The Ultimate Fangirl Bucket List: Ten LAW Luminaries I'd Like to Meet

[FreestylePoet]

The Ultimate Fangirl Bucket List: Ten LAW Luminaries I'd Like to Meet
by Shiori Takeda

What a difference a few months can make. Back in March, I had just finished my last year of high school. I wasn't on track to go to college or anything, and honestly, I didn't have any desire to jump into the workforce right away. Between my Patreon, my commissions for art and writing, and my Etsy page, I had enough income to be able to afford a modest (if a little cramped) life in Tokyo. By almost every measure but my income, I was a NEET. A happy NEET, but still a NEET.

Fast forward a bit more than half a year, and suddenly I've lucked my way into a job at one of the fastest-growing wrestling promotions on Earth. And I really do mean that I lucked into it. As you can probably tell, I have close to zero experience in the field. My biggest responsibility -- and my biggest experience related to professional wrestling -- up to this point has been moderating the largest LAW fanfiction community on Discord. So when I tweeted Dr. Christina Morgenstern looking for an internship, I really didn't expect it to go anywhere. Now, I wear a bunch of different hats around LAW. I help manage an up-and-coming team of rookie wrestlers. I write articles like this one for all of you wonderful people. I engage LAW's wrestlers and global fanbase on social media.

Oh, and did I mention that I get to wrestle sometimes, too?

If this sounds like the plot to a bad isekai series -- From Jobless In This World to Jobbing In Another, maybe? -- you'd be right. I wake up every morning wondering whether or not this is just a dream. Or a prank. Or, God forbid, the product of some weird reincarnation after a past me got hit by an eighteen-wheeler carrying steel chairs. No matter how many times I pinch myself, though, it doesn't change the fact that I'm really here.

Sappy stuff aside, I promise that all of this has a point beyond me just introducing myself to you. Namely, to drive home the fact that I am a rabid fan of LAW who's stumbled upon a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And what's a fan like me to do when she becomes coworkers with all of her idols?

The answer: Start an endless quest to get every single frickin' autograph, selfie, and handshake that she possibly can. A girl's gotta prioritize, though; even ignoring the half of the roster that would punch me out on sight, there's just way too many wrestlers here to meet them all. So consider the following a bucket list of sorts. A who's who on my journey to nerd-vana.

Shiori Takeda is a graduate of St. Koa Girls Academy who first started writing for LAW Magazine in 2021. She also works for the Team Stanza stable as a management intern. When she's not watching, practicing, or writing about professional wrestling, Shiori tries desperately to climb out of Silver in League of Legends and makes random tier lists. Shiori can be found on Twitter at @WMyKeysITheePen, on An Archive of Our Own at WithTheseKeysITheePen, and via email at STakeda(at)mail.lawnet.com.

[FreestylePoet]

10) Meiyun Lai

This won't come as new info for those of you who already know me as "that loud pro wrestling girl on Twitter" or "that awesome fanfiction writer on Discord," but I've always had a special affinity for the mid-carders of a promotion. Sure, champions and main carders bring in the big bucks, but not every match can be a battle between giants. That would just be too exhausting, even for the most dedicated of fans. It's those middle 80% who are the true unsung heroes. They practice day in and day out, and management just sees them as filler to make sure LAW uses as much of its allotted time as possible every week. In some cases, many fans don't even know who they are, as they're relegated to house shows and dark matches. But make no mistake, these mid-carders are the true lifeblood of any promotion.

Think of the best meal you've ever had at a restaurant. If you could have that meal every day, it would lose its appeal pretty quickly, right? Even if you don't agree with that, you've gotta admit that sometimes you're just not in the mood. Or you don't wanna spend all that money. When that's the case, what do you turn to for your weekend meal out or a casual date night?

That's right. Your run-of-the-mill, one-on-every-block, everyday restaurants. Frequented by salarymen and families despite never really knocking it out of the park. All we ask is that they serve decent food on our whim at a reasonable price. Tasty. Filling. Solid. No more, no less. And that's alright. As a perfectly average girl writing to -- let's face it -- a perfectly average audience, I think we can all agree that sometimes we just need perfectly average food.

So if middle-of-the-road restaurants are emblematic of our appreciation of the reliably alright, then nobody could represent the workhorses of the mid-card better than Meiyun Lai.

An early enrollee into LAW's still-nascent Young Lioness program, Meiyun is not only a flagbearer for a new generation of wrestling talent but is also the heiress to her family's own boilerplate eatery. Suffice it to say that Meiyun likely knows exactly what I mean when I describe how crucial such restaurants are to our palates.

Both the Lai family business and Meiyun's wrestling career display the same ambition to be better, despite their current humble positions. While their Yelp page is filled with middling reviews, the Lais continue to work hard to provide their customers with whatever sustenance they need to get the heck on with their day. Similarly, Meiyun herself has launched a career that has had an inauspicious -- if still fun and inspiring -- start. Nonetheless, she has a clear-eyed vision of where she came from and where she's going.

Watch her match against Natalia Dominique, and you'll see what I mean. The spirited, spunky affair shows audiences exactly what she's about. Her love for the resilient spirit of wrestling shines in everything she does for LAW, and the way that she embodies that spirit to live out her dreams while putting her family's restaurant on the map is nothing short of admirable.

To me, meeting Meiyun wouldn't just be a chance to ask for her "could probably make this at home" recipe for mapo tofu. It wouldn't just mean finally getting to see that third Lai sister that the other two constantly gush and gossip about back at their restaurant. It would mean thanking someone whose ambitious exuberance throughout her early career gives me high hopes for the future of this promotion -- and of a cornerstone of my take-out rotation.

[FreestylePoet]

9) Clara GASTER

I know, I know. "But Shiori, didn't you just spend nearly 600 words ranting about how much you loved mid-carders? GASTER's one of the faces of the company!" And you're right. I'm a big ol' hypocrite. Rest assured, there will be no more individuals on this list that have wrestled for a title.

It's just that no history of LAW would be incomplete without perhaps one of the most unique members of the motley crew it calls a roster. And as a bona fide historian of LAW, my love letter to the company that hired me would be incomplete without a mention of Clara Gaster.

As GASTER, Clara captivated audiences with an unprecedented combination of skill and gravitas in the ring. Many decried her as a simple chuuni, though that in and of itself is a testament to her acting chops. She wasn't the kind of heel that I wanted to reach through the screen and punch in the face. No, she was more like a villain in a sentai show that I wanted to do battle with atop a stormy crag!

Unfortunately, the character of GASTER wouldn't be a permanent fixture in LAW, leading many to wonder just who was under that villainous laugh and goofy mask. But I wasn't surprised. In fact, way back when the Shadow Lord gave way to an unmasked Clara, I already knew what the world was in store for. This isn't even revisionist history on my part; at risk of sounding like a hipster, I want to point out that I followed Clara long before any of us ever even met GASTER.

A little-known fact about me is that All-Style Women's Pro Wrestling is one of my favorite modern promotions (aside, of course, from LAW). ASPW helped me learn English, and its focus on its wrestlers' determination in the ring inspired young Shiori to walk the road that turned me into who I am today. But none of the women who called ASPW home caught my eye as much as -- wait. Can you guess? I think you can see where this is going.

That's right. Yoko Kitsune.

The inaugural World Champion of ASPW had nearly a decade of wrestling experience around the world before arriving at the small federation in Newcastle -- one that I won't get into, as she's not the focus of this section. Suffice it to say that she was one heel that I just couldn't look away from, despite my disapproval of her tactics. Her brutally powerful style and her penchant for heinous acts demanded attention.

So when ASPW stuck her with some mousy-looking Brit with barely any full-time wrestling experience as a tag team partner, I was admittedly a little confused. Soon enough, though, that mousy-looking Brit won me over with her displays of grit, determination, and an uncanny ability to use power moves as a lightweight. Needless to say, that was when I started following Clara more closely..

Then came the return of her sister, Alice. A ready-made champion who carved a bloody path through ASPW's roster, pulling the future Shadow Lord away from her commitments with her tag partner until Yoko outright beat and abandoned her. A rising star had suddenly fallen back to earth, with her friends and family becoming her enemies. Eventually, Clara mustered the courage to face her problems head on, challenging Alice herself to a hardcore match. Despite the brutality of the affair, it was clearly a desperate expression of love on Clara's part, and against all odds, it worked. Similarly, she withstood a barrage of blows from Yoko for ten whole minutes in a title match; though it once more shattered her confidence, she has clearly since regained it.

Clara's career in ASPW illustrated the full range of the human experience -- love and betrayal, excitement and struggle, hope and despair -- and how wrestling could proudly display all of it. She brought that fighting spirit to our promotion, going up against some of our most skilled and dangerous foes while lighting up our screens with not one but two fan-favorite personalities. It's not too much of a stretch to say, then, that before she was a high-profile pillar of LAW, Clara was still the warm-hearted spitfire that we know today -- and a big reason that I fell in love with wrestling. As far as inspiration goes, she's given me more than I can ever really thank her for. Now that I'm here, though, maybe I'll have a chance to try.

[FreestylePoet]

8) Kyojin

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I like to think I've got a pretty good eye for talent when it comes to this whole wrestling thing. I've seen enough debuts and their aftermaths to be able to project what kind of wrestler someone will be. Not to mention all the behind-the-scenes footage that modern promotions often throw out there, which showcase just how much work people put into their craft.

But sometimes you don't need all that information to tell who might be a big-shot in this crazy world of ours. Sometimes you don't even need to watch them fight. Sometimes, just one look speaks volumes.

Case in point: Kyojin. Readers based in Japan might know her as the hulking behemoth of a woman who, for a while, earned her fame through near-superhuman feats of strength. Lifting kids up with her finger for pictures. Deadlifting things that were never meant to be deadlifted. Bending stuff that, for most of us mere mortals, is completely solid. Even readers from around the world might be familiar with her from the few viral videos that have been shared of her, whether of a rare show off the stage or of an illicit recording taken from a theater.

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to be able to attend one of Kyojin's shows, and I can confirm: Her strength is downright godlike. At that show, she dragged a 15,000-kilogram-plus bus more than six meters. Surely, I thought, that kind of strength would have to be worth something in a fight. She could probably pop my little head with a finger and a thumb. A punch or slam from Kyojin must feel like getting hit by a bullet train.

All of that was stupidly impressive, of course, but it wasn't what made me hope for her to make the jump into pro wrestling. What did that was the fire in her eyes. The full-on confidence that whatever task she was supposed to do in that moment, that she'd be able to do it. She never had any doubt that her body and spirit would be up to whatever challenge was ahead. That is what marked her as sure a thing as any for a long, fulfilling career in wrestling.

Even before stepping foot in the ring, Kyojin was already a living legend who lived up to the legend. Then she did a few circuits around the indies, picking up the finer points of wrestling -- or, at least, whatever finer points she needed to pick up, given her strength. Now, she's here to leave her mark on LAW -- and on her opponents' skulls and spines.

Admittedly, I've already met Kyojin; I fist bumped her after that show I went to. (For what it's worth, I nearly broke my hand fist-bumping her. No melodrama here, no sir. Again, she's the real deal.) Since then, though, I feel like both of us have only grown as professional wrestling aficionados. Kyojin isn't often one for words, but what she has said and written in recent years has actually been pretty thoughtful.

So yeah, I guess I am tooting my own horn a little bit -- after all, I totally freakin' called it. More than that, though, I'm genuinely happy to see Kyojin make her way from a local legend working freakishly awesome shows to a genuine threat at my favorite wrestling promotion. Maybe we'll meet again someday, and at risk of totally shattering my hand, I can give her another fist bump.

[FreestylePoet]

7) Batto-Saya

Speaking of tooting my own horn for having called it. The global indie circuit has its charm – any fan will tell you that. There's something special about wrestling in small venues for shows with low production value. But massive promotions like LAW are an entirely different beast altogether. They attract the industry's greatest talents, amass the biggest viewership, and spend the most resources.

While not everyone in these promotions has to be a top-tier talent, everyone does have to be able to hang with them. That's a tall task for even the most experienced ring veterans who are among the storied stars of their own indie promotions. Proving that you can be more than a big fish in a small pond is how you get noticed by big-promo scouts.

But LAW is… weird, to say the least. It asks more than that. This promotion of ours is home to crowd-pleasing extroverts and unrepentant wallflowers. Brave heroes and underhanded fiends. Wrestling legends and total rookies. Chefs, doctors, politicians, idols, streamers, businesswomen, athletes, schoolgirls, demons, goats, and yes, fangirls. While that means you don't necessarily have to have the best resume to land here, it also means that you really have to stand out and show LAW something they don't already have.

Enter Saya Sakai, ring name Batto-Saya.

Or, more precisely, enter Shiori Takeda, into the gym of my local community center about a year ago. See, on the budget of a fledgling creative like myself, one doesn't exactly get to go to many major wrestling events. But that's okay, because like I said, there's something really special about packing into a rec center to watch amateurs duke it out on a shoddy ring that's most definitely not up to code.

The event in particular was a tournament featuring some wrestlers who hadn't quite landed, even at an indie promotion. Everyone there was probably looking for a contract, or they were hoping to show their talents and get picked up by a bigger company than the one they were currently at. Still, it was a small affair, and I wasn't there as a scout. I didn't expect to leave wondering about any of the wrestlers' future careers.

But if there's one thing that Batto-Saya is among the best at, it's smashing everything in sight – expectations included.

Plenty of wrestlers can fight fast and fly high. Many can endear themselves to the crowd with seemingly limitless energy. But how many can do both of those things incredibly well while having a badass gimmick to pull out when her back is against the wall? The fact that she can literally bash her opponents with a baseball bat while still earning positive pops from the crowd speaks volumes about how likable she is.

It isn't that her personality causes audiences to ignore the apparent brutality of her beloved baseball bat. In fact, I'd say that most wrestling fans probably want to see her use it in a given match. No, it's that she seamlessly melds said bat – a literal inanimate object – into her in-ring performance and personality.

So I walked out of that gym thinking that Batto-Saya, despite only being in the business for a short while before then, absolutely deserved a bigger spotlight, as well as that I would love to follow her career wherever it went. A year later, she and I have both signed with one of the fastest-growing promotions on the planet. Funny how those things work, huh?

[@UnusuallyTallJawa]

[FreestylePoet]

6) Ichika Rei

I try to be extra careful when talking about legacy wrestlers. Not to lump them all in together, but a lot of them seem to straddle the line between wanting to honor their predecessors and aspiring to build their own career. Nobody represents that tension more than LAW's very own Ichika Rei.

Obviously, I'm not a mind reader – if I was, I'd be working for Nick Fury, not Eiji Matsumoto – so I can't truly speak for Ichika. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if she felt torn between two paths: To reignite the core of her mother's Blue Star or to blaze her own trail towards professional wrestling nirvana.

As both a fan and a media member, I can say without a doubt that we put far too much pressure on her to juggle both plates at once. Heck, even her colleagues are guilty of that. LAW Magazine recently highlighted Ichika in the first installment of their X-Ray series. Of the six highly experienced wrestlers who were asked about Ichika, five of them compared Ichika to Asai, even going so far as to say things along the lines of, "Ichika is not her mother."

The sixth was Karen Starring, who I can almost guarantee does not give two cruds about Asai, at least as far as her thoughts on Ichika are concerned. And while Karen's attitude regarding her fellow wrestlers is… well-documented, let's say, what if she has the right idea here? After all, remember who Asai was. She wasn't just a highly skilled wrestler. She wasn't just the face of her promotion. She was the face of the entire sport, and that was a role that she stepped into with aplomb every time she fought.

But that role doesn't exist anymore. Joshi puroresu is here to stay. Its standard bearers are different. Wrestlers no longer have to worry about representing women's pro wrestling to a skeptical audience. LAW itself has become a burgeoning giant in the combat sports space. Wrestlers can simply focus on wrestling instead of having to advocate for their spot in the sporting world.

That's an advantage that Ichika has used to her benefit, quickly becoming a fan favorite with a bombastic, driven, unapologetic style all her own. She is unafraid to show her opponent and the crowd just who she thinks she is – a winner, or at least someone who's well on her way to being one. A fighter, and one who's always willing to step up to the plate, even when it gets her in trouble.

All of this is something that, just a few decades ago, wouldn't have been possible. It would've been decried by that generation's Eijis (or, well, maybe our generation's Eiji) as needless pageantry. Now, professional wrestling has become well-known as the closest thing in real life to the thrilling multi-episode brawls that we see in anime! It's all about putting on a good show. And that's where Ichika has truly shined, win or lose.

It's earned her fans, of course. Not just longtime followers who recognize her last name and signature blue hair, but also newcomers who watch her matches and like what they see! That's special, and that's what makes her special to me as a fan.

So no, Ichika Rei is not her mother.

But that just may be her greatest strength.

[@Violet]

[FreestylePoet]

5) Gil

For some reason, one of LAW's favorite pastimes seems to be crapping all over Gil on Twitter. Maybe it's because she has one of the biggest and most loyal fanbases in all of LAW. Maybe it's because she's a specialist in one of our promotion's most popular match types. Maybe it's just because she's small and nice and easy to bully. Whatever the case may be, I admit that I tried to get in on that trend. It was a moment of weakness, really, fueled by an early desire of mine to be seen as one of the "cool kids" in LAW. However, when it came down to it, I just couldn't do it. Instead, I ended up complimenting Gil on one of her many great qualities: her horns.

After my failed attempt at a momentary heel turn, my client (!) and teammate (!!!) Julie Dykstra-Liao tweeted at the Arma-Gil-O with quite the accusation regarding the true intent behind my tweets. At the time, I simply replied with a bashful refusal to comment. My thoughts on the matter were probably pretty evident to anyone who saw the tweet, but I just couldn't come out and say it explicitly. After all, facesitting is some pretty lewd business, and I am but an innocent NEET.

The controversy only got worse a few days ago, when a mysterious pair of Tweets showed up on my Twitter account. The post alleged that not only would I bet on Gil's butt against anyone else's, but that I would like to be beneath it.

…Okay, so maybe the former is true. And I'll get to the second later. Still, the fact of the matter is – my considerable (and I don't mean to brag. ok, maybe I do) social media profile was effectively graffiti'd! While I don't have any evidence, my hunch is that Gil surreptitiously swiped my phone from my desk at LAW Magazine – not only committing this unspeakable act, but also preventing me from meeting her and getting her autograph!

Which leads me to the crux of this section of my article. This whole thing started with one question: Does Shiori want to be smothered by Gil? At times, I've ranged from reluctant to answer all the way to having said answers written for me for all to see on my Twitter.

You know what, though? I'll admit it. I do want Gil to sit on my face.

And before you get any weird ideas in your head (seriously, I WILL ban you from my Discord if you write Shiori/Gil smut), it's not anything pervy. There's a very strong argument to be made that Gil's Dew Dropping derriere has been a major factor in energizing LAW's ever-popular smothering scene. I would be almost as excited to be on the receiving end of Alaina Sanders's Ama-bomb or Alizeh Midori's Emerald Twilight (low-key, I was pretty jealous when my friend Brooke got hit with the latter!). But as famous and powerful as those moves are, none of them can lay claim to iconicity within a particular niche of wrestling, much less one as popular as smothering.

All of this has happened in less than a year! Yes, that's right, fellow LAW fans: Gil's only been in LAW for 10 or so months. That she's managed to work her way into our hearts so quickly is a testament not only to her career but to her personality and the way that she approaches life in LAW.

What I mean to say is that Gil's booty is as unique as it is famous in the wrestling world – as, of course, is Gil herself. There's only one Arma-Gil-O in pro wrestling, and she's right here in LAW. And for a fangirl like me that thrives on the new and thrilling in this career of ours, that is one of the most exciting things I could hope to experience.

(Also, I need to know who stole my phone last week. So Gil? If you're reading this, it's time for you to answer for your crimes. On Twitter, in the ring, however. It's time.)

(...Did I do that right? How's that for a feud starter?)

[@Arista]