a lot of faults. I’m going to do my best this summer, both as a tag team and on my own. …I’m not going to lose.”
Endo: “I won’t lose, either. So then let’s do our best, together!”
Suzume: “Let’s do it!”
Here are Moka and Juria’s comments:
Miyamoto: “Congratulations on your return, Juria-san!”
Juria: “Thank you so much!”
Miyamoto: “I faced Juria-san in a singles match one year ago at Ota City. I’m really happy to be able to team up with her a year later. It has been a long time since we’ve been able to tag, so it was a lot of fun. I really didn’t want to lose in our third match with Daisy Monkey, so there’s a part of me that’s really frustrated. But I hope to grow together with Juria-san.”
Juria: “I’m really glad to be back after a six-month absence. To be honest, even though it was just two fingers, I really thought while I was out that I might not be able to make my return. But with the support of so many people, the fans cheering me on, and my senpais’ guidance, I was able to return at Ota City this July. I’m sorry about the result. I lost. Suzume-san and Arisu-san have both gotten a lot stronger. I need to train… I was able to win during the tag team tournament thanks to Moka-san, but I knew that I couldn’t win if I didn’t train. Today I was able to reconfirm that my fingers are in good condition, so I want to train some more and look for an opportunity to get revenge.”
(What about the time you spent away?)
“My fingers were broken, so I couldn’t take any moves… So I’ve been building my strength with weights, kicks, and aerobic exercises. But the power that those two had… I felt like I didn’t have the physical strength or the power. I spent time away, after all. So I feel like I have to compensate for that and power up as fast as I can.”
(What is your immediate goal?)
“I’ve only gotten two wins on my own, so I want to get a win by myself as soon as possible after my return.”
I had a bit of trouble translating “指が折れてて受け身ができなくて…”, because I’m pretty sure she’s specifically saying that she couldn’t take any bumps with broken fingers, but I was a bit reluctant to use that word since it’s kind of an insider term…
After that match, there are several with no shupro transcripts. The first of those is the tag match with most of the rookies. It wasn’t anything special, but it was nice to see how far everyone has come since Grand Princess, especially the youngest wrestlers!
Here’s Himawari/Shino/Neko/Mahiro’s comments. I think I got the basic meaning of “ハルの勝ちたい気持ちがバチバチに伝わって、気合の気合で絞らせていただきました” across, but lost some flavor because I couldn’t figure out how to translate the バチバチ, haha. I also wasn’t quite sure what was happening with “気合の気合で”?
HIMAWARI: “Haru’s desire to win came across, and I squeezed it out of her with my fighting spirit.”
Shino: “I didn’t want to lose to someone in my same class.”
Neko: “This was my first match in two months, and I was glad for the streamers and everyone’s cheers.”
Mahiro: “I heard everyone’s voices. It gave me power!”
Haru/Kaya/Runa/Toga’s comments:
Toribami: “Haru, you did your best!”
Haru: “It was the same match configuration as Ariake, so I thought I’d grown a bit, but I lost…” (cries) “I want to do my best to surpass HIMAWARI-san…!”
Toga: “We’ll definitely win the next one!”
Nao/Ryo vs Kamiyu/Asuka ended up being one of my favorite matches in the show, haha. I loved both entrances a lot, and the match itself had so many fun dynamics and exchanges between the wrestlers. I was so bummed that shupro didn’t transcribe these comments!
Here’s Nao and Ryo’s comments:
Kakuta: “I was able to watch from her side the whole time, and there were so many things to learn. Thanks to Mizunami-san, my summer has started!”
Mizunami: “To describe her in just a few words, Kakuta is a woman of tenacity! I think if she’s able to demonstrate that, she’ll become even more attractive. Let’s all enjoy our summer to the fullest!”
I wasn’t exactly sure of the best way to translate “魅力が増していく”. It seems like all the words I could think of in English have sort of the wrong connotations…
Here’s Kamiyu and Asuka’s comments:
Kamifuku: “Sorry!”
Asuka: “Shut up. Why’d you lose?! Even though we wore matching gear today…”
Kamifuku: “Mizunami-san is really strong, okay? Let’s go out tonight. Do you want to invite Aniki, too? I absolutely will not lose to her when it comes to alcohol.”
VertVixen vs Hikari didn’t leave a super strong impression on me, though I was rooting for Hikari because I thought it would be fun for her to become Defy champ, which is a PNW-based promotion. Alas!
Vert’s comments were in English:
(How was the match?)
Vixen: “Oh, the match, what a war. What a war! I knew, I knew that Hikari was going to give me the war, and she did, she brought it, she brought everything she could. That flurry of dropkicks, all those thrust kicks, I thought I was a goner. But no, at the end of it, I still came back champion, just like I predicted.”
And here’s Hikari’s (hooray for full transcripts):
Hikari: “I honestly think she was really strong. The wrestlers that make up TJPW are also really, really strong, but her physique was different, and there were many times where she was truly overwhelming. I’m really frustrated. For this singles match, even if it hadn’t been a title match, I wanted to have a really good match, but I wonder how it went from Vixen’s point of view. I’m really happy that she chose TJPW, and that she chose me to be her opponent for her first title defense in Japan. I was truly longing to have a title match with someone I could consider a partner. I’m really happy about that. Thank you so much!”
The 3way tag team match was super, super fun, haha. Another one of my favorites! I loved Raku and Aja Kong swapping weapons haha so that Aja was attacking with Raku’s pillow, and Raku had the 一斗缶. The backstage comments for all three of the teams were all a bit chaotic…
With Pom and Max The Impaler’s comments, there were a lot of やばい’s, which as usual caused me a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to translate them. Here was my attempt:
Pom: “This is bad… this is really bad…!”
The Impaler angrily slams their hands on the table.
Pom: “AAH! Max’s anger isn’t at Pom, right? It’s probably directed at Aja-san and the others…” (The Impaler glares at her and growls “Aja”) “AAH! Y-yes. They seem to be angry at Aja-san. I thought Aja-san’s team was the real threat, but Kyoraku Kyomei was too much… Scary! Really.”
The Impaler flips over the table and heads backstage.
Pom: “AAH! Scary! H-hey!”
For these next two, I was a little unsure of the order in which they happened? So I’m just including them in the order that shupro listed them. I think since Aja references crowdfunding that her comments happened after Misao and Shoko’s?
In any case, here’s Misao and Shoko’s comments:
Misao and Nakajima showed up with the bicycle at the backstage interview location.
Misao: “What’s that? Something seems to have happened, but Kyoraku Kyomei won!”
Nakajima: “We won!”
Misao: “It was an outrageous kaiju movie, wasn’t it?”
Nakajima: “Yes, but with this match, we proved to the world that in the battle between three big kaiju, it was Kyoraku Kyomei who had the upper hand! Look, everyone: from this point onward, it’ll be Shoko Nakajima and Hyper Misao ruling over summer. I will prove to the world this summer that the Big Kaiju is Nakajima!”
Nakajima & Misao: “Pay close attention!”
Misao: “As a side note, this Hypami Mobile, it got a bit beaten up in the big kaiju battle today… What should we do about it?”
Nakajima: “Wow! Let’s crowdfund for it or something. Let’s do crowdfunding!”
Misao: “If there’s any company who wants to sponsor Kyoraku Kyomei, please contact CyberFight.”
Nakajima: “Hey, bicycle shops!”
Raku and Aja’s comments were, well, just watch, haha.
Aja Kong & Raku ran into Nakajima & Misao on their way backstage. Frustrated at having lost her chance for victory, Aja beat up Misao’s bicycle, and attacked both of them with her eighteen liter tin can. Then she sat down to speak to the press.
Aja: “I’m sorry, Raku-chan. My eyes have been acting up ever since she got me with that cold spray.”
Raku: “They’re still not back to normal?”
Aja: “No. My eyesight was off from start to finish. That cold spray, it’s really a pain in the ass. I thought I’d finally get to beat Max to a pulp, but…”
This part was tricky: “あんなことされなかったら、マックス２人一緒にやっちゃって、組んでるつもりになって。裏切られたっていうか、私のパートナーはらくちゃんだったから。間違えた私が全部悪いんです”
“If I hadn’t gotten got, Max and I could’ve done it together, and we’d have teamed up. I was double-crossed, or rather, my partner was Raku-chan. I made a mistake, and it all went belly up. I’m sorry. But we didn’t take the pin. It was that bike of theirs. They ran us over. That’s what did it. They don’t have to crowdfund for it.”
Raku: “You don’t have to do it.”
Aja: “It’s a waste of money; don’t do it. If you want something to crowdfund, then do it for my eighteen liter can and Raku-chan’s pillow. Please crowdfund a strong pillow and an eighteen liter can.”
Raku: “Please!”
Aja: “Next time, let’s do it, alright?”
Raku: “Yes!”
Aja: “But today was fun, too.”
Raku: “I want to team up with Aja-san again.”
Aja: “Yeah. Thank you very much. Damn it!”
After that was Miu vs Nyla Rose from AEW, which I was really looking forward to! It was a pretty fun match, though sadly Miu wasn’t able to complete the Giant Swing. She’ll just have to fight Nyla again…
Nyla’s comments were (mostly!) in English! The only part that I wasn’t able to catch was after she mentioned CoCo Curry House and sashimi. She said “I just kept pounding it, [???] my absolute favorite” and I couldn’t catch what was her favorite, haha.
Nyla: (in Japanese) “It’s really hot, huh? Water, please!”
(in English)
(How was your match?)
“My match was great! I won. Every match I’m in is great, but they’re especially great when I win. Which is what I do often.”
(How was Miu? She did manage to lift you up for the Giant Swing, but it wasn’t a clean one. However, she did bodyslam you twice pretty clean. What was her power like?)
“Okay, okay, really? We’re bringing that up? Alright, yeah, okay, so she got that big stupid swing on me. But she didn’t get it good! Because I fought! I fought through it all! The second I landed here in Japan, I went to CoCo Curry House and I got some katsu curry. Then I pounded it down with some sashimi. I just kept pounding it, [???] my absolute favorite. I just kept eating and eating because I wanted to be heavy because I study my opponents. That’s right. That’s why she couldn’t pick me up. Because I’ve been packing it on since I got here. (Mr. Haku starts translating) “Keep going, let me catch my breath.” (Mr. Haku translates) “And Happy Turn,” (in Japanese) “It’s delicious.” (Mr. Haku translates) “Anyways, what’s the next question?”
(This was your first appearance at Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling. What was the TJPW experience like?)
“You know what? It’s been fantastic. It’s a little frustrating that I don’t have as quite knit a bond as some other people here. I didn’t have a second out there. So when it got hot, I didn’t have anyone hand me a water. So that sucked a little bit. I didn’t have anybody watching Miu when she came up from behind and got the big ol’ swing on me. So that sucked. But, but, it has been a good time. The fans have been absolutely fantastic. A few Nyla Rose fans in the house, as you saw. ‘Cause they’re worldwide, just like me.” (Mr. Haku translates)
“Can I just say, Miu Watanabe said earlier that she was going to show the world, and I think she did that. She didn’t get the win, wasn’t going to let her do that, but I saw something in that girl. This isn’t over.” (Mr. Haku translates)
Nyla slams the table and stands up. She yells in Japanese, “Where’s the water?”
Miu’s comments were a bit tricky. These sentences in particular I wasn’t sure about: “滅多にないAEWの、世界のトップ選手と当たるチャンスをものにできていたのかどうかっていうのは…分かんないです。全部をものにできたのかは分かんない…けど。でも、きっといつか未来、もっともっといつになるか分からない先の未来になるかもしれないけど、きっとこれがきっかけで世界の扉を拓いたのかもねって、いつか絶対言わせてみせるようにこれから闘います.”
Miu: “Whether or not I was able to really seize this rare opportunity to face someone from AEW, one of the top wrestlers in the world… I don’t know. I don’t know if I was really able to take full advantage of it. But, I’m sure that someday in the future, though I don’t know when that future will come, maybe I’ll be able to say that this was what opened that door to the world. I’m going to keep fighting so that one day I’ll be able to say that. I always get praised for my Giant Swing, so I wanted to swing her at the same rotation speed as usual, but I couldn’t do it…” (cries) “But, I’ve added her to my list of opponents that I will definitely swing someday. So I will do my best so that I can be sure to meet Nyla-san in the not-too-distant future.”
And that’s probably enough for now, haha. I’m hoping to finish the rest of the show pretty soon so that I can get started on the TPC shows.
I am going to try very, very hard not to get too distracted by Golden Lovers stuff tomorrow, but we’ll see…
Yeah, that seems fine. It’s the 3rd match between them, and they were 1:1 (going into it).
This seems fine. I’d maybe augment it slightly with like, connecting more that it’s the kicking off the big show that highlights her faults and makes them visible, and that that’s why she’s going to make sure to do her best.
Yeah… 受け身 is kind of a locus for my burgeoning theory of English-language/Japanese-language kayfabe comparison. My feeling is that it’s completely natural for wrestlers speaking Japanese to say it because it’s in the sense of like, martial arts training to take opponents’ offense. Whereas in English-language terms we just… don’t really have a well known term for that? And kayfabe logic ostensibly wants us to think in someway that wrestlers aren’t training to take moves in particular ways, but are just training offence and reacting to it naturally I guess?
Anyway, “taking moves” is I think the best fudge for it. I agree “taking bumps” would be too insider-y/kayfabe breaking (but that the action discussed is essentially the same thing described slightly different ways).
I agree that you got the basic meaning, but it needs some punching up!
The 気合の気合で is the kind of phrase that’s frustrating to google, but I think it amounts to emphasis, particularly in like, how much she had to draw from the well (because of the difficulty). Like she didn’t just draw on the regular 気合, she had to tap into the 気合の気合い. That seemed to jibe with hers and another usage I found, anyway.
Mild tweak here, but I think “Let’s invite Aniki okay? Since I definitely won’t lose when it comes to alcohol.” is slightly closer. She’s suggesting making up for the loss by besting Aniki in booze.
(And I confess I just like that Ryo’s pronouns are essentially Aniki/Aniki so much that I would try to covertly preserve that in my personal style guide)
I think I like these やばい attempts fine except “scary.” こわい’s “scary,” やばい is… やばい.
In the “Scary! Really.” she’s still talking about Kyoraku Kyomei so I’d tweak it to “Kyoraku Kyomei was too much. Way too much! Really.”
And then maybe you could get away with playing off of that for the last one, like “AAH! You’re too much!” or something.
Hm yeah I think she’s saying that like, if she hadn’t gotten sprayed, she was thinking she and Max could make a go of it and team together, but she was betrayed (by getting sprayed), or rather, it’s more accurate to say Max was never her teammate in the first place, that was Raku, and so she lost sight of that and that was her mistake.
I’m not sure either, and looking at the website for the curry house didn’t show any obvious solutions (though boy it made me hungry for curry).
My best (but still bad) guess is maybe a spice level and she’s saying it was spicy curry (like 辛い doubled and filtered through a non-Japanese-speaker’s pronunciation or something) but I could of course be overlooking something obvious.
The beginning’s fine but you got tripped up around the きっとこれがきっかけで世界の扉を拓いたのかもねって、
part.
In いつか絶対言わせてみせるようにこれから闘います, she’s saying she’s going to fight to 言わせてみせる, and so that’s 言わせる, and てみせる like in this grammar form - that part’s emphasizing her intention to bring about the 言わせる. And so since it’s 言わせる and not 言う、it’s causative. She’s going to make people say “きっとこれがきっかけで世界の扉を拓いたのかもね.”
As in, although she didn’t manage to make great use out of the opportunity today, she’s resolved to fight to make sure that at some point in the future, she’ll be such a world-class athlete that in retrospect observers will look back at this and go “boy that was the start of something wasn’t it.”
Ryo’s pronouns essentially being Aniki/Aniki is really good, haha. I think I’ll try to preserve that going forward, though it might be a bit tricky with some of the longer comments, because I try as much as possible to use the terms that the wrestlers are using to refer to the wrestlers.
In other news, I somehow managed to finish the rest of the Summer Sun Princess translation, despite Golden Lovers distractions!!
The next match was Miyu vs Sawyer Wreck, which I didn’t think was quite as fun as Mizuki vs Sawyer Wreck without that size disparity, haha. I was a bit surprised that they didn’t transcribe the comments for this once, but, well, they didn’t.
With Miyu’s comments, the main line I wasn’t sure about was: “持つべきものは強い一発の武器、Skull Kick.”
Yamashita: “I was a fool to put my belt on the line against Sawyer… I’m battered, but I won. I had to have a strong weapon that could beat her in one shot, my Skull Kick. I won by hitting her squarely with that. This is a belt from the UK, so I couldn’t let it slip away from me in Japan.”
Sawyer’s comments were in English! Somehow yet again I couldn’t quite figure out what she was saying after her first sentence, though, haha. This show is proving how much even my English listening comprehension has limits…
(So, how was your match?)
Sawyer: “I had a ton of fun. [???]. It was an incredible time to be in there with such a fucking tough opponent. She is incredible and ah, I want to create all the violence with her, going forward. The most fun. Thank you.”
(How was it fighting in this big venue?)
“Any venue in Japan is light years ahead. It’s just an incredible experience. This, all the fans, it was next level. It was incredible.”
After that was Sakisama and Mei Saint-Michel vs Yuki Arai and Wakana Uehara! This was a fun one for the interactions between Arai and Sakisama, which were extra charged since not too long ago, she was tag champs with a certain wrestler who happens to look a lot like Sakisama…
I thought it was really interesting how the tone of this one was so different from the Hyper Misao vs Saki Akai match at the end of 2020, which happened in sort of parallel circumstances (Misao faced her after having been tag champs alongside Sakisama for a while). But Misao and Akai are both faces, and Sakisama is a heel, haha, so there were all these exchanges where Arai looked at someone who looked exactly like her former tag partner and saw only the cold gaze of a stranger staring back at her…
The finish, too, where Sakisama pinned Wakana and stared down Arai, who was trying to get to her but couldn’t quite make it, that reminded me a bit of when Akai and Arai won the tag belts from MagiRabbi, and Yuka couldn’t quite get there in time.
Here’s Sakisama and Mei’s comments:
Mei-san: “Sakisama! Did you happen to see Mei-san’s first dance?”
Sakisama’s line here was confusing, haha: 'ワタクシがお外にいる時に、ダンスされてたのよね。あらなーに、これ夢みたいだわ."
Sakisama: “It happened while I was outside the ring. You were dancing? Oh, this is like a dream.”
Mei-san: “The fact that I received praise from Sakisama, that means that my dancing is the best in the world, doesn’t it?”
Sakisama: “That is true. I wondered if you had some experience on Broadway. It was splendid. We danced in the ring for the first time in a long time, but, ah, those opponents of ours. Well, they seemed to shine a little bit, but were they unpolished diamonds, or just pebbles?”
This next chunk was a bit tricky (some of it meaning, some of it trying to figure out who exactly she was talking to/about): “それもこれからみなさんが判断すればいいんじゃなくって。いいこと？ ワタクシと誰かを重ねて見ているようだけど、失礼しちゃうわ。ワタクシはワタクシしかいないわけ。唯一無二の存在なの。いいこと？ そのへん、勘違いしないでいただける？ 頭が高くてよ.”
“I suppose that is up to all of you to decide. Is that alright? People seem to be repeatedly looking at me as if I’m someone else, but I have to apologize. I am nothing besides myself. I am the only one like this. Alright? With such a matter, please try not to have the wrong impression. My head is high. Ah, who is the most beautiful in the world?”
Mei-san: “It is Sakisama.”
Sakisama: “Who in the world do roses most become?”
Mei-san: “Why, it is Sakisama.”
This was a sentence that I feel like I understood the Japanese, but did not understand the meaning, haha .
沙希様「NEO美威獅鬼軍ベイビーちゃんたちを愛しているのはだーれ？」
Sakisama: “Who loves the NEO Biishiki-gun babies?”
メイ・サン「NEO美威獅鬼軍でございますわ」
Mei-san: “It is NEO Biishiki-gun.”
Sakisama: “That is right.”
(Arai used the Rookie of the Year Award?)
“I’m sorry. I’ve only just arrived from France, so I don’t understand the meaning of your words. What I do is called the Academy Award. Could you please take care not to confuse them?”
There’s a bit after that that’s not in the transcript, but I wasn’t able to catch enough of it…
Here’s Arai and Wakana’s comments:
Arai: “Neither of us had fought Biishiki-gun before.”
I wasn’t totally sure what was going on in the last part of this sentence: “やっぱり映像で見たりした分にはキレイだなとか、カッコイイなとか、そっちの方ばっかりに目がいっていたんですけど…”
“I had seen videos of them and thought they were beautiful, and cool, and you can’t help but look at them. Their teamwork was very smooth, and every single one of their moves hits hard. The match really showed that Biishiki-gun isn’t merely beautiful, and it made me really want to do it again. I want to beat them.”
Uehara: (with tears streaming down her face) “Even though the amazing Arai-san led the way, even though she worked hard… I dragged her down. I’m still really disappointed, but… that frustration, that’s how serious I’ve gotten. I realized that I want to fight a lot more from here on out. But Bi-gun was truly strong… though Arai-san was there, and she was really reassuring.”
(You used a move that looked like the Rookie of the Year Award)
Arai: “Yes, I did the Rookie of the Year Award. Sakisama resembles Akai-san, and there’s a part of me who can’t help but see that when I look at her. The Rookie of the Year Award is a move that Akai-san taught me, but after our time as a tag team, I never used it. I’d been wanting to use it a lot going forward, but I hadn’t been able to take that first step. Today, I wanted to make this the place where I took that step, so I brought it out.”
(Ota City has been the location of a lot of matches that became turning points for you in your career. How about this time?)
Arai’s answer was a bit tricky: “そういうターニングポイントはその時は全然分からなくて。大田区もその時はまだ全然気づけていなかったんですけど、振り返った時にすごい大きい出来事だなって思うことが大田区には詰まっているので。今日、わかなちゃんと初めて組んで先輩たちに立ち向かったことは、きっと後から『あの時があったから』って思えるんじゃないかなって.”
"I don’t know what kind of turning point it is this time. I haven’t realized yet what it was on this occasion, but when I look back, Ota City is full of things that I think of as being big events for me. Today, teaming up with Wakana-chan and facing our senpais, I’m sure that down the road, when I look back on this, I’ll be able to think ‘because there was that time’.
I’m not great at recognizing moves, so I totally didn’t catch the Rookie of the Year Award stuff in this match, haha. In hindsight, though, it’s such a fascinating way for Saki Akai to pass down that move to her. I really appreciate the way they worked that into the kayfabe here. Though it also makes me sad to think about Saki’s approaching retirement… 
Getting back to this TJPW show, though, I really liked the semi-main event! This was Rika vs Yuki Aino for the International title, and I was rooting for Aino, though I’ve been enjoying Rika’s reign so far. I think this might be my favorite singles match I’ve ever seen from Aino? I thought it was incredible! They had me on the edge of my seat by the end. I was sad to see Aino lose, though both wrestlers should be really proud of their performances there.
Here’s Rika’s comments:
Tatsumi: “The one left standing at the end was Rika Tatsumi with her diamond hips! But I wasn’t the only one who shined. Yuki shined like I’d never seen her shine before, emitting radiance the likes of which I’d never seen. So, of course I’m looking forward to my own defense road, and I feel like I’m looking forward to Yuki’s future more and more. Ah, I know I already said that I was going to put an end to summer, but I was having so much fun, it felt like summer had already arrived. Yes, the next summer will continue! Please watch me, thank you!”
I struggled with this question from the interviewer: “挑戦者のどういう部分にいつもものを感じた？” and also with the start of Rika’s response: “なんだろう、もともと熱い闘志っていうのは持ってる選手だと思ったんだけど、怖さというか.”
(What part of the challenger do you feel is always present?)
“Well, I knew from the get-go that she’s a wrestler with a passionate fighting spirit, but I didn’t know how scary she could be. I got to know Yuki’s scary side. Yes, I really felt like I had only one drop left in me, so it was really down to the wire. I didn’t think it’d go like that. I said that I’d totally given up on her, but she still had more to show. Me, too.”
(Are you glad that you were able to fight in the title match today?)
“Yes, truly. It was a good experience for both of us. I hope you’ll look forward to Rika Tatsumi and Yuki Aino even more now!”
(What led to your victory today?)
Rika’s response was a bit confusing, but also maybe she’s just being Rika, haha, and it’s meant to be a bit of a weird thing for someone to say… “えー、なんでしょうね。もう、試合の時はホントに直前ももう無理だ、逃げ出してやる…！って感じなんですけど、もうなんか突き抜けて、宇宙が見えたじゃないですけど。うん、見えちゃってますね。知らないゾーンに来たからだなって思います.”
“Well, I don’t know. Even right before the match, I felt like I couldn’t do it, that I was going to run away! But now I’ve broken through, and I can see the universe. Yeah, I can see it. I think it’s because I’ve reached a zone that is unknown to me. Yes, thank you so much!”
Here’s Aino’s comments. The only thing I felt tripped up on here was her first couple sentences, which I wasn’t sure about: “私はまだベルトを巻く器じゃなかった。それがこの結果だと思います.”
Aino: “I wasn’t ready to wear that belt yet. I think that’s what this result means. However, fighting Rika-san, I was truly able to burn more than I’d ever burned before. It was so much fun. I think I was able to achieve perfect combustion. But I still wasn’t able to win. There were a lot of people who were eagerly awaiting it, and I could really feel their support. I’m really disappointed that I couldn’t live up to their expectations. I’m going to keep doing my best, so please keep watching me. Thank you very much!”
And then the main event! I was really looking forward to this one because the Maki Itoh/Mizuki rivalry is one of those defining rivalries for TJPW, and it’s so cool to see it on the biggest stage like this. I was really crossing my fingers that Mizuki would win, haha, though the odds seemed 50/50… I like Itoh and want her to have that belt someday, but not now… And, well, the universe was smiling on me, haha, because Mizuki did in fact win!
I had some help from Mr. Haku for the post-match stuff here. But even then, I wasn’t quite sure about some of the specific wording for Mizuki’s first sentence here, haha: “伊藤さん…、伊藤さんがずっと過去のことを『黒歴史』だとか、『そんな伊藤、死んだ』とか言ってて、あぁ、そうなのかな…とか思ったりしたけど、やっぱり私たちが一緒に平行線で歩んできた道は間違ってなかったし、本当に変わらずカッコいい…”
Mizuki: “Itoh-san… you’ve always said that our past was ‘dark history’, and ‘that Itoh is dead’, and I thought, ‘oh, is it really like that…’, but I knew that the parallel paths we walked together weren’t wrong, and truly you’re just as cool as always… Yeah. I won today, but Itoh-san is still my rival.”
Itoh: “You’re talking down to me, but you don’t know how I feel. You said that our paths were parallel, but I don’t think that at all. I don’t like talking about the past, but just for today, I’ll say it. We came to TJPW seven years ago, right? And we were in the Itoh Respect Army and doing various things together, but before I knew it, you were just getting stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger… And just when I realized it, you won the tag belts with someone else. It felt like I was always extending my arms out to you. I mean, there was nothing I could do besides be jealous. That’s what I call my dark history. That period of time when I couldn’t do anything but reach out to you, when there was nothing but jealousy, that’s my dark history.”
The end of the first sentence here was a bit tricky: “でも伊藤は気づいたらお前とこの大田区で、メインを飾ってて、ずっと見上げてた。手を伸ばしてたのがやっといま同じ目線に立ったと思ってる.”
“But finding myself here in Ota City with you, in the main event, I was looking up at you the whole time. I was reaching out to you, and now I finally feel like we’re standing at the same eye level. So, for that reason, that’s why I can say it. Now, as I am right now, I don’t think of you as a rival! Or I should say, I respect you! I respect you from the bottom of my heart. Truly, congratulations. Please keep fighting me going forward.”
Hearing this, Mizuki offers a handshake, and Itoh looks down, wipes her tears, and shakes her hand. Then Mizuki pulls her into a passionate hug. Afterward, Mizuki bows deeply to Itoh as she exits the ring.
Mizuki: “To everyone who came today, and everyone who is watching the show on the stream, please continue to walk, filled with love, together with me and all of the members of the TJPW roster. Thank you so much for today!” (she bows deeply) “Eat hamburger steak, and HAPPY HAPPY!”
Here are Mizuki’s comments.
Mizuki: “Thank you so much! Right now, I feel a bit relieved…”
The end of this sentence was confusing to me: “私が歩んで来た過去も、この必死な防衛ロードも、間違ってなかったんだなって思えるし、ここから先の未来も東京女子のみんなと一緒に歩んでいける、伊藤さんと歩んでいけるって、ゆかっちと残り少ない時間、でも、ずっとずっと歩んでいけると思ったらすごい幸せだなと思いました.”
“I think the past that I’ve walked, and this desperate road of defenses, those choices weren’t wrong, and from here, I’ll be able to walk together with everyone in TJPW, and with Itoh-san, into the future as well. I don’t have much time with Yuka-chi left, but it makes me really happy to think that we could walk the whole way together. I truly felt that I was loved. Thank you very much.”
(Itoh said that she respects you)
“Ever since we met, the whole time I’ve known her… Itoh-san has changed a lot, but the things about her that I think are cool have always been cool. I have always, always respected her, so I can proudly say that Itoh-san is my rival.”
(The tournament is about to start)
“That’s right! When it comes to tournaments, I’m a particularly strong princess. So, I want to win it and nominate an opponent for my defense.”
Here are Itoh’s comments:
Itoh: “…I lost. But, well, there’s nothing left to say. Today, I lost. If there’s a next time, I don’t know what’ll happen, but I’m glad that I was able to meet an opponent like this. It’s… I don’t know. I referred to it as a dark history, but I’m glad that it happened. I feel like I’m able to rest in peace. Thank you very much.”
(Will your story with Mizuki continue?)
Basically her whole answer here was tricky, hahaha. She said: “それはお前らが考えろ。もうね、簡単に答えを求めるんじゃないよ、アンタも。そりゃ簡単だけどさ。伊藤がいまの気持ちを言葉にしちゃえば。分かるよ。みんな分かりやすく応援できると思うんだけど、アンタたちそれでいいわけ？ もっとここ（頭）を使いなさいよ、もうちょっと。伊藤はあの時どう思って、なんで握手をしたのかとか。ちゃんと頭を使いなさい。頭があるんだから.” Here was my best attempt:
“Think about that yourselves. Don’t demand simple answers. You neither. It’s simple, but, you know. If Itoh puts into words what she’s feeling now. You get it, don’t you? I think everyone’s able to support me in an easy to understand way, but is that good enough for you? Use your head a little more. What was Itoh thinking at that time, and why did she shake her hand? Use your brain. You have a brain.”
And that’s it for that show! Whew!
So far, the three TPC shows don’t seem too bad, in terms of amount of comments, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get the round one comments all done before round two starts, haha.
The thing I would tweak is that the structure for the part you weren’t sure about isn’t “I needed to 持つ something XYZ, namely the Skull Kick”, but more like “the thing I needed to 持つ was the XYZ Skull Kick.” (持つべきもの is 強い一発の武器、Skull Kick)
As in like, a little less literally, roughly “my lifeline was the one-shot-KO weapon, my Skull Kick.”
This one I can make out!
“Can’t you tell?” maybe ‘couldn’t you tell’
said through a big grin, hence why it’s hard to hear.
I think the
is her reacting to Mei’s little dance as she’s saying it, in praise:
like “Well well, it’s like you’ve stepped out of a dream!”
Hence why Mei says she’s been complimented even though Sakisama wasn’t immediately present for the original dance they were talking about.
The other aspect I’d maybe tweak is the “It happened while I was outside the ring” lacks the “oh yes, I gather that is what happened isn’t it” element of the original.
A few comments for this part:
First, she’s definitely joking about how people for some reason talk about her as though she has something to do with Saki Akai when she doesn’t,
Secondly, I would say that both 失礼しちゃうわ and 頭が高くてよ are misattributed in your translation here to be talking about herself, when I would say they are both telling off those making such a mistake for being rude and impudent, respectively.
Thirdly, Weblio has a definition for いいこと that’s:
【二】［感］相手に念を押す気持ちを表すときに女性が用いる語。「—、二度とそんなことをしてはだめよ」
Which I would say definitely applies here, so it’s not a sincere “Is that alright?” so much as it is “alright?” in a condescending, pressing, “we’re already on the same page about this aren’t we? We better be” kind of way.
From the context here, I guessed NEO美威獅鬼軍ベイビーちゃんたち was presumably what she calls her fans you know, like how Kenoh’s calls his クソヤローども
and I believe I was able to confirm that with some digging (a little tricky since sometimes they transcribe it spelling out “baby” in letters). The clincher is here:
庶民の皆さま、ワタクシたちを追いかけてくださった美威獅鬼ベイビーちゃんの皆さま、美威獅鬼軍の世界へようこそ
She gets mad at the lack of questions and leaves. It’s along the lines of “What? The two of us being here before you is such a rare occasion and yet all of you are standing there dumbfounded! Mei, we’re leaving!”
I would say rather the そっちの方 is their beauty and coolness - that aspect of them is all she saw when she watched their videos (since it’s so exceptional), but their cooperation and strength is what struck her now fighting them in person.
It seems like there’s one of those mix-ups that’ll seem a little silly in retrospect here – she’s saying その時, but it’s ended up as “this time” and “this occasion”!
It should be “at the time / those times”.
As in, she didn’t know it at the time that those would be turning points, and she didn’t at the time have any particular association with Ota City in that context. But it’s something that she does recognize now looking back.
The other thing I’d say is ‘because there was that time’ is probably too literal, although in that way where it’s hard to say exactly what to tweak it to since it’s just more natural to say it that particular way in Japanese.
‘that’s why I’ve made it this far’ is my attempt, which might be a little too explicit in filling in some of what’s left out, but is more natural in English at least.
I hadn’t! It’s really good!! 
what stuff from Japan? 
The question is I’m pretty sure a transcription error.
I think he says
“挑戦者は、どういう部分がいつもと違いましたか？”
as in roughly “how was the challenger different from her usual self?”
And I imagine your translation of Rika’s answer will feel more right with that context!
I think it’s one of those cases where the weirdness is largely explained by the specific wording of the question - the reporter asks about “自分の中にどこsomething something as Rika starts answering” so he’s asking about what like, place she found within herself to meet the challenge of the title match, and so that’s why her train of thought goes to like, “I drilled so deep into myself I broke through and found outer space.”
Still a Rika-ish answer, but one that follows more from the question!
Yeah I think this is fine! (although the 器 part feels fancily phrased enough that I bet there’d be a fun way to punch up the English to try to match)
I think this seems fine.
The clauses and tenses get a little confusing here, and I don’t know that the period placement in the transcript helps, but I would say the feeling I get from listening to the video is that, is that she found herself in the main event at Ota City with Mizuki, and the person she had always looked upwards to and held out her hands to, was finally here now standing at her eye level.
My only note would probably be that I would say the でも、ずっとずっと歩んでいける part isn’t about walking with Yuka but about feeling reassured that she can still walk with everyone indefinitely even once Yuka isn’t around.
Like, the implication being Yuka’s retirement is a main reason why she would have been worried that maybe she wouldn’t be able to continue on with the TJPW gang. But she’s feeling completely reassured that she could walk with them to the ends of the earth if need be.
My attempt:
“Think about that yourselves, don’t just ask for simple answers. Even you should know that. Yes, it would be trivial for me to put my feelings into words. I get it. Everyone can cheer for a simple to understand story. But you mean to say that’s enough for you? Use your head a little more! Try to picture what I was thinking in the ring, why I shook her hand, things like that! Use your head. That’s what it’s for.”
This is one of those ones where it’s tough to pinpoint exactly what to comment outside of providing a version of what I think she’s saying, since it’s mostly the flow of the train of thought that feels like it hasn’t ended up quite preserved through the transcription’s clauses and the end translation.
I bought a few of the alternate universe TJPW portraits from HYPE, haha, because I couldn’t resist. And the timing just so happened to work out that I could also get the Saki Akai poster and a few of the the DDT furry portraits from the DDT store and bundle them together with the rest of the things I bought.
I’m kind of picky about wrestling portraits, so I like to get really unique ones, and both of those sets qualified. One of my favorite sets that TJPW does fairly regularly is the ぽむとれ～と series, which are taken by Pom, who does photography as a hobby. I think she has a really amazing vision as a photographer, and her portraits of the other TJPW wrestlers are always full of so much warmth. You can really see how well she knows them. Unfortunately the last run of these they did were too late for me to add to this shipment, haha, so I had to pass them up this time 
.
I also got linked to the Japanese pokemon store, haha, which was dangerous . These terrariums were just too cute and I couldn’t resist getting a few…
Usually I add in a book that I’ve been wanting every time I order wrestling goods, so this time, I bought myself a copy of 擬音語・擬態語4500 日本語オノマトペ辞典 because I’ve been a bit fixated on onomatopoeia lately haha. I sort of want Saki Akai’s new photobook, because I’m curious about her creative vision for it, but I’m still undecided, and in any case, it won’t be out in time for me to get it with this shipment of stuff anyway.
I’m avoiding thinking about how much the shipping will cost for all of this stuff 
.
