RAGE 2018 Spring New Generation Esports is a large gaming event held on March 21st in Makuhari Messe Hall 6 with a variety of tournaments attached to it. The main events are Street Fighter V, Shadowverse, and Splatoon 2. The venue opens at 9am, things start at 10am, and things should end by 8pm. The website says that entry is free and anyone can go and watch / support the players.

I think you can go to Makuhari Messe and check things out – there are Cosplay competitions and booths, and lots of other stuff going on there. You might also be interested in going to the special event at Akihabara E-sports Square (Map) from 1pm to 10pm where there will be casual setups to play SFV if you just want to play.

There is a live viewing party (1000yen) in Nagoya at the Aeon Cinema Nagaoya Chyaya. Interesting.

The SFV tournament has a large prize pool for Japan (At an incorrect 100yen/dollar):

• 1st: $20,000 + SFV Special Costume
• 2nd: $10,000
• 3rd: $5,000
• 4th: $3,000
• 5th tie: $800
• 7th tie: $200

Who are some of the SFV competitors? Just looking through the pools, here are notable players that I know about.

The SFV tournament itself is a double elimination FT2 tournament for each pool only one person makes it out of the pool. When you registered for the tournament you had to specify which character you would use, and you are locked into that character. The rules say if you use a different character, then it is counted as a loss. Wow. What are these reserves? If people in the 128 person field can’t make it for some reason, someone from the reserves it pulled to take their place. I know some of the positions in the tournament were by lottery – people applied and then random draws happened to see who would make it in – and for some of the slots there were other tournaments throughout the year to determine who would make it in. So the tournament was “open” in a sense – anyone could apply to get in, but you had to be lucky to actually make it.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch this live, but it looks like it will be a very strong domestic tournament. I bet HiFight will have a field day.

Update Here are the top 8 in no particular order:

• Gachi-Kun
• Itabashi Zangief
• Tokido
• Mago
• Mizuha
• Macho
• Fuudo
• Nemo

You might be wondering “Hey, what happened with Lord Diago? He didn’t make it out of pools?” I saw him mention on twitter that he wouldn’t be able to make it – they were filming for an upcoming 9Road trailer. A lot of reserves were able to make it into the event, so for whatever reason a good number of the people in pools must not have made it.

Final Update

Machabo was 5th in Guilty Gear Xrd at EVO Japan 2018, and got deep at SFV there, making top 32, but I think him getting 2nd here is definitely a surprise for people who haven’t been watching the anime scene. Probably a surprise for people who have been for that matter.

It might have surprised people to see Mizuha in the top 8 as well, but he’s been doing well for a while, and made it into the tournament portion of Red Bull Tower of Pride in 2017 I believe (or he got far, at any rate).

Another very nice thing to see: of the commentary, Hameko is well known and involved in the community, Yamato is new to me, but Nanai is someone I know from the local Fighter’s Crossover Akihabara events at Akihabara Esports Square. He does commentary there and organized brackets, and it is great to see him getting a chance on a larger stage. Kagecchi, the organizer of FCA, does a lot to help younger people get opportunities as players or in other roles, and he really deserves a lot more credit than he gets.

Also, they are going to run another one of these in Summer 2018.