This is actually the second in an exceptional interview series by Mugiko Ozaki, on Twitter @ozaki_mugiko, for Sportiva. I happened to translate it first because I didn’t see that there had been an earlier one on Mina, though I’ve since done my best to translate that one as well, and as of this writing plan to do any others (a Mayu one has been released, and Utami is next). Caveat that my Japanese is far from perfect, so while I’ve done my best I can’t guarantee these translations are completely error free. My hope is that even if I did get anything wrong, they can still be insightful and better than nothing.
Edit: Huge thanks to @1222DragonMoon on Twitter for some extremely helpful translation feedback and additional context! This piece has been updated to incorporate that feedback to correct some small mistakes and for additional nuance and clarity.
Tam is from Anjo City, just outside Nagoya. V small city v boring, same hometown as Kazuchika Okada. Every day she just wanted to go to the big local theatre bc there was nothing to do
One brother three years younger than her, with them and her parents a family of four
From a young age she was weird & disliked; one of her first memories is doing something wrong and the other kids saying “this is why no one likes you Tam-chan.”
Says she’s always been kind of a loner, like even when hanging out in groups she’s like “why not just do our own thing”
Did ballet really heavily, wanted to be a ballerina. When she got to junior high she realized she didn’t have the body type or proportions to be a professional ballerina so she quit, was very depressed. Lived as just a student for a couple years but was depressed and bored.
Eventually she felt like she was meant to be expressing things on stage even if it wasn’t as a ballerina so she moved to Tokyo and went to college for/started working in musical theatre. One day her management company was like “we’re thinking of starting an idol group would you like to join?”
She thought being an idol just meant being cute and vapid and she wasn’t interested. Then she thought about it more and realized if she could convey feelings to people as an idol that wasn’t different from ballet or theatre so she agreed, debuting in November 2012 as the leader of “Katamomi Girls”, an underground idol group.
Graduated from Katamomi and formed “info.m@te” [Infomate] but they were so unsuccessful there would be shows where they only had one fan per member, she laughs and describes it as like a three-on-three blind date.
The producer of info.m@te just disappeared on them twice and the group broke up after just 6 months. She was crushed and realized hard work wasn’t enough to make it as an idol, just like ballet.
The article says she began training in May 2015 but this is probably a typo; it’s documented elsewhere she started in 2016. Tam says she first heard about wrestling when Infomate opened for Zero-1 but only saw one show. They asked her to sit at the announce table and be a guest commentator but she says she was so nervous she just started crying.
“I wasn’t an athletic person. My grades in school were all 5s but then I only had a 2 in PE. I’m just not the best athletically.”
She was introduced to FMW and Onita thought she had potential. She was dubbed “Atsushi Onita’s last protege” and they ended up producing a show together. She once was taken to the hospital after an exploding bat match against “Miss Mongol” Aki Kanbayashi.
Miss Mongol said to her “you’re just an idol wrestler, you’re taking pro wrestling for granted, aren’t you?” and she felt like she had to fight as a representative for all idol wrestlers. She felt like if she faltered at all it would justify to doubters that Idol wrestlers weren’t serious, so she was determined to fight no matter what even if she risked her safety.
She learned from Onita that “The ring is where you show your way of life.” He only actually gave her a little bit of advice after each match, but she says that was where she learned to live as a professional wrestler.
Officially joined Stardom in November 2017. At the press conference she said she was joining bc she wanted to be at the top of Stardom, the top of pro wrestling, and she thought she’d be able to see the top of the wrestling world from Stardom.
Once she actually joined though there was so much ahead of her she felt like there was no end in sight. If she ever made it to her goal there would always be another goal after that, she would never be finished.
Even after joining she struggled to win a singles belt. She thought “I can’t make it here either. I couldn’t do ballet, I couldn’t be an idol, and I can’t do pro wrestling.” She repeatedly thought she had no talent and thought about quitting a lot. And then she found her partner. Arisa Hoshiki.
lmao okay this is all direct quote: “At the time I was in a tag team with Mayu Iwatani, and I respected her a lot. But then Hoshiki, who was from the same rookie class, came back after a 7-year hiatus. I was like “excuse me, I’m tagging with Mayu” but they still got together. I was like “You’ve got to be kidding me. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to stand next to Mayu Iwatani?” So I went on Twitter to harass and slander her, but the backlash was huge. The fans were like “You’re acting too childish” and “This is a bad look for a wrestler” but I was thinking “shut up, you don’t understand.”
But ultimately, Hoshiki ended up becoming the kind of partner who Tam could lay bare everything about herself with. They teamed up and won the 9th Goddess of Stardom Tag League in October 2019. She said she was truly grateful to have met such wonderful friends.
And then in May, Arisa announced her retirement. Tam thought “I can’t do this anymore!” and seriously thought about quitting. The dream of winning the tag belts with Arisa was so big in her mind she still dreams about it sometimes. When she retired she was really thinking of quitting wrestling, but then she met Giulia.
This part does a lot more summarizing recent events so I’m not gonna bother writing that stuff all down
“I have a huge inferiority complex. I’m always struggling with my emotions.” Tam Nakano gave up her dream of becoming a ballerina, becoming an idol, and was about to give up her dream of professional wrestling. Just then, her destined rival Giulia appeared.”
Note: The emotions that Tam says she struggles with are a specific concept that’s a little hard to translate. “Jounen” are extremely negative emotions and typically ascribed to women, intense feelings of things like bitterness and jealousy. In folklore there are stories of women becoming so obsessed with these feelings they are driven to murder lovers who scorned them and turn into demons.
Impression of Giulia in their first match was that she was very strong willed
“She’s not physically the strongest, and she’s not great at jumping or high-flying. She’s just really strong-willed and passionate. We have that in common, we’re opposites in everything else, but I don’t think there’s anyone else who I can completely lose myself against and beat the hell out of like her.”
“We were always competing with each other, and everyone around us called us rivals. But the fact is she was always ahead of me, she won the Tokyo Sports Women’s Wrestling award but I wasn’t having much success. My sense of inferiority got worse every day, and the people around me kept comparing me to her, which was just pushing me over the edge mentally.”
Giulia won the white belt after Arisa vacated it, but Tam felt like she was the only one who could inherit Arisa’s belt, so Tam immediately hated her.
When she lost to Giulia in a title match a second time, Giulia told her to challenge her again once she’d crawled her way back from Hell, and she thought “What does it even mean to crawl back from hell? What does it take? I formed my own unit and won a belt, but there’s still something missing.” She wondered what to do and came to the conclusion the only way for her to get better was to beat Giulia.
The haircut was a huge stake for Tam but she immediately agreed bc she would have wagered anything to fight Giulia again. For reference, she typically gets her hair done every three weeks, getting it trimmed, coloured, and the most expensive treatment, for about $300. Her regular shampoo, conditioner, and hair products cost about $100 each. “I think a girl’s beauty is determined by things like how beautiful her hair is or how beautiful her skin is. Even if I think, “Oh, my face is a little puffy today,” if my hair is shiny and silky, I still feel 50% cuter. Also, as a pro wrestler, my hair gets grabbed and thrown around a lot, it gets damaged easily, so I work harder than I’d have to otherwise to make sure it looks nice.
“I’ve fought Giulia many times, lost twice in title fights, and I felt like I’ve never had a total victory over her. I’ve been working hard through lots of changes but I’m not getting results. I thought “If putting my hair on the line means I can fight Giulia, I’ll do it.” I had no hesitation.”
Recaps the end of Tam vs Giulia and how Tam didn’t want Giulia to shave her head but Giulia said “don’t embarrass me”, but Tam was crying too hard to work the clippers and gave them to the barber. But then while she was crying and watching she suddenly stopped and raised the microphone to say “Hey no fair, you look so stylish.” The interviewer says this is what she really admires about Tam, that she can have such an intense match but then still say something charming to alleviate the atmosphere so everyone can be cheerful and not sad.
When she signed she said she wanted to be at the top of Stardom, and Ozaki suggests winning this singles belt is an indicator that she has reached the top, but Tam still says “I’m not sure about that.”
“I’ve always thought the white belt is the pinnacle of Stardom, more so than the red belt. I thought that winning the white belt would get me to the top, that was my goal, yes. But I think it’s going to take a long time for me to truly surpass Giulia, now I’m thinking about how to define the white belt. I think people associate it recently with Giulia, but I need people to definitively see it as Tam’s belt. So I’m not at the pinnacle yet at all.”
Why do you see the white belt as the highest belt? “I think the red belt is a belt of technique, and the white belt is a belt of emotion. Lots of people have imbued the white belt with their emotions. If you look at the past champions, they fight with their emotions and they created lots of drama. I think that’s unique to joshi wrestling, but even in joshi there aren’t any other belts that are exactly like this. That’s why I think the white belt is the symbol of Stardom.”
Some people say the appeal of joshi wrestling is that the wrestlers show more of their emotions. What do you see as the appeal? “I think it’s easy for girls to show every detail of their emotions, whether it’s jealousy or passion or whatever. You can see in every scene, “oh this person must really be thinking like this.” There’s as much hidden drama as there are people to see. There are as many views as there are wrestlers. There are about 25 wrestlers in Stardom right now, so it’s like watching a movie with 25 main characters.”
The interviewer agrees with this and says that’s exactly what it is: “Stardom is full of wrestlers with various backgrounds, and among them, there is one for any viewer. By identifying yourself with the wrestlers, you become emotionally involved and want to support them more and more. Cheering for a wrestler is cheering for yourself.”
Tam says what she finds most “wonderful” about wrestling is that she can make her dreams come true together with fans. “Ever since I joined Stardom fans have been telling me, “Tam-chan, I want you to win the white belt for sure,” and I was finally able to make those dreams come true. Once you make one dream come true though, you can make another dream come true. We can make dreams come true together forever. So in a way, I hope I stay unfinished forever,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
Ozaki-san says she’s happy to see the increase in women fans. Tam says “When I’m expressing myself in the ring, there are times I’m thinking, “Girls probably have an easier time understanding this.” Say if I’m jealous of someone, there are complex nuances to that I think only the women fans understand. I hear men talk about it just like, “Oh Tam hates Giulia.” It’s not that simple! When I went independent from Mayu Iwatani, I still really liked Mayu-san, but I had to go on my own, but it was seen as “Oh Tam, you betrayed Mayu.” They just said I betrayed Mayu and saw me as a bad guy. I think women are better at catching all of the complicated feelings involved in something like that. That’s who I want supporting me.”
Ozaki: “Every time I mentioned Giulia’s name, Tam had this inexplicable look of frustration. I could tell there was much more to it than “I hate her.” As a female writer, I wanted to understand the subtleties of female wrestlers. I started to think, yeah, I really want to support them.”
I’d heard that there are many male fans who look at female wrestlers in a sexual way. I’d figured they wouldn’t like that aspect of it, but surprisingly, she said “if anything, it makes me quite happy.” “There are people who say things like “I want to take dirty pictures of you”, but if those people want to take sexy pictures of me, I don’t mind. I’m happy they still need me for something, and if they see me as sexy I’m happy because I’m like, yeah that’s right, I am sexy. It helps to improve my self-esteem. There are definitely wrestlers who don’t like it, but for me, I’m totally fine with it. I have the mentality of a crazy person though, I’m just like, whatever you want, it’s no problem.”
“I live off the support of my fans. If I didn’t have any fans, I would have quit a long time ago. There would have been no reason to keep going.” She said that she was extremely proud to have brought fans who supported her since she was an idol to the Budokan.
What does strength mean to you? “Know your weaknesses. I’m not physically gifted, I don’t have the kind of natural looks that make everyone turn their heads…. No wait, what am I saying, I’m the cutest thing in the universe! But really, I couldn’t make it as a ballerina like I dreamed of when I was little. I couldn’t sell myself as an idol. I’ve felt like I had nothing, but I think having experienced that kind of despair lets me fight with the feeling of never wanting to fail like that again. I want to be an existence that can cuddle up close with the hearts of weak people.” Tam started crying at this point. “It’s because….. I know there are people in the world who are hopeless, but…. I hope I can reach their hearts…. If you do your best to keep living… If you do your best to get to tomorrow, eventually something good can happen… that’s what I want to tell them….”
Ozaki-san: “I couldn’t stop feeling connected to her. She feels like she’s failed her whole life and probably still feels like that now. But as I watched her desperately trying to say something positive, I couldn’t help but burst into tears too. I wanted to shout, “Tam Nakano is the cutest girl in the universe!!” Whether she’s looking up at me in a selfie video, or fighting in the ring and falling apart, or crying in front of me right now. I wanted to shout this at her.”
When I asked her to nominate the best wrestler who I should interview next, she laughed and said “I would say Giulia, but I can’t give her that kind of recognition”, and nominated Mayu Iwatani. It’s relationships like this that make covering joshi wrestlers so interesting.
“Mayu Iwatani is a wrestling prodigy. But when she started, she was so weak and clumsy, and she struggled to grow. But she never gave up, no matter how many times she lost, and now she’s known as the “Icon of Women’s Wrestling.” As I was getting better I was always looking at Mayu’s back, so I think she’s the strongest.”
Ozaki: “When I interviewed mainly male wrestlers, I couldn’t help but feel cautious when talking to them. I made so many mistakes I developed a phobia of interviews. I frequently couldn’t sleep the night before, and many times I would run to the bathroom and vomit right before an interview. I never could have imagined myself laughing with my interviewees and crying with them…. I have definitely felt the impact of women’s wrestling. Next time will be Mayu Iwatani.”
Shine Today, Believe Tomorrow 
Many thanks Dana for these blog posts and translations. Looking forward to reading and learning more here.
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