It plays the wrestling straight, which is exactly why it lands. Two students out of the same dojo at the foot of Mount Fuji, one taking up the tiger's mask for the path of light, the other going into the Tiger's Hole and coming back out in black, and the show never pretends either choice is clean. The revenge engine is old-school Toei melodrama, a wrecked dojo and a broken mentor, delivered with the kind of straight-faced sincerity most modern shows are too embarrassed to attempt. Then real New Japan wrestlers walk into the frame, Tanahashi and Okada and company drawn as themselves, and the fiction and the actual promotion start feeding each other in a way no other sports anime has pulled off. Thirty-eight episodes of holds sold with real weight, cartoon-villain corporate wrestling monopolies, and two brothers-in-training who can only settle it in the ring. If you've ever explained to someone that kayfabe is not the same thing as lying, this one was made for you.

Two young wrestlers stand against The Tiger's Hole, the hidden organization behind a newly revived wrestling world, which wrecked the dojo where both were raised. One has taken over Naoto's old training grounds near Mount Fuji along with the tiger mask he left there. The other entered The Tiger's Hole, won a harsh competition and earned a pitch-black tiger mask. One follows the path of light. One walks in shadow. Neither has ever seen the other's face. In the ring they are destined rivals, yet they share a single aim: bringing The Tiger's Hole down. Expect a wrestling drama driven by action and rivalry.