Japanese Pro Wrestling: Indies & The Live Experience

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Proud to announce that, for the fourth straight year (!) at Anime Boston, I will be presenting a panel on Japanese pro wrestling! Whether you've been attending my past few years worth of panels or are completely new to this incredibly cool slice of Japanese culture, I hope you'll join me!

We're discussing two big topics at this year's panel. First of all we're going to talk about Japan's independent promotions, which in this case we're defining as anything other than New Japan and Dragon Gate (the two biggest companies in Japan, which we covered last year). Specifically, we'll talk about AJPW, DDT, BJW, and NOAH. We'll discuss each promotion's history, what makes them unique, and of course show a lengthy match clip from each one!

The other main topic we're talking about this year is what it's like attending pro wrestling shows live in Japan. I recently went over to Japan for the first time and attended a ton of wrestling shows there in four different venues in Tokyo, so we'll discuss what each venue was like, how to go about acquiring tickets as a foreigner, and some of the major differences between attending wrestling shows in Japan vs. the US.

This panel is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, April 1st at 8:30 pm in Hynes Room 206, and note that we have 90 minutes this year. Hope to see you there!