ohtani's jacket Posted September 19 Report Share Posted September 19 Watched the first episode. It's good, but I've got to say it's a highly fictionalized account of Dump Matsumoto's life. I hope people don't view it as a history lesson. Some of the scenes are based on actual events, but almost nothing happens the way it occurred in real life. It's a dramatization so that's understandable. I just hope fans don't get confused by it. The wrestling choreography looks great. They use a lot of sound effects, but the actual wrestling is better than I expected. For the most part, they get the retro stuff correct, though it's difficult for them to create the exact atmosphere of the wrestling matches. There also exterior scenes that are clearly not 1970s exteriors, but that can't be helped. The haircuts and clothes are awesome and the interior scenes look great. The way they present the inner workings of the wrestling business will cause a few eyes to roll, especially the unnecessary explanation for the Jackie Sato vs. Maki Ueda retirement match. The Matsunagas did manipulate the wrestlers' feelings a lot and cause dissension among them, but the locker room scene between Jackie and Maki is silly. The acting is good. Yuriyan does a terrific job as the lead. Some cool cameos from Devil Masami and Monster Ripper in the first episode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDuke Posted September 19 Report Share Posted September 19 So is it like the Joshi version of Young Rock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 19 Author Report Share Posted September 19 14 minutes ago, TheDuke said: So is it like the Joshi version of Young Rock? I've never seen Young Rock, but it takes a lot of liberties. Most of them are for the sake of the script. It's only 5 episodes long, so they need to tie a lot of things together quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirEdger Posted September 20 Report Share Posted September 20 To be noted: both Alexa Bliss and Nikki (Bella) Garcia have done voiceover work for the series. Alexa does the voiceover for Maki Ueda. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbo Slice Posted September 20 Report Share Posted September 20 Given how J-Dramas and K-Dramas operate, it’s not surprising to find liberties taken with the truth. I’m just happy something like this got made in the first place. As long as it’s entertaining, that’s all that matters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbo Slice Posted September 20 Report Share Posted September 20 Three episodes in and this is right up there with GLOW for me as one of the best wrestling TV shows or movies ever. It’s a short list, but there is an amazing amount of quality here even if the liberties they take with historical accuracy are also pretty blatant. The in-ring action is fantastic; a lot of time is spent there and the actors really know their shit. Chigusa and Co. trained them up really well, and they suck you in each time you step in the ropes. They really do a good job of showcasing all the wrestlers you’d expect to see during this time frame, albeit sometimes the drama takes away from what you expect to see from some of them. Even with those slights, awesome Easter eggs throughout, and I’m surprised how true to the setting they are even with those liberties taken. I hope it becomes a hit in Japan and does well with the hardcore fans worldwide. Selfishly I hope it leads to other attempts to tell wrestling stories in Japan, although I don’t know if any have the crossover appeal this one would have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 20 Author Report Share Posted September 20 Episode 2 is fun. The timeline is all over the place and it leans heavily into fictionalized drama, but the wrestling is great. Love Jackie's outfits. They went pretty soft on the bullying, but I guess that was to be expected. The Jaguar Yokota/Jackie Sato stuff was silly. Toshikuni Matsunaga never looked as cool as Takumi Saitoh, and I don't think he was pulling the strings as much as the show makes out. I did love Takuma Oto as Shiro Abe. Shout out to the luchadoras as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadaveri Posted September 20 Report Share Posted September 20 I've only watched the first two episodes and I've enjoyed it a lot so far. I don't think it being a bit historically inaccurate is a big deal really, everyone knows these things are semi-fictional. The stuff they've changed (e.g. compressing the timeline) is justifiable when you've got to tell this story in 5 episodes to a mostly unfamiliar audience. Toshikuni having a bigger role than he did in real life makes sense for an 'adaptation' because you don't have the time to flesh out the characters of all 4 Matsunaga Brothers. The Jaguar-Sato drama wasn't even that far off the truth. I think they communicated the audience that this is promotion where not all the matches have predetermined winners and the older stars who aren't drawing anymore get ruthlessly put to pasture. That's the truthful substance of it. That they got that across by fudging the details a bit to get it across within the time constraints doesn't really matter. I say all this as a massive Zenjo nerd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbo Slice Posted September 21 Report Share Posted September 21 I can’t see this as anything other than a success after completing the series. Given the constraints in time, and some odd choices to speed things up rapidly and tie up as many loose ends as possible by the end, this was about as good as you could have asked for. The production choices they made in the Hair match, especially with the entrances, where they copied the camera shots to the point where I got chills because they were spot on re-creations, was top notch. They made it as uncomfortable watching it here as it was watching it on tape. Again, I don’t know if there’s another wrestling subject matter where you could go to these lengths and have this type of production, but I hope someone tries because this really was amazing to watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 21 Author Report Share Posted September 21 The good news is that today it became the number one watched show on Japan Netflix. I finished episode 3, and I have to say the best thing about the show is the amount of training the main cast did to learn how to wrestle. That part of the show is fantastic. There's a strange insistence on the frontrunner's part to have every match turn into a shoot, but the fighting looks good. Personally, I think they did Jaguar Yokota dirty. There was an amusing article about Jaguar's husband watching the show and stopping it every few minutes to ask her whether it really happened like that in real life. I've been trying to rack my brains over who Lovely Yoneyama is supposed to be. Some Japanese fans are speculating that it's meant to be Nancy Kumi. Nancy Kumi had a reputation for being one of the worst bullies among the wrestlers. The weakest part of the show so far is the scene where "Dump" is born. That was totally over the top, the lightening effects were cheesy, as best I can tell, it was completely fictional, as was Dump coming to the ring, choking Chigusa out and acting like Nailz released from the psych ward. The disco story was a story Dump shared in some articles that the show is based on. Whether Chigusa's interview in the magazine ever happened, I'm not sure. It's definitely not how Dump because Dump. That wouldn't matter if it didn't come across as a cheesy horror flick, and once again everything being a shoot. I was far more taken with the jogging scene where Dump can't keep up with Chigusa and you see Chigusa running off into the distance. The actress who played Devil was having fun. She's a little undersized but the voice and mannerisms are great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbo Slice Posted September 21 Report Share Posted September 21 I will not spoiler anything until you’re finished, OJ, but I had even stronger feelings about Jaguar being done dirty by the end of the series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 22 Author Report Share Posted September 22 Episode four is pure fantasy. Entertaining fantasy, but every single scene is fabricated. In most cases, it's more interesting than the event that actually took place, but it paints a somewhat distorted view of what Dump was really like. For some reason, they chose to make her unsympathetic, which was perplexing. The whole shoot thing is out of control as well. All Japan Women were not have matches decided on shoot pins in the 1980s. The series is entertaining, and I'm gad it's successful, but I wonder if this was how sumo fans felt watching Sanctuary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert S Posted September 22 Report Share Posted September 22 So far I have only watched the first episode but the talk before the Sato vs. Ueda match about if there would a predetermined winner or not almost completely lost me. Wrestling TV / movies in 2024 should not try to keep kayfabe. I suppose one reason for this choice was that kayfabe was never that explicitly and widespread broken in Japan as it is in the US, but still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 22 Author Report Share Posted September 22 4 hours ago, Robert S said: So far I have only watched the first episode but the talk before the Sato vs. Ueda match about if there would a predetermined winner or not almost completely lost me. Wrestling TV / movies in 2024 should not try to keep kayfabe. I suppose one reason for this choice was that kayfabe was never that explicitly and widespread broken in Japan as it is in the US, but still. There has actually been a lot of heated discussion about this on Japanese Twitter. A lot of older fans, and a few people in the media, don't like the terminology that's used in the show. In particular, there's been a lot of controversy and confusion over the terms "book" and "breaking the book" (translated as "script" in the English subtitles.) The discussion stemmed from a writer or editor saying they never used those terms in the 80s and that they are recent internet slang (possibly a loan word from American pro-wrestling), and then it turned into a big debate over whether AJW was really booked, arguments about it being disrespectful to wrestling by using insider terms, what "book" actually means (some people seem to think it's a physical object like a paper script.) It seems a lot of Japanese fans would like to believe that it was real, and if it wasn't, they'd prefer not to hear about it. There's still a believe among some fans that the title matches were decided with shoot pins, which are called either gochinko or pistol matches in Japanese (I didn't know that.) It's not everyone one, as some trolls are asking if they also believe in Santa Claus. Some of the blame lies with the show's frontrunners, who deliberately chose to emphasis "breaking the book" as a means of rebelling against the system. The director admitted in an interview that it probably didn't happen as often as they portrayed in the series. Fans are interesting though. There are a lot of complaints about the Matsunagas cooking yakisoba indoors at Korakuen Hall, which I guess you couldn't do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 22 Author Report Share Posted September 22 4 hours ago, Robert S said: So far I have only watched the first episode but the talk before the Sato vs. Ueda match about if there would a predetermined winner or not almost completely lost me. Wrestling TV / movies in 2024 should not try to keep kayfabe. I suppose one reason for this choice was that kayfabe was never that explicitly and widespread broken in Japan as it is in the US, but still. With regards to the Sato vs. Jackie retirement match, the part about Jackie having a lover is something they took from Ueda interviews. Whether it's the reason that Ueda wanted to quit isn't clear. There are rumours that they two didn't get along. Sato was the one who approached the head office about quitting. Apparently, the retirement match was kept a secret from Jackie until a few weeks before the show. I was also shocked at the way this was incorporated into the show, especially when Jackie says they would have lost if the winner hadn't been predetermined and then presenting the retirement match as a shoot. I think they could have blurred the lines a bit without having the Matsunagas and wrestlers specifically talk about it. It gets worse as the series continues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 23 Author Report Share Posted September 23 The final episode bordered on ridiculous at times. The idea of Dump going "off script" in the hair vs. hair match after being offered 10 million yen to lose was ridiculous and I can understand why Japanese fans on Twitter weren't really happy about it (if even those fans are labelled as pro-wrestling otaku by others.) The way they staged the fight made it bloodier and more violent than the actual bout, but they went a bit far with it as it made it seem like Dump was about to kill her. The match did cause a riot and there were a flood of complaints that led to the show being temporary banned in some regions. The show is pretty light with the consequences. Instead, we get a muddled timeline that eventually leads to the Dump retirement match (which was also Yukari Omori's retirement match, but they don't mention that on the show.) They use the retirement match to resolve things, but man is the part where they knock out the Matsunaga brothers stupid. As for doing Jaguar dirty, the worst thing they do is make the 8/85 Budokan show seem like a failure because they didn't get the results from the Japan Grand Prix that they wanted. In reality, it was a hugely successful show for the promotion. Asuka got the big match with Jaguar that she supposedly wanted in the show. They just chose to ignore it. Just like they ignored the hair vs hair rematch, the title matches that followed Jaguar's retirement, and the fact that Chigusa, Lioness and Omori all held the Big Red Belt despite the show portraying them as being held down. Jaguar did get pushed out the door in part because of the mandatory retirement age, but for some reason they chose not to include the retirement rule in the show. According to Dump she was estranged from her father for 50 years before they reconciled on his deathbed in 2019, so no emotional scenes with dad in real life.. Personally, I thought the final episode was disappointing. I don't think they got the beats right in the story. There wasn't enough motivation for Dump to turn "face" again in terms of how they wrote the show. It's not a bad show, but I would personally rank it behind Naked Director and Sanctuary for Japanese Netflix shows dealing with similar eras and topics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbo Slice Posted September 23 Report Share Posted September 23 17 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said: As for doing Jaguar dirty, the worst thing they do is make the 8/85 Budokan show seem like a failure because they didn't get the results from the Japan Grand Prix that they wanted. In reality, it was a hugely successful show for the promotion. Asuka got the big match with Jaguar that she supposedly wanted in the show. They just chose to ignore it. Just like they ignored the hair vs hair rematch, the title matches that followed Jaguar's retirement, and the fact that Chigusa, Lioness and Omori all held the Big Red Belt despite the show portraying them as being held down. Jaguar did get pushed out the door in part because of the mandatory retirement age, but for some reason they chose not to include the retirement rule in the show. This was what I had alluded to in my comment about how bad they did Jaguar; her story was one of the bigger casualties of how they constructed the story. Based on how they set it all up, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have had episode 4 end with Asuka and Jaguar having their match to make that story seem fully realized. Especially given how big a deal it was for them to run the Budokan and Osaka-Jo big in the span of six days. However, like most projects like this? The narrative they created superseded the in-life order of events. The show runners probably felt it didn’t suit the narrative as well and left it out, which is a common theme of the show as a whole. It really does seem like they built the narrative and then filled in with facts when they could have done the opposite and probably been much more cohesive. But them leaning on the more dramatic aspects (shoot pins, backstage drama, fabricated or not) really led to the weird choices where the criticisms are aimed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 24 Author Report Share Posted September 24 It seems the narrative they wanted was that the same thing that happened to Jackie happened to Jaguar and in the end she was just a stepping stone (or a door mat, as they put it in the show) for the next girl. That's fine, but it glosses over the fact that she was a great champion and an outstanding wrestler. They mention her ability in the show, but the Matsunagas talk about her not being a star and how no-one in the audience has their eyes on her. I thought that was a bit harsh and wondered what Jaguar thought of it. It felt like the show was too short. I would have preferred 8-10 episodes. That would have improved the story tremendously. They didn't go into the bullying enough, didn't touch on Dump looking out for her juniors (in fact, they did the opposite, which kind of annoyed me, especially the part where she shaved Bull's hair off), Dump's foray into the entertainment world, or her pachinko addiction and the fact that she blew all the money she made from AJW. I also felt like they didn't do a good enough job of portraying the scale of what was happening. They showed vandalism to Dump's car and her parents' house, and scenes with threatening mail, etc., but on a larger scale there wasn't a strong enough sense of how loved Chigusa was and how hated Dump became. And where was Condor Saito! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenese Sarwieh Posted September 30 Report Share Posted September 30 I just finished watching this morning, and I was thoroughly entertained. The show did a great job capturing how hot a product AJW was in the '80s, along with their sleazy promoters. While I understand that not all of the truth was told and much of the series was exaggerated for dramatic effect, I wish there had been more focus on Kaoru after she becomes Dump. Three episodes just weren't enough for me, and based on what others have mentioned in the thread above, there was more to explore about her life. If Netflix decides to attempt a similar series, Aja Kong would be an excellent subject. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted October 1 Report Share Posted October 1 Dump spent the money she earned in wrestling on pachinko? Shades of Bleeding Gums Murphy blowing his fortune on Faberge eggs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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