Back in 2022 Tokyo Game Show, an annual video game trade fair, featured several AEW sponsored wrestling matches to promote the release of AEW Fight Forever. The eventual game itself was less than warmly received, but the unique matches had quite a bit of buzz around them from those lucky enough to catch them.
The lineup contained a mix of a few select AEW roster, some Japanese wrestlers who had appeared for AEW, a couple of DDT’s stars and one of TJPW’s top rising stars (at the time). Most of them worked two or more matches through the weekend. There were a total of 9 matches over the three days involving 10 different wrestlers.
These matches were recently put up for streaming on the Wrestle Universe platform (subscription required). They involved a lot of my favorites wrestlers of all time on both the women and men’s sides so I’m thrilled to see them finally shared.
Christopher Daniels vs Chris Brookes
Winner faces Takeshita later in the last match of the day. First of many dream matches in this lineup for me. Been watching Daniels wrestle for well over a decade starting back in ROH, and I’m extremely familiar with Chris via ChocoPro.
Daniels has worked Japan a lot in the past and is part of AEW talent relations, so was a natural choice to be involved in this. Brookes has been DDT roster for years, making this an interesting matchup of two foreigners well established in Japan. All of the other competitors in these matches are Japanese.
Daniels was getting close to 30 years in at the time of these matches. He retired from in-ring competition earlier this year.
On a completely random note, Chris has incredibly awesome entrance music.
Brookes’ size advantage vs Daniels’ experience edge anchored this match. It was all about Daniels picking Chris apart and Chris fighting back with holds and high impact strikes and moves. Solid, straightforward stuff that was exactly what it needed to be as the initial offering to a potentially largely unfamiliar audience.
Ending saw Daniels hide behind the ref when Chris up top and kick ropes to cause an unfortunate landing for Brookes. With Chris crumpled on the mat the Best Moonsault Ever (BME, a triple jump up the corner turnbuckles into a moonsault) was academic for the for win.
By the numbers finish in the best way possible that gave Chris an out and let Daniels proceed to Takeshita.
Daniels teased heel tendencies during the match and went full bore during the post match interview by attacking his translator (Michael Nakazawa) to send a message to Takeshita. Takeshita came out and Daniels bailed, saying they’ll face when he says so. Super efficient way to set up a story for their impending match.
Ryo Mizunami vs Hikari Noa
Such a treat to see these lost Hikari matches. She was a personal favorite who left wrestling last year. The three women’s singles matches across this event are basically her running a gauntlet of several of my other favorites. A rising star in TJPW at the time, these were her first and only AEW affiliated matches. The other women participants had all appeared for AEW before. She starts with the charismatic powerhouse Mizunami.
Mizunami easily overpowered Hikari in the opening lockup, absorbed Hikari’s dropkicks like they were nothing, and wiped her out with several shoulder tackles.
It was made crystal clear that Hikari was fighting an uphill battle here, and her tenaciousness was the story. She fought tooth and nail to even get a hair toss, which took several attempts and stomps to Ryo’s feet to be able to move the much larger competitor.
Mizunami easily reversed a scoop slam, and later when Hikari floated out of another slam attempt by Mizunami the latter simply leveled Hikari with a chop. A Camel Clutch tortured Hikari until she could make the ropes, she took machine gun chops in corner, and so on. At one point was nailed with and STO and Mizunami’s big leg drop for a super close 2.
But Hikari was the best kind of persistent underdog and fought back whenever she got an opening. At one point she countered a corner rush with a dropkick, ducked a Mizunami lariat then hit a flying clothesline, then threw her dropkick barrage at the powerhouse. Later a great rolling cradle got 2. Other close calls for Mizunami came from a sliding rollup with a bridge and a superkick barrage.
Late match Mizunami took a superkick but then fought off a Blizzard Suplex setup and nailed Hikari with a lariat followed by a spear. Hot Limit (Cradle Shock variant) ended it.
Energetic encounter with the outmatched Hikari throwing all she could at Mizunami until she had nothing left. Perfect match for the participants. Fun stuff.
Christopher Daniels vs Konosuke Takeshita
Daniels slaps away handshake offer to remind everyone he went full heel earlier in the day. This is about 6 months before Takeshita’s big heel turn in AEW, and he was 100% pure babyface in this time period. Takeshita started in DDT but now primarily wrestles in AEW, being official roster for both companies (and recently NJPW as well).
Daniels pulled Takeshita’s hair then gloated about taking him down. In turn Takeshita LEVELED Daniels with a slap. Ten seconds in and the battle lines are drawn, the characters clear, and the crowd engaged.
Takeshita got a huge reaction for landing some big shots on Daniels early. He teased an inside out suplex from the apron, but Daniels went to the eyes and proceeded to control for a while. Highlights included a sweet Saito suplex, and mounted punches to *back* of Takeshita’s head in the corner in an unusual and brutal looking spot.
Later a back elbow and a lariat gave Takeshita some daylight, and the pace picked up. Takeshita hit a gorgeous plancha then back in a Blue Thunder Powerbomb got 2.
Daniels dodged Takeshita’s jumping and hit Angel’s Wings… FOR ONE?! Great use of the quick kickout there.
Takeshita fought back with a rolling elbow, but his charge in the corner eats boot. BME gets 2. Having Takehista tough things out and survive the move that put Brookes away earlier is particularly nice layered storytelling for anyone who attended both matches.
A palm strike with Takeshita up top set up a FrankenSteiner attempt by Daniels. But he was pushed off and ate canvas. A jumping knee from the turnbuckles followed, then Takeshita hit another for good measure to get 3.
Formulas are formulas for a reason. Great little feel good, well worked face over heel match. Hottest match of the day.
All three of these matches were a blast and exactly what they should have been for the event. Really impressed with how it was all handled and presented, and at a solid 9-10 minutes of action apiece these were a great way to promote the game and potentially introduce new fans to AEW and wrestling in general. Looking forward to watching the rest.
Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates on Wednesday and Saturday.
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.
While the core attraction of any wrestling promotion is of course the wrestlers, there are a variety of other people involved in various necessary supporting and production roles. One of the most visible of these is the ring announcer, who introduces match participants, announces results and winners, and conveys other information as needed to the audience.
An enthusiastic, skilled announcer adds significantly to the experience of attending or watching a wrestling show, and one of the very best in recent memory is Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling’s (TJPW’s) Sayuri Namba.
Sayuri Namba PSC by Miki Okazaki.
Since 2018 Namba’s been an integral part of TJPW’s presentation. Her pre-show instructions to the crowd is part of the ritual of attending and TJPW often starts their livestreams early so viewers get the whole experience. (For those who don’t know, pre-show instructions include information about post-show merchandise sales and meet and greets, as well as rules about permissible photography, behavior, etc.) She’s as much a part of the roster as the wrestlers, and participates in meet and greets and merchandise.
Namba is charisma personified, occasionally odd in endearing ways, and able to convey gravitas when the situation demands it. She’s always excited about the shows and portrays that excitement well, which makes it contagious and gets the audience excited too. Her presence makes already fun TJPW shows even more enjoyable.
This is where I’d normally talk about my first time seeing Namba at a live event, but I have no specific recollection because there’s no specific moment to recall. No debut match to point at in the way there would be with a wrestler. Namba is a perfect announcer in that regard. She knows how to engage and entertain the audience while remembering that her task is to shine a spotlight on the competitors. No one moment stands out or draws attention away from the matches, but she’s completely memorable overall because of the enthusiasm and uniqueness she brought to her duties.
She’s also become so integral that it feels like she’s always been a part of TJPW, even though I started watching a couple years before she joined.
Namba puts her all into everything she does. A particularly great example of this is the amount of effort she put into TJPW’s costume chekis (small polaroids), particularly the annual Halloween ones. She did multiple costumes each year and they were always fantastic.
Wonderful picture in which Namba decided to mimic the pose of a character on my t-shirt.
Namba is incredibly friendly and always excited to meet fans. I was fortunate enough to meet her several times during my pre-pandemic trips to Japan. She made serious effort to communicate with foreign fans and her English has gotten quite good.
On June 22 at TJPW’s Ryogoku KFC Hall show Namba will be “graduating” from TJPW (the term is used in Japan when someone leaves a company to move on, whether it’s for retirement or a case like this). There will be a special event entitled “Sayuri Namba’s Dream Come True Special” on June 14th. I hope everyone has a great time in the next few months giving Namba an enjoyable sendoff.
She’ll be moving to Vancouver, due to both it’s proximity to America and hearing good things about the area itself.
Namba will be missed in TJPW, but wishing her all the best abroad whether she continues with wrestling announcing or finds a new path.
Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates on Wednesday and Saturday.
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.
Everyone has their own preferences and favorites when it comes to wrestling. Style, presentation, and other factors vary greatly among the large number of wrestling companies in the world and are all a matter of taste among fans.
While in general I tend towards a more athletic event, intensely competitive style of wrestling what I care about most is enjoying what I’m watching. May seem like an obvious statement, but worth explicitly mentioning as in my case it means a wide range of wrestling genres appeal to me. Both nail biting intensity and well done comedic moments can really draw me in to a match when done well.
As I often say in reference to an old favorite, TJPW’s August 26 2017 show: sometimes I want to see my two favorite wrestlers in a promotion tearing the house down for a title…
…and sometimes I want to see Maki Itoh chasing idol lumberjacks around the ring with a squeaky toy hammer.
When any promotion can give me both in the same show and have it feel natural and cohesive I’m as happy as can be.
For me wrestling is at its best when its a mix of light heartedness and intense competition. I want my humorous elements woven into the general framework of wrestlers competing and trying to win, but can go for pretty absurd match premises and gimmicks when internally consistent and done well.
Ice Ribbon and ChocoPro (formerly Gatoh Move) have been always great places for this combination, which is a large reason why they’re two of my absolute favorite promotions.
This year’s Ribbonmania from just a couple weeks ago was a great example of a well paced, thoroughly enjoyable top to bottom show with a variety of aspects to it. ChocoPro’s holiday shows were likewise a blast with a little bit of everything sprinkled throughout.
All of which brings me around to what prompted this particular deep dive into the happy aspects of wrestling: ChocoPro’s most recent roster addition Kaho Hiromi.
Emi Sakura is excellent at developing wrestlers within their own ways to really highlight what they can do while letting them be wholly unique. I’d argue no other environment or trainer could have given us Lulu Pencil, the wonderfully goofy ninja Sayuri, etc.
Over her near 30 year career Sakura has trained a large number of children, including AEW’s first ever Women’s Champion Riho who started at age 9 and is a 18 year veteran at age 27.
Sakura’s most recent wrestling prodigy, reigning Super Asia Champion Mei Suruga, is following in her mentor’s training footsteps as well with similarly excellent results. With Sakura living in the US as part of her participation in AEW, Mei has been the primary teacher for several of the recent roster additions.
Mei runs their casual training program DareJyo in Sakura’s absence, with Sakura being heavily involved as well whenever she’s back in Japan. DareJyo recently shared one of its showcase events on YouTube. It’s a great watch and provides insight on how ChocoPro approaches introducing people to the world of wrestling.
DareJyo is open to women and girls of all ages. Several DareJyo participants have continued on into full training and later officially debuted as professional wrestlers, including Mei herself as well as the energetic and cheerful grade schooler Kaho Hiromi.
The imposing multi-time champion 20 year veteran powerhouse was a mismatch for Kaho is just about every way imaginable. But that was the point. The match was about Kaho’s effort, perseverance, and attitude. She showed all in spades. Her charisma and determination shined and the crowd was behind her even against the super popular Mizunami. The outcome was never in doubt, but I was invested in Kaho’s efforts all the same. She eventually fell to Mizunami’s leg drop, but Ryo carried the little warrior to the back on her shoulders in a show of respect.
Her matches in the months since them have been likewise engaging, but it was specifically her matches around the holidays that brought all this to the forefront in my mind and made me want to write this post. This year was rough for me and I was stuck home alone for the holidays. Being able to watch and enjoy various wrestling shows from my favorite promotions halfway around the world helped my mood a lot. And it struck me how often watching little Kaho do her best with a smile on her face against opponents bigger, stronger, and older than herself was bringing a smile to mine.
ChocoPro’s approach with Kaho has been excellent. Again the company has a lot of experience over the years with wrestlers of vastly different ages, sizes, and experience levels and knows how to showcase people within their limitations as well as the proper tone to establish.
Kaho generally wrestles with veterans and/or her trainers in the matches. If you watch carefully you’ll notice she doesn’t take heavy strikes or generally anything high impact. But you have to watch carefully to notice, as her matches are just plain too much fun and enthralling to be thinking about stuff like that.
And that’s what matters. Sakura’s companies have always been built around the idea that wrestling should be fun for both the wrestlers and fans, and the fun Kaho has in her matches is both obvious and contagious. She’s a plucky underdog trying her best, and her matches are a lighthearted blast to watch. They’ve developed a moveset and strategy that suits her, such as crossing her arms in front of her and charging opponents as a strike instead of traditional chops that would have no impact at her size.
She’s doing great. She moves well, gets the crowd excited, and is naturally incredibly easy to get caught up cheering for. Emi Sakura is one of my top favorite wrestlers in the world, yet I still can’t help but to cheer against her as she smugly taunts Kaho.
While some people may instinctively recoil from the idea of a child in a wrestling match (and/or intergender wrestling, another cornerstone of ChocoPro), there are a lot of great in ring stories to be told involving an opponent completely out of the realm of what a veteran would normally expect. It doesn’t have to be everyone’s thing, there are plenty of other companies and styles to watch, but again it all speaks to me personally as a fan.
Kaho often confounds her opponents a bit with her quickness and size. She’ll counter holds by wrapping herself around their legs in ways others can’t. She can jump around, dodge, and generally frustrate them in ways only a kid can. Usually unfortunately she gets caught and someone like Sakura leverages Kaho’s own attempted holds to force a pin (the boos Sakura has gotten when she essentially sits on Kaho for a victory are huge).
Recent highlights include ChocoPro 314’s triple threat that saw her face Sakura & Sayaka and her participation in the Christmas show’s battle royal. The latter saw her first encounter with DDT’s Chris Brookes, which was a riot (and cemented Chris being evil). She’s also had several fun mixed tag matches recently giving people like Hagane Shinno a new challenge.
Kaho’s been a wonderful addition to the ChocPro roster, and I really just wanted to take the opportunity both to spotlight her and to reminder everyone how important it is just to straight up enjoy wrestling. Whether your thing is desperately wanting a heel vanquished, deathmatches, sports-like presentation, comedy, or like me a mix of several approaches find companies that do what you like well, and have fun experiencing them.
Some other great currently active young and/or rookie wrestlers to watch include, but aren’t limited to, Ice Ribbon’s Kirari Wakana, TJPW’s Uta Takami, SEAdLINNNG’s Miria Koga, and the recently freelance Saran. I hope to keep watching all of them and Kaho for however long wrestling continues to be viable and fun for them all.
Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025.
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.
Ribbonmania is Ice Ribbon’s big annual year end show, which I’ve been watching since I became a fan of the company in 2015 and haveattendedseveraltimes in the past (pre-pandemic when I could travel).
It’s been ages since I got to sit down and watch much wrestling and longer since I’ve written up thoughts on a show, so I’ve really been looking forward to this one. A lot of the wrestlers here are either new to me or I’ve only seen them a couple times.
In the wake of management changes this is the final show for a good portion of the roster before they move on to other things. I’ll be mentioning some specifics throughout the review (and will recap the remaining roster at the end).
Two roster members who are staying are not on this show: Ice Ribbon ace Tsukasa Fujimoto is on maternity leave, and Infinite Potential Girl Kaho Matsushita is out due to injury.
With all that said, away we go.
1) Kirari Wakana vs. Miria Koga
Miria, a rookie from SEAdLINNNG, has wrestled in Ice a few times but this is my first seeing her. She faced Kirari singles and tag action previously, with both matches ending in draws.
Kirari debuted last July (with an unusual debut win). I’ve seen a bit of her here and there, and she’s come across as a charismatic rookie with sound basics and excellent potential. She reminds me a bit of Asahi in both look and energy (which is of course bittersweet considering Asahi’s untimely passing in early 2024).
Kirari was sporting awesome new gear here.
This was pretty polished for a match between two wrestlers with under a year and a half combined experience. They made the most of what they were capable of and had several tense exchanges. Determination was absolutely dripping from both and the tangible feel that winning the match is important to them came across well. Was engrossed in this one for the duration.
To my delight Kirari won by rolling Koga up super tight following an extended series of attempts and reversals. Overall Ice Ribbon’s newest roster member showed the heart of a lion.
Great way to open the show. Kudos to both rookies. I’m becoming a huge fan of Kirari, and I also hope Koga keeps coming back.
The wrestlers in this match were the six participants of the Challenger: Ring of Hope series that made it through and ended up debuting as professional wrestlers. They all debuted on August 26, 2023 at Ice In Wonderland 2023.
Minami left Ice Ribbon to go to Marigold in early 2024 and was making a special appearance. This was the final Ice Ribbon roster appearance for the other five. Koike and Hanaya are retiring. Mifu, Grizzly & Nanae seem to plan on continuing elsewhere, with their destinations unknown at the time of the show. (Mifu has since announced she will be joining TJPW and debuted on their big annual January 4th show.)
It was nice to see Minami appear for this match, giving us one last trios contest with all of them involved. She’s had a complete look overhaul in her new company. This is the first time she’s wrestled here since leaving, and the first appearance of anyone from Marigold in Ice Ribbon.
Mifu is a former International Ribbon Tag Team Champion (with partner Kyuuri) and as such the most accomplished of the six thus far.
Nanae and the returning Minami got in slap fight right away with everything devolving into a brawl, nicely setting the tone of all six having something to prove.
After the hot start there was a little bit of a styles clash / roughness in this at times. Minami seemed to have a little readjusting to do after being retrained in a different company’s style, and they are all still relatively early in their careers. That said they all fought hard and made things work. Minami busted out an awesome, vicious looking arm trap guillotine choke at one point.
Grizzly vs Mifu was the backbone of the match and the two have good chemistry. Highlights included Mifu’s Cutie Special on Grizzly and Grizzly later absolutely wiping Mifu out with a short arm clothesline.
The match came to a surprising end as Nanae tied Mifu in absolute knots and got the submission win. As I mentioned Mifu’s the only former champ of the group and I wouldn’t have bet on her taking the loss.
Hanaya never tagged in, but was involved in multi person team moments, breaking up pinfalls, etc (including a wild spill to the outside when she took a shot on Grizzly from the apron and went flying from the recoil). Both she and the other retiree Koike only ever wrestled sporadically, with under ten matches each for their careers. It was nice to see them involved one last time and get a nice sendoff with the rest of their compatriots.
The match was somewhat rough around the edges at times but I’m really just mentioning it because I noticed it. Nothing detracted much from this fun outing with a lot of energy and some really awesome moments. Overall it clicked was a really good farewell for the Challengers in Ice Ribbon.
They all took a bow together afterwards. Wishing them the best in whatever’s next for each of them.
3) Kyuuri & Yuna Manase vs. Arisa Shinose & Kaori Yoneyama vs. Bad Butts (Yappy & Ancham)
Arisa will be going to Asuka Pro-Wrestling, but seems likely to continue appearing as a guest in Ice Ribbon.Yappy and reigning Triangle Ribbon Champion Kyuuri are staying.Yoneyama, Manase, and Ancham are guest participants.
Bad Butts coming out to Sir Mix A Lot had me dying of laughter. So great.
They brawled all over the place to start, highlighted by Yappy threatening people with the ever present Bad Butts warning sign, and things never really settled down from there. Having a proper, unapologetic, “we’re villains and proud of it” heel team is a nice addition to Ice Ribbon. Good contrast too as Kyuuri leans heel at times as Triangle Champ in more of an impish, faux innocent way. It all adds an extra dimension to things and additional depth to matches like these.
The other teams eventually had enough of Bad Butts and taped them to a ring post outside, neutralizing them for the rest of the match. Things got crazy at the end as Kyuuri accidentally took out her own partner with her attempted shortcuts, and Yoneyama intentionally rammed Kyuuri into Arisa to set up Yoneyama getting the win.
I expected a Bad Butts win, but Yoneyama pinning Kyuuri and the winning partners arguing over who gets to challenge her for her singles belt makes sense too
Not much to say here, but I mean that extremely positively. This was just straightforward chaotic fun.
The live feed became unwatchable due to buffering here and I stopped watching live. Until this point it had frozen about once a match and refreshing quickly corrected things. Ice Ribbon PPVs are usual stable on this platform, so no idea what was going on. Watched the rest from here later on replay.
The semi-retired Mio Shirai and perpetual thorn in her side Unagi Sayaka have been feuding on and off for a bit. Unagi’s a freelance guest, Ibuki is staying with Ice Ribbon, and Mio and Saran are making their final appearance (future plans for both unknown). Extremely curious about where Saran ends up, as she’s really finding her style and has a huge upside for whatever company she works with.
This was the planned last show of a temporary return from maternity leave for Ibuki (although she’s now decided to wrestle for a bit more before returning to hiatus).
As usual for anything involving Unagi and Mio this was extremely antics heavy. Add in the mischievous Saran and hard hitting Ibuki to anchor things and this was exactly what it needed to be. Light and entertaining match with good pacing, amusing undertones, and wild action when they got down to it. Presented at the perfect place in the card to boot.
Saran fought tooth and nail, nearly stole the match a couple times, and kicked out of a lot of close calls. But Ibuki finally put her away with a great crucifix bomb.
Saran was visibly emotional after the match. Looking forward to cheering for her wherever she goes. Really glad Ibuki got to come back a little earlier than expected to be able to wrestle here.
Ice Ribbon vs T-Hearts tag match. Both members of the Ice team are staying on the roster (although Umino was unfortunately injured days later with a broken collarbone and will be out for a while).
Umino debuted in April 2021 as Shizuku Tsukata in Wave, went on hiatus around the end of that year, then redebuted as Umino in Ice Ribbon in December 2022. She’s grown a lot in the last couple years and is really finding her style and persona.
Totoro was sporting her annual year end rainbow braid extensions, which always look awesome.
Never saw Miku wrestle before. She’s really good and I hope to see her more in the future.
This was on formula in best way possible for a match with larger power based veterans teaming with outmatched but resilient less experienced partners. Umino and Miku both showed great fire, both against each other and when they were fighting uphill battles against the vets.
When Totoro and Hotta were in against each other the dynamic completely changed and it became the less experienced Totoro trying to prove something against Hotta in a good old fashion power fight. At one point Totoro hit an unbelievable Finlay Roll on Hotta.
Down the stretch this was all about Umino throwing everything she had at the imposing Hotta until she just couldn’t fight anymore. Hotta finished her with a palm strike after Totoro accidentally wiped her out with a clothesline.
I really dug this. Probably my favorite match on the card up to this point, and it’s all been extremely good.
6) Manami Katsu vs. YuuRI
Manami Katsu returned to wrestling to join Ice Ribbon a few months ago after a three year hiatus. She’s a 13 year veteran formerly of JWP/Pure-J. I never watched a ton of Pure-J but have been to a few shows and had seen her wrestle there. This is my first real look at her in Ice.
YuuRI is a regular guest wrestler from GanPro, and a former ICE Cross Infinity Champion.
Manami went straight at YuuRI from the jump and this was pretty much 12 minutes of them throwing bombs (and occasionally trying to squeeze the life out of each other) and suffering the effects. It fit well into increasing match intensity throughout the show, which of course is exactly what should happen.
Late match YuuRI survived a tombstone driver, but Manami finally kept her down with a gorgeous straightjacket German suplex for a big win. Respect shown with a big hug between the two afterward.
A hard hitting affair that made Manami look tough as hell to have defeated YuuRI. Completely different than anything else on the card, and all the better for it.
7) International Tag Ribbon Title Match: Hamuko Hoshi & Makoto (c) vs. Yuko Sakurai & Sumika Yanagawa
This is Hamuko & Makoto’s third reign with the tag titles, and both have also held them with other partners as well. Hamuko had an additional six reigns with other partners and Makoto had an additional two.
Sumika is a former International Ribbon tag champ with Misa Kagura, who we’ll see in the main event. She is also the reigning Queen of JTO champion.
Yuko just recently won her first championship and is half of theWave Tag Team Champions with Yuki Miyazaki. Thrilled for her as Yuko’s a wonderful, sometimes underrated wrestler who’s easy to cheer for.
Makoto is a freelance regular guest (who originally started her 18 year career in Ice Ribbon). Hamuko is staying on the Ice Ribbon roster. Yuko is from COLORS and Sumika from JTO.
The challengers jumped the champs in lieu of handshakes for another appropriate quick start.
Hamuko was in wrecking ball mode, which is when she’s at her most awesome. Makoto has become a fun bully type vet primarily focused on trying to kick her opponents face off.
Sumika’s developed into a great submission wrestler and busted out some wild holds here. Yuko applied one of the most vicious looking dragon sleepers I’ve seen as well. Yuko gave as good as she got throughout. She hit a beautiful bridging suplex and a nice sitout facebuster for close near falls late match.
The champs’ hard hitting double teams ended up being the difference maker. They eventually retained with Makoto nailing a firman’s carry Michinoku driver on Yuko followed by a big top rope splash from Hamuko for the pin.
Yuko & Sumika are a good team and fought with ferocity that had the crowd pumped. This was all about the champs weathering the storm from a team giving them more fight than they might have expected. Excellent semi-main.
The champs strapped each others’ belts on afterwards. It’s a little touch that shows their pride in retaining them and support as a team.
I adored Yuko & Sumika together and definitely need to revisit numerous matches of theirs as a team I’ve missed. Would love to see them have a reign with these titles someday.
8) ICE Cross Infinity Title Match: Yuki Mashiro (c) vs. Misa Kagura
Reigning champion Mashiro is participating as a freelancer (as of the end of October), and her challenger Kagura is from JTO.
Mashiro has had an incredible transformation over her career, and every stage has been something special. From the rookie who howled in pain when she chopped opponents, to the lovably goofy Gacha King, to the technical wizard who captured Ice Ribbon’s top prize she’s always been one to watch. Mashiro retired from wrestling in 2022 after a year and a half, but came out of retirement in early 2024.
I’ve always been a huge fan of Mashiro and was thrilled to see her return, and am equally thrilled she’s been continuing to appear in Ice Ribbon freelance. She’s also starting appearing in other companies such as Marigold.
Misa has been in tournaments for this title in the past, but this is her first time directly challenging for it. I haven’t seen her much, but remember her being solid from what I have seen of her. She’s one of those people with an infectious smile, and she came out with it beaming for this title match.
They went AT each other right away with a wild forearm exchange. All the matches have started hot without anything feeling repetitive, and the show has been an engaging breeze to stay invested in as a result.
A hilarious moment early on saw Mashiro try to double eye poke Misa, But the latter caught her arm and countered by stuffing Mashiro’s fingers back into her own mouth.
I hadn’t consciously noticed until a really cool shot in this match of Mashiro choking out Misa in the corner, but the camera work had some particularly good work all show. The mentioned low camera angle from the corner was great. They did occasionally cut to/away from it too quickly in succession making it overly noticeable and a bit distracting, but overall it was well done.
The challenger excelled when using her power and slight size advantage for devastating tackles and grinding away at the champ with leveraged submission holds. A brutal sitout spine buster delivered to Mashiro at one point looked absolutely devastating.
In contrast the champ used her explosiveness to create openings, and relied heavily on being tenacious and smart counter wrestling.
Either outcome felt possible, which I appreciate greatly in a main event. In the end Mashiro hit her cross legged suplex with a bridge to retain.
Happy Mashiro will apparently be sticking around.
Hell of a match that had a little bit of everything: heavy strike exchanges, submissions, power wrestling, brawling outside, and so on. Fantastic way to cap off the show.
Katsu came out post match and there’s Mashiro’s next challenger. That’ll work. Intense exchange and they have to be pulled apart. Match set for January 13th.
I see the post show crowd handshakes are back. Mixed feelings watching that from afar as someone dealing with chronic illnesses in a post-pandemic world. But it was always a fun thing and a cool way to show appreciation, and its absence was felt for the years they couldn’t do it.
Overall
This show was everything I like about Ice Ribbon and pro-wrestling in general. Well balanced and paced with a variety of styles done right and the lighter stuff in the undercard giving way to fraught battles for championships to end the show out. Everyone’s commitment and effort was plain to see, and this was an extremely enjoyable watch all around.
As promised here’s a list of the remaining ten woman post Ribbonmania Ice Ribbon roster: Tsukka, Hamuko and Ibuki Hoshi, Manami Katsu, Kyuuri, Totoro, Yappy, Tsukina Umino, Kaho Matsushita, and Kirari Wakana.
Looking forward to seeing what lies ahead.
Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025.
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.
Last November I got a simple text from a close friend that would end up having a pretty significant effect on me: “Hey, do you want to go to a concert tomorrow night?” And thus a new music obsession was born.
My friend was going to see Atarashii Gakko no Leaders (“New School Leaders,” now commonly shortened to Atarashii Gakko) and someone had to cancel, leaving an available ticket.
I had never heard of the group before, so did a quick search and checked out the first video that popped up. Thirty seconds into Nai Nai Nai I messaged back that I was in. The second video I saw was their performance of Otonablue on First Take, and I was completely blown away and hooked on their music from there.
I made it to the concert the next day, and was lucky to do so. I deal with a variety of chronic health conditions and my ability to function is highly variable day to day. Plans with me are always tentative until they happen, and I’ve had to cancel on a great number of events including many planned months in advance. On the flip side, my friends often check in with me when last minute opportunities arise as there’s a chance it falls on one of my good days.
Atarashii Gakko always seems to catch me on my good days, a quirk of fate I’m extremely grateful for. That show was the first concert I’d managed to attend since pre-pandemic, and it was a treat.
The concert was just as the extremely talented group was starting to grow in popularity. Among other things it happened a month before their appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live aired.
The Music Hall of Williamsburg is a small venue, and the sheer presence of Suzuka, Mizyu, Kanon, and Rin filled the space. I was in the balcony with a partially blocked view so didn’t get the full effect of their dancing, but what I did see and more importantly their fantastic vocal performances and catchy music blew me away and made me a permanent fan. I had a blast.
Late in the concert Suzuka ventured out into the audience (appropriately accompanied by staff, although keeping up with her was a task). A couple of her stops included directly below me at the audio station, and a couple people down from me when she came up to the balcony.
Considered to a point to be anti-idols, Atarashii Gakkko embrace elements in both their songwriting and performances that buck traditional idol trends and embrace their individual styles. Their songs and performances have a touch of indescribable uniqueness and feel extremely genuine. They do their own choreography as well, and everything comes together in a captivating manner.
Suzuka generally sings lead, but all four have amazing voices and a variety of their songs highlight each member at different times. I’ve grown to adore their music and the way it touches on several different styles, and listen to them regularly.
My second fortuitous opportunity to see them perform live came in a vastly different situation six months later. They appeared at the Head in the Clouds Festival in NYC in the open air venue Forest Hills Stadium. They killed it, and received an excellent reception particularly for being one of many performing acts. Also poor Rin was thankfully fine after tripping over an unfortunately placed speaker and playing dead for a few moments.
Back indoors for my most recent stroke of luck, last night I saw them perform at Terminal 5. I got a ticket months ago when the concert was announced, and despite an extremely difficult day for a variety of personal reasons I was thankfully able to attend in the end.
This was a chance to experience Atarashii Gakko at full power, with stunning multimedia visuals backing them up in a venue that holds 3,000 people. The experience was fantastic. Their shows are just pure fun, and with the possible exception of hearing a couple of my favorite songs that were absent I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
The atmosphere was electric. The crowd was already super hyped to see them, and they know how to pump the audience up even more into a frenzy. Suzuka in particular showed a phenomenal ability for crowd management in a foreign language. She also continued her venue exploring tendencies during their designated main concert ender, the previously mentioned Nai Nai Nai.
She went all over the place (with a small group of support staff in tow), including singing in the balcony again and later ending up right next to me for a moment at my spot behind the audio station. Wild, awesome experience.
Atarshii Gakko are charisma personified, and I highly recommend anyone that gets a chance catch them live. Wishing them the best of luck on the rest of their world tour.
I’ve had a surprisingly difficult time finding the proper words to open this look at the work of a truly special artist. There’s something indescribable that jumps out of Veronica O’Connell’s art and demands attention. So I decided to let the stunning depiction of Psylocke above make the first impression.
Ghost Spider, Spider-Woman, & Silk AP by Veronica O’Connell
I honestly don’t recall when I first saw Veronica’s work, but I do remember being blown away with her versions of Marvel characters and immediately putting her art on my collection list.
There is an incredible balance of realism and the fantastic in her illustrations. Her takes on comic characters simultaneously look like they could step right off into the real world while still feeling appropriately larger than life.
The qualities that initially caught my eye are on full display in the above gorgeous Spider-Women triptych, which is mind boggling. All the art I’ll be showing in this blog is directly drawn on blank trading cards. So each of the three characters shown above (Spider-Gwen, Spider-Woman, and Silk) is drawn on a third of a 3.5″ x 2.5″ work area. The detail and impact she’s able to achieve under such conditions is phenomenal.
There is so much style infused into Veronica’s work. Her use of color and lighting is exquisite and a big part of what makes her art so eye catching. It also underlies her emphasis of mood and atmosphere, making the same subjects feel different in different pieces depending on what she’s chosen to convey while retaining their core essence.
I have multiple cards by her of some of my favorite comic heroines, including Psylocke, Emma Frost, and Spider-Gwen, and the contrast between equally captivating depictions of the same character is fascinating to see.
Spider-Gwen PSC by Veronica O’Connell
My discovery of Veronica’s art through her Marvel work eventually led to the great opportunity to get some Personal Sketch Cards (PSCs) done as part of another key subset of my card collection.
I have followed and enjoyed Japanese women’s professional wrestling (joshi wrestling) for over a decade and collect related art in a number of forms. Veronica is the third artist to create PSCs for this collection, along with Juri H. Chinchilla and Miki Okazaki
Kairi Sane PSC by Veronica O’Connell
Veronica’s renditions of the wrestlers she’s drawn for me are absolutely stunning. She achieves an amazing level of detail, capturing the subtleties of her subjects expressions and doing an exceptional job representing their intricate wrestling gear.
Perhaps most impressive is her ability to create such incredible likenesses on such small workspaces. From a distance these precise works could be mistaken for photographs, while up close the aspects that make the depictions hyper realistic elevate them even further.
Over time I’ve gotten 24 wrestling PSCs from Veronica, featuring a total of 30 wrestlers. Only 8 of those wrestlers had been drawn for me before on PSCs by other artists, meaning 22 of the wrestlers she drew for me were first time subjects for my sketch card collection.
All of the repeats were drawn in different gear and/or with different partners than the other cards I have, and it was a treat to get Veronica’s take on recurring collection subjects like WWE’s Asuka, AEW’s Riho and Hikaru Shida, and Sendai Girl’s DASH Chisako. Likewise awesome was adding in wrestlers I’d been meaning to have drawn like Asuka’s tag partner Kairi Sane and Stardom’s Starlight Kid.
Juria Nagano PSC by Veronica O’Connell
The vast majority of the wrestlers I had drawn for the first time were a large number of roster members and regular guests from two of my favorite promotions.
From Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling (TJPW), Veronica did wonderful cards of now former roster members Juria Nagano and Sakisama (with Mei Saint-Michel), tag teams Miyu Yamashita & Maki Itoh (121000000) and Himawari & Wakana Uehara, long time roster members Mizuki and Yuki Kamifuku (Kamiyu), and the Up Up Girls Hikari Noa, Miu Watanabe, Raku, & Shino Suzuki.
Veronica’s encapsulation of that Up Up Girls lineup is a particularly nice memento for me given the recent departure of my favorite member, Hikari Noa, from both TJPW and the Up Up Girls.
The other big focus among the joshi wrestling cards Veronica’s done for me is a company called Ice Ribbon. One of my most watched promotions, it was a privilege to get Veronica to do related cards for me.
The core IR lineup I got includes brief former roster member Amu Yumesaki, and current roster members featuring second generation wrestler Ibuki Hoshi and impressive newer wrestlers like Tsukina Umino, Mifu Ashida, and Kaho Matsushita.
I was also happy to add former IR regular guests Ram Kaicho (from Triple Six), Saori Anou (now of Stardom), and Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki (SPiCEAP, both freelance), and reigning ICE Cross Infinity Champion YuuRI (from GanPro) to the collection.
As with the comic art, Veronica’s vivd colors, stunning lighting and shading, and delicate touches make all of her wrestler illustrations simply gorgeous. I could not be happier with how they all turned out.
Joshi PSC displays. Art by Veronica O’Connell, Juri Chinchilla, and Miki Okazaki.
I’m extremely thankful to Veronica for all the fantastic art she’s created for me. I hope to continue collecting more in the future.
Asahi PSC by Veronica O’Connell
To wrap up I’d like to talk about a particularly special card Veronica’s done for me, although there is unfortunately tragic news attached to it. Early this year Actwres girl’Z reported a 21 year old member of their roster named Asahi had unexpectedly passed away. Asahi started her career in Ice Ribbon and was a personal favorite of mine. Nicknamed the Sunrise of Hope, she was always a joy to watch and is greatly missed. Veronica’s remembrance piece of Asahi is absolutely breathtaking and a cherished keepsake.
On August 31, 2024 Emi Sakura’s promotion Gatoh Move held a show at historic Korakuen Hall for the first time in eight years (full show available on YouTube). It was a great show and a huge milestone for the small company that fought tooth and nail to survive and evolve during difficult and turbulent times.
One of their evolutions was the creation of a second promotion/brand, named ChocoPro, during the pandemic. Once performing in front of crowds became possible again Gatoh Move and ChocoPro existed side by side.
After the Korakuen show, Sakura announced that her two brands would officially be merging, to be known only as ChocoPro going forward. As such I wanted to take a quick look back on the significance of the merge, and what separated the brands in the first place.
In 2012 Emi Sakura left a company that she founded called Ice Ribbon (that to this day still running and highly enjoyable), and founded a new joshi (girl/woman) promotion named Gatoh Move.
Likewise built around the idea that wrestling should be fun for both the wrestlers and fans, Gatoh’s general approach to wrestling wowed me when I initially saw them during my first trip to Japan both in ring and in the unique environment of Ichigaya Chocolate Square.
A deep dive into the promotion is beyond the purpose of this post, but check out this retrospective I wrote for their 10 year anniversary highlighting a lot of what I adore about both Gatoh Move and ChocoPro.
As mentioned above ChocoPro was created as a direct response to the difficulties of operating during the pandemic. Sakura didn’t want to just proceed as if they were doing Gatoh Move shows without fans. She approached the idea of streaming empty venue shows as something completely new that should be tailored and targeted as such.
When ChocoPro started there were three key differences to Gatoh Move. First was the absence of an audience in attendance.
Second, all the shows would stream live, where Gatoh shows had been primarily for the attending audience with big shows released on dvd and nothin aired live. This also led to Sakura’s new No Pay Wall strategy of having all their shows and other content airing free on YouTube with a variety of optional support methods.
The third key difference was that while Gatoh Move had always incorporated a lot of guest male wrestlers into their shows and were known for great intergender wrestling, they were still a joshi promotion. The official Gatoh roster was all women, the titles were held by women or intergender teams, and outside of extremely unusual circumstances the main events would always feature a roster member.
While still based largely around the core Gatoh roster, ChocoPro immediately established itself as a fully intergender promotion with a main event of Baliyan Akki vs Minoru Suzuki on the first show. As ChocoPro went on the vacated Super Asia singles title would return as an intergender belt, and likewise the Asia Dream Tag Titles would become open to challenges by male teams.
As pandemic restrictions lifted and live crowds began to be allowed again, the delineation between Gatoh Move and ChocoPro changed.
ChocoPro started running “ChocoPro Peoples” shows, which were still aimed at the streaming audience but had live attendees as well.
When “Gatoh Move” officially returned it was specifically used for the ring shows, and ChocoPro essentially became the name for the Ichigaya shows. All other differences besides the official Gatoh Move roster still being all joshi wrestlers had fallen by the wayside.
So at this point the merge is mostly a symbolic action to make things more straightforward with a single name for the company. While I’m personally quite attached to the Gatoh Move name and sad to see it go ChocoPro is more reflective of what the company has become. The overall impact on the fans is minimal, as the same great people will be presenting the same great wrestling they have been for years.
2019 Gatoh Move roster PSC puzzle by Juri Chinchilla.
So that’s why Gatoh Move/ChocoPro had two names, what the differences originally were, and what they became. Wishing all the best going forward for the newly “combined” ChocoPro.
Among near uncountable incredibly talented favorites of mine, there’s perhaps no wrestler who better encapsulates my time as a joshi wrestling fan in Japan than Arisa Nakajima.
Arisa was already a huge star who’d been wrestling for nearly a decade when I traveled to Japan for the first time in late 2015. Though I hadn’t seen any of her matches I was well aware of her reputation. She was already a two-time JWP Openweight Champion (of four eventual total reigns), and her battles with the equally tough as nails Kana (now WWE’s Asuka) were legendary.
I was also familiar with, and a big fan of, her tag partner Tsukasa Fujimoto from Tsukka’s appearance in Shimmer in fall of 2014.
So of all the wrestlers I’d be lucky enough to see live for the first time during that trip, I was far and away most excited about Arisa. Needless to say, she certainly didn’t disappoint.
I saw her wrestle for the first time in the main event of my fifth show in Japan, JWP’s 12/23/15 event . She faced Kayoko Haruyama, and made an immediate and lasting impression against her more veteran, larger opponent.
Arisa exudes self confidence and determination every second she’s in the ring. They beat the hell out of each other in a tremendous battle that confirmed everything I’d heard about Arisa and made her an instant favorite of mine.
Speaking of instant favorites, the same show was also my first time seeing Dash Chisako & Sendai Sachiko (the Jumonji Sisters). They were fantastic and my anticipation levels for their tag title match against Arisa & Tsukka (Best Friends) a few days later at JWP’s Climax 12/27/15 shot through the roof. It was amazing, and remains one of my favorite matches of all time to this day.
All in all I saw 84 matches featuring 144 different wrestlers during that first trip. Arisa was in all 3 matches at the top of my list of favorites (more on the third of those matches to come).
The trend of top tiermatcheswouldcontinue, with Arisa’s intensity and skill making her appearances highlights of every trip.
As luck would have it my next opportunity to see Arisa would come relativity quickly. A few months later I attended her first and only Shimmer weekend. It was her US debut, and it was really cool to see her compete in a different atmosphere against a variety of opponents she’d be unlikely to face anywhere else.
She had four matches over the course of the weekend, and made an immediate splash defeating former Shimmer Champion Nicole Matthews in her first match with the company. She also faced solid Shimmer mainstays Shazza McKenzie and Rhea O’Reillyon later volumes.
The true centerpiece of her weekend though was a Shimmer title match against reigning champion Madison Eagles. It can’t be overstated how special it was at the time to see the reigning JWP Openweight Champion coming into a US promotion and facing their top tile holder. It was a dream match for me, and they absolutely tore the house down.
Arisa’s intensity is ever-present. Her hard hitting style evokes a visceral response that draws fans into her struggles and battles.
Whether she’s displaying her deep technical prowess, breaking out the occasional high flying spectacle, or simply wearing her opponent down with a never-ending onslaught of brutal strikes, Arisa’s always captivating to watch.
Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) PSC by Juri H. Chinchilla.
I alluded to another top match from my first trip above, and it had long lasting influence on me in a number of ways. At Ribbonmania 2015 I saw Best Friends defend Ice Ribbon’s International Tag Ribbon titles against Misaki Ohata & Ryo Mizunami (Avid Rival). Misaki was another favorite of mine from her time in Shimmer, and seeing this particular group of wrestlers face off was such a treat. They’re two of the greatest tag teams of all time, and the chemistry they had was incredible.
The match was so special to me and made such an impression that when the teams were slated to wrestle a special three match series a year and a half after their initial encounter I made a specific trip to Japan planned largely around seeingtwo of the shows they were fighting on. The Ribbonmania match plus the best of three series were the only four times they faced each other, and they are all excellent contests well worth seeking out.
In addition, Misaki was an extremely similar wrestler to Arisa in terms of tenacity, style, and mastery of the German Suplex as a signature move. The rivalry the two had was enthralling, throughout interactions in both tag and singles matches over numerous years.
It’d be impossible to go through every single match of Arisa’s I adored. Just the small sliver of her career I was lucky enough to witness live is a treasure trove of impactful pro wrestling masterclasses.
A few more that are particularly fond memories for me include a war against cocky upstart Mio Momono (SEAdLINNNG 4/18/18), Best Friends against Kyuri & Maika Ozaki (Gekokujo, Ice Ribbon 12/24/17), and an underrated match of unusual pairings where Arisa teamed with Karen DATE against Misaki & Asahi (Ice Ribbon 10/8/18).
I haven’t been able to return to Japan since prior to the pandemic, so while I didn’t know it at the time Arisa’s main event against Yoshiko of SEAdLINNNG’s 1/24/2020 show would be the last time I saw her wrestle live. As far as an in person memory of her career, a big singles match against another major star of her current company is a good note to finish on.
Arisa’s retirement road has been as intense as the rest of her career. Tsukka made a temporary return from hiatus to properly send her partner off, and has been involved in several of Arisa’s last matches.
Getting to see Arisa cross paths with Mio Momono, Dash Chisako, and others one last time has been a blast. Best Friends also wrestled a number of dream matches on Arisa’s way out, including against Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu (Team 200kg) and opposite Stardom’s ace Mayu Iwatani.
Arisa Nakajima’s final show will be SEAdLINNNG’s 8/23/24 event. She will wrestle twice and her last match is the main event teaming with Tsukka against Hiroyo Matsumoto & Hanako Nakamori.
While I wish Arisa could continue wrestling forever, she’s maintained an incredibly physical style for a long, wondrous 18 year career and no doubt has a long list of accumulated injuries to deal with. Stopping on her own terms is wise.
I’m grateful for all she’s done to entertain us fans and wish her all the best in life after wrestling.
My thoughts on films from 2015’s festival can be read starting here, 2016’s starting here, 2017’s starting here, 2018’s starting here, and 2019’s starting here.
This screening ended up being a special one for me. Due to the pandemic and personal limitations this was my first time at Japan Cuts since 2019. In addition, while I had planned to see several films Great Absence ended up being the only one I was able to attend. It was nice to be back, even for a single film, and I lucked into an excellent one for my only viewing.
Great Absence is a gradually unfolding tale of an actor and his wife brought abruptly back into the middle of his estranged father’s life due to the latter’s rapidly worsening dementia. Hanging ominously over the visit is the puzzling absence of the father’s wife of twenty years.
The movie is intentionally disjointed and deliberately paced. With growing puzzlement and unease the viewer gets small glimpses of interwoven past and present, with new perspectives often re-contextualizing what’s come before.
The shifting ambiguity mostly works, and there are some incredibly powerful moments that are open to some interpretation in ways that add a lot of depth. A key scene seemed to have a second, fascinating nearly opposite possible interpretation from what I think we were supposed to take from it.
While there are a couple of aspects I really would have liked to see fleshed out a touch more by the end, for the most part this is an exceptionally well written drama where the explanations received and the things left open work together particularly well.
The movie doesn’t try to tell the viewer what to feel, but instead presents imperfect people in difficult situations frankly and lets the viewers take it in as they will. But the fragile nature of a story subject to some of the same type of fluid reality dementia brings occasionally turns it all on its head. Combined with an appropriately subtle score and beautiful cinematography it all elicits strong emotions across the spectrum as the film marches on in a gradual but unrelenting way.
This deeply affecting story hinged on the actors’ portrayals of complex emotions simmering beneath the surface and wouldn’t have worked with lesser performances.
Actor Tatsuya Fuji was in attendance and received Japan Society’s first Lifetime Achievement Award before the screening. The previous night his co-star Mirai Moriyama received the annual Cut Above Award for outstanding achievement in film (presented before a screening of Shadow of Fire). All four key roles, including those of Fuji, Moriyama, the third lead Hideko Hara, and supporting actress Yoko Maki, were played to perfection.
Great Absence is a subtly powerful film that I highly recommend.
After the film there was a Q&A with Fuji and director Kei Chika-ura. Important central concepts of Great Absence were taken from Chika-ura’s own experiences, and it was fascinating to hear about the various conditions that brought the film together. Fuji talked at length about his extensive career, his approach to acting, and the curious story of his only other trip to New York nearly fifty years ago. All in all it was an excellent session and a wonderful post script to the movie.
This showing was Great Absence’s New York premiere, and it will be playing from today at the Angelika Film Center. Fuji and Chika-ura will be attending and having Q&A’s after both tonight and tomorrow’s 7pm showings (July 19 & 20, 2024). I encourage anyone in the area to check it out.
BBM releases yearly card sets for a variety of sports, and for over a decade I have been collecting their joshi wrestling sets. Here we’ll take a look at the details and differences in their most recent offering.
Known as True Heart until 2020 and simply Women’s Wrestling since then, these yearly sets focus on women wrestlers all across Japan. Most joshi wrestling companies and freelancers participate. The main exception is World Wonder Ring Stardom, whose roster members do not appear in these sets (Stardom has done occasional card based products on their own in the past).
There are also rare special sets released in addition to the yearly sets, such as the recent 2023 Ambitious. As opposed to the general random nature of packs and boxes, Ambitious 2023 was a box only release. Each box contained a complete 47 card base set, one of nine possible acrylic standee cards, and a small number of random chase inserts and signature cards.
The standard packing numbers for the last several years of Women’s Wrestling releases have been 6 cards per pack, 20 packs per box. Each box had some chase cards in random packs, with the chase card replacing one of the base cards (so you’re always getting 6 cards in a pack).
This release dropped from 20 packs per box to 18, but increased the cards per pack to 7. The seventh card in each pack is a one of the 24 “Kira” chase cards, shiny cards which feature a facsimile auto of the depicted wrestler. It’s a solid move for BBM, as now each pack has something a little special in it.
The other chase subsets in the 2024 set are a 9 card foil subset, and 19 “secret” chase cards (18 base card secret variants plus a secret card for Nanashi (“no name”)). The base cards generally feature two images of the featured wrestler while the various inserts highlight a single pose, headshot, etc. There tends to be 3 foil and 3 secret cards per box.
An assortment of base cards from the 2024 set.
The yearly base set varies in size each year to reflect new wrestlers, retirements, occasional special cards for tag teams, and so on. There are a lot of joshi wrestlers active in Japan and these are not small sets. The 2024 base set consists of 156 cards, which is a little over a box and a half of base cards (if no duplicates were drawn).
One of the main draws of the sets are the special randomly included cards signed by the wrestlers. This year there are 3-4 sig cards per box.
Anecdotally, for several cases I’m aware of, there were exactly 3 boxes in the 12 box case that had 3 sig cards with the remainder having 4. So it seems like a pretty stable 75% of boxes have 4 sig cards and 25% have 3.
These autographed cards are numbered and there’s generally around 100 of each base version. The vast majority of the base sigs cards this year are on card signatures (with stickers only used for included wrestlers currently based overseas), which is great.
The base signature card design this year is very simple, but I personally like them a lot. The focus is firmly on the wrestler and their signature, and having a fair bit of white background on them makes the insert variants with fully colored backs contrast more.
The 2024 set has signed secret variant cards for the wrestlers who have secret base versions. These are limited/numbered to 90. The foil insert subset has associated signature cards numbered to 60 each.
There are also a small number of “super secret” signature cards. Aja Kong has one limited to 30 copies, while five other wrestlers have versions limited to 10.
Stickers were used for all of the insert autos, which isn’t ideal but is understandable as they’re going for a certain look with these and the stickers limit signatures to a confined area on the card. All of the various insert autos this year look stunning.
The last chase items to talk about are chekis: mini polaroids of the wrestlers signed and sometimes decorated by them. There are generally 10 for each wrestler who does them (not everyone in the base set does), with a few wrestlers doing different outfits and having a total of 20 this year.
In past years chekis were generally extremely stable pull rate-wise at 3 per case (or 1 per 4 boxes). This year it has dropped to 2 per case (1 in 6 boxes). While they are among the most rare inserts to try to collect, they’re wonderfully unique and a focus of my personal collection.
So that’s it for my breakdown of this year’s BBM Women’s Wrestling release. I wish anyone who decides to collect some of this fun set good luck with their pulls and pickups.
Derailments of Thought 