At today’s Ice Ribbon event in Yokohama retired wrestler Yuuka announced her return to the ring at Ribbonmania 2025.
Yuuka wrestled for Ice Ribbon with from 2013 to 2016 with a number of outside appearances for Pro Wrestling Wave and BJW and a handful for other promotions. She officially announced her retirement in 2019, so this return is after 6 official years away from wrestling and 9 years since her last match.
Yuuka’s a personal favorite of mine and was always a blast to watch. A few months ago I randomly decided to spotlight a decade old match of hers against the incredible Kana (now WWE’s Asuka). In an amusing coincidence less than a half hour after I posted that blog it was announced that Yuuka would be making a special appearance at Ice Ribbon that day as a second for Kyuri in Kyuri’s anniversary match.
Since then Yuuka has worked as support staff for Ice Ribbon’s parent company NeoPlus and started participating in the theatrical wrestling project Pro Wrestling Venus.
Yuuka’s return to wrestling will be 10 years to the day of when I had the privilege of seeing her wrestle Sareee live in a special teens spotlight match at Ribbonmania 2015 during my first trip to Japan.
Really happy for Yuuka that she has this opportunity to come back to wrestling and that she wanted to do so. Excited to see what this new part of her career will bring.
Welcome back, Ice Ribbon’s White Angel.
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A pair of former bounty hunters turned planet development surveyors are about to receive a not-so-voluntary job offer to locate a woman named Tera and a fabled project called Icarus. On the plus side, it might happen to come with a side of revenge…
The Icarus Huntis one of my all time favorite books, and for over two decades it was a one book stand alone story.
In 2022 Timothy Zahn revisited the world of Jordan McKell with a sequel/spinoff series called The Icarus Saga. The Icarus Plot is book one of six.
I read this when it came out, but didn’t get a chance to continue with the rest as the series progressed. I remember liking it, but the details were fuzzy resulting in this reread before I continue on with the others.
Icarus Plot picks up several years after the events in Icarus Hunt, and while similarly in first person it features a different protagonist. There’s significant conceptual overlap and opportunity for familiar faces to pop up, but the point of view character is new and comes into the narrative from a different direction.
This is a fine start to the series and explains enough that a reader could jump in here, although there’s a lot more depth if familiar with the original book this spins off of.
That said it’s masterfully balanced to serve either kind of reader. Things that could be either foreshadowing or red herrings for those familiar with Icarus Hunt add intrigue but still convey enough information for new readers to get most of the payoff. Well done all around.
The original novel was a mystery in space, and this likewise has heavy mystery elements in a well developed sci-fi world with the kind of mix of adventure and intrigue common to Zahn’s writing.
Without getting into spoilers one of the main twists was pretty predictable, but it was still well executed and important to the framework of the rest of the series. This feels every bit of its first book status as it lays a lot of groundwork for future installments, but it still works really well on its own merits.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. It didn’t exactly reach the heights of Icarus Hunt, but it was a solid sequel with a good mix of new characters and familiar faces that set things up nicely for the rest of the series.
Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically as I am able.
If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.
Nothing was announced ahead of time, but the Halloween show lineup is pretty standard at this point: an opening match followed by the main event Halloween Rumble with plenty of costumes and shenanigans all around.
Akki came out in a Goku costume to introduce the show. He amusingly talked about how they have upgraded their effort over the years for special shows and shows off all the decorations. “We prepare now.”
1) Sakura Emi vs Erii Kanae
Emi, in her normal gear, had largely lost her voice so pre-match she tried to teach the audience how to do her sing-a-longs on cue. It didn’t go great, but I’m sure they’ll manage.
Erii came out as the wicked witch and belted out a scales song. Her voice is incredible.
ChocoPro GM and retired wrestler Aoi Kizuki is our referee.
Sakura was antagonizing Erii right from the get go, from slapping away the opening handshake offer to throwing Erii into the fans to biting her way out of holds. Erii often countered Sakura’s nonsense by singing into her ear or with her heavy hitting tackles and strikes. Erii looked really clever at several points in this in how she handled Sakura, with the veteran often needing to take shortcuts to retake the advantage.
There’s always an interesting additional level of uncertainty in Sakura’s matches against rookies, as while no one expects she has any chance of losing her back issues are so well known and established that anytime someone gets her in a hold that targets it there’s a sudden sense that just maybe a miraculous upset is in the works.
But not this time. Sakura outlasted Erii, eventually getting her We Will Rock you crossbody against the wall followed by a splash from the window for the win.
This was a textbook blending of wrestling action and the lighter entertainment aspects, with the dueling singing being the central theme, leading to a really good veteran vs rookie match. Despite spending 8 months of her year and a half career so far out with injury, Erii’s looking great.
Sakura made up with Erii afterwards and they hugged.
The effervescent GM/ref Aoi did the sponsor shoutouts, then it was on to the main event.
2) Halloween Battle Royal
ChocoPro battle royals and related match types are pretty straightforward. Eliminations can happen by pinfall or being tossed out of the window. Yep, really. Last person left wins. This is staggered entry at largely random intervals, and since it’s Halloween everyone will be in costume.
Chie Koishikawa in a giant crab costume and a cackling pirate Mei Suruga wielding an umbrella and with “KILL” written on her cheek start. I feel like Mei uses her costumes each year as an excuse to up her already impressive levels of evil.
Koishi-kani and Captain Mei had a suitably absurd and wonderfully amusing fight, with Chie giving Mei trouble with her claws and Mei doing Mei things like grabbing the crab costume’s eyes and lots of biting. Crowd was way behind Chie with big kani (“crab”) chants.
Eventually Mei “breaks” one of Chie’s claws then bites the exposed arm then an angelic Sayaka comes out to try to talk Mei out of eating Chie. When that doesn’t work the angel starts beating everyone up. Fair enough.
The chaos escalated as our pirate wrapped the angel up in duct tape, then did the same to the terrified crab’s claws. With the two out of action, Captain Mei turns her attention to … trying to destroy the Halloween balloons. Evil Apple is evil.
Entrants get more frequent as Sailor Moon Otoki (Tokiko Kirihara) hits the pirate over the head with her wand then tries to free the captives but gets interrupted by a Miya Yostuba the shark.
Miya shark slaps people around but the angel gets free and levels her. Sayaka and Miya have had issues over Miya and her tag partner Soy wanting Sayaka & Makoto’s tag titles.
Temporary Boston crab by Sayaka on Miya, then Sayaka takes off a wing and beats on Miya with it. Miya’s limited in how much her costume restricts her movement, so she takes it off and destroys Sayaka for a while. Wanted to highlight this section as it was a nice bit of feud relevant action worked in to all the craziness of this kind of holiday match.
The craziness resumed when Miya locked in her Cloverleaf but bratty pirate strikes again and chokes Miya with her own shark costume.
Later with Mei unwisely up in the window Miya hammer nearly eliminates the pirate, but Mei hung on. Sayaka rolled up Miya for 2, but as they traded blows Miya got a jackknife cradle for 3 to eliminate Sayaka and pin one half the reigning tag champs.
Bumble Bee Obihiro Sayaka is next and levels several people then joins forces with her crabified Popcorn Carnival teammate to do their baseball shot double team on Otoki and Mei. But crabs and bees can only coexist so long and they turn on each other. Later Chie gets kicked out of the window to the outside by Obi and is eliminated.
Hiyori Yawata enters in full Team Hiyori mode as a soccer player who passes out a few jerseys to fans then scores a soccer goal on Obi. Yes really and I’m not trying to explain further. Some absurdity just has to be experienced.
Later pirate Mei is up to mischief again choking out Hiyori with her own jersey and Baliyan Akki (still dressed as Goku) comes out from behind the camera to smack her upside the head.
Sayaka takes over camera and commentary for the remainder of the match.
Obi gets eliminated when Akki catches her mid air and sends her out the window.
The final entrants are our opening match participants, as Erii comes out to sing the story of explorer Sakura. They sing small world and everyone linsk hands. This won’t end well. Akki jumps Sakura before she can turn on them and in the background Mei, Miya, and Hiyori roll up Erii for 3.
Sakura waves her walking sticks around conducting We Will Rock You and keeps adding people to the pile. The sticks are kind of flailing uncontrollably at points and she caught Akki in the face at one point. Sayaka keeps taking about how dangerous it is.
Sakura forces Hiyori to help her splash everyone then throws Hiyori’s soccer ball at Aoi. The ref has been catching a lot of strays recently.
Sakura forms a staircase out of everyone and climbs to the window. That was dumb. Sure enough Akki gets up there without a staircase and knocks Sakura out for the elimination.
Chaos picks up again and Hiyori ends up being targeted by everyone else. Sweet Best Bros assisted moonsault by Otoki and Hiyori’s out. Shirt lived alliance though as BBB (double arm trap rollup) on Otoki gets 3 and she’s gone too.
Best Bros and Miya (who has put her shark costume back on at some point) are the final three participants.
Akki charges a Dragon Ball attack. Mei shoves Miya into it, but then runs into a tilt a whirl backbreaker by Akki. Best Bros fight each other for a bit leading to Mei being stranded in the window trying to fight Akki off with her trusty roll of duct tape. Akki simply knocks her out instead … and gets immediately tossed from behind by Miya! SHARK WINS.
The traditional janken tourney ends up with 3 years of experience vs 30 years of experience in the final. With Miya vs Sakura. Sakura tries to get a 30 years chant going and everyone chants Miya instead. Perfect.
Miya wins the chocolate to top off a pretty awesome show for her. During the post show she gets in Sayaka’s face and requests a tag title shot after pinning her. Sayaka begrudgingly accepts. It’s always amusing when Smiling Violence gets grumpy. It’s official for the next ring show: MiyaSoy vs Bell Flowers for the Asia Dream Championships.
Killer Queens (Emi & Mei) vs Himiko and Haruka Umesaki is announced for next show. Mei goes from scary pirate to happily waving at the camera in excitement as soon as Haruka’s name is announced. Really cool matchup of DareJyo trainers vs former DareJyo participants who went to a different company (Diana) when they debuted.
Halloween shows always rock. Highly recommended.
Visit ChocoPro’s YouTube channel to check out all of ChocoPro’s content, including the replay of this show. Everything they are doing goes up for free under Sakura’s “No Pay Wall” initiative, so if you do enjoy and are able / would like to support please see their link tree for information and support options.
Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically as I am able.
If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.
Derailments of Thought 