What makes a villain?
A new sports-drama, Queen of Villains, dropped on Netflix this week. It follows the story of Dump Matsumoto, played by comedienne Yuriyan Retriever, and her complex rise to fame and infamy as one of Japan's most well-known pro wrestlers.
It also follows the birth of the Crush Gals, or Chigusa Nagayo (Erika Karata) and Lioness Asuka (Ayame Goriki), and their once-in-a-generation blaze of popularity.
No punches were pulled in this first episode. It threw us directly into the chaotic world of 1980s joshi puroresu (women’s wrestling) and highlighted the fragile lines between good and evil, both in the ring and outside of it.
Dump Matsumoto’s transformation from a struggling rural girl to a wrestling heel legend is captivating and raw, in a way; it seems to be challenging perceptions of what it means to be a villain in the ring and in real life.
The first episode opened with an intimate scene of Dump Matsumoto applying makeup before a match, grounding us in her complex persona early on.
The show’s narrative shifts between past and present throughout the series, highlighting Dump's admiration for pro wrestling and Beauty Pair before transitioning to a life of obstacles in confrontations with the Matsunaga brothers, portrayed in the series as seriously cold businessmen.
To understand Dump’s background is to fully understand Kaoru “Dump” Matsumoto the human being. Early in the episode, Dump’s mother catches her father cheating, and then Dump and her younger sister watch it play out in the rain. This is followed up by an earthquake that rocks her childhood home, a symbolic way of telling the viewers “the Matsumoto family home has been shaken up.”
These hardships paint a picture of Dump Matsumoto as someone who for the life of her could not get the attention of the people that matter to her.
The series later dives into Dump’s wrestling ambitions and her path from being that troubled country kid to an infamous and feared heel.
The standout scene here was the audition scene, where Chigusa Nagayo’s karate skills are introduced, a truthful, effective way of emphasizing the physical and emotional challenges pro wrestlers face in training.
It was also fun to see a few cameos from Japanese wrestling talent; Pretty Ota of Michinoku Pro shows Matsumoto to the ring early on in the episode, and Marvelous’ Riko Kawahata is seen training with Beauty Pair before their match in the episode.
The series gets much deeper, more complex and more violent as it progresses, which we'll get to when we review the next episodes.
