5-Star Book Reviews — page 4

There has been a lot written about pro wrestler Mitsuharu Misawa. He’s a legend to this very day, respected and revered over fifteen years after his untimely death. Though some voices have since come out criticizing his in-ring style and the creative decisions that led to it, the fact remains that Misawa is still highly regarded among both his peers and his fans. We’ve already covered his sad and unfortunate childhood, so let’s see how things go for him as he shifts from being a student and an amateur wrestler to a full-fledged pro.

You can read part 1 here.

Akira Taue was an easy wrestler to get through because he only has one book. Toshiaki Kawada technically has two but his second one talks about the ramen business and not wrestling so that’s not particularly relevant. Kenta Kobashi has published four books but there’s a lot of repetition across them so it wasn’t too hard to synthesize all that info into one cohesive timeline. Then there’s the last of the Four Heavenly Kings in Mitsuharu Misawa and, well…

Top row, from left: Misawa’s self-published books

Departure: The Autobiography of Mitsuharu Misawa, published September 30, 2000;
Idealist, published April 13, 2004; and
Donmai, Donmai: A Message from Mitsuharu Misawa, published June 13, 2010

Second row, from left: Books about Misawa written by others

Misawa Mitsuharu Gaiden Complete Edition by Hirokazu Hasegawa, published October 31, 2009;
Mitsuharu Misawa: The Man Who Would Become A Legend by Masayuki Tokumitsu, published June 25, 2010;
Mitsuharu Misawa: The Man Who Created NOAH by Ryu Nakata and Makoto Honda, published July 18, 2007;
LAST BUMP: The True Face Of Mitsuharu Misawa As Seen By His Beloved Wife by Mayumi Misawa and Otsuki Marui, published July 30, 2010; and
Supreme Triple Crown Champion Mitsuharu Misawa by Kagehiro Osano, published in 2022

Magazine: Weekly Pro Wrestling Special Edition: Long Interview With Mitsuharu Misawa

DEPARTURE is pretty self-explanatory: it’s Misawa’s autobiography and covers everything up to NOAH’s formation and his initial plans and predictions for that company. IDEALIST is meant to be food for thought, almost like an academic inquiry into wrestling with Misawa explaining the mindset behind his wrestling and wrestling ideas from the perspectives of a wrestler, booker, and company owner, and has plenty of nuggets of wisdom from the man himself. DONMAI is a weird book: it’s more a collection of what look like blog entries with Misawa talking very casually about life, travel, behind the scenes stuff, and interpersonal relationships.

Then there are the books written by others. GAIDEN is like an epilogue or extra story intended to cover Misawa’s final year, almost like a written flashback sequence you’d see in a movie, and includes some interesting stories and anecdotes about the man’s life. LEGEND was written by a Japanese media personality with close personal ties to Misawa and seeks to convey how Misawa became such a legendary figure in Japanese wrestling despite not achieving the same degree of “fame” as guys like Muto and Chono. NOAH covers Misawa’s work in creating Pro Wrestling NOAH and also shines a spotlight on Ryu Nakata, Misawa’s close friend and essentially his business partner in putting that promotion together. BUMP looks at Mitsuharu Misawa the person (and in some respects the wrestler) from the perspective of his wife and widow. SUPREME is like the ultimate Misawa career anthology; if Ichinose’s Four Pillars bio is meant to go over the Four Kings while leaving no stone unturned then this book is meant to be the same just for Misawa (and in fact this one uses that book as a reference).

Lastly, the magazine on the right is a special edition dedicated to covering Misawa’s career and includes extensive interviews from the likes of Kobashi, Taue, Akiyama, Ogawa, Takayama, Vader, referee Joe Higuchi, and many others.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Misawa is the most covered of the Four Heavenly Kings. He was the biggest star of that period, achieved the greatest success, and unfortunately suffered the most shocking fate. To this day Misawa’s career is both celebrated for how exciting and boundary-pushing he was as an athlete while also being something of a cautionary tale for future wrestlers. And yet it seems like the warnings that emerged with Misawa’s death seem to go unnoticed with much of today’s wrestling focusing on the extremes and excesses of what he and his colleagues did while not focusing on the other, more subtle things they did as well that had just as important of an impact on wrestling. So hopefully on this journey we’ll get to see pro-wrestling from Misawa’s perspective and understand what made him make the decisions he made, both inside the ring and outside it.

And now we come to the end of Akira Taue’s long and winding road in professional wrestling. This will cover some of the most challenging and difficult situations of his life, far more difficult than anything he has endured in either sumo or pro-wrestling. His professional and personal lives will both take serious downward turns, to the point that he ends up at one point fighting for his life. After reading his book in its entirety, I can honestly say that he might actually have overcome more adversity than Kobashi but since Taue’s more quiet and humble in his writings and public comments you have to really look at things from his perspective to truly understand that.

You can read parts one and two here, parts three and four here, part 5 here and part 6 here.

Akira Taue had an interesting career as the ultimate utility player in All Japan and beyond. He was a jack of all trades that could fit into any role and succeed in it. Even though he didn’t have much time directly in the spotlight he was always close by. As such it’s interesting to see how he pivoted from being Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion in 1996 to going through all the different roles the company asked of him. After all, this is a wrestler who looks at his profession as exactly that, a profession. With that in mind, let’s see how this through-and-through consummate professional observes some of the biggest changes in wrestling compared to some of his more idealistic and passion-driven contemporaries.

You can read parts one and two here, parts three and four here, and part 5 here.

Jumbo Tsuruta’s departure leaves Akira Taue in an odd place. With Tsuruta sidelined indefinitely due to hepatitis the last real remnant of AJPW’s old guard disappears without ever cleanly putting the next generation over decisively. This loss of a main event star, coupled with Tenryu’s departure a mere two years earlier, leaves Giant Baba in a desperate booking predicament. How can he keep business steady, much less turn it around? It turns out the answer was a simple but significant team realignment. With Taue now without a regular partner he needs someone experienced and skilled enough to share the load…and it seems like in his mind the best colors to match Taue’s ruby red are black and yellow.

You can read parts one and two here and parts three and four here.

Akira Taue doesn’t describe himself as a wrestling fan. He didn’t have some kind of childhood awakening like Kawada, or any innate desire to be famous like Misawa, or a constant 24/7 obsession with it like Kobashi. For Taue, wrestling was a job, a means to feed his family. At first glance someone like that likely wouldn’t be earmarked as a big star. After all, most people presume that someone who grows up a fan of wrestling will dedicate more time and energy into succeeding than someone who views it through the lens of work and payment. But, as this section will demonstrate, Taue surpassed expectations and ended up improving so well and so dramatically that he ended up being one of the most critical utility players in any company from the past four decades.

You can read part one here.

Akira Taue is one of the most underappreciated wrestlers in modern times. He’s one of All Japan’s fabled Four Heavenly Kings yet in many cases he doesn’t get the same level of recognition as the other three. In fact I once read on TVTropes that the concept of “my friends…and Zoidberg” applied to him because he was so disconnected from the other core trio. And in some cases in the past there had been discussion to put Jun Akiyama above him in terms of ranking historic greatness and importance.

Naturally all of this negativity towards Taue is grossly out of place. Having read multiple books, magazines, and online interviews in both English and Japanese, it’s fair to conclude that Akira Taue is far more deserving of recognition than initially thought. All three of the other Kings have sung his praises. Giant Baba was also very fond of him, as shown by both the fact that Baba himself teamed with him in Taue’s debut wrestling match and bestowed on him his trademark red attire scheme. And of the Four Kings, Taue was the last one to release an autobiography, by a distance. With Taue  being such a central figure in AJPW history it’s only fair that we take a look at his perspective on things as well.

Also, big thanks to Maffew on this one for connecting me with BAHU, who also translated this book and a few others. However BAHU’s translated book is a bit shorter than mine since he appears to have trimmed out some of the repeated details. Still, having that as a backup reference is critical since he went through what I’ve been going through as well: that some stuff gets mistranslated or slightly misinterpreted in English in ways that can completely change the meaning of a sentence. So big thanks to BAHU for his work on this as well.

And now we conclude Kenta Kobashi’s long and winding road with the final part of his career. This is a sad period marked by a series of unfortunate illnesses and more injuries that, ultimately, force Kobashi into retirement. Before 2006 he had half-jokingly stated he wanted to keep wrestling until age 70. But unfortunately a routine check-up revealed a bombshell of a shock that risked ending not just his career but his life as well. And while he’d end up overcoming that illness (which is still remarkably on-brand for him as a wrestler and as a person), it was clear that his days of being the pro-wrestling version of Superman were over.

You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, part 8 here and part 9 here.

Although he has done interviews here and there over the years regarding his career and life post-2006, only one of his books touches on this period, that being his 2013 book NO REGRETS.

With FIST concluded, we now shift towards the other major part of Kenta Kobashi’s career, that being his time in NOAH. He has written very little about this period, and while he notes in PILLARS (which was published in 2016) that he might write another book going further into NOAH, as of 2025 he hasn’t done so. The only details about his part of his career have come from secondhand sources and observations. So for all intents and purposes this section is the closest we will get to knowing what was going through Kobashi’s mind as he struggled to surpass expectations set by his in-ring accolades during his time in All Japan.

But first, a Talk Battle with Kobashi, Kyohei Wada, and Kairi Hojo to conclude PILLARS.

You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, and part 8 here.

Kenta Kobashi has spent the entirety of his career in someone else’s shadow. For the longest time he was considered less important than the wrestlers above him and he felt this way as well. Throughout the prior sections of this book Kobashi seems to have struggled with this sense of inferiority. He has tried to prove the company that he’s someone around whom the company can be built around, that he’s worthy of being an ace based on his unwavering commitment to the fans to always deliver his best, regardless of crowd size. And at long last, he’s going to get his chance.

You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, and part 7 here.

And as a reminder, since this a review of two books at once, I’ll be referring to Kobashi’s first book as FIST and his second one as PILLARS. Since FIST is slightly more neatly organized that’s the one that’ll make up the basis of this review.

The last part of Kenta Kobashi’s books was filled with both inner and external turmoil as the guy struggled with what he perceived to be inconsistent booking and an uncertain future. As we go into his 1996 and beyond, it seems like some of those trends will continue and the poor guy is forced to make chicken salad out of chicken shit while still trying to deliver on ever-rising fan expectations. Things get pretty tumultuous for him, so let’s see how he overcomes these various challenges.

You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, and part 6 here.

And as a reminder, since this a review of two books at once, I’ll be referring to Kobashi’s first book as FIST and his second one as PILLARS. Since FIST is slightly more neatly organized that’s the one that’ll make up the basis of this review.

Last time on Kenta Kobashi’s wrestling journey he was riding high. He won AJPW’s top tag tournament, won the World Tag Team titles, and overcame an ideological battle with one of seniors that put more of a critical eye on his performances, for better or worse. It seems like Kobashi was riding high, but it wouldn’t be long before things took a turn given that Kobashi wasn’t the only person AJPW’s bookers and matchmakers had to consider in their decision-making.

You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here and part 5 here.

And as a reminder, since this a review of two books at once, I’ll be referring to Kobashi’s first book as FIST and his second one as PILLARS. Since FIST is slightly more neatly organized that’s the one that’ll make up the basis of this review.

This review will cover a shorter timespan than the previous parts because a lot happens at this juncture in Kenta Kobashi’s career. This will only cover key happenings in 1992 and 1993 since Kobashi has a lot to say about what happens during this time and what was going through his mind at the time. One reason I started translating these books is to understand what these wrestlers themselves considered important, as opposed to what the fandom has written and said about them over the decades. And since Kobashi is such a prominent figure in online wrestling discourse, what better way to understand his point of view than extracting the very thought he put to paper as the things he wanted his fans to remember the most?

You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here and part 4 here.

And as a reminder, since this a review of two books at once, I’ll be referring to Kobashi’s first book as FIST and his second one as PILLARS. Since FIST is slightly more neatly organized that’s the one that’ll make up the basis of this review.

So after experiencing a challenging childhood, a conflict-ridden early adulthood, and a taxing training regimen that had caused him more mental anguish than physical, Kenta Kobashi finally makes his debut as a pro-wrestler, and boy do things get interesting.

We left off with Kobashi already having debuted and his undercard losing streak already underway. He also suffers an early setback in the form of a knee injury and Baba wants him to rest now since he won’t have that luxury when he’s on top. Note that Baba says ‘WHEN’ he’s on top, though this kinda goes over Kobashi’s head at first, but it’s clear that Baba has big plans for Kobashi in the future.

You can read part 1 here and part 2 here and part 3 here.

And as a reminder, since this a review of two books at once, I’ll be referring to Kobashi’s first book as FIST and his second one as PILLARS. Since FIST is slightly more neatly organized that’s the one that’ll make up the basis of this review.

“I had almost nothing” – Kenta Kobashi.

This line set the tone for Kobashi’s entire wrestling journey. Unlike 99% of AJPW’s roster, Kobashi had no remarkable achievements or pedigree to back up his claims of being a hard worker and a positive contribution to All Japan. He was, for all intents and purposes, all talk as far as the notoriously selective AJPW front office was concerned. But fate had other plans. Despite initially being rejected Kobashi kept working harder than everyone around him to get noticed by someone, anyone, within the pro wrestling industry. Sure enough Giant Baba himself gave Kobashi a positive evaluation which opened the door for him to enter AJPW. But just because he got his foot in the door doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have to deal with the ever-present threat of being thrown back out.

You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

And as a reminder, since this a review of two books at once, I’ll be referring to Kobashi’s first book as FIST and his second one as PILLARS. Since FIST is slightly more neatly organized that’s the one that’ll make up the basis of this review.

When we last left Kenta Kobashi he had to make the hardest decision of his life thus far: choosing between achieving his dream and helping his family. The two paths were mutually exclusive: following his dream to become a wrestler had no guarantee of success and his beloved mother, who had been working night and day to take care of him and his brother, was struggling with interpersonal issues at her job and the job itself. And all through his later childhood and into his teens Kobashi made choices that would put as little of a financial burden on his mother as possible. Ultimately Kobashi chose to enter the workforce as a legal adult since giving back to his mom was more important at the time.

Had he stuck with that decision that is probably the last any one of us would’ve heard the name Kenta Kobashi…but fate had other plans, in the form of another athlete thousands of kilometers away who would later become famous for, among other things, biting ears off.

You can read part 1 here.

And as a reminder, since this a review of two books at once, I’ll be referring to Kobashi’s first book as FIST and his second one as PILLARS. Since FIST is slightly more neatly organized that’s the one that’ll make up the basis of this review.

I’ve got something special lined up for all of you this time around: you’re not getting one Kenta Kobashi review; you’re getting TWO.

Kenta Kobashi is quite possibly the internet’s favorite wrestler. He has consistently ranked among the top Japanese wrestlers across many different fansites and forums. He has been featured prominently by various Youtubers like Kim Justice’s Wrestling Road and WrestlingColin, the latter doing such a tremendous job on a recent Kobashi bio piece that Kobashi himself praised it. He’s also my personal favorite wrestler and, judging from the comments I’ve read on my reviews, he’s the favorite of some of yours as well. Much has already been said about the man by outside observers, but what has the man himself had to say about his career and the industry to which he has devoted his life? That’s where these reviews come in.

As it turns out the first Japanese wrestling book that I bought was Kobashi’s second book, published in 2016. Then I got my hands on the first one thinking that it would cover something different entirely. As it turns out the books are concurrent, meaning they cover more or less the same timeline but with different degrees of detail. In other words, Kobashi split the first 30 or so years of his life and the first twelve years of his wrestling career into two books, rather than continue chronologically after the first one. So instead of separating them I decided to review them both at the same time, combining the details from both into one single story. And with that, let’s dive in.

Left: Kenta Kobashi [Youth Autobiography] Passionate Fist, Published May 20, 1999 AND
Right: Kenta Kobashi, The Enthralling Four Heavenly Kings Pro Wrestling, Published February 14, 2016

And now we get to the final three chapters of Toshiaki Kawada’s autobiography. These three chapters cover the period immediately following the NOAH Exodus to his imminent return in 2003. This is a tumultuous period for both Kawada and All Japan and we get some interesting insights into how some events that, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t’ve ever happened, like All Japan and New Japan working together. But, as has been the overarching theme of this book so far, unexpected and unfortunate circumstances affect Kawada just when it looks like things are going right, and this time his life ends up on the line.

You can check out parts 1 & 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, and part 7 here.

When we last left Toshiaki Kawada he had just experienced one of the highest of highs and lowest of lows all within the span of seconds: he had just pinned Misawa clean again to win the Triple Crown only to realize he would have to vacate the title soon afterwards due to injury. But his own misfortune paled in comparison to what came about a week later: the death of Shohei “Giant” Baba. This was a news story that rocked Japan and started a chaotic whirlwind of change and drama…and poor Kawada would have to spend most of it on the sidelines.

You can check out parts 1 & 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, and part 6 here.

And now we get to the most important part of Toshiaki Kawada’s career: his peak in the Four Pillars era. Though this period is generally defined as spanning from May 1993 to December 1995, this chapter in Kawada’s book goes much longer, going into 1999. With so much happening in this critical timeframe (Kawada’s first world title reign, his first pin over Misawa, Bridge of Dreams, and an absolute litany of outstanding matches), you’d think that Kawada would be open and detailed about his perspective on these things.

Well, you’d be wrong…

You can check out parts 1 & 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, and part 5 here.