International anime fighting game scenes are teaming up to run exhibitions for a global audience.
Living the life of a competitive player invested into the more anime fighting games out there has its up and downs. For fans of the games developed by Arc System Works, things are mostly looking up right now. A new Blazblue and Guilty Gear are releasing this year, there is some strong tournament presence, and ASW themselves have been really stepping up their publisher support lately. The mostly self-sustaining community seems to have found its stride among a recent string of successful tournaments and events.
Despite things improving significantly for fans of ASW, life still isn’t perfect. Games are still released on console months down the line from the arcade release. This contributes to a disparity between the Japanese and western communities which can be hard to overcome. On top of this, the international communities have traditionally existed more or less independent from one another for the past decade.
The disparity is clear, with tales of Japanese strength coming out of the very limited appearances westerners are able to catch, such as Evo. Things are more connected these days, but western players are still going far out of their way to try and see how Japan is playing in order to keep up.
Finding Footage
In more recent years, footage of high level Japanese play has become much easier to come by thanks to video hosting sites such as Youtube, Twitch, and the Japanese Niconico. Looking for videos of a top Japanese player playing just about any character is completely feasible at this point. Unfortunately, this comes with a whole host of hoops to jump through.
The amount of footage that gets uploaded online is less than 1% of the high level competitive play happening at any given time. The best player in the world with a specific character may only be recorded playing in a couple of three minute matches once every two months. This is even assuming the videos can be found easily, and aren't behind a Niconico paywall. If all of this does come together, the next step is to pray the video is in a higher resolution than 240p, as Japan’s standards for quality tend to be much lower.
This very quickly turns into a complete crapshoot. Some specific places, arcade havens for high-level talent such as Mikado, are putting out significantly more. But it’s never going to be enough; any serious tournament player wants as much information and footage of high-level play as possible in order to have the best understanding of the game. A community thrives off of the footage for entertainment and educational reasons across all skill levels. Everybody is starved for these matches.
Creating the Content
Now, there is a new effort in the Arc System Works community hoping to help better fuel the video content that makes its way out of Japan. Thanks to the insane adoption rate of social media, communication between the hemispheres has skyrocketed despite language barriers. This has resulted in a handful of people making an extra effort to bridge the gap between the Eastern and Western communities.
Jiyuna, an American streamer currently residing in Japan, has dedicated a lot of his time to interviewing Japanese players and translating their thoughts on the game for English speakers. It wasn’t too long after the console release of Guilty Gear Xrd that Mr. Biscuit hosting online lobbies with top Japanese players. A live stream of those players with English commentary would not have existed without that effort being made. Despite taking place in the early mornings and being poorly advertised, Biscuits’ first couple of streams were very successful — showing this type of thing is not only possible, but in demand.
The arcade to console delayed release cycle has caused a bit of a hitch in the system — It's impossible to host online lobbies for games that aren’t out on console yet, after all. In order to stream the arcade exclusive games, the only way to get that footage is to have it streamed directly from the cabinet. That by itself creates headaches; a game center has to be willing to facilitate a stream, find players and create an event, and actually host the event for the stream viewers. And none of that takes into account the level of talent, that may or may not show.
Unifying our Efforts
An American that goes by 2DJazz was pondering on all of these issues while sitting in Mikado game center. He began to question the different cultures, what it meant to be a dedicated player for a smaller game, and the current state of things from his western perspective. In a moment of clarity, he made the decision to start working on solutions for himself and his love of Guilty Gear.
So it was time to start reaching out. “I approached Jonio, the lead broadcaster at Mikado,” Jazz explains, “and I asked why he didn’t have a sub button, channel info, or any of the normal bells and whistles that established Twitch channels have. His answer: "I don’t know how to do any of that." Working with him and the Mikado staff, and using contacts in the West, we were able to create a stronger branding for the main broadcast channel of Guilty Gear in Asia. Eventually, we were able to gain Twitch partnership. The next questions we arrived to were, ‘How can we create a more globalized Guilty Gear community?’”
The answer they would come to was actually pretty simple. They were standing in the highest level arena of Guilty Gear on the planet, so why not bring that home in an easy to digest fashion? An exhibition featuring some of the top players cropped up quickly with none other than Jazz himself sitting on the mic to do commentary. “I thought that by setting up long set exhibitions with English commentary … we might be able to bridge a language gap which had previously always existed with the game. Anime games have a number of stigma attached to them. Many of these can scare new players or make people apathetic, so the idea was to have an English voice to encourage viewers in the west to watch high-level play, but without being completely lost.”
Crossing the Streams
The exhibition ended up being such a great success that more were immediately set up for the following weekend. A type of “fight night” sprung up deep in Japan that now serves an English speaking audience. Riding high from this event, Jazz decided to keep on pushing. He contacted Absol, the lead broadcaster from Shinjuku Sportsland, and set up the same deal he had previously with Jonio. The Shinjuku Sportsland is home to the best Blazblue players in Japan, and it was their time to shine. Another American Blazblue player, Guymam, was on deck to give commentary, and the success continued.
The great thing about this format is that it is very easy for newer players to latch onto. They’ve been fun, exciting, and full of amazing play already. The English commentary and easy access to this content in particular help solve many of the pain points Western Anime fighters have dealt with for years. However, the best part is seeing all of the Eastern players on stream, smiling and having a good time. At the end of the day, East and West aren't so different — they just want to compete and have a great time.
Jazz and his team are already in the planning stages for their next broadcasts and fully intend to continue this push for content to be sent to the western audience. The eventual goal that Jazz dreams of is seeing the games he loves shine at tournaments like Evo and to have players from all of the world there to compete and share the stage. That level of acceptance may take some time yet... but this global connection is an excellent first step.
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