Event / Concert The Real 2017 WIP Climax in Korakuen Hall (17/08/29)

Should have been more careful picking up that chair.

 

The show was impressive overall (the only downside was Shoot Sign), but imo Katomina, Yuami & Churi vs. Shiichan, Chiori & Dasu stole the show. I went back and watched that match about three times because it was so much fun and had such a high energy. It even made me start liking Dasu .

 

Plenty of noticeable botches, but they performed better than I've expected. Quite impressive actually, for an Idol group.

looks like they gave Sato Akari a monster push. She is booked capable to eliminate 4 people at once. Assuming they already planned S2, they should explain how the hell Nakai and a monster like Sato Akari ended up joining Sakura's dojo.

 

I decided to delete my original post and made a new calmer, more coherent post.

I'm happy this ended without anyone getting injured. But I'm disappointed in what seems like AKS' decision to continue pursuing this. My problem with pro wrestling (and other professional fighting sports) is watching people putting themselves at risk of serious injury for the purposes of entertainment. And it seems incredibly careless of an idol management company to have their members do this. Even though this was choreographed, even then there was still a risk of someone getting injured just during training. And these are idols we're talking about, not wrestlers. If a wrestler was injured during training or during a match, it wouldn't be as big of a deal (assuming it wasn't anything serious) since everyone knows there's risks involved. But there's a whole different set of consequences if an idol, whose job normally wouldn't put them at risk of harm was injured during wrestling or training, including actual idol activities being cancelled. For example: Haruppi may have been (but it was never confirmed) injured during training or filming for Tofu Pro Wrestling. Due to that, she was absent for while, missing Kojiharu's graduation concert, some HKT concerts (because of which, there had to be changes made to lineups for some songs) and didn't sign up for SSK this year. Imagine if she or someone else had gotten hurt worse and had to be out for an even longer period of time or even worse, graduate. Again, these aren't wrestlers, these are idols and the consequences of an injury are very different. AKS took a risk doing this drama and this event and thankfully there was only one not even confirmed injury, but I feel like AKS shoudn't press their luck. I know there are fans here who loved this and want to see more, but there are as many fans who have been worried for their oshimen for the last nine months and were extremely uncomfortable watching Tuesday's event and would love to see AKS move on and find another, safer concept to pursue.

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of the girls and the effort they put into this, but I don't feel like the risk is worth it.

 

I would like something with less risk of injury but similar effort required. The girls who really devoted themselves to training for this have grown significantly from the experience, and they need more opportunities to really invest themselves in pushing towards a goal like that.

But as you say, the risk of injury is way too high.

 

I think one aspect of looking at this is if the girls who came out and bust their azz to make this show happen then they can pretty much do anything in the future. No limit.

 

I don't really know much about pro wrestling or what management is doing to prevent injury but is there really more risk of injury than with a concert or other performances? I know whenever they have those bleacher-like structures on stages (like RH) I get really nervous someone is going to fall, especially in the heels they have to wear. We had Rika hurt her wrist, but we've had a lot of other injuries from performances.

 

As someone who has a) not been following this too much and b) has done stage performing like this before (with weapons and hand to hand)...

There are lots of tricks. You are taught how to fall safely, how to make it look convincingly like you've just hit/slapped/punched someone. You drill fights over and over again until both of you are comfortable getting as close to real as possible without injury, especially in the case of weapons use. Can injury happen? Sure. Does injury happen usually? Nah. Most injury in this kind of thing is due to overextending yourself, such as pulling a muscle. In all the dangerous melees, brawls and partner fights I've done I never saw anyone get hurt, but I did fuck up my knees for a while by falling to them on tile floor a little too hard during one exhibit.

I've seen gifs of what the girls are doing here and it's all quite tame, basic stage show stuff that poses fairly low risk of injuring each other. Again, overextension is the biggest potential killer and can happen to any athlete. Idols have even injured themselves in practice and onstage simply by dancing. This isn't that much more dangerous than the normal stuff they do.

 

I mean the stage was fully padded...didn't you guys see when they were dancing on it? It was like they were on a jumping castle XD

 

Well, they sure made it look VERY convincing.

 

To give you better picture, this is Sato's backdrop
https://twitter.com/wip_pr/status/884392754133872640

And this is the actual backdrop, more dangerous one.

if the video does not show watch the video here

Also there's a trick to reduce strike damage. You move/fall in the direction of impact, which will make the strike looks convincing but also absorb the blow damage.


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By the way, at the previous post I questioned why Sato joined Sakura's faction. Looks like the announcer at the battle royal match made a mistake.

http://proresu-today.com/archives/33700

According this article, she is member of Shirokane Gym. Still need background story about why Nakai joined Kinshicho Dojo though.

 

I'm pretty sure it was covered, Myao was ruthlessly bullying her so she just ran away and changed gyms to get away from her.

 

wow just wow

http://i.imgur.com/i7bTm3q.gif

 

Mannnnn match 3 was great. I was expecting good things with Katomina and Yuami but I didn't know Dasu was that flexible until she did those jumping splits. That plus Chiyori and Oya's general over the top stuff was perfect for this. With all five of them, of course Takayanagi would appear weak. Good narrative, great lines ("I'm octopus! Of course it's going to be eight!"), exciting action, didn't drag too long.

Komi/Saya vs Megu/Odaeri had a lot of great stuff in it too but I did find myself getting bored towards the middle. Also it would have been a crime to have Megu/Odaeri win based on their initial beat down of the other two, so I'm glad it had the predictable ending.

I did some stage fighting stuff back in high school, so a lot of the basic hits and stuff looked pretty safe to me, especially the elbows where they'd pull back from a decent distance. Admittedly I didn't progress past intermediate unarmed (basic grappling) so I don't really have the authority to talk about any of the more advanced moves.

 

Reading some of the posts on this page, I feel a bit better about this but the thing that still really worries me (and has been bothering me since day one), are the drops/kicks to the head/neck. I saw a clip of when Yui kicked Jurina in the head and .

 

if the video does not show watch the video here
This is a good video, concerning Yui's superkick, try to watch at 5:45. Now, watch Jurina's hand when Yui executed that superkick, that's the trick. The timing of the fall also important, good timing make the kick looks convincing but also reduced force of the blow.
To be fair, all of those move is quite tame compared Sakura Special/Emerald Flowsion. That move is little bit risque, but they probably want to pay tribute to Mitsuharu Misawa.

I believe this wrestling gimmick is benefiting the group.
First, most common complain from the fans is how the group become stale and boring. Now they answered with this, and it's working and well received by fans. Sure, they can try again something new and safer, but there is no guarantee it will be as successful as WIP. Why gamble with time and resource if current gimmick already works?
Second, more opportunity for spotlight. Before WIP happened, how many fans ever heard Sato Shiori or Hirose Natsuki? We already saw several members like Komiyama got decent spotlight there.

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Meanwhile, Jordynne Grace (Shelly Yamanaka) tweeted this after her match.
https://twitter.com/JordynneGrace/status/902680712586948610

I hope WIP invited more real pro wrestlers at the future, Taeler Hendrix perhaps?

 

I think the risks far outweigh any benefits for being part of the cast especially for girls who don't gain too much from the extra exposure -- mion, etc. Most of the girls are not varsity-level athletes and some are actually among the most unathletic girls there are. When executing some of the more dangerous moves, they not only have to execute, but also rely on the other girl to execute as well. And everyone's new to this so mistakes are more likely to occur. I think there were many instances where the execution was slightly off -- some girls landed harder, were dropped earlier, etc. It's good that there's only nakai's injured wrist but a major injury to one of the senbatsu or undergirl level girls can cause major setbacks to their popularity -- and really impact their career and livelihood. And nobody's going to wait for them to heal when there's other girls out there. Yeah it's fun and entertaining until there's another haruppi.

The drama was probably safer as they can take more safety precautions but this live is just too risky. Maybe leave it to the athletic girls if they really want to do this imo. I think the match with the two big girls was more safe since there were professionals that have more control when tossing people. So yeah I enjoyed it but only after I read before watching that nobody was really injured. And in response to just the last sentence from TheFamily, I never heard of hirose natsuki and I'll forget her again -- unless she appears in a season 2 drama that's 10+ episodes.

 

I feel rather more assured now about the safety aspects and I have to confess that I do tend to wrap up my favourite idols in 'cotton wool' too much. In the past I've been quite shocked at a couple of videos such as Takamina being pushed into water with a giant hammer and Sasshi falling out of the back of a minibus, not to mention the recent episodes of Nemouso TV where 6 girls went on a Thai Army boot camp. At the time I felt quite upset but now I doubt that anyone was in any real danger.

Yes it's good that the girls can diversify their talents but my main concern is it seems to me that the core function of 48G, i.e. music, is being neglected and in particular that the number of concerts is less than it used to be. (That discussion of course is probably better in another thread.)

 

why does this have 48,472 views?