Puroresu Pulse

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Continued from Would You Like That Cooked? “Rea” Vol.10

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Welcome to “How Would You Like That Cooked? Rea.”
Thank you very much for visiting.

This is the Rookie Classmate Chapter.

Several months had already passed since I returned to Sendai in late June…

I spent my days working hard in training alongside YUNA, who had officially become a trainee.

Back before she became a trainee, a senpai once told me, “Having a classmate from the same rookie class is necessary.”

Doki (同期, rookie classmate): In Japanese pro wrestling dojo culture, doki refers to trainees who enter a dojo or debut in the same recruiting class. Rea and YUNA trained together in the Sendai Girls’ Pro Wrestling dojo and debuted against one another on August 9, 2023, when Rea competed under the ring name Rea Marumori before later moving to Dream Star Fighting Marigold as Rea Seto.

At the time, it didn’t really click with me,

but as I continued training with YUNA day after day, I came to understand what that meant.

That meaning encompasses a lot of different things. If I wrote out all of them, there would be no end to it, so

I want to put into words one specific thing for which I am truly grateful to YUNA.

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That one thing is that a new emotion sprouted inside me.

And that emotion was

“fighting spirit.”

“Fighting spirit” is an emotion so essential when aiming to become a pro wrestler that you could easily call it the single most important thing.

However, back then, I was an ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra-pacifist, so to speak. I never got angry at anyone, and there wasn’t anyone I disliked. Even during my school days, I lived a life completely removed from competitive situations where I felt, “I don’t want to lose!”

Because of that, my senpai sometimes told me, “There is no fighting spirit in your eyes.”

Even so, I didn’t understand what fighting spirit actually was.

One senpai once told me, “There are things that irritate you, right? Negative emotions like that are important in pro wrestling too, and you bring out that ‘damn you!’ feeling in your matches.”

Konoyaro (コノヤロウ, damn you!): A rough, confrontational Japanese exclamation used here by Rea’s senpai to describe the raw, aggressive edge and spite that wrestlers channel into physical intensity inside the ring.

Yet I almost never even got irritated with people. I was even asked things like, “Rea, where do you ever vent or complain? Or rather, do you even have anything to complain about? Have you ever gotten irritated at someone?”

If I weren’t a pro wrestler, maybe this personality would have been a good thing.

However, I was aiming to become a pro wrestler.

When trying to become a pro wrestler, a personality like this is probably “fatal.”

This “inherent nature” of mine was one of my worries during my days as a trainee.

However, the person who wiped that worry away for me was “YUNA.”

While training together with YUNA, an emotion I had never felt before began to take root inside me.

To put it in ordinary words:

“I don’t want to lose.”

Perhaps because that feeling was showing during training as well, my senpai told me, “You’ve started to get a good look in your eyes.”

And training wasn’t the only place where I didn’t want to lose.

She herself was a girl who had loved pro wrestling from the very beginning. On the other hand, I had only come to love pro wrestling very recently.

Between someone who has watched pro wrestling for a long time and someone who only recently started watching,

the level of resolution when looking at pro wrestling is completely different. She possessed a perspective that I did not yet have.

Kaizodo (解像度, resolution): Originally referring to image clarity, having “high resolution” is widely used in contemporary Japanese analytical slang to describe someone who perceives a craft or subject with sharp, structural depth rather than a blurry, surface-level impression.

“Between someone who has watched pro wrestling for a long time and someone who only recently started watching, the level of resolution when looking at pro wrestling is completely different.”

And that “perspective” was something just as vital as “fighting spirit” when it came to becoming a pro wrestler.

If I debuted as things stood, I would lose to YUNA as a pro wrestler.

I didn’t want that. I wanted to become a wonderful wrestler, too.

Panic upon panic. A sense of impatience. Frantically devouring videos of past matches.

I absolutely refuse to lose to her.

Koitsu (コイツ, this girl / this person) and First-Person Pronoun Shifts: In the original Japanese line (“コイツには絶対に負けたく無い”), Rea refers to YUNA using the rough, unpolished pronoun koitsu. For someone who described herself moments earlier as an “ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra-pacifist,” shifting mentally to koitsu marks the exact moment her competitive wrestling mentality awakens. Throughout the column, she also alternates her first-person pronouns between standard watashi (私) for matter-of-fact context, katakana atashi (アタシ) for candid inner monologue, and exaggeratedly formal katakana atakushi (アタクシ) during her movie review for playful mock-sophistication.

So this is “fighting spirit.”

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“YUNA, your pro test will be at the next event.”

It seemed YUNA’s pro test was finally going to take place. By the way, I passed my pro test on my second attempt.

Let me talk just a little bit here about how it went for me.

During my second pro test, for the final 200 squats at the end, I have a fond memory of how the fans who had come to the venue united as one to count out the repetitions for me toward the end, which really helped me push through.

Also, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I apparently miscounted the repetitions during my first pro test. I hadn’t noticed.

And on the second attempt, I was so worried about it that I lost track partway through again, but the fans backed me up and helped me succeed safely.

To everyone who was there that day, thank you so very much. It is practically thanks to all of you that I was able to make my debut.

Furthermore, certain veteran wrestlers reacted to the pro test videos and pass/fail posts uploaded to X (formerly Twitter).

Jinsei Shinzaki-san was among them. Because I had a slight connection with Jinsei-san through “Kiiroi Tako” (Yellow Octopus), I was thrilled to get a reaction from him, and it was deeply encouraging.

Kiiroi Tako (きいろいタコ, Yellow Octopus): A popular Sendai takoyaki shop and food truck with longstanding ties to the Sendai pro wrestling community and Michinoku Pro Wrestling legend Jinsei Shinzaki.

In that way, after being fired up by various senpai and safely passing my pro test, the next step was finally heading toward my debut…

Right at that exact moment, I suffered the injury that I wrote about in my previous column.

Things don’t proceed with smooth sailing. And that is precisely what makes for a good life, as they say.

Junpu-manpan (順風満帆, smooth sailing): A classical four-character idiom literally meaning “favorable winds and full sails,” used to describe a journey progressing without obstacles.

Surely.

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Getting back to the story, the date for YUNA’s pro test was set. On the day itself, a senpai told me, “Rea, do the pro test alongside her,” so I went through the pro test regimen together with her.

The result: she passed on her first try.

Even though the test regimen had changed slightly from when I took mine, YUNA passed on her first try. While I did feel a sense of congratulations toward her, there was also a part of me that couldn’t honestly rejoice from the bottom of my heart.

“While I did feel a sense of congratulations toward her, there was also a part of me that couldn’t honestly rejoice from the bottom of my heart.”

I thought to myself, “What an awful person I am,” but I suppose I was just frustrated.

Still, regardless of all that, both YUNA and I had safely passed our pro tests.

And then came more days of working hard in training toward our debut match.

And finally, it was decided.

“2023.08.09”

That is the anniversary of my and YUNA’s debut.

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Next time, we will finally reach my debut match, the moment I became a pro wrestler.

This self-indulgent autobiography of mine is approaching its final stretch now, isn’t it?

Jibun-gatari jiden (自分語り自伝, self-indulgent autobiography): Combines the conversational internet slang term jibun-gatari (talking at length about oneself, used here with self-deprecating humor) with jiden (autobiography).

Well then, see you next week.
I sincerely look forward to your next visit.

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-Horror Movie I Watched Recently-

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Resident Evil (Biohazard)
“Fxxk”

A movie with a story reconstructed around the concept of: what would happen if you were thrown into the world of the Resident Evil (Biohazard) video games?

An acquaintance strongly recommended this one to me, so I went to see it, and…

Man!!!! It is so good!!!!!!!!

The balance of gore, horror, and comedy was great, and the nonstop thrills and suspense made it fantastic.

Personally, aside from the light-gun shooter at the arcade, I haven’t played the Resident Evil games, so I don’t know the deep details,

but while watching it, there was such a video-game feel to it that it actually reminded me of that arcade game.

First of all, the protagonist isn’t particularly strong or anything. Because he’s just a deliveryman, I liked how he wasn’t just mowing down hordes of enemies effortlessly.

Muso shite inai (無双していない, not mowing down hordes of enemies effortlessly): Derived from Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors (Shin Sangokumusou) video game franchise, “doing muso” is common Japanese slang for single-handedly wiping out waves of opponents like an invincible action hero.

Also, the way the weapons he carries gradually get upgraded, and the way the story progression is presented (?) had a real video-game feel to it that I really liked.

(Mind you, this is coming from an otaku who has never played any video game other than a certain game where you live with animals, so actual gamers might feel like, “That’s not true at all,” so please bear with me…)

A certain game where you live with animals (某どうぶつと暮らすゲーム): A coy, indirect reference to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing (Dobutsu no Mori) franchise.

Also, to a surprising degree,

they say “Fxxk.”

And the sheer richness of vocabulary shown by Sayuri Inada, who was in charge of translating those lines into the Japanese subtitles…

Sayuri Inada (稲田嵯裕里): Veteran Japanese theatrical subtitle translator known for localizing major Hollywood action, horror, and comic-book releases, including the Japanese cinema subtitles for the Resident Evil film reboot.

I take my hat off to her.

Along those lines, this installment isn’t connected to the previous movie series, so you can watch it as a standalone film.

Please be sure to check it out.