The Future of Joshi: August 2025
I'm really good at getting things out on time, huh?
Yes, unfortunately due to some life issues, the August edition of TFOJ is coming out...towards the end of September. I hope this doesn't set a precedent. I'll try my absolute best to make sure that going forward these get published before the second Sunday of the month.
Anyway, Tournament season is over! The 5Star Grand Prix and Tokyo Princess Cup happened all throughout last month with many wrestlers gunning for a shot at their respective promotion's top belt. Being somewhat inexperienced, Kurara and Haru's odds at winning their tournaments were slim, but not impossible. They've both won tournaments in the past, how different could these really be? Spoiler: very. Very, very different.
The Deconstruction of Sayaka Kurara
Kurara came into this tournament very hopeful. The 2025 Cinderella winner made Saya Kamitani struggle in their Championship bout, she should have as good a shot as any, right? She suffered back to back losses to Natsupoi and Rina to close out June, leaving her with no points entering August. She needs a win on the board, and she has an easy target in Rian. In fact, I think Kurara sees Rian as too easy of a target. She walks into this match with a bit of an ego. She clearly sees Rian as beneath her, allowing multiple careless submissions and near falls. She gets the win in the end, but not as dominant as she would have hoped. Still, it's the confidence boost she needs going into her match against SLK.
It’s Kurara’s most important match of the tournament. Any chance of winning her block rests on winning this match. Momentum is not on her side, but she’s going to have to try and run through a brick wall anyway.
Unfortunately for Kurara, SLK finds her path to victory early on. After countering a bodyslam attempt with an ankle pick, SLK wrenches on Kurara’s right knee. SLK continues to punish it with strikes and submissions. Even when Kurara tries to fight back with her signature dropkicks, she does more harm to herself than Kid. Kurara starts to rally a comeback, but its short lived. She tries to repeat her earlier success with the superman punch, but Kid expects it. Kurara falls down headfirst, SLK sending her entire bodyweight into her back. Now she's vulnerable on two fronts.
After surviving a stretch muffler on the injured leg, Kurara once again inflicts more damage on herself by using her injured leg for a violet shooting. After SLK sets up another stretch muffler with an anticipated kickout, she’s ready to put the unicorn out to pasture. Kurara miraculously manages to stand up for a pair of spears that send SLK to the next prefecture, but it's too little too late. Despite her last stand, a bodyslam and a moonsault put Kurara away.
This feels like a reminder. A humbling. She may have won the Cinderella, she may have wins over main eventers, but her inexperience will always be a factor. The outcome of this match rested solely on Kurara’s ability to counter that ankle pick early. A veteran like SLK can adjust their gameplan without hesitation. If you present them an opportunity, they will gladly take it.
This match also feels like it lampshades Kurara’s underdog charm and limited ability. She continued to use moves that put stress on her knees, either out of habit or not having any other option. She’s still in that phase of her career where she comes in with a single goal in mind.
Kurara's next match sees her take on Natsuko Tora in Korakuen Hall. Despite being 1-0 against Tora in single’s matches, that win came from a DQ. She’s never faced her in a serious match. Tora isn’t fucking around this time.
Unlike SLK’s torturous targeting of the leg, Tora’s here to throw around her weight and won’t stop until Kurara can’t fight back anymore. The problem is that it only motivated Kurara even more. This is an absolute spectacle of a match. Kourakuen is on fire. It's one of the loudest matches I've seen from the venue all year. Everyone is fully behind Kurara, and she starts to believe in herself. Maybe a little too much.
It’s the kind of reckless abandon that reminds me of Mayu. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts, if I keep getting back up and throwing myself at my opponent, my sheer determination will win. But even Mayu knows when to tone it down. It’s the intersection between wrestling genius and complete fool that makes her the ace. Kuara only possesses the latter. She’s running off pure instinct and emotion in this match. She thinks she’s putting in damage to Tora, but all she's doing is wasting energy. The intelligent monster lives up to her name, letting Kurara gas herself, taking advantage of her exhaustion for the win.
Wrestling does not exist in a vacuum. Kurara's next match is against Tomoka Inaba. If she thought her leg was in danger against SLK, she's in for new kinds of pain today. And that's exactly what happens. Tomoka isn't stupid. She knows Kurara is hurt and takes full advantage of it. Kurara actually comes into this match more calm than before. She seems to have realized that charging headfirst into her opponent isn't doing her any good.
That gets thrown out the window when Tomoka targets her leg. She begins running off instinct again, doing more damage to herself than her opponent. Kurara's never give up spirit is actively hurting her. It's sad to watch.
By the time her match with AZM rolls around, Kurara is playing for pride. AZM advances to the playoff stage regardless of if Kurara wins or loses. I’ll say this: AZM could have absolutely won this one, but I think she chose not to. From the get go, she’s trying to get the win very quickly. She knows that she advances win or loss, so she’s not putting in too much effort. Her focus is on making Kurara tap quickly. She baits her into throwing a forearm under the pretense of the typical joshi exchange, and continues to target it with a planned kick out.
After Kurara fights out from both of them, she decides it’s time to spam foot stomps until she’s down. No good either. Two spears from Kuara a draining pin sequence later, I think AZM decided that it wasn’t worth it. If she throws Kurara a bone, she goes into her match against Hanan less banged up. It's a smart move.
After her loss to Tomoka, Kurara tweeted: "All through this league, I feel like I am picking up what I am missing." The spark of Sayaka Kurara is dead and buried. Long gone are the shock wins and tournament runs won off pure emotion. The 2025 5Star Grand Prix was a wake up call for Kurara. Either improve your ability, or be left by the wayside.
Caught in the Cyclone
Unlike her first Tokyo Princess Cup, Haru had to fight to get here. She knocked off Ren Konatsu and Ivy Steel (in what I consider to be Ivy's best TJPW match) to face Himawari in the first round of the TPC proper.
They’ve been building this match for quite a while. At the “This is Japan!” Show, Hima and Uta knocked out Haru and Chika. They wrestled to a draw in the second Rush match, and they were the tag partners of Shoko and Tori in their preview tag for the MLW featherweight belt. Koda clearly had high hopes for this.
Haru actually seems a little bit annoyed in the beginning when Himawari tries her antics, like: “This is a tournament match, take this seriously!” After some technical work, Haru flashes a sadistic smile as she cranks the arm. She knows exactly how this match is going to end. Hima fights out and uses her power advantage to regain momentum. The two trade submission attempts in the duel between armbar and single leg crab. After they fight out of the other's submissions, it's counters on counters. They’ve wrestled each other so frequently that they’re starting to know their habits. Just when it seems like Hima has the advantage, Haru counters a vertical suplex attempt into her own fisherman. Haru advances to face Miu. Dear God.
What did children ever do to Miu?
Haru seems surprisingly confident out the gate trying to use her speed advantage, but Miu quickly shuts that down. Haru heads back to the drawing board. this time Haru focuses on technique, but Miu’s no slouch either. Haru decides her best course of action is to target the arm. Not only does this set her up for her armbar, but it also a clever counter Miu’s giant swing. It requires her arm to be extended and hold a lot of weight.
Miu realizes this and tries the same strategy. She regains control and starts to hammer into Haru's back, following it with a nasty backbreaker. If the giant swing is off the table, the teardrop will have to hurt twice as much.
It seems nothing can go right for Haru here. Miu kicks out of the springboard dropkick and swiftly counters an armbar attempt. Despite her injured arm, Miu goes for the giant swing, but Haru fights her off with kicks. Miu responds by battering her back in some more with slams and a swinging backbreaker. She’ll be walking into class tomorrow at 90 degree angle.
It seems over for Haru, but she just won’t stay down. Miu carelessly allows Haru to get the arm on another giant swing attempt, allowing her to fully lock it In. Once Miu reaches the ropes for the break, Haru unexpectedly hits a springboard dropkick on Miu’s worked arm! She goes for the Armbar once again, but Miu fights out, locking in her own submission! They’re now dueling holds, waiting to see who taps first.
Miu can’t take it anymore and gets the break. This is the first time Miu actually seems to be on the backfoot. Rapid pin attempts by Haru lead to her going for the Fisherman’s suplex, but Miu keeps her base. She suddenly gets an idea. With her arm around Haru’s neck, she muscles her entire body weight into an UPPER BODY GIANT SWING!!
Haru surprisingly doesn’t die from this, but she’s on shaky legs. After a last stand where most of the crowd is screaming her name, she has to tap to Miu’s cloverleaf, almost an insult for making her wrestle a technical match. Easily the best match of Haru's career to this point.
Beyond the Brackets
After Haru was knocked out of the TPC, she was back to the usual undercard tag matches. Little did we know how important the one on 8/17 would be.
I said in my first post that Itoh gained a begrudging respect for Haru after her Tag title challenge. It seems that was not the case. This is a typrical time-filler TJPW match with one real strong point. The first time Haru and Itoh share the ring together, the atmosphere shifts a little. Itoh gives her some elbows, but Haru keeps walking her down. They begin to trade some absolutely nasty forearms that echo through the venue. Itoh looks down on Haru. Haru resents her former idol. This seems like it was going to lead to something eventually, but… yeah. Itoh announces that she’s leaving the company at the end of the month. It's an absolute shame given the story these two could have had.
At the TPC finals we got to see Haru and Yuki Aino team up once again after their win at Summer Sun Princess. While She spent most of this match getting her legs turned into Play-Doh by Rika, she did contribute to the finish by recreating one of Nodoka's old spots.
Get ready to learn Bakaretsu Power, buddy
After a very uninteresting six-woman tag at the 5Star Finals, Kurara appeared in JTO teaming with Akira Kurogane against Aoi and Azusa Inaba. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the footage for this match, but it appears that it was simply to set up a match later down the road. Kurara will challenge Azusa for the JTO Girls championship at her produce show on the 15th of October! She beat HATE Azusa in the Cinderella, but can she beat Red Azusa in her own backyard?
Return of the Beast!
Just squeezing in on the 31st of the month was the return of Senka Akatsuki from sickness. Chigusa was so excited on commentary that she almost took my hearing. Unfortunately, she’s across the ring from Sareee AND Takumi Iroha. What a welcoming return. She doesn’t get in until the very end, but she makes a fucking statement. She's going toe to toe with the big names, and even commanding some respect. Iroha recognizes the danger of the shoot pin, being the first person I’ve seen to counter it by throwing up her knees.
Senka tanks everything Sareee and Takumi throw at her until they have to gang up on her to finally get the pin. But Senka has something to say. She challenges Iroha for the AAAW championship, her first ever singles challenge. Something tells me this is going to be one of my favorite matches this year.
And that's it for August! Again, it sucks that this got delayed so far into September, and I'm aiming to get September's column out earlier into October. I truly do enjoy making these. What you just read is a condensed and edited down version of a 2k word 5 page document where I over analyze literally every part of every match these three have. Thank you for reading if you made it this far!