Gokuaku Joo (2024)

Wrestling is real

As someone who watches both wrestling and jdramas, I feel I'm uniquely suited to review this one.

My knowledge of Joshi(female) wrestling isn't the greatest as I mainly watched north american wrestling growing up. I dabbled in bits and pieces of Joshi wrestling as in the last few years. As such, I found this dramatization to be an instant showstopper for people who want to get further into the Joshi scene.

The story of this drama revolves around redemption, self worth, growing pains, family trauma, sexism and feminism. I thought they handled the subjects with care. There were times were I was moved to tears to what I was witnessing. This may not happen to everyone, but I found that the show had a visceral feeling of self loathing and weakness. Many people do not understand the toll wrestling takes on people over the years and how much effort goes into maintaining their status.I found that this put a spotlight on the fears and trauma wrestlers face. In the older days and even still now, women's wrestling was seen as second rate and not worth watching over men's. The women constantly had to prove themselves in a sport run by men. The trials wrestlers face such as changing crowd sentiment, physical abuse from senior wrestlers, unrecognized skill and bodily damage are all in focus in this series.

These feelings of worthlessness are perfectly performed by Yuriyan Retriever and her younger self(couldn't seem to find name of actor). I was thoroughly impressed with how much humanity was portrayed by them. From fleeting moments of watching wrestling for the first time to witnessing someone else rise above you. The highs were extra strong and the lows crushing. I felt strongly about everyone's battles in this show. I feel it will resonate with anyone who was ever told they were physically ugly or would not amount to anything. Kaoru's journey from someone undesirable to someone undeniable was a beautiful thing.In a way the show is extremely uplifting in that everyone rises to the occasion to overcome their weaknesses. The backstory of Kaoru and her family really helped push the motivations for her strength. Likewise the glow she observes from fellow wrestlers shining light were very inspirational. It's the job of the pro wrestler to get you invested into that story and they did a hell of a job in this. The standout performances of grit during the wrestling scenes were impeccable.

Speaking of which, I went back and watched a few real life versions of these matches and read about how they trained for this movie. Watching the matches in comparison it's extremely impressive how they mimicked the matches. In wrestling we call real life things "shoots" and fake things "kayfabe." This movie blurs the lines of what was kayfabe and what was a shoot. Japanese pro wrestling is much more "stiff" meaning the hits are usually actually real. Especially in the older days they really went all out to the point of exhaustion. You see this a lot in this movie. So if you are skirmish of violent acts with blood, you may want to pace yourself. The ring cinematography captures the electric feeling of the wrestling world so well. From the audience to the refs, to the ring announcers being hilariously calm while chaos is happening all around them. This is definitely a love letter to the spectacle of wrestling. The dynamic shooting angles and the triumphant musical choruses really give the pacing of these matches a special quality. Wrestlers have this innate ability to draw people in with the simplest of things. An eye look there, a brisk evasion, a strong slam down.. Wrestling is truly an art form in motion.

During some scenes it's hard to understand whether or not things were predetermined to happen or if it really did happen like that. That is something that for years has blurred in the wrestling world. Nowadays we hear a lot about the back end of things and some of that magic is lost. They explore this in the film when we see the owners and bookers(people who work out the match scenarios) discuss how they want the next showing to work. They touch a bit on when things happen like when Jaguar does a german suplex that signals the end of the match. Some wrestlers will audibly call out moves in ring on the fly, while others well choreograph every single moment. I found this series leaned more into the realism aspect in that regard. They didn't really have to talk about it however as the fights felt more gripping. This is truly a more of keeping kayfabe alive.

A small thing I want to touch on is the excellent set and costume design. I heard that they used Stardom's training ring for this series and was squealing with joy. Many of the show's set design were impressive with the hundreds of posters, fans shirts, bandannas and everything were amazingly done. The outfits were also so extravagantly 80s. The bright neons and checkered patterns were great touches. I loved every moment of seeing what sort of outfit would show up next. The wrestling attire was also lovingly recreated and was great comparing them to the originals. The hairstyles were also gorgeous representations of 80's styles. All the actors go through various stages in their life in this and it was really great seeing the progressive hairstyling.

I also really enjoyed how Lioness Asuka and Nagayo were heavily focused on to round out the feeling of this show. I found the three very different perspectives to be a strong core story. The heavy handed nature of wrestling discourse were explored through each one of these ladies. The wrestler who wants to stick to traditional non high flying with no weapon base vs the revolutionary who brings in things that feel foreign to wrestling vs the heel(someone playing the bad guy) who's job it is to make people hate them. Each perspective brings nuance to the sport and I greatly applaud their efforts into designing it this way. They do touch a little on about idol crossover culture in Joshi wrestling. Wrestlers have the same obligations as idols do, especially Joshis. Tv appearances, songs, movies, fashion shoots and merch sales were sprinkled in throughout.

I think this series is a fantastic gateway into learning about the harshness of the wrestling world and may even spur you like it did me to check out some old historical matches or current companies now. Whether you watch Stardom or WWE or AEW etc , it does not matter. All wrestling is valid (except backyard wrestling) and that is the beauty of the wrestling world.

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