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Japan - advise


wrestlingmad

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Also, when you are in Tokyo, go across the road from the Dome, under the railway bridge, and turn left just by the station. You should find the awesome wrestling shop there (Toudokan if I recall right).

 

Yes, do this. It's a great shop, though like an idiot i had trouble finding it until a very helpful person walked me to it.

 

I went to Tokyo for a week last September/October and was unfortunate in that most of the bigger promotions were touring outside Tokyo that week. The only things at Korakuen Hall seemed to be kickboxing and a Tatsumi Fujinami tribute show but managed to catch a Big Japan show in Shin Kiba (a few stops on the tube from Disneyland) and was so glad I did. It's an intimate venue, which holds about 200 people, and seems to have shows on most days of the week. The show was excellent, the highlights being a lighttube deathmatch (which was surreal being in the second row for) and Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi destroying three scrubs.

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I'm currently in Japan as I type. Been here 2 nights so far and it's pretty barmy. You can get around perfectly on public transport without the use of any Japanese. It displays where to go in English as well as the announcements are also done in English.

 

Went to a show as Shin-Kiba First Ring last night. For a promotion called VKF Battle Entertainment. Oddly, they seemed to have stolen ALL of their branding from WWE and old WCW PPVs. Looking at the DVDs they had on sale, they have Over the Limit, Fall Brawl and Slamboree as title names for shows, which was bizarre. This show for example was called "Summerslam" complete with the logo WWE have used for the best few years. Unfortunately, I didn't see Brock vs. Orton but I did see a bunch of guys I have literally never heard of before. It was an interesting show, I'll be honest in saying I was struggling to stay awake, primarily because I only went to avoid jet lag kicking in in a big way and me being conked out in the hotel at 3pm.

 

What I found striking was the amount of women that were there. If there was every a handsome man out, they'd get streamered to high heaven. And they were awesome at it too, not like PROGRESS fans last Sunday for Will Ospreay. But they didn't care about heels or faces - if you were handsome, you got cheered, if you weren't you got silence. Apart from one bloke in front of me that just wanted to see blokes get clobbered really fucking hard.

 

Another thing to note was the show went just over 2 hours but cost 3000 Yen (£22) to get in at the cheap seats. In Shin-Kiba, you still get an awesome view for this price but it did seem a bit pricey seeing as I'm a spoilt BritWres fan who can see the biggest Indy names in wrestling for £12 a go some times.

 

It was a bit difficult to find, although it shouldn't have been. Google Maps is particularly terrible and the venue is literally a converted industrial unit literally in the middle of other industrial units. However it is 5 minutes walk from the Shin-Kiba station exit.

 

Going to go out now and look for Shinjuku Face (as it's near my hotel) before heading out for the day. Might go back in the evening for the STARDOM show, or I might just aim for Dragon Gate tomorrow (2 shows in the same venue, hoping at least 1 isn't sold out!)

 

I'll keep posting more stuff in here if I think it'll help you, but the other stuff I can think of has already been said - but visit Tokyo Dome City. Shopping Center that turns into a mini theme park, it's really cool and it's near the NJPW shop and another small shop where I was able to get a WRESTLE-1 ticket for the 11th.

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Shin-Kiba First Ring sounds like a promotion in itself, sounds like a good place to see some of the smaller promotions. It's a shame the fake Japan Undertaker didn't make an appearance. I suppose 3000YEN isn't too bad, the exchange rate isn't particularly great at the moment.

 

Tokyo Dome City is on the list, considering it's in the vicinity of the NJPW shop and Korakuen Hall how could I not!?

 

I'm sure I'll be okay, the AirBnB I'm staying at in Toyko for the first week includes a pocket wifi that I can carry around which will be a godsend!

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It's an awesome little venue, the Big Japan staff were also incredibly nice to my girlfriend who stood outside during the deathmatch, which I don't blame her as glass flew onto my shirt, although they did try and claim to her that they were Japans's number 1 promotion, haha.

 

Was gutted that I missed an FMW show at Shinjuku-Face a few days before I arrived, loved Shinjuku as an area though.

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Slightly random one, but if you're in Shinjuku at all it's worth popping in to Drop Kick, it's a bar run by the people who own DDT. we popped in and it was really friendly in there. They always have wrestling on the TVs, and there are frequently wrestlers in the bar (some trainees working behind the bar too), although obviously not too much going on.

 

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g1066457-d6046016-Reviews-Drop_Kick-Shinjuku_Tokyo_Tokyo_Prefecture_Kanto.html

 

Also, if you're in that area pop into the Antonio Inoki themed restaurant. The food is very average but the whole place is crazy. 

 

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g1066457-d3758121-Reviews-Antonio_s_Inoki_Saka_Bar_Shinjuku-Shinjuku_Tokyo_Tokyo_Prefecture_Kanto.html

 

Also, there's always the Ribera Steakhouse!

 

Tokyo is amazing. 

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I made the trip back in January.  I used the ticketbo.jp link on the first page for the Tokyo Dome tickets and the 7-11 machine to get tickets for BJW at Korakuen.  For the 7-11 machines, I got a P-Code (for Ticket Pia) from the BJW site and then essentially bluffed my way through the machine. If I remember rightly, there's only two buttons/screens you could possibly put the code into and the show will turn up on one but not the other. If you know the seat prices, etc already, it's a breeze to use.

Queuing for Korakuen starts from the bottom of the stairs too. Don't make the mistake of getting the lift up or you'll probably end up looking a right get as you trudge down the stairs past everyone who's already there...

We found Toudoukon a bit of a headache to find, thanks to Google Maps suggesting it was somewhere it wasn't, but it's absolutely worth searching out. There's a lot there, so worth having a flick through their website to see if there's anything you actively want, unless you plan on spending hours in there going through everything.

It's also just round the corner from the official NJPW shop, Yano's bar and a smaller wrestling shop, next door to NJPW, that oddly had a lot of nWo shirts and some indy merch (a few Joshi girls and a couple of Freedoms guys shirts).

Ribera Steak house is worth it too.

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I can help you with most questions. I have been in Japan 6 times, and as of writing this, i´m in Osaka right now.

 

For tickets in Tokyo. The easiest thing is to do go to Korakuen Office on the 5th floor and buy tickets for the shows you want to attend. Beware, they only have limit tickets for sale. If you see bad seats for a show, go to Champion store in Suidobashi next to New Japan store (google it) they will have tickets too, and are very friendly.

 

Check this site for shows announed:

 

http://en.puwota.com/

by clicking on a event, you go straight to the promotion schedule of the event, there you can see ticket prices and so on. Also you can see where the show is in Japan and how to access it. It will all be in Japanese, so just use google translate to figure out where the show is going to be at. Very simple.

 

Korakuen Hall office only sell tickets for shows in Tokyo.

 

The only shows that will sell out right now, is NJPW G1 Climax show. Anything else is easy to go to, and will not sell out. Most of the times while I have been in Osaka and wanted to attend a show, I just went ½ hour before bell time and picked up a ticket.

 

Hope that helps.

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To anyone who's already been to Japan - does anyone know how to get a hold of DDT tickets? Missed out by minutes this morning on Dragon Gate so want to be a few days ahead for the next show I go to!

 

Cheers

Its always worth dropping a wrestler an email, etc. They usual shill tickets on their twitter/amebo blog things, and they always appreciate it. Its also advisable to get them a day or two in advance as often the price goes up by 500-1000¥ on the day of a show.

I used to get my tix from Masa Takanashi, or Guanchulo (who speaks great English, if that helps)

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I'm at a point now where I'm begin to accept it might not happen. DDT have their big "Beer Garden" week with a whole host of mad shows and it appears that all are already sold out :(.

 

Tried e-mailing wrestlers, tweeting them, asking the classic Japanese wrestling group on Facebook, e-mailing DDT themselves and trying the shops in Sudiobashi. I'm hoping that the few e-mails I've sent will get replies in the morning so I can sneak in to one of the shows but it's probably not a good idea to plan ahead with that.

 

On the plus side, I've got tickets for the 2 semi-final nights of the G1 Climax (the final night sold out mere days before I got the tickets online), the Wrestle-1 show on Mountain Day (what is that?) which has Ibushi that I'm majorly hyped out and the Big Japan show in Shin-Kiba on the 15th, with what should be the first Deathmatch I've seen since the classic Abyss vs. Steve Corino bout 10-11 years back.

 

Also saw a poster for something called Hanayashiki Pro Wrestling which is in the amusement park of the gorgeous Asakusa that takes place the day before I leave. Looks madcap and CHIKARA-like. I might check that out especially if I go back to Asakusa during the day for a walk around to save me having to go to Shin-Kiba for the GUTS WORLD show.

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"In May 2014 it was announced that Mountain Day will start being celebrated as a public holiday every August 11, beginning in 2016. Supporters of the holiday included legislatorSeishiro Eto and the Japanese Alpine Club.[8] The legislation states that the holiday is to provide “opportunities to get familiar with mountains and appreciate blessings from mountains.”

 

I wonder how many Japanese people actually follow it?

 

Anyway, from your experiences I'm going to have to be on the ball it seems! I want to catch the NJPW PPV and one show from DDT and BJW. I think that covers the variety nicely. I've already accepted I can't make Dragon Gate :(

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