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The story
The final of the esports event “Pokémon Unite” at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games was held on September 27 at Aichi Sky Expo, where Team Japan defeated Team Indonesia 3-1 to win the gold medal. Player Yudai Koseko, who competed in the final, commented, “I thought we could win if we just played like we normally do.” While congratulatory messages poured in on 5ch, skeptical comments also piled up, such as “Winning at a video game doesn’t make me go ‘wow, amazing!’” and “Lumping this in with regular sporting events still feels off,” alongside related info being shared, like the fact that Japan’s fighting-game team lost to South Korea in the final and took silver.
The Pokémon Unite esports final at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games was held on the 27th at Aichi Sky Expo, where Team Japan beat Team Indonesia 3-1 to claim the gold medal. Players Yudai Koseko and Renta Higashi, both from Nagoya, took part.
Comment from Yudai Koseko
It honestly still hasn’t sunk in, but since we lost at this month’s world championship and I was so frustrated and down about it, this feels great. I thought we could win if we just played like we normally do.
Source: chunichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Other Asian countries feel exactly the same way about baseball, honestly 😭
You're a source of pride for Japan
It's like basketball, except you're pounding on the other team while scoring goals
It's free so I tried it a little, but Nekketsu Street Basketball (an old Japanese arcade basketball game) is more fun
Oh, the game where the basketball hoop is three stories tall?
Japan's official national sports
If you land solid sponsors
and get on a real pro team, you can actually earn a living from it
This game just has Pokémon as the characters — what you're actually doing is basically identical to a game called LoL
And in LoL, Japanese players lose to overseas teams by triple the score
Same reaction here
If it were an actual sport, I'd think it was impressive
You do know that if actual LoL players played this game, they'd wipe the floor with everyone in an instant — it's garbage content, right?
A simple puzzle game like Puyo Puyo is one thing, but Pokémon, man…
Having a champion within that one specific title is fine on its own, but when people try to put it on the same level as the Olympics…
Olympic inclusion is already off the table
'Master Takahashi's 16 Shots a Second' instead (a legendary 1980s gaming celebrity famous for rapid-fire button mashing)
You mean Hyper Olympic, right? (the button-mashing game Takahashi Meijin was famous for)
Or with the Joy Stick Watch, or that non-commercial Star Soldier rapid-fire counter software — and this time ban the 'surezuri' rubbing technique (a way of faking rapid button presses)
Just go set up some kind of esports World Cup and hold it there instead
The EWC already exists
Though for MOBAs you basically have to compete in LoL or Dota
Yeah
Amazingly pathetic
It is
One player each from Street Fighter 6, KOF15, and Tekken 8 forms a 3-on-3 team event
Japan lost to South Korea in the final and took silver
For Street Fighter 6 specifically, Japan's rep was Higuchi
He beat Hong Kong's Chris Wong in the semifinal
and split 1-1 with South Korea's Dark Corgi in the final
It's these overseas people who are pushing for it
"Kenneth Fok, president of the Asian Esports Federation, said the long-term goal is to make esports an Olympic event."
The moment a developer/publisher owns the game outright, there's just no way it can ever become a mainstream sport
It can never become like the extreme sports, skateboarding and the like
The Fortnite World Cup is happening right now, today and yesterday, and the crowd numbers and viewership are insane
It's being watched far more than the WBC final
More than the World Volleyball final too
A normal MOBA is impossible for Japanese people with their long commutes and overwork
Unite has matches that only last 10 minutes
Plus it's Pokémon, so the player base is on a completely different scale
And honestly, Japanese players never praise a good play, they just relentlessly trash the bad ones
That happens in Unite too
Even Koichi Nakano, who won 10 world championships in a row, never got one
In the end it all just comes down to politicians' whims
Background and Key Points of This Topic
This gold medal came out of the esports division at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. In that same division, Japan’s fighting-game team — fielding players from Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and KOF15 — also reached the final but lost to South Korea and settled for silver, a fact shared within the thread. So the results were mixed for Japan’s esports contingent depending on the event. Where opinions in the thread diverged was over whether a gaming tournament result should be treated with the same ‘honor of representing the nation’ as baseball or soccer: posts arguing for its legitimacy by pointing to viewer numbers and the size of the player base ran alongside posts drawing a firm line, saying ‘winning at a video game just doesn’t feel real.’ One post also claimed that ‘esports’ bid to become an Olympic event has already fallen through,’ but that was just one poster’s opinion within the thread and should not be taken as confirmed, official information.
※This article was excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Asian Games] Japan wins gold in esports ‘Pokémon Unite’! Beats Indonesia 3-1.”
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