I: Dump Matsumoto VS Chigusa Nagayo (1985)

When you are raised and socialized as a girl, you never want for instruction. As most children do, you learn from stories first.

One of the first lessons is that there is nothing neutral about femininity. You can’t simply be female. That label doesn’t come without qualifiers. You can be a good girl, or a bad girl. A hero, or a villain.

A hero is small, petite, typically blonde or red-headed with a brunette accessory friend that can be purchased separately. The princess, the toy doll who is kind and sweet and loving and triumphant in all things. She is unerringly kind, passive, and always in the right. She is the woman you are supposed to want to be. She’s an Ariel.

The second kind of woman is a villain. She wears loud colors and has a wide red mouth full of snarls and swears. She has her own agenda, her own story playing in the background of the fairy tale, her own shit going on. She will taste defeat by the end of the story, but before that she will blaze across the hemisphere of the narrative like a comet, dazzling and burning all in her wake. She is fearsome and undeniable. She’s an Ursula.

Ariel gets the man and the castle and the feel-good musical number that tells you it’s a happy ending. She gets this at Ursula’s expense, and you’re supposed to be happy for her. You aren’t supposed to give a fuck about Ursula, because she’s a bad person. (Monster? Sea witch? Whatever.) Despite the fact that Ursula is brave and smart, despite the fact she has been exiled and therefore twisted by an understandable loneliness, despite the fact she exploits the naivete of a royal family to nearly topple an empire. We know she’s a bad person because she’s fat and loud and pulls the levers of her own life, which is something a female hero is never allowed to do. She demands you watch her destroy everything in the name of her own happy ending.

We do not know the rules that Ursula is breaking by name, not when we meet her as a child. We only know from looking at her that she is transgressive, and we are supposed to despise her. It’s implied that to be on the Ursula path is a sin, and if us borderline individuals tried a little harder, we could be Ariel too. It would be calling the game out to admit that some of us will always be Ursula. Some of us will always be too fucking much to see ourselves in princesses.

We have to find heroes of our own. Those heroes are usually villains. Our heroes always lose.

It’s still worth it. Who wants to be Ariel when you could be Ursula?

I am first introduced to the world of joshi wrestling via an All-Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling bootleg that some kind soul uploaded to DailyMotion.* I am looking for this match specifically, a legendary showdown between a heel stable and the most popular faces in the promotion. I have just listened to a podcast about infamous Japanese wrestling rivalries, and the tremulous awe with which the guests described the match sparked something in me. I have to see it for myself, see if it’s what I hope it will be.

I click play and the fuzzy footage begins to roll. A wide shot of an arena, then the camera swings to a crowded corner. A theme song plays over the loudspeaker that causes the crowd to boo like puppies are being put to death in the middle of the ring.

And puppy death may actually be on the menu, because you can’t count anything out when Gokuaku Domei stride into an arena. They are the Atrocious Alliance, the violence loving lady chaos demons of AJW. They have ridden a tidal wave of blood and terror to the top of the roster, and they live to pervert the sense of sportsmanship and wholesome camaraderie that joshi wrestling is supposed to symbolize. They go into every match not just trying to win, but trying to humiliate anyone who would dare stand against them. This includes low blows before the bell, kicking and punching referees, spitting blood at opponents and going after large swaths of the audience with a kendo stick.

There are three of them- a slight dark haired woman in a red jumpsuit, a massive fireball of a woman with short-cropped blonde hair and a kendo stick, and a tall, chubby girl with an undercut juggling a pair of nunchucks. They have used black paint to darken their cheeks, outline their eyes, draw thick swoops down the curves of their noses. Their clothes are a mix of punk t-shirts, studs and spikes and leather, and (inexplicably) women’s bathing suits. They are a hurricane of colors and sound and jiggling fat thighs and arms and bared teeth framed by split lips and blue paint. I am in love.

I am also shocked to recognize that the one with the nunchucks is a young, doe-eyed Bull Nakano. At that time I only know of Bull from photos and YouTube clips. Even in passing, her face warped by the grain of the bootleg, she is unmistakable. Later I learn that Bull was only fifteen when she joined the AJW stable, serving as an apprentice to the terrifying monster heel Dump Matsumoto. A fifteen year old girl adrift in a sea of thousands of booing people, all of whom hate her by sight and association, all of whom are literally clamoring for her destruction. You could forgive her a slight tremble, a hesitant look back to the safety of the entrance. But Bull is resolute. She is fearless by the sides of her comrades. She is not there to be pretty. She is not there to make nice. She is there to make murder and mayhem, and fuck you if you’re dumb enough to get in her way. Fuck a thousand of you, fuck ten thousand of you, fuck anyone who would dare to say “no” to Bull Nakano.

Bull is not the focus of this match. This match is going to be Dump Matsumoto, the demonic leader of Gokuaku Domei, vs Chigusa Nagayo, the most beloved Crush Girl. It is the first hair vs hair match in AJW history. Whoever loses is going to be shaved bald right there in the ring.

And then the Crush Girls enter, and it’s an incredible moment. Chigusa enters the arena carried on the shoulders of her fans and comrades, dozens of screaming women holding her towards the heavens. As soon as they round the corner to the ring, you can hear the crowd chanting her name as one- “Chi-gu-sa! Chi-gu-sa!” In Chigusa’s hand is a small razor. She looks down at it, than narrows her eyes in Dump’s direction. Later I will learn that this fight is the culmination of months of feuding between Crush Girls and Gokuaku Domei; matches blown by cheating and shady refs, Gokuaku triumphant again and again despite the best efforts of the heroic, fair playing Crush Girls. This is supposed to be their final confrontation. Good versus evil, with a handful of hair on the line.

I settle in to watch, not expecting much. After all, I know how these stories go. Female monsters are only allowed to be scary enough to get you to root for the real heroes, the ones who are in peril and danger due to their villainous actions. When there are real stakes, the princesses will be the ones who come out victorious in the end. Hair is serious stakes for a female wrestler, and Gokuaku Domei are undeniably the villains here. It’ll be the Crush Girls who win, somehow.

And yet. I hesitate to call what happens next a squash, because it’s less that and more of a snuff film recorded before a live studio audience. From the very beginning of the match, Dump is on top of Chigusa, dragging her by her hair around the ring and slamming her repeatedly into the mat like she weighs nothing. Bull screams her approval as her mentor slams a spiky fist into Chigusa’s mouth over and over again, then tosses her over the ropes and into the crowd. Chigusa manages to get Dump back into the ring and mount a small offense, but it doesn’t change much. Dump is too big, too strong, too mean to be knocked down by the more virtuous Chigusa. The camera cuts to the crowd, full of weeping teenage girls, still chanting their hearts to the sky. Their prayers are, so far, unanswered. But who would answer them? The Crush Girls play by the rules, and this isn’t a tag match, so Chigusa can’t bring anyone else in. It’s up to her to save herself.

I check the run time on the video. Fifteen minutes to go, and Chigusa looks a pile of dirty silly putty that someone crammed into a bathing suit. She’s suffered enough, by wrestling law, and it is time for her comeback to begin. I wait for her to overpower Dump somehow, leap on her back for an octopus hold, work whatever good girl magic will bring the lady monster to her knees so she can escape the terrible haircut of fate.

And she does it- and it doesn’t work. Dump breaks free of Chigusa’s bodily bear trap like she’s made of twigs, and then wings her to the ground. This is Dump’s moment to go for the pin, to end Chigusa’s suffering and humiliation.

Instead, someone passes her a pair of scissors.

And I know, I know I’m supposed to be worried for Chigusa. Poor, poor Chigusa, who simply does not have the strength to overpower the punk rock butch bear of a woman she has been condemned to battle this evening. But I just can’t do it, because the drama is too high, and I never ever see women who look like me win anything quite like this. I watch Bull pace and cheer outside of the ring as I would have liked to do. I watch her whoop with glee as Dump hooks her free arm around Chigusa and begins to stab at her forehead with the scissors.

Blood drips down Chigusa’s face as she howls. I howl too, with sympathy, and delight.

Sensing the end is nigh, Bull and her teammate work together to toss foreign objects into the ring. Anything that could make a dent in Chigusa’s bleeding head is considered. Chigusa walks the edges of the ring, wiping streaks of crimson across her cheeks, shrieking with pain and anger as Dump laughs and menaces the crowd.

Finally, the ref calls the match due to Chigusa’s delirium. He calls it for Dump. Gokuaku Domei have won.

My god, I thought to myself. Those mean fat bitches did it.

Chigusa is outraged by the results, of course, and charges out of the ring. She grabs a microphone and screams her protests into it, then heads for the barricade. It is Bull, broad-shouldered and teeth shining, that swims the tide of weeping fans and stablemates struggling to shield Chigusa from her fate. It is Bull who carries Chigusa back into the ring. She works with the other women in Gokuaku Domei to place her in the chair, and then she hands Dump the shears.

And this is where the match falls apart, a little bit, at least as far as the wrestling is concerned. Even though it’s Dump’s right to make Chigusa humiliation as scorching as possible, it’s still a hair vs hair match, and one of their own is getting the chop. That’s a big fucking deal for every woman in this arena, friend or foe. You can hear the crowd weeping, chanting, the threads of their cries and moans winding into a braid of despair that suspends the moment from the match and turns it into something of its own. Bull winds a chain around Chigusa’s neck to hold her steady as Dump begins to run the shears over her head. Her face is cackling and cruel, but her hands are clumsy and delicate, and she is careful not to nick Chigusa’s ears unnecessarily. It is an odd moment of reverence in the middle of overwhelming brutality.

But the strange, violent tenderness doesn’t end there. It doesn’t take long for the Crush Girls and their allies to rush the ring, eager to guard Chigusa from further abuse. One woman shoves her way to the center of the ring, and appears to be prepared to free Chigusa from the carnage.

In response, Bull leaves her post behind Chigusa and wraps her arms around the brave interloper, holding her away from Chigusa- but not so far away that she can’t comfort her weeping, exhausted friend. Bull’s toes are planted firmly into the mat, but her arms are loose, allowing the girl to cling to Chigusa’s hands as they cry together. The knot of action in the ring is a loose embrace, a dozen women screaming and cradling each other, spattered in tears and blood and dusted by scattered tumbleweeds of damp hair. It is less a match stipulation than a moment of matrydom. Chigusa the hero, sacrificed on the altar to allow holy terror Dump to reign supreme. And poor Bull, Dump’s disciple, bound by duty to see things through but moved enough to allow Chigusa a moment of comfort in the chaos.

The howling wail of the teenaged audience fills the arena like storm winds. They can’t believe their hero lost, and they can’t believe their hero is still losing, that she will be beautiful no more by the end of the night. It isn’t right. Ursula isn’t supposed to beat Ariel, isn’t supposed to cripple her or steal her voice for good. And yet, that’s exactly how it goes down. Gokuaku Domei are victorious, a legend set in stone.

Sometimes I think of young Bull, at the start of her career, and I wonder how many chances she had to make choices about the woman she would become in the eyes of the world. She was talented enough even at that age that she could have been welcomed into any team. She could have slimmed down to fit the mold of sporty femininity espoused by AJW. She could have cut her hair and washed her face clean and played by the rules, just like Chigusa did, and followed that path to stardom. She elected to pick up a pair of nunchucks and follow Dump Matsumoto into hell instead.

A woman doesn’t become a villain by chance. She becomes a villain because she sees another villain that looks like her, and then she looks into her heart and she knows what’s there.

II: Devils of Japan VS Velvet McIntyre and Dawn Marie (1986)

I spend the next few weeks researching Dump Matsumoto and Bull Nakano. I am especially taken by Bull, and I am happy to learn that she has a long history of AJW dominance I will be able to enjoy. But while I am enjoying learning more about her AJW career, it’s a tricky piece of YouTube archaeology- none of the videos are subtitled, many are distorted enough to thwart visual comprehension, and Wikipedia can only give me so much. One day it occurs to me that I first learned about Bull Nakano when I was getting into WWE, and while I usually don’t watch the old stuff, she probably has some matches on the WWE network. I decide to look her up, hoping her American matches will provide me with some helpful context to understand the Japanese ones.

This was a mistake.

It isn’t Bull’s fault, of course. As a teenager she was sprightly and terrifying, and as an adult she is a force of nature. Massive and intimidating, a beautiful technicolor nightmare with sky-high hair. In WWE (at this time WWF) she is a pure strongman heel that delights in smashing the dreams of any hero who would stand against her. I watch her spring from the top rope and crush a woman’s throat with her thigh and I fall instantly in love with her in the passionate, sadomasochistic way one does with a wrestler like Bull. She destroys people to bring me joy, and I pledge my heart to her, knowing she can only break it by losing so justice is served.

As much as I love Bull, I quickly learn that I can’t stand watching matches from her WWF career. Bull is not the problem. How could she be? She’s as terrifyingly cool in the ring as she ever was, and she even has a fantastic rival in Alundra Blayze, AKA Madusa. Blayze is fiery athleticism to Bull’s destruction, a tough-as-anything All-American superhero to Bull’s scheming villainess of brutality, and their feud over the WWF Women’s Championship is well worth your time and attention.

I recommend watching those matches on mute. The commentators just never stop gleefully insulting Bull, mocking her weight and noting that she isn’t as “pretty” as her opponents. No matter how good she is in the ring, they can’t stop degrading her, to the point where I wonder why she doesn’t just abandon the match and punch the guys behind the table instead.

Every match I watch with Bull in WWF makes me angrier and angrier, to the point where I have to wonder what exactly is wrong with me. Yes, I am overly sensitive and far too emotionally invested in wrestling, but I should not be biting back furious tears on behalf of Bull Nakano. Regardless of the humanity she showed during Chigusa’s shaving, she is a heel, and heels are supposed to be despised. It would be odd if the commentary table was kind to her.

I can’t figure out why I feel so personally wounded, so I keep watching the matches until I reach a breaking point. Sadly, it happens when I make it to a match I have been looking forward to. Bull Nakano wasn’t always a singles wrestler in WWF. For a few matches, she actually tagged with Dump Matsumoto, and the two mounted a challenge for the women’s tag team championship. I should have known how badly it would go when I heard the team name assigned to them by WWF: The Devils of Japan.

When the match starts, Bull and Dump are already in the ring. Bull is hanging from a turnbuckle, screaming and flipping off the audience. Dump is marching across the ring in full samurai armor, posing and gesturing at the crowd, inviting their fear. The announcers wonder what exactly this creature is, and as Bull assists her in emerging from her weaponized cocoon, it is easy to see why the announcers are nervous about her. Dump remains an imposing figure, all hips and thighs and grimace and dyed hair and clenching fists and ring aura. I’ve never seen Bull treat another wrestler with an ounce of kindness, but she undresses Dump as carefully as you would a newborn. The bond between them is tangible, if unexplained by the announce table.

In fact, the announce table refuses to explain much about the match at all, preferring to use their time and microphones to verbally destroy the women in front of them. This is a shame because, for Bull and Dump, it’s a decent demonstration of their tag team work. Bull is every bit as dominant and terrifying in the WWF ring as she is in AJW, twisting Dawn Marie into painful looking holds and landing clubbing blows with glee. Unfortunately, it is clear early on that Dawn and Velvet are not prepared for this match-up. WWF’s women have always worked hard, but joshi training at that time was simply on another level, and neither Velvet nor Dawn can keep up with their opponents. Eventually Dawn Marie and Velvet improbably manage to get the upper hand, and Bull is gamely menaced by them, selling their armbars and sloppy strikes for all she’s worth. Then Dump tags in and absolutely cleans house. She throws Dawn and Velvet around like they are dolls, cackling and screaming as they tumble to their knees.

The commentary table mentions none of this. They have no interest in discussing Bull and Dump’s awesome offense, the nail biting hot tags, or the weirdly abrupt roll-up of Bull that finishes the match. Instead, they spend all of their time talking about how goddamn ugly and terrible the Devils of Japan are. They mock Dump’s weight and appearance, wondering if she’s actually a woman at all due to her mannish haircut and scowl. They discuss Bull and Dump’s bodies in the nastiest terms possible, musing on their measurements and chiding them for not being able to “stay away from the rice bowls”. They complain to each other that these are “no pretty flower-arranging girls”, and ask why out of all the lovely ladies in Japan someone would send messes like Bull and Dump into a wrestling ring. At the end, the only highlight from the match they show is Velvet’s wobbling roll-up of Bull. The slow-motion shows Bull repositioning Velvet on the turnbuckle, signaling her through the spot with a tap to the thigh. Bull engineered her own humiliation, and was rewarded with utter indifference and scorn.

I think back to the AJW matches I watched for Gokuaku Domei. It was hard for me to follow in Japanese, but it seemed that Bull and Dump’s mentor/mentee relationship was a part of their storyline. At the start of the match Bull would carefully remove Dump’s mask or armor, a sign of respect. Then they’d go to work together.

In that moment, it struck me exactly what was violated when the WWF announcers mocked Bull and Dump in that tag team match. A bond between warriors, rendered into a joke by men who did not care about it. I imagine what I would feel like if I’d invited a mentor to join me in combat only for her to be mocked by the people running the show. I imagine what it would feel like to be in that samurai suit, exposed piece by piece, as leering men questioned my right to exist just because they didn’t want to fuck me. I wonder how it would feel to review the tape later and realize that it didn’t matter what I did in the ring- how strong and graceful I was, how hard I worked to put the other talent over -because my body and presence were too transgressive to be anything but ridiculed and ignored.

There is a thing that men do to unfuckable women sometimes that I call the “eyeslide”. Basically this happens when you are forced into a social situation where you have to make polite conversation with a dude who clearly doesn’t want to talk to you. He’ll monologue a volley of information about himself- his car, his home, his favorite sports team -and ask nothing about you. He’ll only seem irritated that you are drawing his attention from other things. When you try to make eye contact with him, his eyes slide away as if drawn by a magnet, as if you’re a pile of shit on the sidewalk he’s trying to politely ignore.

I have dealt with this thousands of times throughout my life. I’m a fat, queer, awkward woman that wears bright colors and swears a lot. The more I look like myself, the less the world wants to see of me. Eyeslides are the manifestation of the bargain I have struck with the world for my own comfort and visibility- you can be honest about not wanting me here and I’ll pretend it doesn’t hurt -and I have spent a lot of time learning how to avoid it. I get less eyeslides when I’m wearing a dress, when my hair is longer, when I actually take the time to apply winged eyeshadow like I don’t have anything else better to do in the morning. I get more eyeslides when my hair is shorter, when I’m wearing schlubby jeans, when my eyeliner smudges into a Furiosa look. When I wear a ballcap and a tank top, there are men to whom I am utterly invisible. I could pick their pockets if I wanted to. I might, someday. It’s not like writing is paying my bills.

When I get an eyeslide, it’s imperative that I don’t acknowledge it, because if I do I will go too far. The risk of fully expressing my rage might see me in handcuffs. And yet, in my mind, I imagine what I would say if I could. Who gave you permission to ignore me, just because you don’t want to fuck me? Just because today I don’t want to pretend that I’m interested in being fucked by you? That’s what refusing to perform is to some men- a rejection of them -and they react accordingly. They insult, they injure, and they ignore.

It makes me confrontational. It makes my heart swell with technicolor ugliness. It makes me want to grab them by their popped collars and scream in their faces and make them see me- MAKE THEM SEE WHAT I AM -and make them regret it. It makes me dangerous to them. It makes me WANT to be dangerous to them. It makes me want to lift my fat queer ugly body off the ground and jump off of something high and catch their throats in my thick legs, punishing them like they deserve.

But I will never get to do this, and neither will Bull and Dump. As I watch them take to the corners of the ring and scream at the crowd, demanding the attention the world wishes to deny them, I feel once more the sting of being an unfuckable woman in a straight dude’s cultural landscape. The pain of loving something that doesn’t love me back. I get so mad at wrestling that I don’t watch it for a week.

III: Big Egg Wrestling Universe (1994)

If you cannot be good, you can hide yourself and be neutral, or you can be extremely, visibly, bad. After all, if there are those of us who will always be an Ursula, what is the point of playing along with the Ariels? If one must be a villain, then one should be the greatest villain one can be. One should sneer and crush and subjugate the will of the the good, and show the appeal of the evil. And eventually, one way or another, the world will recognize you. And it is possible they will come to love you, too.

Desperate to avoid more awful WWE commentary, I come back to joshi. A podcast I listen to informs me of the existence of Big Egg, a seven-hour joshi supershow where WWE lent Bull back to AJW for a WWF Women’s Championship match against current champion Alundra Blayze. I am unable to find all of Big Egg on YouTube, but a bit of searching helps me find Bull’s match with Alundra.

The match begins and you can hear the screams of fans like cicadas, scratching the edges of the soundtrack. The screen is dominated by a massive white ramp, lit in shades of twilight blue. The announcers speak quickly, in hushed tones, like they are murmuring to each other in a church. Suddenly, white lazers split the sky around the entrance, and smoke shoots up in columns from spouts on the ramp. Then I hear it- the heavy beat and gong of Bull’s theme song, and I lean closer to my laptop.

She sweeps into the arena, marching in time to her music. She is dressed in black and gold, wearing a sheath of shredded lame over a black unitard. Her hair is a golden shock towards the sky, a queen’s crown of her own creation. She is solemn as she strides through the mists flowing up the ramp, her lips set, her eyes determined. In her left hand she clutches her ever-present nunchucks, the only sign we see of the usual mischievous Bull.

Then she pauses on the platform that leads to the entrance ramp. She looks around, and the roar of the crowd swells over her theme song. They missed her.

And then- it’s the most beautiful, strange sight- Bull smiles. And not the menacing smile we’re used to. Not the teeth-bearing grimace that cues up the leg drop or signals a foreign object has been smuggled into her grasp. It is a genuine, beaming grin, bright as the sun, and she waves to the crowd. She soaks up their joy at seeing their prodigal beast return. She points to the crowd with her nunchucks, gives them a quick spin, then turns to stride up the ramp. You can watch her try to battle the smile off of her face, but she never quite pulls it together. She is practically skipping by the time she reaches the ring. She is a monster awash in love. She has earned it.

And I feel something loosen in my chest. I let go of a breath I did not realize I was holding. I’d been waiting for them to boo her, to mock her, to reject her as the WWF commentators had done. That will not be happening at Big Egg. This is Bull’s kingdom, and she has returned to claim her gold. She enters the ring to more applause.

The roar of a motorcycle cuts the air. Alundra is shown into the ring by a military escort of big bikes. She trails behind, waving a massive American flag. It is the pitch-perfect, badass, over-the-top entrance you would expect from her. Simply put, it fucking rules.

They go through the usual big-match Japanese wrestling pageantry- both Bull and Alundra are gifted with flowers, the belt is presented, they bow -and then the match begins. Immediately, Bull is in control of things. She is on Alundra from the bell, backing her into the ropes, picking her up by the hair and throwing her into the mat again and again. The Big Egg crowd is restrained compared to the weeping masses at AJW shows or the hollering kids at WWF shows. Because of this, you can actually hear Bull screaming throughout the match. She huffs, she howls, she punctuates each body blow and power bomb with a primal scream that sounds like it’s been ripped out of her throat. She is the terrifying avatar of destruction, made bloody and precise in human form, and it is obvious from the beginning that Alundra is doomed.

But unlike the reaction to Chigusa’s maiming at the hands of Gokuaku Domei, the crowd is firmly behind Bull. We hear ripples of enthusiasm go through the crowd as Bull winds Alundra around her body like a snake, rising to her feet and pulling Alundra’s hair back so the crowd can look down her throat as she screams. Over and over, Bull yells and knocks Alundra down, and the crowd yells with her- tentatively at first, but with more confidence as the match goes on.

Alundra is no push-over. She gets in some terrific offense, including a series of airborne neckbreakers that made me gasp and dig my fingernails into my palms, but it’s no good. This is Bull’s feast, and Alundra is on the menu.

In the final moments of the match, Bull clambers up to the top rope. She poses there for a second, hunched down and grinning, looking every inch a lion ready to pounce. Then she throws her arm in the air and yells, demanding the crowd’s adulation.

And they give it to her. Cheers fill the air as Bull descends, death from above, and lands a guillotine leg-drop. One, two, three. Bull wins.

Consider this moment. Suspend it in time, as we did Chigusa’s humiliation above. Consider what it means:

In 1985, a teenaged novice Bull grimaced and held a weeping girl in her arms, a disciple of destruction learning her craft and paying her way with flesh and chaos. She endured to become one of the most decorated and respected wrestlers alive, and she remained so for the rest of her career. In 1994, she has come to Big Egg to celebrate the peak of her infamy. She has blazed a brutal trail to the top and set her own villainous legend in stone. In that moment she stands before all of AJW, all of Japan, all of WWF, the entire wrestling universe with a title in her hands and a grin like the sun.

In that moment Bull Nakano is the Boss of The World.

This is the Bull Nakano I think of when I am struggling to love myself. She is regal, beautiful, powerful, and every inch her own god. She is the monster I need in my corner. I need to see her carried above the heads of the crowd, beaming and cheering. Triumphant not despite the fact she is a monster, but because she is the best monster she can possibly be. She’s the villian that inspires me to be a powerful creature who can withstand the cruelest commentary tables in existence and still find spaces for myself to be victorious.

Why would you ever want to be anybody else when you could be Bull Nakano?

This essay originally appeared in Issue 27 of The Atomic Elbow. It is an incredible zine and if you like this essay you should go buy it.

*I apologize for any factual errors or misinterpretations on my part when discussing the joshi matches. I don’t speak Japanese and most of what I know about old-school joshi is pieced together from bootlegs, dead websites, and Wikipedia. The emotions are real, anyway.