For my own thoughts:

It takes a genuinely heart rending performance to make me cheer against one of my faves, but Kamiyu delivered in the final.

She looked fiercely determined and put on probably her best match to date, ironically not living up at all to the “casual” in her moniker.

She managed to hold her own against the company Ace and had to be basically murdered with a signature and 2 finishers in a row to get the pin, after almost forcing a tap with a manji gatame that ended via rope break and a series of reversals and attempted pins.

Her very genuine emotional state after the match clinched in my mind that she’s got something special in there that she really needs a chance to show the audience. She is already super over and Saki Akai is retiring at the end of the year, maybe there is a chance for her to pick up the Neo Biishiki Gun stable (it would be pretty boring, but they do have similar body types and have similar “beauty focused” characters) or, since she beat Rika Tatsumi in the semifinals, perhaps another international princess reign.

While the ending of the tournament was, I feel, very predictable on account of several outside factors (Miyu facing Mizuki as first opponent and beating her, Miyu going in as champion of a different promotion, Miyu having never won the tournament despite participating every year so far, this being her tenth attempt, and more importantly Miyu being by far the biggest matchup of the bunch for Mizuki going into the next big event), it still had some pretty good matches and it’s leading into a very hype-worthy match at Wrestle Princess 4.

My prediction was pretty much 100% Miyu, as my second choice was Yuki Arai who is all but guaranteed to go on to have a rubber match/sendoff against Sakisama, at Wrestle Princess.

I had some hope that Arisu Endo or Hikari Noa would get a surprise push, since they definitely have the skills and passion to do more then they currently do, and Kamiyu made me genuinely believe she could beat the odds in the final, especially off a win on Rika Tatsumi, but in the end TJPW is always pretty straightforward in their booking and the most logical conclusion was indeed the one they chose.