New to Puroresu..

[Lews]

..and also new to this forum. Yoroshiku!

I live in Georgia, and the only Japanese matches I've seen are those of Jushin Thunder Liger (by far my favorite) in a "Best of" VHS that I got from eBay. But I was wondering.. besides websites, how to most of you find out about NJPW, All-Japan, etc.. Do you actually pick up a channel that shows it? If so, what channel is that and what cable/satellite service do you have? Or is there some other method that I could go about in order to start keeping up with NJPW (which I'm most interested in) or any others? Thanks in advance for your help!

[kwilson83]

Welcome to the board!

Unfortunately, there are no television markets in the country that I know of that show any Japanese wrestling. But I can tell you what I do to keep up. I visit www.puroresufan.com just about every day and read up on what is going on in New Japan and All Japan (the two I follow). Then about every other month I buy a tape so that I can see the action I am reading about, usually the big shows. Obviously it isn't as good as watching it each week, but it helps me keep up.

[Pheonix_Chi25]

..and also new to this forum. Yoroshiku!

I live in Georgia, and the only Japanese matches I've seen are those of Jushin Thunder Liger (by far my favorite) in a "Best of" VHS that I got from eBay. But I was wondering.. besides websites, how to most of you find out about NJPW, All-Japan, etc.. Do you actually pick up a channel that shows it? If so, what channel is that and what cable/satellite service do you have? Or is there some other method that I could go about in order to start keeping up with NJPW (which I'm most interested in) or any others? Thanks in advance for your help!

Welcome to the family Lews, relax and have fun.

I usually hit Strong Style Spirit and order tapes and theme CD's through Highspots.com. I usually frequent Ultimo Tape World but I believe it has been shut down.

[pigman]

I usually come here lews for my puro news. As for the matches i usually watch them on my computer.

[Tradewynd]

Youkoso Lews. Enjoy yourself in our little Clockwork Orange House of Fun.

If your main interest is keeping up with the angles that go in in New Japan, then puroresufan.com should take care of your needs. Stuart doesn't cover as much stuff as the magazines do, but it also has the advantage of being in English and free. If you want more of a business perspective, especially against MMA, then you should probably check out ZACH's site at puroresupower.com every couple of days.

If you want to watch some of the major matches and have a fast internet connection, IWTV is an option. It is a service based in Japan that allows you to watch selected matches and sometimes entire shows. The video quality is OKish at full screen, however it's streaming only. The last time I used them it was around $10/month, and took them 10 days to get my account started. When I had it New Japan only had 1 complete show on it per month. Personally, I wasn't that impressed with it.

If you would be interested in getting every NJ event on a regular basis, I could start buying them from a friend in Japan, and hook you up in the $3 per DVD range, with masters being taped directly to DVD for perfect VQ. It's not going to get any better (or cheaper) than that.

[CerebralVortex]

Hey guys, I'm also new, and I was hoping to get an informed opinion about where you guys get your videos online. ivpvideos.com sells a lot of puro stuff on ebay, and it looks like you can get some good deals at their website, but I haven't bought anything yet, so I don't know about the video quality. Any tips, or do you guys stick mainly with highspots or someone else?

Thanks much for the info,
CV

[Tradewynd]

IVP has good prices, however the quality ratings he uses are a little different from mine. I've gotten things from him that are clearly taped satellite to DVD, and it gets the same "EX" rating as a blocky, jumpy VHS conversion with a tracking line through it. I shudder to think what VG means on that scale. The best things to buy are usually legit R2 releases, although that isn't exactly healthy for most people's budgets. I have a decent amount of stuff, and my prices are as low as IVP, with a few exceptions, like the Antonio Inoki Complete Fights DVD set and a complete set of 1993 TV for All Japan and New Japan, because I spent a LOT on those. Let me know what you need and I'll get you taken care of.

[CerebralVortex]

Thanks for the info Trade! All I'm really looking for is several recent shows so I could get a feel for what's going on over there these days, who's big and who's good. I don't know Japanese yet, so I can't worry too much about following the storylines, I just get bored with the local flavor, you know? It seems like ivpvideo could be a pretty good deal, as they have a thing running now where you can get 10 dvd's for 30 bucks, so I could get some old stuff, some joshi stuff, and several recent shows that would keep me busy for a weekend or so.

[Tradewynd]

You can follow angles through the news sites, although like American wrestling, most of the time it would be a million times more interesting if they just put the shoot on television. HUSTLE's angles are usually interesting, mainly because it's HUSTLE, but Maeda maybe sitting in the crowd to watch Nagata's match isn't the kind of thing that gets everyone's blood boiling. Learning Japanese isn't as hard as it may seem (OK, reading is, but not until at LEAST 100 kanji, depending on how your brain is wired), and I have some stuff that can make that a lot easier.

[CerebralVortex]

I would love to learn to speak and read Japanese. I've got a couple of those "Living Language" type of sets, but after spending a few weeks with it, I tested a few phrases on a japanese friend of mine and she couldn't understand because some of the words were so outdated or unused. So I only got as far as
"Oyasumi!"
"Pan itte kudasai."
etc.
I would appreciate any additional info about learning the language, it's one of my "goals in life", you know. Hopefully I can wedge it in somewhere between paying the rent and raising my numbah one son.

[James Grimes]

Welcome fellow puroresu enthusiast.
Try using google.it works sometimes.