I watch YouTube videos from some of the 2024 SFL: Pro-JP players, and over the past month I’ve done a tweet thread or two about things they said that I thought was interesting. I don’t know how long Twitter will be around (it just keeps getting worse and worse – I have to try every post 3-4 times now before it goes through, I’m pretty people don’t see my stuff as much any more, the bots are bad, etc.)

I do know that this blog will be around for as long as I maintain it, and I like having stuff that I write in a more permanent form as well. Twitter just makes it really easy to micro-blog. To prevent some of my stuff from being lost to oblivion though, I’ll copy down the text here.

2024-08-28

I remember the other day watching on of Tachikawa’s videos about why the Away team loses more in JP SFL, and how it really comes down to mental pressure. What struck me is that he said there really isn’t a big different in player ability in JP SFL; everyone is super strong.

And people are in this position in the Home team where they think they shouldn’t lose, because they are good, they got to pick who to face. Everyone is strong though, and if you lose you can’t get depressed over it. You really need a strong mentality to win when you only face the best. It was interesting in his pre-game talk before Nagoya’s Section 2 match that he though Cosa has one of the strongest mentalities on JP SFL (because of his speed racing athlete background) and he wanted to show how he’s developed a good mentality as well.

I was rooting for him, but he lost in the end. I’m cheering for you though Tachikawa! It was great seeing him win the tiebreaker match. He just posted a video about the win, so I look forward to watching that when it pops up on my watch later list.

2024-08-31 / Sleep Fighter

In @Itazan_Kuma‘s latest video, he works with his Sleep Fighter 6 team and teaches Hiodoshi Ao an “invincible” technique. She’s learning Modern Dhalsim (on keyboard). The video has English closed captions, press the CC button to turn them on.

What is Sleep Fighter 6 you might be asking? It’s a team tournament (4 teams, captained by Itazan, Naruo, Dogura, and Kawano) sponsored by Drewell (a sleep aid medication). In the 6 days before the tournament, each player must get 6 hours of sleep a night.

For each hour deficit on the team, they are penalized 5 points. The first 2 players win 10 points for each game (bof 3) the captains win 20 points (bof 3) and the sleep points are deducted to find the winning team. The tournament is TODAY from 15:30 JST.

You can check the archive at

Check out these nice pajamas:

2024-09-03 Skillsmith on Capcom Fighting Jam

I’ve had some fun Japanese videos on my Watch Later list lately. Just heard Skillsmith’s talk about his work on Capcom Fighting Jam (Evolution in US) and how it was understaffed. Games didn’t have dev tools then, so adjustments were all manual. Nobody wanted to touch the SF3 characters because they were so hard to edit. They had almost no developers or art resources, so it was hard to re-draw stuff. Dmitri was from CPS2 and looked too small so they stretch the pixels vertically but missed some animations frames. Karin originally had a super killer jump attack without any hurt box on it which almost made it out into production (they just barely had time to fix it), characters with weapons all had similar issues with no hurt boxes on the weapons. Really tight deadlines and pressure. I think he said it was his first and last official job from Capcom, really cool to hear some of those behind the scenes stories. I don’t have the time to actually do a close listen or take notes, but fun stuff.

[As I copy the text here, I went to look for the video, and it is now gone. So maybe I was hallucinating, or Skillsmith deleted it which I could totally believe.]

2024-09-03 Tokido’s SFL Review and LeShar Corner

Tokido put in real practice against Juri with 6 players (Nashi, Ai Ai, Yossan, 2BASSA, Leader, JACK_DOLL) and thought he was prepared, but Mago still ran over him. I think I have some stuff from Momochi and Tachikawa in my queue, I’m looking forward to that.

I was also interested to hear about LeShar’s Japanese progress – one listener asked Tokido if he talked to LeShar about anti-airs since LeShar is good at them and Tokido isn’t. They have talked about it, and interestingly LeShar’s input device – a keyboard controller box -Tokido thinks input is fast. Someone else asked that since Tokido said in the interview that LeShar’s Japanese has been getting better, could he share an example. Since LeShar has come to Japan they practice together a lot and his Japanese has improved.

LeShar’s interviews are funny, since he wins, Aru and Hameko interview him, but they clearly take care to make the questions a bit simpler. I can tell that LeShar is a bit nervous – his Japanese in e.g., Tokido’s interview a few months was better than in the SFL interviews b/c of the pressure, I assume. You can tell that everyone is trying hard to make good entertainment, but it’s a bit tough. I can totally understand – when the pressure is on, a second language is definitely tougher than your first language.

Anyway, Tokido said that LeShar told the team that it’s a bit hard for him to speak, but his listening is good, so he’s been involved in all the team meetings, and has joined their Discord chats too, which he wasn’t doing before. So that’s real progress.

Tokido also put up a special “LeShar Report” corner, and says that LeShar’s really into Jokes (puns maybe) right now, and learning to write Japanese. What he came up with is a pun based on the sounds of Japanese words. So he writes “翔くん、書ける” which is “Kakeru-kun (the SF player) can write” because the sounds are the same “Kakeru-kun, Kakeru”. It’s a joke after my own heart. I think I’m becoming a fan.

Also, he goes on to say that most Japanese players get really hot while playing, so they put the AC on blast. During the break in his match against Cammy, LeShar said he was super cold, and asked Tokido to turn off the AC. So Tokido wonders if he has a naturally calming response in matches instead of getting all worked up. They went and got Tsuke-men dipping noodles after the match.

2024-09-04 Saishunkan Sol’s Kumamoto Academy

https://x.com/kagecchi79/status/1831274861752377776

Fighter’s Crossover announces that they are working to support Saishunkan Sol Kumamoto’s Academy’s students. The students will join Fighter’s Crossover events around Japan – all 3 of them at the 9/14 Kumamoto e-Sports Stadium FC event, and the student dresscode at the 9/15 Fighter’s Crossover in Fukuoka. Saishunkan Sol has a bit of info about the academy on their website, where they want to train up the next generation of Street Fighter players with coaching and support to get Japan eSports Union (JeSU) pro licenses. I don’t know when they announced this – it’s the first I’ve seen of it – but they have three members, dresscode, teiemu, and taizen. The stated aim of the Academy is to help young players in the Kyushu / Kumamoto region.

Fighter’s Crossover has a long history of supporting young players. In the early days back when SFV was first released, the organizer (Kagecchi) would comp the entrance fee for young players / employ them part time for setup / teardown so they could afford to get high level play. Tachikawa, Ohtani, John Takeuchi, and others rose up in part thanks to that support. It’s nice to see Saishunkan Sol set up a program too, and I’m not surprised Kagecchi is helping. Shinobism is another well-known team that has explicitly developed young talent in Japan.

One of Capcom’s stated goals that they talked about in their 2021 eSports book was to promote an environment with local-based teams, so I’m glad to see Saishunkan Sol delivering on that vision.

Old notes of mine on that book if you are interested: https://fugutabetai.com/blog/2021/12/07/reading-through-capcoms-the-future-of-e-sports-viewed-through-street-fighter-league/

2024-09-04

Ok, ok, another video that I can’t help but comment a bit on. Momochi is watching SFL-JP 3rd session Leshar Ed vs Mizuha Cammy, and when Leshar says that he recently started to think that Ed has the advantage in the match, Momochi yells “Don’t say that!”

He also says LeShar is still learning Japanese so he doesn’t know the nuance of advantage (有利). Joking a bit, but I don’t know the match at all which is why I am watching Momochi’s take. He commented on one combo about how you can’t go for the dream when you are in that corner position which is why LeShar did lvl 3. It’s funny that he said “But everyone is trying to have those dreams”. He talked a bit about how LeShar really needed that win since last time he went up 2-0 on Hikaru, but then lost 2-3, so went for the more expensive reliable combo.

He did say Mizuha prepped well. Mizuha’s defense was good, but his offense was weak, while LeShar’s offense was strong, but defense weak. In the post match interview when LeShar was saying that he practiced daily with Akira, he thought if he worked on that practice, he match is favorable for Ed. Momochi didn’t like that at all – told him to stop saying that.

I was hoping Momochi would point out specifics of what is good / bad, but he didn’t and I’m too dumb to know just by watching what comes down to LeShar being amazing, or the matchup. Momochi did say that LeShar’s Japanese is fine, except someone should tell him “You learned the meaning of the word ‘advantageous’ incorrectly”, otherwise his Japanese is fine.

Chat asked Momochi “Do you think Ed has the advantage vs Cammy?” and he says it’s a difficult word. What makes something favorable? How people interpret it is different depending on the person. Anyway, a fun video, and showing off some of Momochi’s funny side.

2024-09-05 Tachikawa and Manon

A thread of thoughts from watching Tachikawa’s recent video about Nagoya OJA’s win against Saishunkan Sol in the SFL:JP 3rd session.

Tachikawa used Manon against Fuudo’s Ed in the captain’s match. Nobody was actually expecting that. (Though, here in the future, 2024-09-12 I just watched one of Daigo’s videos where he said he expected that, and praised Tachikawa for his choice.)

Tachikawa said that is really the limit of what he can do with Manon, he pulled out all the stops with her. A chatter said he didn’t think Tachikawa would be Fuudo, and he says he didn’t really think so either. He was talking with Kei.B and they both thought Fuudo was a problem for their team. So the plan was to have Tachikawa as the Captain, lure out Fuudo there, lose that match, but let Kei.B work his butt off and get them 10 points against someone else.

When a chatter said that Ohtani almost won against Higuchi, Tachikawa said that if Ohtani had won, he probably would not have. He would have been thinking “man, we already got 20 points” and lost his edge. Since Ohtani lost in such a close match, he was inspired. He says he didn’t think people thought he would continue with Manon.

Tachikawa did everything he could, but was surprised because Fuudo made some errors on his part, and it was the first time he’s seen him make mistakes like that. He won on pressure and his intimidating Aura. He also didn’t think that Fuudo would have prepped so much for Manon. Even though Fuudo probably thought Manon was just a brief affair for Tachikawa, he still did his research. Fuudo won the first match with double perfect, and Tachikawa was laughing with his team – he couldn’t believe he got double P’d. Kei.B said he was fine, don’t worry.

But Tachikawa was the only one laughing. They were expecting to get 10 points, so getting that first 10 point win from Kei.B was huge, it allowed Tachikawa to play without as much pressure. Their order wasn’t made to get 30 points, if they were shooting for that Ohtani would have been the Captain. Tachikawa thinks he’s only able to play when they are shooting for 10 points (he’s been talking lately about how his team is strong, so it can be hard to get up to bat). He thinks Kakeru is the strongest on their team. LeShar is ranked top in the world so he’s really strong too. He talks about some of the other players, lots of strong players in the league. Order is super important in this league. He said he decided early on he would use Manon this season so has been getting a lot of practice in. Maybe too much. He doesn’t have as much confidence in his M Ed as he would like. (I wonder if Tachikawa takes the Tokido approach of misinformation on his stream? I don’t get that vibe here.)

He talked more about how the team was super excited to get that first 10 points, and that was really their main goal. Look at the replay, they were all super happy. If Kei.B hadn’t won that they probably would have gone 0-40. It was good luck that they got the order they hoped for.

End of thread. It’s so much easier to take notes than subtitle stuff.