GAEA Girls: The Side of Joshi You Haven’t Seen

If you have ever watched Japanese women's wrestling, you have seen the displays of the power of joshi, with its vibrant costumes, dazzling athleticism, and a unique brand of professional wrestling that has captivated audiences worldwide. However, joshi is far more than a spectacle; it's an emotional, physically demanding style of wrestling, and in 2000, British public service broadcaster BBC funded GAEA Girls, a documentary directed by Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams (and distributed by Women Make Movies) that showed how trainees were prepared for the world of joshi in the late 1990s.

Filmed over a period of three months (capturing events that were a part of a year of training), "GAEA Girls" gives an observational look inside the dojo of GAEA Japan, a prominent promotion founded in 1995 that was the brainchild of Chigusa Nagayo, a legend on the Japanese pro-wrestling scene, who also wrestled in WCW in 1996 as "Zero". The documentary focuses heavily on the demanding life of new trainees trying to pass their mandatory pro-test, which involves them having a series of matches and their performance being judged. It mainly centers on Saika Takeuchi, a young trainee struggling under the intense pressure, physical agony, and psychological weight of the dojo's system. One of its main trainers was Meiko Satomura, who went on to also become a legend of the ring, having classic matches in Japan and later becoming a participant in WWE Mae Young Classic 2017 and a WWE Superstar.


The GAEA Japan dojo was very different from the dojos of today. Trainees were pushed through marathon schedules that would run from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, with military-style methods intended to provoke their killer instincts to make sure that they would survive in the ring.

You can watch "GAEA Girls" for free here on Kanopy if you have a public library card or are a student/professor.