In the PVP scene, Japanese players have always been synonymous with the upper echelon of players. And yet despite this, we in other parts of the world know comparatively little about their game. Last year’s World Championships was one of the first opportunities we had to witness the Japanese players on the big stage and resultantly the teams and strategies they had brought from their own region. Certain picks, such as the popularity of Obstagoon, really highlighted the differences in metagame development between Japan and other regions.
With PJCS coming up this weekend, I wanted to take a look at the Japanese PVP scene, its development over the years and its direction going into the first ever Japanese hosted World Championships. I spoke to JiNz8810, kakuzatoho, Gobius, kip20139, JesusAWC, ikeshin1226, 56LUFFY56 and 00danke1219; a group of players with World Championship, GBL leaderboard and general high level PVP experience among them.
At The Beginning
My first curiosity was what the PVP scene in Japan looked like in its inception. In other parts of the world, the advent of PVP came with the birth of the Silph Arena and local communities hosting tournaments to engage with the feature head on. In Japan however, although there were some very local tournaments between friends, there was never anything particularly mass organised to the extent of Silph. That, in addition to the requirement of reaching Ultra Friends to do remote battles, and PVP did not really take off at the start in Japan like it did in other regions. That was until GBL.
The advent of GBL allowed players to bypass friend requirements and play remotely with ease. As indicated by some the players, one particular element of Japanese culture is an integral part of GBL’s success. Not needing to meet up with other players to battle was an aspect of GBL that complimented the more withdrawn characters that played the game and would eventually set the tone for Japanese PVP for many years.
Tournaments were not completely absent from the scene however. Well known community member DaigoPVP was noted for introducing Silph to Japan, and players with a good level of English and a desire to battle with more underused pokemon embraced these tournaments. Additionally, dai1133 has been pioneering remote tournaments with custom metas for many years. Despite this, it was GBL where most players turned to and as a result, Japanese players have been topping the leaderboards ever since the beginning.
Japanese Juggernauts
The birth of Silph Factions however was a slight turning point in the Japanese PVP story. Well known GBL leaderboarder Wankowanyooo had decided to recruit other Japanese leaderboarders for a team; the notorious Ojyamajyo-Puremi. Wankowanyooo himself was living in LA and so acted almost as a bridge between the Japanese scene and the rest of the world. The team famously swept their tier for the entire season and then ended up finishing Top 8 of the Faction World Championships. Following the birth of the Faction, the team wanted to compete more with players outside of the APAC region and so they joined Gymbreakers as well. Up until the start of Play! Pokemon, this had been the main crossing between the Japanese scene and the rest of the world in show 6 formats.
Although outwardly a force to be reckoned with, some of the players I spoke to noted that the team was not much of a community rather than a culmination of strong players. There have however been a few PVP oriented communities in the Japanese scene, one notable one being ZubonZubon. If you have ever seen a Japanese leaderboarder on twitter and wondered what the 👖trousers emoji in their name means, that denotes the Zubon group (Zubon meaning trousers in Japanese). Gobius, kip20139 and 00danke1219 are a part of Zubon and they explained its origins as starting from a casual Twitter Space. Many people would engage in these spaces, with one member having a 👖trousers emoji in their name and CrescentAngels commenting on how Scrafty looks like its holding up trousers. The joke evolved and Dayoshi5 sent out invites to people to join Zubon. Hearing about these unique community origins reminds me of the magical aspect of Pokemon Go PVP that brings people together over shared competitive interests regardless of region.
A New Goal
As an outside follower of Japanese PVP twitter, I had noticed a lot more tournaments pop up over the last year despite being informed of the GBL centric history. Tournaments such as the Silph based Great Mother Mamoswine or the in person Kodakodacup, showed a different direction to Japanese PVP than in the past. The players I spoke with enlightened me on the reasons for this. After competing at Worlds, many of the players felt they entered with a disadvantage compared to players from other regions. While their mechanics were solid from mastering GBL, their show 6 experience was lacking. The years of Silph tournaments other competitors had participated in emphasised the more nuanced best of 3 strategies that the Japanese were not as familiar with. Upon returning to Japan, the community as a whole endeavoured to facilitate more show 6 experience through tournaments in order to be better prepared for the following season.
So with a year of honing their show 6 skills, which players should we be keeping an eye on going into PJCS? I asked each of the players their opinions on who would win it and why.
kakuzatoho:
kakuzatoho picked nyankake as his player to win PJCS. A fellow member of the Grilled Marshmallon Faction, kakuzatoho believes nyankake excels in team composition geared towards show 6 formats. Being a fan of consistent meta picks, nyankake is also good at managing energy and finding appropriate win cons, qualities that may lend to his current placing as #1 in Japan on the Silph leaderboard.
kip20139:
kip20139’s selection is well known leaderboard topper GGs489KAKAROTTO. kip20139’s first observation is that he cannot imagine GGs489KAKAROTTO even losing! In addition to his superior skill, he has also proven himself in a best of 3 tournaments where he went 20-3 in games won. kip20139’s final comments are that the biggest obstacle for GGs489KAKAROTTO may be actually turning up to the tournament, considering how far Chiba is from Nagoya.
Gobius:
Winner of last year’s PJCS, Gobius, touts 3rd place Worlds competitor CrescentAngels as his favourite. Gobius states that in a highly competitive tournament, mental strength is a defining factor between players. Considering CrescentAngels has already made it far in Worlds previously and has already suffered the biggest possible loss being the losers finals, he is mentally more equipped than most players to endure a long tournament. That in addition to knowing he can compete with the absolute top in the world makes CrescentAngels a strong candidate.
JesusAWC:
Some of you may recognise Tetsuo106, JesusAWC’s pick for PJCS, from recent appearances in GBLA. Tetsuo106 reached the finals of the grand final week of this GBLA season, falling short to P4T0M4N. Tetsuo106 also qualified for Worlds last year, despite not being able to attend and was one of the first players to qualify for PJCS this year. JesusAWC comments on how his team selection and skill with the game outshines most people he has witnessed and thinks this will take him all the way.
ikeshin1226:
Although not someone he pegs to win the tournament, ikenshin1226 is very interested in the player RentonThurston3. After watching him at the qualifying tournament, ikeshin1226 thinks RentonThurston3 has the technical and team selection skills to go very far. He believes, however, that in a competition where so many players are on a high technical level, any one of them could go all the way, making it difficult to predict who.
56LUFFY56:
56LUFFY56 has singled out yypon0xX1 to win this year. Famous leaderboard topper and former member of Ojyamajyo-Puremi, 56LUFFY56 thinks yypon0xX1 is one of the most consistent players in the country. He also comments that his team selection out matches most people in that he will always find the correct three to bring.
JiNz8810:
Finding it hard to single out a single player, JiNz8810 actually names 3 of the members in our discussion: former Worlds competitor kakuzatoho, JesusAWC and 56LUFFY56. He attributes a combination of playing skill plus mental fortitude as reasons for why they will be successful. In his opinion, Japan is filled with top class players that picking even 20 players to go with the qualification slots would be hard.
00danke1219:
While also not being able to pick a particular person to win this year, 00danke1219 suggests the winner will be capable of being relaxed within a tournament environment and able to bring out their best form regardless of the situation. He also suggests the winner will be able to place HAKI level pressure on their opponent while also not losing because they had too many drinks the night before. Some solid advice from the player who brought Magcargo to worlds!
By the end of my talk with these players I felt like I understood the history of the Japanese PVP scene a lot more, and it only increased my excitement to tune into PJCS and witness these talents first hand. I also believe that with the direction the scene has been taking over the past year, that our games and communities will become closer in the future, the catalyst of which may be the World Championships in Yokohama.
Follow along with all the action at the Pokemon Japan Championships here.