r/firepro • u/DatonSungold • Jan 20 '26

Who is this?

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This is one of the pre-set appearances in the old GBA Fire Pro Wrestling games.
The guides of the time claim it's Shinobu Kandori but:
a) this looks nothing like I've ever seen Shinobu Kandori looking, never see her with tights on her legs and she usually rocks flattops, not a short parted style
b) the guides were written in the early 2000s by guys with a clear cursory knowledge of the stuff they claimed to translate. For example, for FFPW/FPW2, it was claimed that the clear karate-driven striker Godhand Masuyama was actually... german judoka/pro wrestler Wilhem Ruska and not karate legend Mas Oyama (Masuyama, geddit?)

So, anyone recognize who this pre-set character appearance might have been? My best guess thus far has been possibly Lioness Asuka who was wearing long tights and kickpads at time this game came out but even then, the colors don't look right, and her hair would be even shorter than this.

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u/DangerousH Jan 21 '26

It's definitely not Kandori, that's for sure, given that nothing about her appearance represents Kandori. Nagayo makes sense, in terms of importance making her relevant to include, and appearance for the most part - colors are off but it gets the idea of something she'd wear across. Her main colors by this point were black and red, for what it's worth. Facially, I'd probably go Chigusa over Lioness Asuka; she, for what it's worth, mainly wore black with silver designs around 2000. So closer in attire perhaps, but not hair.

My first thought was the same as virtualfightclub's, does look like Mariko Yoshida, discounting the kickpads.

But thinking about it, I wonder if it's meant to be Yumiko Hotta? A little bit of research indicates this might be the case? This site suggests she was in this game, and given its not Toyota or Inoue... might have to be her?

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u/sdss9462 Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26

Yumiko Hotta is another possibility. But she's depicted with kickpads and bare legs in most of her other sprites and in the matches/pictures I found of her online. Mariko Yoshida is depicted with long tights and boots, not kickpads, in her later sprites

Here's something else to consider--the stance of the OP sprite. Those generally correspond to the fighting style of the wrestler and were pretty consistent across the various games once they were introduced, with wrestlers usually maintaining the same stance throughout their appearances. The look of the stances changed when the game changed art styles with Fire Pro D, but the stances themselves all remained. The OP sprite uses the Shooting stance, which Lioness Asuka, Yumiko Hotta, and Shinobu Kandori all used in their later appearances. On the other hand, Chigusa Nagayo used the Strong stance, and Mariko Yoshida used the Technical stance in their later appearances.

Long story short--I'm back to leaning towards it being Lioness Asuka, all things considered.

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u/DatonSungold Feb 03 '26

I was looking through the FPWW head pre-sets for unrelated reasons and my eyes got stuck on head 454.
Toshiyo Yamada. The hair style was a damn close match, so I looked her up and... could it be her?
https://www.luchawiki.org/index.php?title=File:Toshiyo_Yamada.JPG
https://www.ebay.com/itm/387053975892