By the time credits roll on the final episode of The Queen of Villains, it’s at times difficult to tell what was real and what was merely an exaggeration of Dump Matsumoto’s larger-than-life persona, so wrapped in its own eccentricities that it envelops our protagonist, the series, and the world around it to its violent whims. That’s the point, and a great one at that.
Netflix have put together an eclectic catalogue of new Japanese movies and TV series in 2024, spreading their reach wider across genres in order to further expand their influence over the Japanese market. The best, like The Queen of Villains, are series not only produced with budget and scale, they simply go beyond what other studios are willing to produce, bringing a new side to Japanese drama to both the domestic and global stage.
The 1980s were a golden age for women’s wrestling, a moment where the scene was finally able to step out of the shadow of men’s wrestling and define itself on its own terms with its own unique promotion and star development. With wrestling otherwise rarely given such a spotlight by the domestic media in spite of its history and popularity, this series hones in on the conflicting personalities within the burgeoning scene defined by the talents under the then-dominant female pro wrestling label All-Japan Woman’s Pro Wrestling.
At the turn of the decade talents like Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda (the so-called Beauty Pair) helped the wrestling label become a notable name in the scene and even earn it prime time broadcasting, but it was the rivalry between karate-fueled Crush Gals (Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka) and Dump Matsumoto that propelled them to new heights.
It’s a lot of terms, and on the surface an intimidating introduction to the wrestling scene in Showa-era Japan for an outsider. What’s a heel? What are the rules, and how are they often broken? Where does the script of the match come into things, and how does that shape a talent? Yet the state of the wrestling world, terminology, and development of these rookies into stars is played within the tropes of sports drama that keeps it easy to follow. Personalities are the star here, something easy to engage with when such a talented cast are bringing these iconic names to life. Comedian Yuriyan Retriever plays Dump Matsumoto with the correct blend of empathy and violence, while Goriki Ayame channels the strait-laced honor of Chigusa well.
This is more of a sports drama with a touch for larger-than-life extremities of fiction than straight-laced biopic, and better for it. Dump Matsumoto’s career is simplified, her brief fling in the WWF removed and the need to capture every match and evolution of her style deemed moot. Key turning points like the inciting incident of an abusive, alcoholic father and a need by Matsumoto to find a home for the rage are given time to develop, as are turning-point fights in her career. Similarly, the tone of matches often leans into the extremes, focusing on wide-eyed joy and blood-curdling anger and amplifying them to get the emotional truth of her journey, if not the history book accurate reading of the state of events.
What we’re sold on is a person to root for. For all posters and the show’s agitating opening theme treat us to the KISS-esque, makeup-dolled final evolution of Dump Matsumoto, we actually spend more time with her pre-Dump insecurities, referred to by her real name of Kaoru. Her large stature makes her unable to keep up with others and instantly makes her appear out-of-place in the world of wrestling, and she’s too nice as she helps with merchandise sales with barely a sight of the ring. She’s weak, uncertain, though she has a dream. She struggles in the few moments she is trusted with any sort of act.
While the argument can be made as to whether they are truly antagonists, the hovering influence of the strings pulled by the promotion’s managers, performed by Takumi Saito and Jun Murakami, are so effective that it can become devilishly unclear how much they truly had a hand in shaping the final outcome of a given event both in and out of the ring. We even have the friendship-cum-rivalry between Chigusa of the Crush Gals and Matsumoto that fuels the latter’s own embrace of Dump after months of self-doubt and struggles in the ring, giving us all the recipes we need for the formula to work for both newcomers and veterans alike. It gives us someone to root for, then challenges that.
With five extended episodes each over an hour in length, the series has time to ease us into both Matsumoto’s kind-at-heart nature, and the person she becomes as she loses herself within the wrestling that saved her life by becoming the villain. A heel breaks the rules of wrestling, although Dump goes further. It’s one thing to have a match where the loser has their hair shaved, and to shave the hair of someone who speaks out against you beyond the barriers of the ring and an audience. Or to bring a real chain to the fight and choke someone out. Or to use violence in ways that destroy the home life of those around her.
It’s almost a clean break when Kaoru ends and Dump enters the ring, and also exactly what makes this series a must-see. Dump in the ring is ultimately a performance, but in the metatextual context of a drama and a performance by an actor, the all-encompassing nature of Matsumoto’s transformation as Dump forces us to question what about this story is real. Where do those puppet masters with the script have their hand on the scales? There’s an artifice that’s impossible not to get hooked on. How much of the rivalry is really fake?
This isn’t a story about wrestling, it’s the embodiment of wrestling itself, the embodiment of why we care about sport and root for a team or an athlete. All condensed into five must-watch episodes.
During Dump Matsumoto’s real-world peak, TV viewing figures breached 20%. It encouraged thousands to enter the sport inspired by the rivalry of Dump as this new villain and the Crush Gals as the idol-wrestling hybrid which showcased a different side to what wrestling could be. It brought about new wrestling agencies, some of which endured in success while others faltered. Eventually even the name of the wrestling company featured in this drama fell. Today names like Stardom and TJPW, my own gateway to this world of wrestling at the start of 2024, produce new events. When watching this it’s impossible not to see a line that tracks the groundbreaking steps of these elders of the sport to the figures fighting today.
The Queen of Villains is about the ultimate villain of pro-wrestling. It’s also about the artifice of sport itself. Far from just for wrestling fans, this is for everyone, a character study on the fear and thrill of being controlled and driven by the best and worst tendencies inside and channeling them in a way that changes yourself and the world around you, for better or for worse.
