Like Ice Ribbon (which we will cover in a moment), PURE-J moved their subscription service in early 2022 to Youtube. This is the only service I have not signed up for myself but others have been able to do it so there is not a regional block as long as you can navigate the registration.
This really is only for hardcore YMZ fans that don’t want to miss any of their shows, as since they rarely make TV this is your only online option to see their events. YMZ, operated by Kaori Yoneyama, also has its own streaming service. They do have a back catalogue of older events but its not the easiest site to navigate for that purpose since there isn’t a master list, so you either have to scroll through or do a search in Japanese for what you are looking for.
Like Stardom, Wrestle Universe uploads all Tokyo Joshi Pro events, and even better they also sometimes broadcast the events live. If you are a fan of DDT (or one of their other brands) then having Wrestle Universe is a no-brainer as its a great deal, but since I only watch TJPW that is the only portion of the service I am focused on. Stardom World does not air their events live, but its still worth the cost to be able to not miss a single show. Stardom World is also the only Joshi streaming service that subtitles most of the wrestler promos in English, making it user-friendly to English speakers. Their catalogue has some gaps for older events, they do occasionally will upload an older show but focus on adding recent events in a timely manner. Stardom World commits to have each weekend event uploaded by the following Friday, and most of the time they keep with that schedule unless they have a lot of shows one weekend or are on vacation. Stardom World is my favorite Joshi streaming service for keeping up with events as they happen as Stardom not only uploads the most events per month but they upload every event the promotion has. Without further ado, here are all the official streaming services (both paid and free), and then a couple ways to watch promotions that don’t have a streaming service: Stardom World Also, since the Yen to US Dollar conversion rate changes daily I am going to just list the price in Yen, however when considering both the cost of the service and the small fee many banks put on international purchases, when budgeting I’d recommend just doing 100 Yen = $1.00 in your head when calculating cost.
But if there is a service that I think needs some explaining on how to sign up, I may write a separate guide for those services.
I am not going to do, in this article, a full guide on how to sign up at each one as that would make this page super long. I’d recommend following your favorite promotion’s twitter account to stay up to date on any upcoming PPVs and how to buy them. Since the goal of this page is to be a more “static” page that gives general information on where to watch Joshi, for my purposes I will not be including those one-time PPV options even though they do exist. Many promotions are now also airing PPVs on a variety of services (either their own or using KIPz or mahocast), but those services change very frequently and are inconsistent. On this page I am only highlighting services available for a flat monthly rate (or free). None of the links below are “affiliate” links, this page is designed to provide information, not make me money. If you are unable to purchase from any of the sites listed below, contact your bank. All the promotions with paid streaming services accept US credit cards or Paypal (as they accepted mine) but I can’t promise they will take your card as it may have different rules when it comes to International purchases. There are options online to watch almost every Joshi promotion, leaving fans with almost too many choices as to watch it all would be very time consuming. Luckily, we are now in 2022 and technology has come a long way. You could get a DVD a month after the event happened for $10 or hope that someone uploaded the show on yousendit, but this was before Youtube or Google Drive or streaming, so it took a bit more effort (or a lot more money) to stay current with the greatest wrestling on Earth. When I was first really getting into Japanese wrestling back in 2004, there were very limited options on how to watch it.