ChocoPro Roundup: #301 & #302
A Good Week For Chie
Front Matter
The image used in these reviews are linked to the Twitter account responsible for them: simply click through to bring up the original post. If you are a photographer whose image I have used here, and you do not grant me permission to reproduce your work, please let me know (Twitter: @FlupkeDiFlupke) and I will remove it. Thanks!
写真家さん、ここにイメージが写すことが許可しなければ聞いて下さって私は大至急除きます (ツイターの @FlupkeDiFlupke です)。ありがとうございます！
Subscribe now!
Subscribe to Marshmallow Bomb for free to receive all our posts direct to your inbox, or donate $5 a month to access the full archive. A portion of every subscription supports Amazon Frontlines, an organisation dedicated to working with Indigenous peoples to defend their way of life, the Amazon rainforest, and our climate future.
In what will hopefully become a regular feature on Marshmallow Bomb, this is the first edition of the ChocoPro Roundup, an attempt to highlight the best stuff coming out of Ichigaya Chocolate Square. As much as I would argue that every ChocoPro match has something going for it, there are an awful lot of them, so the hope is to help people find those that are particularly interesting. We kick things off with episodes 301 and 302, which marked the beginning of their 18th season and the third anniversary of show number one. Where does the time go?
SAKI vs Chie Koishikawa, ChocoPro #301 (22/3/23), Gatoh Move
There is a version of Chie Koishikawa that is intensely annoying. She’s loud, over the top and completely incapable of controlling her emotions, personality traits that, in most people’s hands, would leave you begging her to shut up. However, Chie isn’t like most people. She takes all those things, and she makes them likeable. In fact, even more impressively, she makes them sympathetic.
And SAKI is the perfect person to demonstrate that against. Yes, she’s the colourful, happy leader of COLORS, but she’s also a bit of a dick, particularly when wrestling in Ichigaya. She’ll happily grind an elbow into an opponent’s back, roll them into the wall or jab them in the stomach with her fingers outstretched. You always get the impression she enjoys being brought into ChocoPro to put younger opponents through their paces, having gleefully done so on several occasions with Miya Yotsuba recently. This time, it was Chie that she was testing, outmuscling her at every turn and preventing that ball of energy from getting going. On the surface, it was a pro’s performance, but it had a thick streak of meanness running through it.
Those circumstances allowed Chie to do what she does best, every emotion dancing across her face as she battled from underneath. It wasn’t a perfect performance (the cramped confines of Chocolate Square weren’t kind to her forearms), but it was a defiant one, the kind that makes you want to believe she can pull it off. She came mighty close, too, countering being hoisted into the air to get a pin, only for SAKI to be a step ahead and counter the counter. That she came that close, though, is a sign of where Chie is. While the world outside of Gatoh Move focuses all their attention on Mei Suruga, Koishikawa is quietly having a fantastic year (her matches with Masa Takanashi and Tae Honma are well worth seeking out, along with Orepan’s title shot against CDK), and this was another impressive addition to her CV. She’s a wrestler that you can’t help but love, a trait which has the potential to take her far.
Verdict: Everyone Loves Chie
CDK (Chris Brookes & Masa Takanashi) vs Warm Caterpillars (Chie Koishikawa & May Suruga), ChocoPro #302 (26/3/23), Gatoh Move
Perhaps one day I will stop finding Ken Ohka insisting he is Mei Suruga delightful, but today is not that day. If anything, having him pair up with Chie as part of Warm Caterpillars, complete with their signature pose, made me love this new gimmick even more. Chie treats everything Ohka does with a mix of confusion and respect, never quite willing to commit to the bit but begrudgingly going along with it in the hopes it turns out okay.
And this match added another magic ingredient, Chris Brookes. His interactions with Mei are always fun, so having him come face-to-face with May felt like a guaranteed winner. Surprisingly, though, it seemed like he might actually like this version of Suruga, commenting that she looks a lot cuter after her trip to America (although he also later complained that she’d got significantly heavier too). That didn’t stop him from trying to pull out some classic Mei bullying spots, though, including trying to trap her in a stool hanging from that weird pulley thing that swings from the ceiling in Ichigaya. Unsurprisingly, the added weight prevented that from being entirely possible, but it was fun to watch them try.
It made for a classic Gatoh Move midcard match, as we had four talented wrestlers plus a fun idea for them to throw about. You could have easily left these two teams to have a very good match without it, but the addition of May Suruga brought something light and frothy to proceedings, allowing it to be more than just ten minutes of good action. They had a great time, and I had a blast watching them do so. Are we sure we need Mei to come back from America?
Verdict: May Suruga!
The ChocoPro 3rd Anniversary Rumble, ChocoPro #302 (26/3/23), Gatoh Move
ChocoPro’s Rumble are always a lovely time. I’m not sure if they have ever topped that first Halloween one, in which Chie, dressed as a shrimp, repeatedly found places to curl up and be, well, a shrimp, but they all have a chaotic charm to them, making it hard to be anything other than delighted by their presence. Their 3rd Anniversary celebration was no different.
As you’d expect, there is always some nonsense running through these matches. In this one, the highlight was Antonio Honda turning up as Emi Sakura, complete with a blonde wig and a bad back. To make it even better, he was then forced to abandon that particular cosplay when Otoki, seemingly infuriated by the sight of her boss, started throttling him. It was only when he revealed his shining bald head that she relented, excited to see her cohort in Comaneci chaos.
The cherry on top, however, was Chie Koishikawa getting the win, upsetting her Egg Tart partner (and current holder of the big belt) Shinno Hagane in the process. That was not only great because Chie is brilliant, but because her response to winning was wonderful, as she yelled her own name in joy before repeatedly asking Sawasadee Kamen (who was on ref duty) if he was right and that Chie Koihiskawa had actually won. Chie treats winning a match like it’s the greatest thing to have ever happened, even if it is a somewhat silly Rumble, and how can you not love that?
Verdict: Great Nonsense