<figure id="attachment_397979" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-397979" style="width: 1196px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b6582c71"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/11/1c1841cc7932bec11a18e562de0643ed.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-397979" class="wp-caption-text">Erika Karada passionately plays the role of Chigusa Nagayo, a female pro-wrestler, in &#8220;Queen of Evil</figcaption></figure>
<h2> I definitely want to play this person.&#8221;</h2>
<p> Since its release in September, the much-talked-about &#8220;Queen of Villainy&#8221; has been ranked No. 1 for three consecutive weeks in the Japanese Netflix Weekly Top 10. The film realistically depicts the feud between female professional wrestlers that sent the 80&#8217;s into a frenzy, and has caused quite a stir. The most shocking of all is Erika Karada, who plays the role of Chikusa Nagayo.</p>
<p> The film depicts the unknown life of Dump Matsumoto, the &#8220;most evil heel&#8221; who led the women&#8217;s pro wrestling boom in the 1980s. Most of the wrestlers who belonged to All Japan Women&#8217;s Pro Wrestling at the time, including &#8220;Crash Gals,&#8221; who fought with Dump, appear in the film under their real names. The wrestlers began physical modification and training six months prior to filming, and performed almost all of the wrestling scenes without stunt work.</p>
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<p> Chikusa Nagayo, who was involved in the film as a supervisor of professional wrestling, said, &#8220;They took on a lot of things.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I want to make a difference in this drama by taking on many things. I could feel their passion so deeply that I started to cry every time one of them stepped into the ring.</span></p>
<p> Erika Karada, in particular, must have had a very sincere desire to change.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> In January 2008, Karada was found to be having an affair with Masahiro Higashide. A storm of bashing erupted, and her entertainment activities were suspended. In the midst of all this, her first audition was for the role of &#8220;The Villainous Queen. As he researched Nagayo, he felt as if she were himself as he tried to climb up from the precipice, and he says he came to have a strong feeling that &#8216;I definitely want to play this person'&#8221; (a person involved in a wide-ranging TV show).</span></p>
<p> Chigusa Nagayo, who started out as a dropout and worked her way up the ladder to star, is exactly like me, Erika Karada. I want to play the role at any cost. Karada expressed this desire at the audition.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> Kazuya Shiraishi, who worked on the &#8220;Blood of the Lone Wolf&#8221; film series and the latest &#8220;Eleven Bandits&#8221; and is the general director of this film, recalls, &#8220;I was moved by her earnest desire and, after all, she was gorgeous,&#8221; and &#8220;I could feel that she really wanted to play the role when she made a fresh start in life. (A producer from a production company)</span></p>
<p> However, the road to playing the role of Chikusa Nagayo was difficult.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" She gained 10 kg in six months."></div>
<p>Ayame Goriki, who plays the role of Asuka Lioness, has excellent motor skills. In contrast, Karada, who is not athletically inclined, screams &#8220;gee!&#8221; and &#8220;ouch!&#8221; when she practices ukemi for the first time. Moreover, in order to improve her body, she has to gain about 10 kg in six months while training. Because of this, his stomach was always full.</p>
<p> But there were many other things he had to remember. In addition to training three times a week and wrestling practice twice a week, there were singing and dancing lessons to sing in the ring. A dialect instructor was also waiting for him to train him in the Nagasaki dialect. The one thing that kept Karada struggling to the end was learning Nagayo&#8217;s signature move, the flying kneel kick.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> This is a great technique that is said to have been invented by martial arts fighter NIkiaki Maeda. The flying knee is a spinning kick, in which the fighter flies to the ropes, gains momentum, and then aims at the opponent&#8217;s neck or face. Because of the high degree of difficulty of this technique, which was often performed by stars such as Shinya Hashimoto and Masahiro Chono, there were calls for the use of a substitute. I still remember the scene where he was so frustrated that he went up to the supervisor, Mr. Nagayo, and said, &#8216;I will do it,&#8217; and shed tears,&#8221; said the producer.</span></p>
<p> The legendary &#8220;Loser&#8217;s Haircut Match&#8221; held at Osaka-jo Hall in 1985 was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for Karada.</p>
<h2> Karada&#8217;s performance became &#8220;someone&#8217;s cheering song.</h2>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> At this event held on August 28, 1985, Chikusa Nagayo and Dump Matsumoto clashed in a single match. Nagayo appeared in a montsuke hakama and bled profusely from a deadly weapon attack. When a towel was thrown in by the second, Nagayo threw it back, saying, &#8220;I can still do it. However, Dump hit Nagayo hard with a chair, and Nagayo mercilessly lost the match by a 10-count. While Nagayo&#8217;s &#8220;haircut ceremony&#8221; was being performed in the ring, the screams of the girls in the crowd could be heard. Fuji Television, which was broadcasting the match, was inundated with calls protesting the extreme nature of the match.</span></p>
<p> Karada was prepared to shave her head when she received the offer for this film. However, due to the fear and pressure of having her hair cut just before the show, Karada was so anxious that she exchanged &#8220;goofs&#8221; with General Director Shiraishi, the president of her agency, and Osamu Suzuki, who was involved in the planning, scriptwriting, and production of the film, all of whom were watching at ringside, in order to inject some power into the event. This is how the famous one-shot scene was created.</p>
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<p> After the film was cranked up, Nagayo himself said, &#8220;I have a lot of guts as a professional,</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He has a lot of professional guts.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> It was like watching myself when I was younger.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> &#8220;I am glad that Karada played the role of Chikusa Nagayo.</span></p>
<p> Karada said she was delighted to be told that she had been selected for the role. Director Shiraishi, who selected Karada through an audition, said of his evaluation of the actor Erika Karada throughout the production: &#8220;She has a strong sense of the role she wants to play.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> She is able to express the role she wants to play. I think she is the type of person who turns on at the moment she plays a role. The film I would like to see before I die is &#8220;The Villainous Queen. Just watching Karada and her friends wrestle, almost like a documentary, would surely be a cheering song for someone.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> Erika Karada says that these days she even goes out for drinks alone at izakaya (Japanese-style pubs). This is her second chapter as an actor. We hope that this time she will bloom into a big flower.</p>


 Ukon Shima (Broadcaster, Video Producer)

 Yuri Adachi

 Erika Karada passionately played the role of Chikusa Nagayo, a real-life female pro-wrestler, in the online drama "Queen of Extreme Evil. In the past, she suspended her entertainment activities due to an adultery scandal. She has made a full-fledged comeback. ......

Erika Karada, who revived after her affair in “Queen of Evil,” “Behind the Scenes” that convinced even Chikusa Nagayo herself.

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