There is nothing quite like a hard boot colliding with a wrestler’s body. That violent music. Artistry in brutality.
Fans of joshi wrestling are spoiled in that area with a long list of great kickers reigning over the scene.
Joshi puroresu boasts cold-hearted killers like Mari and Miyu Yamashita who rely on kicks as vital weapons in their arsenal. It’s home to wrestlers who just lay waste to opponents with mercilessly hard kicks like Momo Watanabe and Sareee. Then you also have athletes who make kicks showy and graceful, these strikes pretty despite the malice behind them like Aya Sakura.
But who among these skilled strikers is the best?
To answer that question, I examined the work of the top kickers with an eye on the variety, impact, and style of their kicks. Are they employing a wide range of kicks? Are they blasting people with them? And how much pizazz does it all have?
The end result of mulling over those questions is this ranked list. Read on to see who landed on the very top and where your fav ended up. With as much subjectivity as there is with something like this, there’s surely a disparity between your list and mine. Feel free to add your input to the discussion by tagging the RESURA account (@resuramag) on X/Twitter.
20. Asuka
While she still brings the heat with her kicks, pre-WWE Asuka (fka Kana) was a different beast from the Asuka we see today. She was a stone-cold killer, and her waves of kicks were a big part of that. We get a toned-down version of that in WWE.
Still, she has a varied kick-centric arsenal including a roundhouse kick, buzzsaw kick, and a spin kick. Asuka hits all these with style and strength.
If someone as good as her lands this low on this list, you know the competition is stiff and the world of joshi is choked with great kickers.
19. Rico Fukunaga
The reigning AWG champ is a hugely underrated talent whose work deserves more eyes. The first thing you’ll likely notice about her is her skillful use of kicks.
Fukunaga employs a front dropkick, a running front kick, and one where she spins on the mat and hits her opponent with a boot across the back. There’s a beauty and precision to all of it. She picks apart her opponent, one boot to the thigh/gut/head at a time, and it’s very much an alluring watch.
She doesn’t deliver as much impact as some of the more heavy-footed women at the top of this list. Should Fukunaga start laying it in more, she will push herself into a higher spot here.
18. Natsumi Showzuki (aka Natsumi Sumikawa)
Natsumi Showzuki makes firing off a flurry of kicks look easy. Her strikes are quick, clean, pretty. Kicks come in bursts.
The height of her high kick is impressive. She will tag even taller opponents toward the top of their heads. That’s partly why she gets plenty of points for style.
Showzuki’s impact is noteworthy, too. She can hold her own in a kick exchange with anyone on the Marigold roster. That’s a reliable sight opposite Miku Aono, dating back to their days in Actwres girl’Z.
Like she is overall, Showzuki’s kick game remains underrated. She’s not talked about nearly enough in that regard.
17. Miria Kouga
The SEAdLINNNG prodigy has already forced herself into the best kickers in joshi conversation at just 20 years old.
Her highest score in the three rating categories is impact. She hits hard and without mercy. It’s a beautiful sight to see her unload on the back of someone’s thigh. She’s a sharpshooter with her boots and her strikes are high-caliber rounds.
Kouga doesn’t have the range of kicks of some of the best in the business. At least not yet. She has time to add more ways to put those proficient boots to work.
16. Riko Kawahata aka RIKO aka Great Sakuya
Marvelous’ RIKO’s all-around game is impressive and that includes what she does with her boots.
She’s not elite in terms of impact or style, but she’s strong in both. Her kicks look as pretty as they do harmful. Her best asset in her kick game is variety. She’ll hit you with everything from a Tiger Feint Kick to an enzuigiri, a running kick to the face to a quick spin kick to the leg.
RIKO does it all, hitting opponents with a whirlwind of various kicks.
That diversity in her arsenal is fitting as RIKO is the kind of wrestler that does everyone well. Dance. Fly. Blast someone with strikes.
15. Azusa Inaba
Inaba’s kicks attacks are swift and elegant. They are key components to her martial arts-inspired in-ring style.
The young JTO star has a running front kick that blasts people backwards and a pretty version of the classic kick to a seated foe’s back.
Naturally, she forever draws comparison to her sister. And while Inaba does plenty well at this stage in her career, she can’t compete with the other Inaba in terms of power or presence related to her kicks. It is, however, an intimidating sight when Azusa and Tomoka team up and hit opponents with double the kicks.
14. Maya Yukihi
We don’t see it as often these days as Maya Yukihi has shifted into more of a part-timer, but she relies on kicks to destroy people.
There’s an ease and beauty to her strikes to go along with that damaging force. Yes, it looks like she’s trying to put her foot through her opponent and she’s one of the best in the business in terms of impact, but there’s something so pretty about it all, too.
Something to note on top of that is how Yukihi looks like she’s powering up before she strikes. You can almost see her kill meter fill before she hits someone with a kick to the side of the head.
It says a lot about the level of competition that the Snow Princess herself didn’t crack the top 10. That says more about the rest of the field than Yukihi, though.
13. Victoria Yuzuki
Yuzuki arguably has the best superkick in joshi wrestling. It’s brutal and beautiful, a bedazzled wrecking ball. That alone should get her thrust into this conversation.
Beyond that, Yuzuki has the range and style to compete with far more experienced kick masters. The Marigold rising star has a recklessness and rage to her dropkick that helps it stand out. She hits a quick-fire spin kick that’s a beauty. And with every swing of her boot, she looks like she has the worst intentions. She wants to leave an imprint on her opponent, a signature written in bruises.
12. Aya Sakura
Style and skill for days.
Aya Sakura’s kicks are gorgeous. They are fluid and refined. A joy to look at.
Her kick gets impressively high, something she makes looks so effortless.
Her style score is her strength. The impact and variety side of things not as much. I sure as hell wouldn’t want her to aim those blue boots my way, but the kickers in the top 10 simply hit harder and are more fearsome as a result.
11. Mayu Iwatani
The Icon might not come to one’s mind first when thinking of great kickers, in part because she does everything great. Outside of properly pronounce Ryogoku Kokugikan correctly of course.
Iwatani’s kick variety is hard to top. She hits a running kick to the spine, roundhouse kicks, the famous Threedom dropkick, and of course, that excellent superkick. It’s masterful and majestic.
With Iwatani’s kicks, you got both this type of beauty as well as a gleeful cruelty. Her superkick looks like something that deserved to be painted by one of the Dutch masters. Her dropkick, meanwhile, looks like murder.
10. Nagisa Nozaki
Nasty. That’s the perfect word to describe Nagisa Nozaki’s kicks. Every strike is dripping with disdain and ill will.
The former Regina Di Wave champion looks intent on leaving a mark every time she puts those legs in motion.
Nozaki has one of the more brutal front dropkicks around. And if an opponent is leaning on the ropes, they can expect a freight train of a boot to come smashing into their face.
On impact alone, she deserves a top 10 spot. There’s a certain savage style to her kicks, too, that’s worth celebrating. Her competition, though, just has a wider arsenal and more panache to their attacks.
9. Mari
If you tune into Actwres girl’Z to see Mari work someone over, you’ll see plenty of kicks in the process. It’s a huge part of her offense. Her black boot pops against her foe’s body again and again.
Mari’s kicks are hard and overwhelming. She at times looks like a hornet repeatedly stinging any skin within reach.
Her best kick may be the classic kick to a seated opponent’s back. It’s done with great malice. Mari also hits folks with a running kick on the apron and a rapid-fire kick out of the corner while she hangs herself up in the ropes. There’s a creativity to all of it. Mari is constantly slipping into her bag of kick tricks and pulling something fresh out.
8. Miku Aono
Miku Aono scores high in each of the grading categories. Impact? Check. Style? Check. Variety? Check.
Aono puts ample aggression into her dropkick, especially when someone is lying in the ropes. They will get a pair of boots crashing down on them.
A viciousness comes over her when an opponent is seated on the mat, a waiting target. Aono’s kicks in those moments are loud and unforgiving.
She’s got a varied set of ways to use those red boots, too. A punt kick. A roundhouse. A sweeping kick to someone’s ankles.
Over the past few years, she’s grown tremendously as a performer, first thriving as AWG champ and then becoming a standout in Marigold. Along the way, her kicks have gotten better. As this evolution continues, we could very well see Aono climb even higher on this list.
7. Sareee
Sareee’s offense is varied and precise, the weaponry of a wrestling machine. Her kicks may get overlooked amid all those neck-crunching suplexes and merciless stomps to the gut, but they deserve to be admired and feared.
Unsurprisingly, whether she’s hitting her spin kick to the chin or just laying into someone’s back with the brunt of her boot, Sareee’s kicks score high on the impact scale. During their Sareee-ISM match, she traded kicks with Syuri and went blow for blow with her.
The dropkick she hits when her opponent is crumpled on the bottom rope and she just rams her boots into their face, her body spilling out of the ring, is a brutal work of art. Nobody hits that move better than her.
6. Tomoka Inaba
The Queen of JTO is delightfully vicious especially when wielding her boots.
Inaba employs a buzzsaw kick, running front kick, and roundhouse kick in an offense built around these strikes. They are vital parts of her martial arts-inspired style. They are the no. 1 weapon her opponents have to defend against.
The absolute heaviness of Inaba’s strikes helps earn her this high of a spot. Her roundhouse especially looks like a boxer’s knockout blow.
There’s an artful precision to her kicks, too. She seems to be measuring up her opponents, eyeing some particular spot on their head and nailing that bullseye with no remorse.
5. Momo Watanabe
Now we get to the part of the list where its increasingly difficult to compare levels of greatness. Momo and the rest of the top 5 are all elite kickers.
With Watanabe, you are getting one of the harder hitters in the game.
She batters foes in the corner with a barrage of kicks. She just floors people with kicks to the chest. She fires off a beautiful roundhouse kick.
The crack of her boots against an opponent’s body is a key note in the violent song she composes each night.
4. Takumi Iroha
Damn her kicks are quick. When Takumi Iroha starts firing away with her boots, it’s a buzzing battery of strikes. A blur of an assault.
One of her signature moves is to pepper an opponent with kicks to the gut, kick them off their feet, and then leap at them with running kicks. This overwhelming wave is captivating to watch.
Her artful kicking style is on full display there and with her superkick, spinning heel kick, and signature tornado kick. Her striking is so pretty which feels weird to say considering how powerful it is as well.
3. Miyu Yamashita
If Miyu Yamashita’s only kick was the Skull Kick, that’d be enough to get a spot on the list. It’s one of the most gorgeous and vicious finishers in wrestling. Yamashita spins around with a ballerina’s grace before laying waste to someone via her boot.
On top of that, the TJPW star hits foes with a spinning kick that nails people in the gut, a beautiful roundhouse, and a springboard kick out of the corner. Creativity points all around.
When she’s not doing all those more stylish strikes, she just rares back and hits folks as hard as she can. She’s right there with the best of them in that regard.
2. Mika Iwata
Mika Iwata is the Da Vinci of kicking. She makes it an art. They are gorgeous and unique, perfectly struck, awash with showiness.
The former Sendai Girls world champ pumps her matches with an assortment of kicks, from a spinning heel kick that she puts her whole body into to a devastating superkick and roundhouse combo. They seem to ooze out of her, with ease and acumen, her boots a blur.
And she has very few peers when it comes to impact. Iwata’s kicks are straight savage. Any one of them could be a knockout blow.
1. Syuri
Here we are, at number one. To give you a peek behind the curtains, I shifted the names on the list around a lot. After rating all the wrestlers in kick variety, style, and impact and putting it all into a spreadsheet, sometimes the numbers just didn’t tell the full story, so I slid some folks down and pulled a few names higher. Then as I watched the footage again and again, my heart told me to adjust the list even more.
But I didn’t waver with the top spot. Every time I put on a clip of Syuri kicking someone’s ass, it confirmed what the initial ratings said: Syuri is the queen of kicks.
She has the best roundhouse kick in joshi. She hits a buzzsaw kick that looks like it should be illegal in a wrestling match. Her jab-like kicks to the thigh are perfection.
Syuri hits all manner of kicks and does them all with a callousness, a coldness in her heart. She’s a killer and her boots are her key weaponry.
If you are seated with your back to her, say your prayers. If you are standing, she will come punt your face backward. If you are going toe to toe with her, you are in for the fight of your life.
There’s believability and beauty in every strike with a bloodthirsty energy behind all of it. If you disagree with her taking the top spot here, I dare you to stand within kicking range and tell her that yourself.
RESURA 