May 6, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan
Pure-J is an interesting case for me. They have a reasonably talented core roster… most of whom I personally don’t really connect with for some reason. As such I wasn’t sure I was going to attend this show (and had originally planned to attend another running at the same time than had some Ice Ribbon wrestlers appearing), but once Aoi Kizuki announced her retirement I wanted to take advantage of possibly one last chance to see her wrestle (although as it turns out I will have a few more…). Other guests including Saori Anou, Sareee, Mari (in my only chance to see her this trip), and Saki also increased my interest in this show.
As honestly expected for me I found the opening two matches of Commando Boishoi vs Mari Manji and Leon vs Kazuki fine but unremarkable.
Yako Fujigasaki is hit or miss for me, so I wasn’t sure how the Visual Hunter Battle Royal (which was more like a gauntlet match for Yako than a everyone-for-themselves battle royal) was going to go. It ended up being great fun. Saki, Koharu Hinata, Aoi Kizuki, Hanako Nakamori (Pure-J champion and my favorite of their roster), Saori Anou, and Makoto got the better of Yako frequently and there were several good story beats mixed into Yako’s attitude, perseverance, and eventual win. Hanako got in her face after the match and has every ringside cracking up with whatever was said. Yako’s definitely improving and growing on me, and she was pitch perfect in her role here both when getting her comeuppance and when it was time to turn on the attitude. Aoi always amuses me greatly, Saki is a vastly underrated talent, and the more I see Saori the bigger a fan of hers I become.
Mari & Sareee kept the main event tag contest against Manami Katsu & Rydeen Hagane energetic and exciting while allowing the Pure-J regulars to flash power and control portions as appropriate without bogging down the pace. Sareee’s a superstar in the making.
I liked this more than I expected, primarily on the strength of the later two matches. The highlights continue to be from guests (and again that’s not a knock on the talent of the core roster, but more reflection of my personal tastes), but as long as the show’s enjoyable that doesn’t matter in the least. Decent way to wrap up the wrestling portion of that trip.
Derailments of Thought 
7 replies on “Pure-J 5/6/18 Live Thoughts”
In the first set of pictures, it looks like one of the wrestlers is wearing a helmet with a clown nose? What is up with that?!?
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Heh. That’s because she is wearing a mask with a clown nose. 😉 Not sure what the story is. When I first saw her a few years ago I assumed she was a comedy character, but she’s actually a seriously presented competitor who’s a longtime veteran.
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Kudoes to you for being able to watch that. I’d be distracted the entire time planning on how I could steal it and throw it away…
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That’s totally not allowed.
Eh. As I mentioned she’s one of the wrestlers who’s talent but not a personal favorite, so distraction isn’t necessarily a bad thing…
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[…] At the time I had no plans to be back in Japan until the December holidays, so managed to add in a Pure-J show on May 6th, to perhaps see Aoi wrestle one last time. She was involved in a surprisingly fun gauntlet battle […]
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[…] Like during my May trip, this was another case where I went to a to Pure-J primarily to see Aoi Kizuki as her career wound down. This was her final show for Pure-J, exactly one week before her self produced retirement show. It was my second of Aoi’s final company shows, as I saw Aoi Last Ribbon the day before. […]
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[…] semi-final against Marvelous’ Takumi Iroha. In spring of 2018 I lucked into seeing her at Pure-J in an interpromotional tag team main event alongside Actwres girlZ’ Mari against Manami Katsu […]
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