Dialogue "Tarzan Yamamoto ×Toudoukan Director" 2. Power of Dreams

March 2, 2025

Toudoukan 20th Anniversary Special Dialogue

Director ×Toudoukan Tarzan Yamamoto Table of Contents

2. "Power of Dreams"

Director: I was born in Osaka in 1975. Both of my parents were the only children of university professors. My father was an economic statistician and my mother was a researcher in developmental psychology, so when I think about it now, my parents were quite eccentric, but I came from a cultured family.

Tarzan Yamamoto: If you're in a strict family, there's a lot of restraint.

Director: I've loved Pro Wrestling since I was five years old, but my parents wouldn't show it to me. If your parents find you, they turn off the TV. "If you see such a barbaric thing, you will be akan."
So I was hiding and watching Pro Wrestling. Hidden Christian state. Pro Wrestling was something to watch.

Tarzan Yamamoto: That's the old destiny of Pro Wrestling . Fight prejudice. I'm doing the opposite of what the world is doing, so I don't have a place to belong.
It's a genre that has been discriminated against.

Manager: But no matter how much it was banned, I always loved Pro Wrestling.
Especially during the All Japan Pro Wrestling time from 5 p.m. every Saturday evening, my parents both worked and played the key, so I was able to continue watching by myself. Since the time of the NWA match between Baba and Wraith. Jumbo Tsuruta was the first hero.

So, when I was in junior high school, I came across Akira Maeda 's autobiography "Power of Dreams".
I went to Minoh on a school field trip, but I got bored, so I slipped out by myself and went home halfway.

Tarzan Yamamoto: Eh, the excursion backlash!? Crackling. Director, that's a talent for life.
You know, the most important thing is to escape. I have to run away.
You can't be free unless you run away from one gravitational force, gravity! After all, the key word in life is "escape."

Director: Hahaha. Does it mean that the emergency bell in your heart rang and you ran away? So, on the way home from my backlash, I stopped by the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Umeda and saw a flat stack of paperback books "Power of Dreams" at the entrance.

Tarzan Yamamoto: Oh, "Power of Dreams," a friend of mine was a [ghost] writer.

Director: So, when I picked it up and read it, it immediately entered my mind.
There is a story about Mr. Maeda's junior high and high school days, when his heart was as rough as his junior high school self, a story about his longing for Mas Oyama (Masutatsu Oyama) , a story about the literature of Osamu Dazai and Hideo Kobayashi, and The story of learning KARATE and practicing fighting.
There are a lot of things written about that, and through Mr. Maeda's actual experience, we come into contact with the real world of male adolescence for the first time.
After that book, he fell in love with reading, became a petit literary youth, and became a hobby of visiting used bookstores. At the same time, I was also hooked on martial arts.
At that time, the second UWF came out, and I was very excited to see how mixed martial arts was created.
I rented a rental video and slowed down the technique over and over again to study it, so I was a little disappointed at first that this was still in the category of Pro Wrestling.
This is the evolutionary process of creating a new ultimate martial art, which is very exciting and interesting.

Tarzan Yamamoto: Ahead of the curve. It was a new movement called martial arts. That's how we have to interpret it.

Director: There are a lot of people at school who are prejudiced against Pro Wrestling. There were a lot of people who made fun of match-fixing.
Akira Maeda is trying to create something that he can be proud of (laughs).
What he is aiming for is the martial art of his dreams. At the time, I used to write a lot about Yume Pillow, but I wanted to take it one step further.
In response to this, there was the U-Cosmos, the creation of RINGS, the start of the Martial Arts Olympics at the Shodo Kaikan, and the times are moving steadily.
I wanted to do this not just for watching.
So I went from the tennis club that I somehow joined to the track and field club where I could train my body as much as possible, and after that, I read the introductory book in my room, squatted, kicked a string with electricity hanging (laughs), and started practicing by myself.

And when I was in high school, I got together with my friends who liked Pro Wrestling.
I created something called "Rings Senriyama". Of course, Mr. Maeda is unofficial.

Tarzan Yamamoto: Rings Senriyama!? Isn't it a city with a new town?

Director: Yes. It's local. I was born and raised in Senriyama, Osaka, and graduated from Senriyama 3rd Elementary School.
And one of my friends was a son of a temple, so I was able to use the hall of the auditorium. Put a mattress in there,

Tarzan Yamamoto: Did you make it a mat? Matt Pro Wrestling runs, isn't it?

Director: (laughs), so you bring your favorite song on a cassette tape, have them push a boombox, and open the bran yourself to enter (laughs)
Each of them received a ring call, put on a bracket and took off their zip-up jacket for the audience with only a few people, and Akira Maeda I'm going to cut it off with my opponent (laughs).

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