AANN recently had an opportunity to interview Nicholas M. Ton, the new president and CEO of Tokyo Story USA.
Tokyo Story USA is the company that is committed to “bring more Japanese culture to the US” , and they brought Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling (TJPW) to Texas for their second tour in the USA.
“Whenever you come see the shows, you will get every aspect of the spectrum of what wrestling can be like: the pure action and then also a lot of the comedy and the skits and the character they are doing. And that’s the thing that really got me into it , is because each one of them has a very unique character.”-Nicholas Ton
Unlike other countries, female wrestling is just as popular as male wrestling in Japan. And TJPW is among the Japanese women’s professional wrestling groups, adding a mix with idol culture. The show usually starts with a group of girls called Up Up Girls performing. A lot of wrestlers will perform on their own intro songs as well. Ton thinks that compared to a lot of other “extremely serious” wrestling competitions, TJPW is entertaining because of the performance aspect. Every wrestler has their own unique character, and they will play their own character during the wrestling match. For instance, there is a wrestler named Pom Harajuku who is “forever three-year-old”. You can feel her traits during her wrestling, according to Ton “she screams, she has a tantrum. The way she attacks the other wrestlers is the same .” The diversity of wrestlers’ traits is one thing that makes TJPW unique.
As mentioned previously , this year’s tour is the second time TJPW has had a solo show in the USA, and the first one was last year. After last year’s show, they sent a survey to see how people feel about the show. About a hundred people filled it out, and the response from last year was positive. Americans really enjoyed the fusion of wrestling and idols, and many enjoyed the show because it helped them learn about Japanese culture.
They also have a meet and greet with fans after the wrestling show. “A lot of them say that even with the little short 15-30 second interaction that they may have, they really liked it and a lot of them held that as very special and as something they can take away with them,” said Ton. This is the response that Ton receives from their discord channel as well.
Other than organizing TJPW’s USA tour, Ton is also looking to bring other products that are related with Japanese culture that are “big in Japan but not necessarily that big here ” such as udon, sake, and matcha.
They hope more people can learn about and experience Japanese culture in the US, not only just for cultural facilitation, but also to create an interconnective society building from unique experiences.
Interview Video:
