Tag: Tributes

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Japan Wrestling

Retirement Reflections – Sonoko Kato & Risa Sera

Time flies. Here’s a quick look back on some personal highlights of the careers of a couple wrestlers who made a lasting impression when I first saw them near exactly a decade ago.

Also please check out a similar spotlight I did recently about Nao Kakuta and Tae Honma.

Sonoko Kato

Sonoko Kato was already a well established and decorated veteran when I slowly started getting introduced to joshi wrestling* in the early 2010s. And it would still be a few years before I had the opportunity to see her wrestle.

Shimmer Women’s Athletes, a US independent women’s wrestling promotion, brought in wrestlers from all over the world for their shows. It was through them that I discovered and became an eternal fan of numerous Japanese wrestlers and promotions. Kana (now WWE’s Asuka), Ayako Hamada, Ray, Misaki Ohata, Hikaru Shida, and a number of other incredibly talented joshi wrestlers had already appeared for the company by the time I started traveling to Chicago for Shimmer weekends in 2014.

( * – The Japanese word “joshi” simply means “girl” and “joshi puroresu” in Japan generally just means “women’s wrestling.” But as a borrowed term in English “joshi wrestling” is shorthand specifically referring to Japanese women wrestlers and promotions.)

By Fall of 2015 I was making my fourth trip out for Shimmer and would be fortunate enough to see Kato live in her first and only Shimmer weekend. I had heard the name but was largely unfamiliar with her prior and had never seen her wrestle at all.

Already at 20 years of wrestling experience at the time, Kato was great and made an immediate strong impression.

Shimmer weekends were a unique and impactful experience. The only way they could put on the shows they did with the vast array of talent coming in was to tape multiple shows at a time. So twice a year Shimmer would have back to back double taping days across a weekend. Tickets were good for a full day, generally with two shows taped on Saturday and two on Sunday.

So while Kato only traveled out for Shimmer once, I had the privilege of seeing her wrestle four times in that one weekend. She was featured in three strong singles matches (against Kimber Lee, Kellie Skater, and Nicole Savoy) as well as a short, chaotic 6-way (against Kay Lee Ray (now Alba Fyre), Allysin Kay, Candice LeRae, Kellie Skater, and Marti Bell).

Kato killed it all weekend and her combination of exciting ring skills and natural charisma. Her awesome match against Savoy was my personal favorite.

She seemed genuinely excited to be there and meet foreign fans and was particularly appreciative of a subset of us importing and preparing traditional Japanese style streamers to be thrown during the entrances for the joshi wrestlers.

Oz Academy, Kato’s home company and where she wrestled the vast majority of the time, didn’t run often during the time of year I was usually in Japan when I started making trips over there. And there isn’t much official distribution of their stuff outside of Japan.

So I only ever saw Kato wrestle in Japan a couple lucky times and overall I’ve seen far fewer of her matches than most of my other favorite wrestlers.

Though as with her Shimmer appearances what I have managed to see was excellent. I was fortunate enough to catch a tremendously fun tag match of hers on Oz Academy’s 1/6/19 show alongside Ryo Mizunami against Hikaru Shida & Rina Yamashita.

Mizunami would become a regular partner of Kato a few years later as H2D, and they were multiple time tag team champions. They also had a handful of singles matches against one another over the years, and Mizunami was chosen to be Kato’s last opponent.

Sonoko Kato retired on 11/23/25, bringing her incredible 30 year career to a close. I hope everything is going well for her post wrestling.

Risa Sera

A couple of months after I saw Kato wrestle in Shimmer I made my first ever trip to Japan. My first show was an Ice Ribbon dojo show, where among a bunch of other wrestlers I’d be watching for a long time to come I got my first look at Risa Sera.

Risa was trained in Ice Ribbon and was about 3 years into her career, just past what’s generally considered her rookie period in Japan. She had recently officially formed the Azure Revolution tag team with Maya Yukihi and a number of the matches I saw of hers back then were Azure Revolution tags.

Risa was energetic and striking with regards to her traditional wrestling, with her trademark double knee strikes and other high impact moves standing out.

She was the relative veteran and more polished member of the team in those early days. Although over time Maya was improving and evolving more rapidly and would become her partner’s equal and rival. If fact while they are a good team I have noted in the past that they had even better chemistry as opponents.

Their paths would continue to cross in numerous ways and they have reformed Azure Revolution for a number of matches as Risa’s career winds down.

Risa had great success I those years in Ice Ribbon, becoming multiple time International Ribbon Tag Team Champions and ICE Cross Infinity Champion. One of her title matches that stands out in my memory was an exciting encounter against Yuuka in the main event of Ice Ribbon’s 10th Anniversary Show.

In addition to her hard hitting championship matches and other intense outings, some of my key memories and favorite matches of hers involve the lighter side of Ice Ribbon. One intended Azure Revolution match against Tsukasa Fujimoto & Miyako Matsumoto turned into something completely different, when the petulant force of nature that is Miyako objected to teaming with Tsukka and stole Risa changing the match to her and Risa again Tsukka & Maya.

Another incredibly fun time was an Ice Ribbon vs P’s Party trios contest where the wrestlers were assigned a random finisher they had to use for pinfalls to count and Risa was stuck spending her time in the match trying to ropewalk.

Risa left Ice Ribbon after Ribbonmania 2021. She made one appearance as part of her new freelance unit Prominence shortly afterwards, but hasn’t been back since.

As a part of Risa’s retirement road she’ll be returning to Ice Ribbon one last time after four years away at Ribbonmania 2025 on 12/31/25. The match is filled with significance as it’ll be Azure Revolution against one of their main rivals during their time in Ice Ribbon.

The Lovely Butchers, Hamuko Hoshi & Mochi Natsumi (formerly Mochi Miyagi when she was in Ice Ribbon) will be teaming for the first time in nearly 4 years for this special farewell contest. Mochi left Ice Ribbon when Risa did (more on that to come) and likewise hasn’t been back since that single Prominence appearance.

Maya has been freelance for years and pops up in her former company once or twice a year.

Hamuko is still in Ice Ribbon but has been on leave for most of this year due to accumulated injuries and is on the verge of being out for an extended period to get treatment. This will be her last match for a while.

To see all four of them participate once more in the kind of tag encounter that defined a lot of the period I was regularly attending Ice Ribbon shows is a treat and will be one of the emotional highlights of this year’s big show from Ice Ribbon.

Circling back around to my first trip to Japan, my most vivid memory of Risa was my first glimpse of the other major aspect of her career.

Risa Sera is now known for her hardcore and deathmatch wrestling as much as any other part of her wrestling journey. During 2015 she was slowly introducing audiences to the concept of gender being irrelevant when it comes to the types of wrestling someone choses to pursue. She had already done one self produced show with a featured deathmatch against former partner Maki Narumiya. Although it was more of a comical take on the concept as she had to convince the company to be more open to the idea of hardcore wrestling. It was a Human Hair Deathmatch where in place of normal hardcore weapons or deathmatch elements like barbed wire there were piles of cut hair as the impending “danger.”

Her second self produced show got closer to actual traditional deathmatch territory and fused lighter comical sections with brutal elements to great effect. Titled  “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… Deathmatch,” or more colloquially the Four Seasons Deathmatch, it was essentially an iron woman match for Risa only where her opponent would change after every decision and season related weapons were allowed.

Risa put up a hell of a fight for 60 full minutes and it was a fantastic experience live. It was the third match of hers I ever saw and was completely unique and engaging. To this day it’s one of my favorite hardcore/deathmatch style matches. (See my thoughts on the dvd of the show for detailed thoughts).

Risa’s done a handful of these 60 minute iron woman deathmatches over the years, and has decided to do one more as her last deathmatch on Prominence’s 12/16/25 show.

Deathmatch wrestling is often beyond my personal realm of enjoyment. I have limits after which I lose interest and/or can’t stomach what’s being presented. The line is often right around when light tubes, skewers, and so on get involved.

But I do enjoy certain manifestations of hardcore and deathmatch wrestling, like the above mentioned Four Seasons match and a tremendous hardcore match Risa had on Hikaru Shida’s 10th Anniversary Show teaming with Hagane Shinno against TARU & the legendary Aja Kong.

One of my favorite wrestlers of all time is the Hardcore Queen Dash Chisako, and it’s been a treat seeing her and like minded Risa face off in various forms recently including a singles match early this year.

And whether it’s to my particular tastes or not I fully support wrestlers embracing their own goals and style in wrestling. Risa pushed into a non traditional space and inspired a lot of wrestlers to follow her lead and/or carve their own unique path.

One particularly notable case was that of Suzu Suzuki. Suzu fell in love with deathmatch wrestling from a young age through promotions like Freedoms and BJW. But it was seeing Risa compete that made her realize that doing it herself someday wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Suzu debuted in Ice Ribbon at the age of 17 and took to wrestling extremely quickly. She won the ICE Cross Infinity Championship a little under two years into her career and started participating in hardcore matches around the same time.

Suzu was a protege of Risa’s and they both teamed and fought numerous times throughout their careers.

As alluded to above hardcore and deathmatch wrestling was always a little beyond the scope of Ice Ribbon’s usual tone and approach and came to temporary prominence in the company through Risa’s efforts and revolved around a specific subset of the roster who were passionate about it. At the end of 2021 those wrestlers, Risa, Suzu, Kurumi Hiiragi, Mochi Miyagi, and Akane Fujita, left Ice Ribbon to form their own freelance unit called Prominence. They focused on hardcore wrestling and deathmatches and participated in several companies’ shows while also hosting their own.

In 2023 Suzu left Prominence and ended up going to World Wonder Ring Stardom. On 11/3/25 Risa showed up at Stardom to request Suzu be the final opponent of her career.

Risa Sera will be retiring on 1/12/26 on a self produced show. In addition to the main event farewell match against her former protege Azure Revolution has a 3-way tag earlier in the show. The two matches should provide a suitable final chapter on Risa’s 13 year career.

Best wishes to Sera in whatever life after wrestling brings.

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.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Retirement Reflections – Nao Kakuta & Tae Honma

A quick look back on some personal highlights of the careers of a couple of fun wrestlers who I’m interestingly mostly familiar with outside of their original promotion.

Nao Kakuta

In the type of amusing coincidence that’s becoming common for this blog, I had no idea I was featuring two wrestlers who double debuted against each other when I chose to spotlight them together for this post. Nao and Tae both debuted for Actwres girl’Z on 5/31/15 in a singles match against each other.

It was the better part of three years into her career when I saw Nao for the first time. It was one of only a handful of times I ever saw her wrestle live, and it remains a lasting an enjoyable memory to this day.

AWG’s Bloody Cat faced Fairy Nipponbashi on Wave’s Young OH! OH! 1/8/18 show. I adored Nao immediately, and to my delight she picked up the win when she had more than enough of Fairy’s magical nonsense and just whacked her over the head with her own wand then rolled her up for the 3 count.

My other rare opportunities to see Nao live ended up being a Kani King Produce show of all things as well as one single time in her home promotion at Actwres girl’Z 1/20/19 show.

Free Wi-Fi PSC by Miki Okazaki.

In late 2020 Nao left Actwres and went to Tokyo Joshi Pro, where she’d spend the rest of her career. She fit in well, and always seemed to be enjoying herself in her matches.

In mid 2022 she would start teaming with my then favorite wrestler in the promotion, Hikari Noa, to form the tag team Free Wi-Fi.

The two had wonderful chemistry as a team and were a blast to watch. They’d eventually win the Princess Tag Team titles in October, 2024. It was the only title of Nao’s career.

Right before TJPW’s big January 4th show that year Free Wi-Fi forfeited the tag titles with Hikari being absent for undisclosed reasons. She never returned to wrestling, and her retirement was made official in May.

Nao was winding down her career herself, and had a proper farewell including a special self produced show right before her retirement where she had a match with fellow AWG alumni she had started with in Saori Anou, Natsupoi, and Tae.

I’m long overdue with this tribute as Nao retired in July, 2024, but I still wanted to reminisce a bit. Nao still pops now and then, as I’ll mention again shortly. I hope all is going well for the former Rat Chaser.

Tae Honma

Ice Ribbon’s “Best Enemy”

I saw a lot of wrestling each time I visited Japan. My first trip was both incredible and overwhelming. I saw 17 shows from 8 different promotions featuring 144 wrestlers. Of course some of it blurred together …

In the middle of it I attended a Reina show pretty much solely to see Tsukasa Fujimoto’s title match. I had no familiarity with the promotion nor most of their roster or the guest wrestlers appearing from other promotions. While the rest of the show was good enough, to be perfectly honest I promptly didn’t remember anything outside of Tsukka vs Maki Narumiya.

As it turns out that show was actually the first time I had ever seen Tae Honma wrestle, a mere 7 months into her career. The match was her and Maki Natsumi (now Natsupoi) against Saori Anou and Yuna Manase. Totally fine tag team match, but it completely slipped my mind for a while.

I find this worth noting in hindsight mainly because two years later at Ribbonmania I was convinced I was getting my first look at Tae and remember being incredibly impressed.

Tae is charisma personified, with a smash mouth style built on top of strong technical skills. She was feuding with Kyuri at the time, which meant she was appearing at a lot of the Ice Ribbon shows I regularly attended. Their battles spilled over into other promotions as well, including the Wave Young OH! OH! show I mentioned with regards to Nao above.

Tae and Kyuri were both regular partners of Maika Ozaki (as SPiCEAP and Gekokujo respectively), and their issues would involve Maika as well as Saori Anou in various forms over time. The four had great chemistry and their matches in different combinations were always fantastic. I’m a huge fan of all four of them to this day.

Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki PSC by Veronica O’Connell

I’ve seen and attended several awesome matches of Tae’s over the years. But I’d be lying if I tried to deny that the first thing that pops to mind will forever be the infamous hot dog match from Frank Sisters Produce 1/5/18.

Tae and Maya Yukihi faced Tsukka and Hamuko Hoshi in one of the most unique matches I’ve ever seen. Music would randomly be played during the match, at which point wrestlers currently in ring could eat hot dogs supplied by their seconds.

Watching them stuff their faces with hot dogs then immediately go back to taking hard shots and stomach bumps was unsettling in the most weirdly compelling way. The action was great, with everyone giving 110% effort.

The reason this match will always spring to mind with regards to Tae for me is that she was an absolute monster and the mvp of the whole affair. She and Maya, and again mostly she, outate their opponents by 9 hotdogs. Post show I talked to Tae while getting some pictures signed and she expressed being very full and never wanting to eat hot dogs for at least a year.

Tae was officially part of the Actwres roster until they rebranded as a wrestling related theatrical company and several of their wrestlers went freelance. She had always worked heavily in other promotions even before that, and as mentioned I primarily knew her through those appearances.

I did get to attend one AWG show that featured Tae, again a show I mentioned above that had Nao on it as well. Tae had a really cool Gatoh Move crossover match that saw her team with Yuna Mizumori (now of Stardom) against Mii and Riho (now of AEW).

Tae’s had a great retirement road that let her cross paths with a number of old compatriots from her AWG days as well as making final appearances in numerous promotions she wrestled in over the years. Tae continued to team with Maika, and she will be retiring as half of Wave’s Tag Team Champions as SPiCEAP still holds those titles.

Nao Kakuta made a special appearance as part of Tae’s match against Saki from GPU COLORS yesterday.

Tae Honma’s retirement match will be today, 10/13/25 (local Japan time/date), in just a couple hours at Ranmaru Festa Vol. 43. The show can be purchased for live streaming (with a week archive) here.

Tae was always an absolute joy to watch. Wishing her all the best in life post wrestling.

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.

Categories
Art Cards Comics Japan Music Reviews Wrestling

Ten Years of Meandering Musings

Seems to be tradition at this point that when I manage to do retrospectives for the blog I’m at least a month past the actual anniversary (actually a full two this go round). My sense of time certainly is off kilter nowadays and summer simply blurred by.

And with the pandemic upending the world and me being largely on hiatus for a few years it’s been a while since I did one of these. But better late than never, and my tiny little corner of the internet somehow got to a decade old this past July.

Overview

It’s been four years since my last blog retrospective, which was post #682 at the time. This is post #728 (I’ve deleted exactly 2 entries ever, so my total number of posts written since last time is 48). Under 50 posts in 4 years is on the low side to my previous output, but there was practically nothing from 2021-23, so not too bad overall for my slow and struggling return over the last year and a half.

I did not make 700 posts by end of 2021 as I hoped to. In fact I didn’t write anything else in 2021 after the retrospective, had only 3 entries in 2022, and nothing in 2023. My chronic illnesses and others things have impacted my life in big ways. But this blog is a passion project of mine, I enjoy being able to share my thoughts on my hobbies, and I’m glad to be back, sporadic as it’s been.

Those 3 posts in 2022 were fairly significant at least, featuring Reika Saiki’s retirement, Yuna Mizumori leaving Gatoh Move, and a light reference article about exhibition matches in joshi wrestling and the unique environment of Ichigaya Chocolate Square.

In early 2024 I was preparing to return to the blog with another retirement piece and some art related content. Instead those came later and my first post in a year and a half was an emotional farewell to one of my favorite wrestlers who unexpectedly passed away extremely young. I had the privilege of attending Asahi’s debut match in person, and was a big fan of the effort and emotion she poured into her wrestling. She is greatly missed.
Rest in peace, Sunrise of Hope.

 

Specific Post Details

Looking back in aggregate there was a lot of variety in my posts and there’s a lot to cover in terms of stuff I’d like to highlight. Writing was often a struggle during this time period and it’s nice to be happy with the results of that effort.

While the genres covered are largely the same through the life of Derailments of Thought, the specific manifestations have morphed a bit. With my health limitations in a post pandemic world I’m not able to go out nearly as much as I used to, and I can’t really travel at all. So my Japan trips and the live event coverage that resulted will remain a thing of the past for the foreseeable future.

I was lucky enough to manage a few local events across the last couple years though, including a fantastic NXT Roadblock at MSG and some concerts of the incredibly fun Atarashii Gakko. I also made it to one film of Japan Cuts 2024. Japan Society’s annual film festival was something I attended heavily in the past and was a big part of the early years of this blog, so it was cool to be back in some fashion and share thoughts on Great Absence.

As in the past some of the most special and personal posts are wrestler specific pieces that are usually about retirements, major career changes, or in a few unfortunate cases memorials. Several of my favorites have retired recently, and there are more announced to come.

These are all new posts since last time’s retrospective. Please see that post for links to a great many prior entries of these types.

In addition, I wrote a special spotlight early this year about the joy wrestling can bring in general with particular focus on ChocoPro’s newest and youngest member, Kaho Hiromi.

Retirements:
Reika Saiki 
Sayuri 
Hikari Noa 
Arisa Nakajima 
Sayuri Namba 
Meiko Satomura 

Career changes:
Yuna Mizumori leaves Gatoh Move 

In Memoriam:
Eternal Sunrise 

Other:
Joy in Pro-Wrestling and Kaho Hiromi 

Other wrestling content I’ve done recently focused mainly on match spotlights, ranging from unusual and/or potentially overlooked matches to stuff I wanted to revisit or just caught my eye.

The unique Tokyo Game Show matches that happened in 2022 as part of promotional hype for AEW’s video game had never been aired until they were added to Wrestle Universe late last year. These included several once ever matchups featuring favorites of mine crossing paths so were a real treat to finally get to see.

In the last couple months I’ve looked back on some matches wrestlers currently performing in the US had in Ice Ribbon way back when, including Giulia, Stephanie Vaquer, and Asuka. They feature Giulia’s biggest match ever in the promotion she started in, a contentious match of hers against fellow rookie Asahi, Vaquer’s first match in Ice Ribbon as well as her facing one of the company’s rising stars, and a hidden gem of a match with veteran Kana against fiery rookie Yuuka. Was really cool to look back on all of these.

Another big part of the blog lately has been focused on the collecting side of things. I did card spotlights on BBM’s 2024 and 2025 Women’s Wrestling card sets, as well as features on specific types of unusual cards like printing plates, other metal cards, comic cuts, and minis.

Some of the posts I’m happiest about sharing featured several incredible artists from whom I have a wonderful collection of cards and other art. They include Miki Okazaki, Ice Ribbon’s Yappy, Lydi Li, and Veronica O’Connell.

In an effort to avoid mentioning and linking to every single post I did in the last couple years I’m going to gloss over the occasional book/movie/game reviews I did, but they remain an important part of the blog and I got to read/see/play some really cool stuff.

Lastly, one of my all time favorite writers passed away in May after a long battle with health issues. Peter David’s work shaped a ton of my views on what comics and novels could be.
Rest In Peace, Writer of Stuff.

Top Posts

Going to approach this part a little different this time, primarily because the top 4 posts are exactly the same as last time, and going nowhere. They all had over 1,200 views then (plus a proportionate handful each since), which is dominant for my meager ramblings that have about 20 regular readers.

On that note, a copied reminder from my last couple retrospective posts regarding my most viewed posts:

“Derailments of Thought is 100% a personal hobby blog, and my little corner of the web is generally pretty modest in terms of views. More than half of my posts garner under 20, and the “highly viewed” posts generally end up with a few hundred. This is fine, and I greatly appreciate everyone who takes the time to read. I’m pointing it out for context for the extent in which a couple of my pieces have deviated from the norm. I’m sharing this short list because I find the mix of subjects and other little details interesting.”

So #1-4 in order remain
Japan Cuts 2017: Mumon: The Land of Stealth  
Japan Cuts 2019: Samurai Shifters
Raven’s of Thri Sahashri Beginner’s Guide 
A Ray of Light Gone Too Soon 

Since last time only 2 posts have overtaken the 587 views 5th place’s Tokyo Joshi Pro 1/4/16 Live Thoughts had then, so I’m going to spotlight them specifically in lieu of rehashing thoughts on the above. Please see last time for more details on those posts.

One last note: my blog homepage itself gets a much larger percentage of the views than it used to, so all of this is highly approximate as there are no counts of what specific posts people read off that or tagged sections. I imagine my artist features are a bit undercounted as I get decent interest for those as I post about them on Instagram, where there’s no direct link to the individual post just a general blog link in my bio.

The TJPW 1/4/16 show is now at 813 views, which would place it 6th now if this was still list format.

Yoshiko 686 views:
The first new addition that caught on isn’t actually a new post since last time. It has been published just a few months before and mentioned in that retrospective and was steadily climbing in views. It’s a look back on one of joshi wrestling’s most infamous incidents after several years had passed and presented my thoughts on important context that I felt needed to be considered when looking back on it.

Farewell to the Muscle Idol: Reika Saiki’s Retirement 999 views:
The other is amusingly being mentioned and linked to for the third time within this post. The Muscle Idol, Reika Saiki, was incredibly popular as a wrestler, an idol, and in her “muscle” related work and remains so even after retiring from it all. Not surprised this one piques people’s interest, and am glad to share my memories of her career.
(Side note: that ridiculously precise view count is legit as of time of writing and was not fudged in any way.)

——-

Asahi PSC by Veronica O’Connell

So that’s a decade down. Wild how time flies.

Thank you to anyone who took some time to read through this retrospective, and I hope you found at least a post or two of interest to check out. I currently can’t guarantee any sort of update schedule, but I have stuff in the works and intend to keep at this as I’m able.

In the not too distant future I’m hoping to do more collecting and/or artist spotlights, as well as maybe continuing with more match features on interesting little moments from the past. There are a TON of recent and upcoming retirements so I’m playing around with a new format to share a few key memories of several wrestlers in one post. We’ll see if that pans out. And of course occasional book/movie/game reviews and other randomness will be sprinkled in.

Here’s to another ten years or so.

Again I’m extremely thankful for everyone who’s read, shared, and or commented on things I’ve written. Doing so is much appreciated, and often needed, support.

If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

Categories
Books Comics

Goodbye, Writer of Stuff

“There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They’re totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point.”

Peter David was self described a Writer of Stuff, and it’s really the perfect epithet. He was a mainstay in comics for decades, also a prolific writer of novels and short stories, and shared opinions of all sorts over the years in essays, blog posts, and his But I Digress column.

Peter was one of my favorite writers and I’ve read a ridiculous amount of his stuff, starting pretty early on in his career.

I was an avid comic reader when I was young, and I am one today. In between my interest and ability continue with them waned, except for Peter’s work. There was a period where his comic were pretty much all I was reading, remaining thoroughly engrossed in titles like Aquaman, Supergirl, X-Factor, and Young Justice.

While he did great work on a number of popular characters, one of the things Peter is known for was taking second string characters and making something special with the freedom such things involve.

One great example of this was his work on X-Factor, spanning three different conceptual iterations featuring different lineups of misfits over the course of years. During his first run on X-Factor, he’d write one one of the most interesting and beloved single issue stories of all time. X-Factor #87 portrayed his government sponsored X-Factor team going to mandated therapy sessions in the aftermath of an X-men crossover event. It was an unusual aspect of Earth shaking events in comics that was captivating to see explored. Peter dug deep into the characters and created an enduring, compelling tale will little more than 36 pages of characters talking to each other.

The Incredible Hulk itself, the comic Peter’s best known for, was a low selling title before he originally took it over leading to an award winning run. During that run he notably explored the concept of Hulk as an aspect of Banner’s fractured psyche, leading to his creation of the Banner Hulk combined version of Hulk that would eventually inspire MCU’s “Smart Hulk.”

One of my favorite stories of all time is David’s two part Future Imperfect from 1994, showing the Hulk faced with his own dark potential.

Echos of his work also reverberate through the stories that followed and adaptations, such as Miguel O’Hara’s appearance in Across the Spider-Verse. Peter co-created and was the primary writer of Spider-Man 2099.

Peter pushed boundaries in his work, willing to test limits of subject matter, creative direction, and format.

One of his early comic stories that groundbreaking at the time and helped establish Peter as a writer, The Death of Jean DeWolff, created waves off the bat by proclaiming its intention to kill a popular supporting character in the title of the story.

His work crossed and combined genres and styles. Sometimes his over the top humor with mountains of wordplay and puns inundated the reader. Sometimes drama and heavy topics anchored his stories. And often those elements are more combined in ways no one else would dare.

His approach and convictions sometimes led to controversy and conflict, and occasionally didn’t land in the stories themselves, but Peter always kept trying and overall things came together into an incredible catalog of writing that will endure.

Another of Peter’s strengths was fitting stories within past continuity without heavy reconning, attempts to add context and depth between existing stories. Several of his well loved Star Trek novels took this approach.

A lot of his later work also focused on this concept, including writing stories that fleshed out Spider-Man’s time unknowingly wearing the alien symbiotic costume that would later become Venom. Given Peter’s start as a comic writer was in the aftermath of the original symbiote comics (when Peter was wearing a cloth replica of the black suit), it was nice bookend to an incredible career.

Peter had been facing severe health issues for quite some time, and passed away on May 24, 2025.

Thank you for a lifetime of stories Peter. Rest in Peace.

 

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Final Boss: Meiko Satomura’s Retirement

Recently we all said goodbye to who was in my opinion simply the best wrestler in the world.

Meiko Satomura debuted April 15, 1995, and was already a 20 year veteran when I was first fortunate enough to see her wrestle live at the end of 2015. I had of course heard of her, as she was already well on her way to being a legend, but I hadn’t seen her wrestle until then. I was in for a treat.

As it happens that show was one of the first shows I ever saw live in Japan at all, Stardom Year End Climax 2015. It was headlined by Meiko defending the Wonder of Stardom title as an outsider champion against company ace Io Shirai (now WWE’s Iyo Sky). It was a hell of an introduction to two truly incredible wrestlers.

Meiko wrestled Io 1-on-1 a total of five times (twice each before and after the above match). As luck would have I managed to attend another of their battles at Senjo’s April 2018 show. It was another excellent, engrossing encounter and it was fascinating to see how two already extremely accomplished wrestlers kept evolving in the couple years that had passed.

In retrospect it also ended up being their final singles encounter. Rather surprising given their overlap time in WWE, and the fact WWE never ran the match is insane.

Everything Meiko did in the ring had meaning, with great attention paid to the little details of her craft. So every match felt special, and battles against opponents with skill levels like Io’s were always jaw dropping.

Meiko’s intensity was always on full display. She dismantled her opponents with hard hits and unmatched mastery of wrestling fundamentals. She brought out the best in her everyone she fought and forced them to rise to her level. Japan’s “Final Boss” was the wrestler everyone wanted to test themselves against.

Some of my personal favorite matches of Meiko’s involved her facing up and coming stars. These were almost never about whether or not Meiko’s opponent could win. It was about the fight they put up.

Throughout my trips to Japan I saw a total of eight of Meiko’s matches. Her promotion, Sendai Girls (Senjo), had a schedule that didn’t always match up with when I was there. But I did see her four times in Senjo and as many in other promotions.

Five of those were singles matches, and in addition to the pair of Io matches I was lucky enough to have been at two matches of Meiko’s at TJPW (Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling) shows where a couple of that company’s top stars got to test their mettle against the legend.

The first was in August of 2017, against TJPW’s ace in waiting Miyu Yamashita. It was exactly the breakout performance I’d been waiting for from Miyu at that time, and it’s no surprise it came against someone the caliber of Satomura.

From my review of that show:
“Miyu wrestled like someone with something to prove from the very first second and really took it to Meiko, believably smothering the veteran at points with relentless offense, but just couldn’t put the larger, more experienced wrestler. Meiko of course is an artist in the ring and always a joy to watch.”

That same show was headlined by my two favorite TJPW roster members battling it out for the Princess of Princess Championship. A couple years later a personal dream match happened as the victor of that match, Reika Saiki, got her own one on one encounter with Meiko on TJPW’s 1/4/2019 show. As always with my highly anticipated matches of Meiko’s, it was exactly what I expected and hoped for.  

The fifth singles match of Meiko’s I saw live left to talk about was legend vs legend. On my first Senjo show she wrestled Ayako Hamada in a #1 contender ship match for the Sendai Girls World Title that was simply phenomenal. The two beat the hell out of each other and it was my top match of the entire trip.

Outside of the matches of hers I was lucky enough to see live, one particularly cool experience I had was the opportunity to attend was a Sendai Girls New Year’s Party fan event in early 2019. It was a fun chance to meet and hang out with Senjo wrestlers and other fans, and of course an honor to meet Satomura.

Meiko, DASH Chisako, and Millie McKenzie

Meiko could do it all, and never shied away from a fight. Moving on from stuff I personally saw live, I want to specifically point out her intergender matches. She waged war against a number of male opponents over the years, including wrestlers who would go on to appear for WWE or AEW and may be quite familiar to foreign fans such as Pete Dunne and Konosuke Takeshita. The entire feud she had alongside fellow Sendai Girls wrestlers Chihiro Hashimoto and DASH Chisako against DDT Pro’s faction All Out was wild and well worth seeking out.

Speaking of WWE, as I alluded to above Meiko regularly appeared for WWE for a while later in her career. She appeared in the Mae Young Classic 2018, making it to the semi finals with victories over Killer Kelly, Mercedes Martinez, and Lacey Lane before being eliminated by Toni Storm.

She returned in 2021 and made most of her appearances as part of the roster on NXT UK, and was NXT UK Women’s champion from 6/2021 to 9/2022.

She made a few NXT appearances early 2023 after NXT UK was wound down, and last appeared for WWE during their Japan tour in July 2024. While I lamented that WWE never ran an Iyo vs Meiko singles, they did cross paths in a WWE ring during this tour.

Meiko teamed with Bayley, Bianca Belair, and Jade Cargill to face Damage Control (Iyo, Asuka, Kairi Sane, and Dakota Kai) on two shows. On the final show of the tour Meiko challenged her previous teammate Bayley for the WWE’s Women’s Title.

Her April 2025 retirement had been announced right before that title match. Going into 2025 I wondered if one final appearance might happen at the Royal Rumble or possibly during Wrestlemania weekend (which was shortly before her final show). There were also rumors of her being in attendance of NXT Roadblock in NYC. But as it turns out the match against Bayley was her final WWE appearance in retrospect, and a championship match isn’t a bad bookend for her time there.

Meiko’s retirement tour was a gauntlet of tough opponents and challenging contests as she bid farewell to the ring. She faced DASH, Chihiro, Saori Anou, Minoru Suzuki, Yuki Arai, Nanae Takahashi, Takumi Iroha, Sareee, and a great number of other significant opponents in emotional matches. Sadly a challenge from Emi Sakura never materialized into a match, but otherwise it was a series of great farewell matches featuring near everyone fans could have hoped to see challenge the Final Boss one last time.

Meiko’s final show was on April 29, 2025 at Korakuen Hall. In the main event she teamed with Manami against Senjo ace Chihiro and another legend, Aja Kong.

Manami’s inclusion in this match was special and significant. Trained by Meiko and having debuted at the age of 13, she’s now 20 and a 7 year veteran charismatic rising star in Senjo. I saw her wrestle live early on in her career and her potential was immediately obvious.

I’d also seen her and Meiko team opposite Kong once before. On Senjo’s 1/6/2019 show The Senjo roster team of Meiko, Manami, Mika Iwata, & Cassandra Miyagi face Aja, Hiroyo Matsumoto, Alex Lee, & Mikoto Shindo. Manami was fed to the wolves, with Meiko at one point refusing a tag and demanding the relative rookie get back to the center of the ring and put up more of a fight against the monstrous Kong. She was pushed to her limits, rose to the occasion, and the audience went nuts when she eventually secured the victory for her team.

Meiko & Manami would prove successful one last time, winning Meiko’s retirement match when Meiko pinned Kong with Scorpion Rising.

But that wasn’t quite the end. Post match Aja wanted to fight alongside Meiko one last time and throws out a challenge. Five wrestlers argued about who was going to accept but the vets don’t care about the handicap. So Meiko Satomura’s true final match ended up being a five minute time limit draw in which she and Kong fended off Chihiro, Iwata, Iroha, YUNA & Senka Akatsuki (and Sakura Hirota doing Sakura Hirota things). All told Meiko’s final show was a fitting an appropriate goodbye.

Farewell Final Boss. Thanks for an incredible 30 years and best wishes in whatever comes after wrestling.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically, but more regular posts should be on the way soon.

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.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Listen to Namba: Sayuri Namba’s “Graduation” from TJPW

March 5, 2025

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.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Pure Violence: Arisa Nakajima’s Retirement

August 4, 2024

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 tier matches would continue, 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’Reilly on 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 seeing two 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.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Deathmatch Daisuki: Hikari Noa’s “Graduation” from TJPW

By the beginning of 2018 I had been to Japan a number of times, and Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling (TJPW) had morphed from a curiosity that wasn’t really aimed at me into one of my favorite promotions.

Their big January 4th show that year opened with the quadruple debut of a wrestling subset of the idol group Up Up Girls, and included someone who would go on to be one of my absolute favorites in the promotion.

The original Up Up Girls lineup, Miu, Hikari, Raku, and Hinano, wrestled in identical gear outside of their signature color versions. They made a solid impression in a basic but fun debut match that hinted at a lot of potential for the group.

A year later the group would transition to new, more individualized gear and tweak their names. This is when Hikari became Hikari Noa, touches of her goth aesthetic were introduced into her outfit, and her unique personality and infectious charisma really started to show.

From the boisterous powerhouse Miu Watanabe, to the sleepy train otaku Raku, to the deathmatch loving Hikari Noa the Up Up Girls became more and more beloved by fans as they let themselves shine. As Pipipipi Pinano (the former Hinano) retired in April 2019, the Up Up Girls would continue as this trio until Shino Suzuki’s debut in 2023.

For me Hikari in particular was a breath of fresh air in wrestling. She took to it well, and evolved quickly in her early career consistently improving and finding her own style within the ring. She was engaging to watch, easy to cheer for, and eventually became one of TJPW’s most popular roster members.

I thoroughly enjoyed her matches, relishing in the opportunities I had to see her compete live against some of TJPW’s top stars. She was the ultimate underdog babyface to me, and I enthusiastically followed along with her progress and celebrated every victory.

In 2021 Hikari became the first Up Up Girl to win singles gold, defeating Yuki “Kamiyu” Kamifuku for the International Princess Championship. She held it from May until January with four successful defenses before losing it to former champion Maki Itoh.

“Deathmatch Daisuki” (“I love deathmatches”) Hikari Noa was true to herself in her wrestling goals, making it well known she intended to someday participate in the type of deathmatches that captured her imagination and attracted her to wrestling in the first place.

She was at the forefront of TJPW beginning to stretch beyond their norms. Her first ever hardcore match main evented TJPW’s first Inspiration show, a spin off concept for unique matches outside of TJPW’s core model. She put up a valiant fight against hardcore veteran Rina Yamashita in a great showing.

Hikari would get her ultimate wish in August 2021, participating in an Electric Current Deathmatch as part of an eight-person inter gender tag contest on a DDT show also featuring TJPW’s Maki Itoh on the other team. In 2023 she’d have a singles Fluorescent Lighttubes Deathmatch against Sawyer Wreck to headline Inspiration #6.

Deathmatches generally aren’t my thing, but I was thrilled that Hikari kept pushing her personal dreams and got to realize the ambitions that brought her into wrestling in the first place.

In September 2023 Hikari and her partner Nao Kakuta, collectively known as Free Wi-Fi, won the Princess Tag Team Championships.

The reign was unusually significant for Hikari, who had three other regular partners (Pinano, Sena Shiori, and Natsumi Maki) who either retired or left TJPW before the team could achieve championship success. For Nao, it was her first championship ever (and only, as she’ll be retiring this July).

Free Wi-Fi was an incredibly fun, skilled team and I was overjoyed to see them ascend to the top of TJPW’s tag division.

Hikari Nao PSC by Juri H. Chinchilla.
Hikari Noa & Miu Watanabe PSC by Veronica O’Connell
Raku & Shino Suzuki PSC by Veronica O’Connell
Free Wi-Fi PSC by Miki Okazaki.

In late December 2023, shortly before Free Wi-Fi was set to defend the Princess Tag Team Championships at TJPW’s 1/4/2024 show, a press conference was held announcing they were vacating the titles.

Hikari was not at the press conference (her partner Nao Kakuta and TJPW founder Tetsuya Koda spoke). It was initially reported that she was out due to illness. In mid February TJPW and Up Up Girls management announced she was on indefinite hiatus “due to personal reasons.”

Finally in May it was announced that “after discussions with her about her future” Hikari had left TJPW and Up Up Girls (the general term Japanese companies use for someone leaving, whether retirement or otherwise, is “graduation”).

There would be no farewell appearance or show, and no social media statement from her. The company statement included a general apology from her about not being able to live up to waiting fans wishing for her to return. Hikari has not made any public appearances nor any social media posts since before the original press conference in December.

At this time no one is aware if she’ll ever return to wrestling or public life in general. I will not speculate nor discuss this beyond the above presentation of the public timeline, but of course it is a shame to see one of my favorite wrestlers ever leave the company under such abrupt, clouded circumstances. But whatever the case, I hope things are going well for her.

If this is the end of her wrestling career, it will have spanned over 350 matches across six years. While I’d love for her to return, I am deeply grateful for all the time and effort she spent entertaining fans regardless.

Hikari was always cheerful and appreciative when greeting fans, and I am blessed to have had to the opportunity to meet her a number of times. My thanks again for all the fun she added to wrestling.

I will miss her terribly, but more importantly whatever she does in the future I hope she’s happy and I wish her all the best.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Vanishing Ninja : Sayuri’s Retirement

In May of 2019 I was lucky enough to see a special showcase show of Emi Sakura’s casual training program DareJyo. It was a wonderfully fun display of training drills and exhibition matches. What no one knew at the time was five of the participants would go on to train as as full wrestlers and debut just a few months later as part of Gatoh Move’s Generation 4.

For many years in the early portion of Gatoh Move’s existence, Riho (now of AEW) was their ace and star. In Spring of 2019 it was announced that she would be leaving to go freelance in early July. The landscape of the promotion looked dramatically different after her departure and the subsequent debut of six rookies from DareJyo at Gatoh’s August show (the five previously mentioned that appeared on the 5/1/19 showcase show, plus Chie Koishikawa).

However as of the original announcement in July only four wrestlers would be debuting. The last trainee to decide to make the jump was the woman who eventually become Gatoh Move’s resident lovable ninja.

Sayuri’s DareJyo showcase exhibition match was against eventual fellow Gen 4 member Rin Rin (now the recently retired Yukari Hosokawa of Ganpro). Her debut match was against Mitsuru Konno.

Sayuri is the ultimate underdog and pitting her against the tough-as-nails, fierce Mitsuru in her first official match was perfect (the entire show was a masterclass in playing to their rookies’ strengths and presenting an incredibly entertaining slate of debuts). Even in this first match there were hints of the perseverance and personality that would draw fans to her.

Sayuri has incredibly unique charisma that continually emerged and evolved as she gained experience. Sakura once jokingly gave her an award for there being nothing remotely unique or interesting about her, but Gatoh’s founder couldn’t be more wrong in this case. There was an endearing goofiness to her mixed with a fiery determination that made it impossible not to cheer for her.

One of her most memorable series of moments revolved around her stubborn insistence to complete a bodyslam despite failure after failure to do so. She turned the cry of “Let’s bodyslam!” into a beloved rallying point for her fans (whom she named “Sayurists”). They were thrilled when she finally hit one on the 5/4/21 show.

Sayuri eventually fully embraced a ninja role, using tactics and antics such a shuriken style chops, awesome wall run headlock takedowns, and ninja vanishing techniques (hiding behind numerous environmental elements in Ichigaya Chocolate Square to later surprise her opponent). A perfect mix of skill and silliness, Sayuri’s matches were always captivating.

Sayuri and Sayaka PSC by Juri Chinchilla.

Gatoh’s 12/29/19 show turned out to be the last time I was able to attend a show Sayuri wrestled on. I missed a number of Gatoh Move shows during the remainder of that trip due to coming down with the flu, and once I recovered and could attend again Sayuri herself was out sick (along with many other wrestlers, it was a rough season).

However, there is something quite fitting that my final live memory of seeing her wrestle ended up being a singles match against her trainer, Emi Sakura. The legend spent the early match trying to run through and bully the overmatched ninja. But as usual Sayuri’s persistence created openings and allowed her to give her opponent much more fight than expected, even in defeat.

Sayuri’s career spanned just under 90 matches, and she never won a singles contest. But she never gave up and her Sayurists were certain her moment would come.

In 2021 Sayuri formed a regular tag team with 17 year veteran Choun Shiryu called Dragon Ninja. They had fantastic chemistry as a team, and Sayuri clearly evolved as a wrestler under Choun’s influence.

Dragon Ninja was a successful team with several wins, but always with Choun gaining the decision. They fought and won as a team, but the elusive pin or submission that evaded Sayuri in singles competition continued to do so in tag matches.

Until ChocoPro 264 on 10/23/22. In an incredible culmination of her wrestling journey she pinned Chie Koishikawa to give Dragon Ninja a huge win over Chie & Masa Takanashi. Her moment had arrived.

The victory seemed to herald big things ahead for Dragon Ninja and Sayuri, but unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. She would wrestle two more matches after that before going on hiatus due to chronic health issues. In late 2023 it was announced she was not returning and would be retiring from wrestling.

Sayuri had remained involved in Gatoh Move and Chocopro in non-wrestling capacities in the meantime and ChocoPro 347 was her farewell show. She accompanied Choun against Otoki, and while not officially part of the match she had some involvement including traditional retirement spots. It was a great way to say farewell within the confines of her not being able to return for a full retirement match.

She gave a goodbye speech after the show and was sent off with smiles.

Sayuri had unique presence and style and was a breath of fresh air in wrestling throughout her short career. Wishing all the best to her in whatever’s next for our darling ninja.

  • Full Gatoh Move 6 card PSC “puzzle” by Juri H. Chinchilla.
Categories
Japan Wrestling

Eternal Sunrise

Heartbreaking news is not how I intended to return to blogging (and my previously planned posts will be coming soon). But tragedies are all too often completely unexpected, and I feel compelled to share some words of personal remembrance of a wrestler who meant a great deal to me as a fan.

Actwres girl’Z has shared that one of their performers, 21 year old Asahi, has unexpectedly passed away (no other details have been shared: please respect the privacy of her grieving family, friends, and colleagues).

Asahi debuted for a promotion named Ice Ribbon in August 2017. The then 14 year old faced wrestling legend Manami Toyota in her debut match. I was lucky enough to attend that show live, and was impressed with the sense of determination and resiliency Asahi showed.

The wrestler who would eventually be nicknamed The Sunrise of Hope became an absolute favorite of mine, and it was a joy to see her evolve and grow as her career progressed. She put her heart into her matches, was technically skilled, and most importantly was just flat out fun to watch.

One of my favorite memories of the emotion she put behind everything is a bit of an odd inclusion here, as it never really made tape. But it’s such a vivid memory to this day I’d like to share it.

At a show in early 2019 Asahi was part of a P’s Party themed team, alongside fellow rookies Tequila Saya and Giulia, going against then Ice Ribbon veterans Risa Sera, Maya Yukihi, and Akane Fujita. It was an elimination match with special stipulations, and by the end P’s Party had the unlikely advantage as it was down to Asahi and Giulia against Akane. Asahi had Akane on the verge of elimination and was slowly grounding her senior down, only to be shoved away at the last second by a partner who wanted the glory for herself. P’s Party won, but Asahi was betrayed all the same. What followed was intense, and only a tiny snippet made it to the video of the event.

From my recap of the event:

“Asahi stares a HOLE through her so called partner, and then goes CRAZY trying to claw and scrape her way to attack Giulia requiring three others to hold her back until finally Tsukka comes in to calm her down. Fantastic fire from Asahi here, and there was more story and character conveyed in these 30 seconds than I’ve seen in entire shows.”

No matter what type of moment, Asahi always vividly conveyed her emotions with captivating charisma.

Another special memory for me was getting to see her wrestle another of my favorites, Misaki Ohata, at a P’s Party show in a great match seeing Asahi throw everything she could at her vastly more experienced opponent.

I have not been able to return to Japan since before the pandemic, so the final times I was able to see Asahi wrestle live were Ribbonmania 2019 and one dojo show a couple weeks later. Her being victorious in the tag team gauntlet and then later part of Tequilia Saya’s retirement match in the main event are happy memories.

In Spring of 2023 Asahi left Ice Ribbon to go to Actwres girl’Z, a company with a more theatrical based approach to wrestling related entertainment. She was a good fit and I recommend checking out her work there as well.

It’s heart wrenching to try to process the loss of someone so young, with a seemingly bright future ahead of her. Farewell, our dear Sunrise. You will be remembered, and missed.