Stardom X Stardom FOTO LIBRE #2 Photobook Review

FOTO LIBRE is a photobook series that has been around for nearly a decade and still continues to this day. The FOTO LIBRE photobooks do not focus on a specific gender or promotion, allowing the series to highlight a wide variety of wrestlers over the years. You can read reviews for more photobooks on the Joshi Photobook Reviews page.

Full Photobook Details

Title: Stardom X Stardom FOTO LIBRE #2
Release: 2011
Pages: ~32
Cost: ¥2,500
Where to Buy: Third Party Vendors (eBay, Buyee, Toudoukan, etc.)

The FOTO LIBRE photobook series has been around for several years and is not promotion specific. The photobooks generally feature one wrestler and while most are masked wrestlers, its not a hard rule and in the past many non-masked wrestlers have been featured as well. Popular wrestlers such as Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask, Prince Devitt, Ultimo Dragon, BUSHI, Dr. Wagner Jr., and Io Shirai have all been featured in a FOTO LIBRE photobook, with some being featured multiple times. For Stardom X Stardom FOTO LIBRE #2, instead of focusing on a wrestler, an entire event was featured as the series took an early look at the wrestling promotion Stardom.

What is perhaps most interesting about this photobook is it was created very early in Stardom’s run, and before Io Shirai joined the promotion. So we see a glimpse of who was initially planned to be the future of the promotion, with Yoko Bito on the cover and both Mayu Iwatani and Arisa Hoshiki featured heavily. The pictures from the photobook were taken during Stardom’s event on July 24th, 2011 (titled of course Stardom X Stardom), where Nanae Takahashi won the World Of Stardom Championship. Since the photobook focuses on that show, we also get pictures of Haruka and her match against Kenny Omega, which would become famous down the road. This is a smaller photobook than most of the ones in the FOTO LIBRE series, but the pictures inside are priceless and its a fun look back at the beginning of one of the most popular Joshi promotions today. Here is a sample of pictures from the photobook: