The Ayumi Kurihara appreciation thread

[stew]

Well, now that a fellow poster has broken the ice with the Hiroyo Matsumoto individual appreciation thread, I figure I'll follow up with a thread dedicated to my favourite joshi of the last tapings weekend - the incomparable Ayumi Kurihara.


Photo: George Tahinos

I'd watched a couple of YouTube matches of Kurihara before attending the last set of tapings, so I was at least a little bit prepared, but it's fair to say that my expectations were exceeded. Of course, having one of the best matches from the entire weekend as your debut match (vol 29 against Tomoka Nakagawa) certainly helps.


Photo: Walter Lippman

Kurihara managed to jump right into my favourites that weekend - so much so that after I got over the initial shock of Madison Eagles winning the title from MsChif on Vol 31 (and believe me, that was a surreal few minutes), my immediate thought was "Kurihara's gonna beat Eagles!!! YAY!!!". Says a lot that my heart immediately went to Kurihara, and not revenge for SHIMMER mainstays 'Chif or Melissa. She's clearly a special performer.

So this thread is for the appreciation of "Lil' Kawada Girl" Kurihara.

Incidentally, have any of you joshi-heads compiled a Kurihara comp yet? If so, hook a brother up.

[Evergrey06]

Kurihara was my favorite of the 4 joshi girls, who were all outstanding in their own right. I just loved everyone minute of Kurihara's matches, especially the minutes where she decided it appropriate to dropkick peoples' teeth out.

[SHIMMER office]

[LardWarriorELPS]

You can see the dark circles under her eyes and that she's punch drunk exhausted.

It starts a :30 seconds when she begs help on the day they wrestled at JAPW in this tiny pathetic voice and look of exhaustion on her face. She finishes the statement strong.

Then comes "HAMMA" for SHIMMER. Misaki can't stop laughing and Ayumi just loses it!

Matsumoto makes it so much funnier when she says "HAMMA wa? HAMMA? Kuruma desu ka?"
Basically "HUMMER..? HUMMER? Isn't that a car?"

Then Matsumoto hits her with the the distinctively Japanese rising "ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh?"

They keep doing air quotes which must be an inside joke they brought from the US. I can't hear what they're murmuring when they do it.

And when she talks about training at 1:30 and guesses ROH's initials as "P..." before losing it again.

They tell her "R.O.H" and she says "hai" but then 2 seconds later asks "H.O.."

"R.O.H! R.O.H!" and she claps her hands like she has it.

[MC LevaMark]

While all were spectacular, Ayumi was my favorite of the four Ibuki girls. I particularly like her theme song, of which I know I am in the minority. She is just awesome as awesome can be.

[freaky]

*demands HAMMA shirts for next taping*

[LardWarriorELPS]

[freaky]

I went into the latest tapings an utter Ayumi virgin. Not only did I not know her talent, her look or even her name - I avoided learning the joshis names and went on my first impressions at the shows instead - and she blew me away.

Her match with Tomoka Nakagawa was a great introduction for both of them and I was genuinely hacked off when she was counted out against Daizee Haze and I was desperate for her to go 4 for 4. After just two days and four matches I had an emotional attachment to her, which is awesome.

More Kurihawa. More of her.

[LardWarriorELPS]

Everyone check out the main event of the ringstars autumn carnival dvd. Possibly Ayumi's best singles match to date(her best tag match is PROBABLY the main event from Starting Over)

[LardWarriorELPS]

[LardWarriorELPS]

[SHIMMER office]

[SHIMMER office]

[LardWarriorELPS]

Does Ayumi have "shiro fiibaa?"

(I made that word up)

According to her blog after practice she and a friend went to see the movie "Darling wa Gaikokujin" (My Darling is a Foreigner) which is a movie based on a very popular manga of the same name about a Japanese woman manga writer/artist and her white American husband. Her husband is perfectly fluent in Japanese but the Japanese wife's English isn't very good.

From the trailers I've seen it appears to be a totally horrible romantic comedy chick flick. In fact the American character makes me want to poke my eyes out.

Anyway, Ayumi liked it a lot and she said she bought a handkerchief beforehand expecting to cry as she does at all these movies. She said she had forgot one and her towel was wet from practice, but she ended up not needing it (I guess it wasn't sad).

Then she says after the movie she and her friend discussed it and came to the conclusion that "iine ~ kokusai kekkon" or "I like it ~ international marriage."

She got a little heat from her overwhelmingly Japanese male blog commentators for that:

"Is an international marriage a dream of Ayumi's?(≧ヘ≦)"

"Does Ayumi have a crush on a foreigner?"

"There are good men in Japan!"

"Ayumi might suffer hardship if you marry internationally...I object"

That last one is funny because according to the trailer below it's what her father says to her in the movie!

ameblo.jp/ayumi-kurihara/page-6.html#main

So there you go gaijin... Ayumi likes you!

[stew]

May 3, 2010 22:16:30 GMT -6 LardWarriorELPS said:

So there you go gaijin... Ayumi likes you!

Well there's another good reason to start learning Japanese...