Akira Hokuto

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Loss]

The Kandori matches are all-time classics. But I feel like most of her case is confined to one year. I've found her work technically good before she really got fully into the Dangerous Queen gimmick and changed her look, but she lacked charisma early on. She's a fascinating wrestler because of the sacrifices she has made for her craft, and she will for sure end up in my top 100. Her career has plenty of what-ifs, but I don't want to use this poll to right those wrongs. I like Hokuto, but I'm not even sure she's comfortably ahead of Toyota. Toyota has more annoying habits, but Toyota also has a larger body of work at a high level that spanned a longer period of time. And the difference between her peaks and Hokuto's peaks are negligible.

[ohtani's jacket]

Hokuto was always one of the examples used in the peak vs. longevity argument. Criticism over the brevity of her peak always existed, but was drowned out her vocal group of fans and the cult of personality that surrounded her. I think she's a case of a worker who was actually helped by how difficult it was to obtain footage prior to the digital age since a year's work of her peak was a serious investment in those days and acquiring footage to compare it to wasn't easy.

 

Her placement in the original list was a product of the times, but I wouldn't say it was undeserved. She was an intense performer who delivered matches that were easy to weave a narrative around and for the most part she had tremendous execution. She was good at selling and worked a nice mix of brawling and bomb throwing. Her matches could be spotty at times, but not glaringly so. If anything, I'd argue that her matches were too "story driven" with a constant focus on her hard luck story and collection of real life injuries. In the big matches that's fine, but it got to the point that it was the focus of every match.

 

Her post early retirement work deserves reconsideration as it's possibly better than it was given credit for at the time.

[Loss]

I'd be interested in seeing some Hokuto from before 1990 and after 1997. I know she'll be on my list on the strength of 1993 but where she'll end up is something else entirely. I don't really have a good handle on her career trajectory overall, just her peak.

[ohtani's jacket]

Her best match before 1990 is the Chigusa singles match. After 1997, her most notable match was the 2001 Satomura match.

[Dylan Waco]

Perhaps not the right place for this, but would anyone consider Satomura for this thing?

[ohtani's jacket]

She's worth nominating.

[MJH]

If nothing else, Satomura's one of the post-boom/s girls who would have been a star in any era, I think. The Aja feud was always some of GAEA's highest-regarded stuff as well as the Hokuto match.

 

On Hokuto pre-90, there were some matches in the late '80s aside from the Chigusa match that I thought showed signs of the selling she'd become famous for that, when I revisit the Classics run, I'll add here. This is a more general point but with Joshi in particular I'm wondering about certain matches not being on YouTube. I've already put up a few matches such as the Chigusa match and the TLTB 89 stuff, and I know DoubleMiz has a load of matches too, but maybe it's worth having a misc. uploads thread for stuff that looks good on paper, we can't find online, and are of interest to people in considering various wrestlers?

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I've done a bit of a Hokuto binge, and here's what I thought:

 

Pros

• What I like most about Hokuto is that she brought such a great sense of drama to her matches, and I think she was really good at getting across her story, her journey. Like, I don't know anything about her injury history, or how she came to be the Dangerous Queen, so I went into this really without context, but with her performances she was able to sell who she is and what she is about. There's also that famous "big match feel", which I think is something she was very good at creating. Those two big matches against Aja, for example, had me really buzzing.
• Great seller. Just really good. There was that one tag where she teams with Aja against Kandori (can't wait to watch more of that badass bitch, btw) and Eagle Sawai where her arm is just shot and it's amazing watching her trying to fight through the pain. Then there's the leg. Also...
• Great on offence. Great moveset. I was very impressed by her ability to play so vulnerable, but also be the baddest motherfucker when the match called for it.

Cons

• She was kinda bland before she became the Dangerous Queen, I guess. I mean, I thought her character work was really good in the Chiggy match, but her other pre-DQ stuff I saw, there was definitely that feel of technically good, but lacking in charisma.
• I have to mention the peak thing, and I have to kind of take experts like OJ and Loss at the word a bit with it, because the later stuff I saw with her she was still looking pretty damn good to me. But, I didn't watch that much of it, and there's just no way I can start from pretty much scratch on a performer, and try to get a sense of their whole career, and make these kinds of judgments. I guess I'll just be ranking her on her peak, but I did want to address it, as it's something I've always seen brought up with her.
• There was a bit of a sense that she needed that big match atmosphere for her matches to really transcend. Or maybe it's just that she was so good in those big matches that a 10-minute semi-squash type match was a big letdown.

Hokuto definitely makes my ballot. The things she brought to the table far outweigh any negatives she may have, to me anyway. She's the kind of person that could end up pretty much anywhere on my list depending on how I feel at the time. I could talk myself into having her around the top 20, or she could end up towards the bottom. At any rate, I really enjoyed going through some of her stuff.

[Timbo Slice]

I'm thinking my top female workers will feature Jaguar, Aja and Hokuto in some order.

 

While the length of time of her best work is short, the sheer volume within that time is something else. Arguably the best woman's match ever, arguably a Top 5 women's tag match ever (Although as time goes on, I have the Queendom tag at #2 behind only the Dream Rush tag), great work in the '93 Grand Prix, great work in the '92 TLTB...for a good three year span, and especially in 1993, she might have been the best wrestler on the planet and she worked hurt for a good amount of time.

 

She also was the antithesis of the style that Toyota championed, which makes her even better in my book. Knew how to tell a story better than any other wrestler at the time, maybe save Stan Hansen, who had major feathers in his cap with Kawada and Kobashi in 1993.

 

My gut says Top 50, but I won't be surprised if she gets into the Top 25.

[benjaminkicks]

I've been bingeing on Meiko Satomura matches today, and I just watched her '01 match with Hokuto. Really great match, and Hokuto was awesome in it. I look forward to check out more stuff from her peak.

[Parties]

I've seen very little 90s Joshi. I love most of the 80s stuff I've seen, especially the '79-81 era. But even Aja Kong – often held up as the best of her era – has never done anything for me. In prepping for a top 100, I have a list of 20 or so “legend” workers going who are routinely held up as elite all-timers, but who I've never really gotten around to watching in depth. Hokuto is on that list.

 

Akira Hokuto vs. Manami Toyota (AJW, 2/9/95)

First five minutes of this are completely ridiculous by today’s standards. Of course Meltzer gives it five stars: it’s a Kobashi match on fast forward. Toyota very early on goes for a dropkick off the top rope to the concrete where her toes graze Hokuto, leaving Toyota to take a flat back bump from ten feet high straight to the floor. Yet somehow this leaves Hokuto devastated, while Toyota immediately springs to her feet to jump back into the ring. This improved once they got in the ring, but most of Toyota’s act still looked like total overkill. Nice sharpshooter from Hokuto, but I didn’t get why she was allowed to just remove Toyota’s hand from the rope after a clear rope break, then go right on applying the hold. Toyota was good at the Kobashi-Style wheelbarrow whirligig move. She applied it in a way that looked like she was grinding down on Hokuto’s head and neck each time they spun forward. That table not breaking actually made the dives look better than they would have. I can understand why Toyota’s been deemed excessive/annoying/etc: she has the goofiest moveset I’ve seen in ages. Almost everything she does here seems like it would obviously hurt herself more than her opponent.

 

I really don’t mean to be so incredulous, but is this still a revered match, or one of those things that’s been dismissed as a product of its time? I can understand how this would have been deemed “epic” among 90s tape traders (weapons, excessive head drops, women more talented than Alundra Blayze), but as of now I much prefer Jackie Sato and Jaguar to this stuff.

 

Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (AJW, 2/4/93)

This is a big improvement from the word go, though I could have done without Hokuto grabbing the mic and screaming epiphets ten seconds in. Kandori looks like a killer: is she supposed to be the Kawada to Hokuto's Misawa? (Is Toyota then some ghastly amalgam of Kobashi and Ultimo Dragon?) Hokuto's screaming-crying selling wears thin real fast. If I wanted to hear the sound of Louis Anderson whimpering, I'll go visit him at the local shelter. Kandori completely outclassing Hokuto early: solid elbow smashes, some very good throws, and a completely brutal leglock. Reversing a Tombstone while standing on a table is absurd, but at least the result came off as a potential KO. Halfway in, it feels like Kandori's having a badass fight while Hokuto keeps trying to take it in the direction of weak Attitude Era crowd brawling, in an effort to get in spots that reek of Okada.

 

I appreciate that this is an unbelievable bladejob from Hokuto, and that she's selling the fatigue of it hard. That said, it drags down the match to have her resting on the floor, struggling to grab the railing for minutes at a time. It's just too long for someone to be recovering outside the ring, especially in a big time main event. I liked the submission counters in the middle, but Kandori again feels better at them. Turns out the world's best Kurt Angle is an small Japanese lady. (JK: Alexander Otsuka remains the world's best Kurt Angle.) Finish is both good and bad in that they both admirably sell exhaustion and are throwing badass strikes, but didn't totally work for me in that Hokuto's melodramatic overacting continued and the actual deathblow didn't feel decisive.

[Parties]

Akira Hokuto vs. Mimi Shimoda (AJW, 8/30/95)
Did they not have count-outs in this promotion? Really dull match aside from Hokuto’s coolish surfboard variation. Otherwise this was just a heel who seems much higher on the food chain than the grinning, clapping babyface who gets mauled. Joshi at its worst often feels sadistic: one woman beating the hell out of another so that the recipient can prove she’s tough enough. Thank you m'aam, may I have another? Which isn’t to say that this isn’t also a dumb structure when it’s done by dudes with lighttubes in CZW. Almost spot for spot this was way too similar to the Toyota and Kandori matches, taking the worst from each (overelaborate and undersold high spots from Toyota, shrugged off limb work and reckless head drops from Kandori). Followed by the worst Diamond Cutter ever and kickouts of several more headdrop finishers. Hokuto’s Fisherman Buster at the end was pretty nasty, but otherwise the finish was never in doubt.

Aja Kong & Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto & Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 6/3/93)
Nakano wearing a frayed Grateful Dead shirt throughout is already the best thing I’ve seen in a Hokuto match. Kong always hitting people with weird aluminum boxes seems roughly as lame as Tommy Dreamer hitting opponents with plastic garbage bins. Nakano was actually great throughout this: she had a peak Takayama vibe to her kicks and slams, but with more range of motion. Her segments with Inoue really worked as the two of them both showed a lot of fire. Good headlock from Kong, he said in search of praise. Nakano continues to look good when paired with Hokuto, even doing a good job of feeding herself for Hokuto’s subpar armbars. The spot of Inoue and a ring girl holding Nakano against the ropes so that Hokuto can hit her with a sword was terrible. If Iizuka, Yano, or Eric Young did that tomorrow, everyone would shit on it. Nakano's also really agile in taking Inoue’s offense, especially her headscissors. Inoue runs up the ropes and hits a falling back elbow that Shelton Benjamin couldn’t have done on the best day of his career. Felt like the tag format helped everyone here as they were able to have an entertaining showdown rather than trying to go out and have the Most Grandiose Experience in Queendom History. Really awesome finish to this. By far the best of the four big Hokuto matches that I’ve seen. I'll definitely be watching more Nakano after this, and probably more Inoue too.

So far, not impressed with Hokuto at all. Almost everyone she been in the ring with has looked better than she does. She’s been built up to me as the Bret Hart or Flair of her division, but in these four matches she comes off more like Sting, or some HBK/Taker hybrid.

[benjaminkicks]

I'm interested to see how you feel about the '01 match with Satomura, if you get to it.

[ohtani's jacket]

A negative take on Hokuto is interesting, but I don't really see how you can claim to like the 80s stuff then actively dislike the same elements in these 90s matches. A lot of the stuff like Kong using the trash cans and Nakano being held back so Hokuto can give her a weapon shot was directly lifted from 80s Joshi. I also think glossing over the context doesn't really help. I mean you can make assumptions like Shimoda was a babyface or Kandori was the Kawada to Hokuto's Misawa, but they're not true, which maybe hurts your criticisms a bit. The Hokuto mic spot is one of the best hooks in wrestling history and I actually think that match is one of the few matches I would say tells a proper story, but you obviously found it melodramatic. That's interesting, but wrestling by its very nature is melodramatic and the same critciism could be applied to just about any match with a big enough arc if not viewed in a favourable light.

[Parties]

Even the 80s Joshi I've seen is limited to a handful (what's a handful: 15? 20?) matches, mostly random things from 79-81 with Yokota, Tsunoma, Sato, Ikeshita. Shooting around Youtube, I like what I've seen from all of them, and it strikes me as more of a Funks/Robinson/Baba style than anything where people are busting out swords and boxes. But I've also seen the two Dump vs. Nagayo hair matches and totally loved them, largely for the incredible crowd heat and post-match chaos, and because I found both to be so good in their roles. Dump seems to rely heavily on plunder, and certainly wasn't Billy Robinson out there, but obv. not everyone needs to be. I can get down with a weapons-minded brawler who eats people up. I have a love-hate fondness for Sheik and Abby carving people up in the Tag League. I just thought it sort of came out of nowhere in these Hokuto matches and didn't build to anything. Aja has some killer offense, but I often find myself bored during her 2000s matches that I've seen.

 

Certainly not trying to gloss over context: I don't know the context of these matches. I'm making assumptions about who's a face and who's a heel, while recognizing that either/or dynamic may not apply. Kandori = Kawada? was a question, not a declaration. I may try to read up on them, but just to in good fun play devil's advocate: weren't you the guy who was asking why one should be expected to know the whole history of Cena's career to properly assess his Canadian Destroyer? (Or I'm wrong and that was Parv?) I don't speak Japanese and couldn't gather anything from the pre-match promos, or Hokuto getting on the mic to presumably tell her opponent to 'woman up'. But if there's key information to those matches that would change one's viewing of them, all the more reason for me to learn and keep watching.

 

Re: melodrama, I had kind of the same thought: is it really fair for me to criticize any wrestler for being too passionate, or selling too much? It's rare, but I think it happens. I find Nakamura's shtick pretty lame for the same reasons, and he's universally loved. Same for Mayumi Ozaki in the 3 or 4 matches of hers that I've seen. Ditto the Rock, CM Punk, post-return Michaels, post-2000 Flair. Viewed in a more favorable light, I could say that each is playing to the rafters, and that their mannerisms could look very different live. But I'd be viewing Hokuto's quirks differently if I thought her in-ring work was better (in this very limited scope of 4 matches). If I was sold on her bell-to-bell wrestling, I'd (hopefully) go along for the ride on certain character choices.

 

And in spite of all that, I definitely want to watch more of her. The ambiance of these matches is off the charts (the Kandori match in particular looks more avant-garde in its presentation than anything that anyone's doing now, 20 years later), and Hokuto has a unique charisma in spite of my criticisms. I don't think Hogan or Austin are top 100 workers either, but their stardom is undeniable, and Hokuto seems easy to watch in the same way that a big Hogan or Austin PPV match is easy to watch.

[ohtani's jacket]

If you watch any Beauty Pair tag against either foreign or Japanese heels, it's mostly brawling. The same when Monster Ripper was the top heel, and Devil Masami, and then Dump and her army. Weapon shots, outside brawling and loosely enforced rules were a staple of that era, and a lot of the Dump stuff revolved around a heel ref (Shiro Abe.) My memory's a bit foggy, but Mami Kumano from the Black Pair did a whole foreign object in the swimsuit deal, and Devil Masami used kendo sticks. Dump's gang was kind of based on all-girl Bosozuku biker gangs and the like and used chains and what not. I don't think any of it is particularly good brawling, but it's the predominant image I have of late 70s and early to mid 80s Joshi; and everything that people complain about when it comes to Joshi, whether it be the go-go style, the no-selling, the shrieking or brawling, was already in place by the end of the 70s. I don't think there was ever an era where it had a Funks/Robinson/Baba style. It sounds as though you've watched some of the title matches, which are obviously more mat based (though usually savaged by whoever was editing the TV for Fuji TV.) They worked a technical style for title matches, similar to lucha, though they were looser in the conventions and even in title matches there would be cheating and weapon shots, etc.

It's been a while since I watched any Hokuto, but the sword was part of her kabuki influenced Dangerous Queen get-up and she had a past history with Nakano with the pair of them having feuded in 1992. Perhaps it's a call back to that feud. Bull herself used nunchuks. It kind of is what it is. Annoying at times, not so irritating at others. There are worse tropes, IMO, like the mat phase of each mat, which I used to be able to rationalise when I was really in the zone of watching Joshi, but can't really abide these days.

Anyway, Kandori was a judoka who began doing pro-wrestling for the JWP promotion in the 80s and gained some notoriety when she shot on Jackie Sato during Sato's brief comeback to the ring. Later, when the JWP had a messy split, she left and joined Rumi Kazama's LLPW promotion where she more or less became the figurehead and was often confused as being the promoter or owner of the promotion. So, Hokuto vs. Kandori was interpromotional and part of the big Dreamslam spectacular where all the promotions got together and had matches in a sort of year long commemoration of All Japan's 25th anniversary. Hokuto vs. Kandori was the semi-main of the show (which went over time and caused a lot of problems, but I won't get into that because people can never get their head around how much it hurt AJW that the shows ended so late and left people stranded with no way to get home, especially BIg Egg, which was a clusterfuck from go to whoa.) The angle was that Hokuto claimed Kandori wasn't a real pro-wrestler and didn't have the heart to be a true pro-wrestler and the mic spot was her basically saying "is that all you've got, Kandori?" and goading her to get up and show her what she was really made of. I don't want to get into the story aspects too much, but the table spot is significant because Hokuto had suffered a well documented broken neck in the ring during her teenage years and injuries had been the bane of her career that had prevented her from reaching as far as she wanted to go. Her hard luck story is no doubt documented here or else where. Every time she was about to breakthrough she suffered a serious injury (usually related to her knee) and that was part of the narrative for both this match and the Dangerous Queen gimmick. The bladejob was also significant in that the ref allegedly cut her too deep and she wasn't meant to bleed that much. Anyway, I recommend reading Coey's review as that was the best take on the match during the prime Joshi viewing circle years. He explained the drama and the emotion extremely well.

 

I can see Hokuto being viewed as melodramatic. I think she was over the top at times and her injury narrative grew repetitive after a while despite being based on real life, as I believe Pete often points out in the yearbooks (which are a great resource for following this stuff.) There was a cult of personality around Hokuto where people were really into her circa 2001 or so. She was built up into something probably bigger than she really was, but it was fun and there shouldn't be any regrets. I am kind of surprised that you are down on her execution, because her execution was one of her strongest points. It's always a thin line with these things. I don't like Nakamura's shtick that much either, but I think Ozaki is one of the best actors that wrestling has ever seen and one of the best sellers of all-time. I don't think you have to know everything about Hokuto's history to enjoy the bouts because they have to be engaging on a visceral level before you care about the context or the details. I don't really wanna get into a comparison with Cena vs. Owens, because it's comparing a recent feud with a match that has been considered five stars and one of the greatest bouts of all time for a good 22 years. But being an English speaker obviously it's easier to get more of a grasp on John Cena than it is Hokuto vs. Kandori. It wasn't really about context in that debate, but overstatement.

[ohtani's jacket]

Matches I would recommend for Hokuto:

 

Hokuto vs. Chigusa, 3/19/89

Hokuto vs Bull Nakano, 1/4/91

Hokuto vs. Toyota, 1/11/91

Hokuto vs. Manami, 4/29/91

Hokuto vs. K Inoue, 11/26/92

Hokuto vs. Kandori, 4/2/93

Hokuto vs. Toyota, 8/21/93

Hokuto/Minami vs. Hotta/Inoue, 9/5/93

Hokuto/Toyota vs. Inoue/Yamada, 12/10/93 (X2)

Kandori/Hokuto vs. Aja/Bull, 3/27/94

 

That doesn't tell the full Dangerous Queen story, but those are the matches i remember enjoying the most. I don't know how I'd feel about them if I watched them today, but it's a primer anyway.

[elliott]

Matches I would recommend for Hokuto:

 

Would add Hokuto/Kandori vs Bull/Aja from 3/27/94. I always thought that was the greatest match ever until I learned about Sangre Chicana.

[ohtani's jacket]

I will add it in. I wonder if TY is still Hokuto's No.1 fan?

[elliott]

I wonder if he ever finished the Hokuto: The Woman Theme tapes.

[Guest si oem]

.

[ohtani's jacket]

I felt like watching some Hokuto since I hadn't seen her perform in ages. So I decided to check out the 1/93 LLPW vs. AJW tag, which could have been WAR-like in its presentation if they'd just bothered to stop for five seconds every now and again. So many good workers, so little breathing room. The post-match dress down of LCO and Hokuto/Kandori posturing was easier to get a bearing on than who was working whom and why they were suddenly squaring off. I often talk about needing to be in the groove to watch certain styles, but this may have been too fast for an old-timer like me.

[Microstatistics]

If I was ranking solely based on peak (regardless of duration), she would be #1. 1993-94 Akira Hokuto is the best pro wrestler I have ever seen, possibly excluding only 1984 El Satanico.

[Jimmy Redman]

I'd like to have some more context for Hokuto and the mid-90s joshi scene. Was she a face or heel, or something different altogether? Does it depend on which companies are involved?

 

I wish I knew what she was saying in those pre-match promos. I see her do things like ask the announcer to come and introduce her again, and that's a heel move in America, but again maybe I just don't know the context.

 

Regardless of those minor details though, Hokuto is just something else. She has this aura to her that places her above all of the other girls around her. And sometimes she comes off like...well, an asshole. Again, I;m not sure if she's supposed to be an asshole or I'm just missing some context. But she has this magnetism, something that draws you to her and prevents you from tearing your eyes away.

 

I think my favourite micro thing from her so far is the beginning of the first Kandori match. After the table piledriver she comes up bleeding and the selling is just phenomenal. When she's all hunched over, staggering along, lurching...she legitimately looks like she's about to throw up. And it's not the most obvious choice in wrestling selling, but it was incredibly effective at showing just how much that piledriver fucked her up. Her head got rocked so hard she was going to vomit.

 

Her level of selling, her flair for the dramatic, her ability to make things feel (forgive me) dangerous...she's on another level.

 

Another thing I want to ask is if she ever had a big singles match with Dynamite Kansai during her peak? That's the most attractive match up to me on paper, but I can't find one anywhere.