Vayseth's Voyage: Interview with Double A Battery

Vayseth's Voyage is an article series written by The Big House Wii U Head TO Vayseth straight from Japan. Every week, he will be bringing you articles on various topics regarding the Japanese Smash Community. Bringing Smash Communities around the world closer and closer together with every article!

Previous Articles:
Vayseth's Voyage: Japan's Top 3 Wii U Tournament Series
Vayseth's Voyage: KARISUMA 6 Results and Review
Vayseth's Voyage: SUMABATO 9 Results and Review
Vayseth's Voyage: Japanese Game Bars
Vayseth's Voyage: KVOxTSB 2016 Review and Results
Vayseth's Voyage: Japan's Love of Team Tournaments
Vayseth's Voyage: Vayseth Visits Umebura 23
Vayseth's Voyage: Japan's Lack of Consistency
Vayseth's Voyage: The Struggling Japanese Melee Community

@TheAABattery doing commentary for his local series Shield Breaker.​

I had the privilege of meeting up with Colorado TO Double A Battery on his most recent tour of Japan. As we are both Smash TOs and Japanese speakers who participate in the Japanese Smash Community, I thought it would be a great opportunity to get another opinion other than my own out there. While he echoes a lot of what I have been saying in my article series thus far, he does offer some interesting points and observations I want to share with everyone in the Smash Community. Give him a follow @TheAABattery and check out the interview!

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Vayseth: Without further delay, let's get started! First off, please give a brief introduction to let the people know who you are.

Double A Battery: Absolutely! First my tag is Double A Battery.

Vayseth: There has to be a story behind that tag.

Double A Battery: Well, when I first got to college I was pretty confident in Smash and beat everyone in my dorm, so I decided I wanted to go to tournaments. When I searched for tournaments I found out they were pretty far away from me. That's actually how I decided to make my own tournament series. The first tournament I ever entered was the first tournament I ever TO'd. But I needed a tag. I needed something that was only four characters and I was playing around with the name entry in Melee and made a plus sign, A, A, and a minus sign and thought it looked like a battery and the name stuck.

Vayseth: Wow! I kind of wish my tag had a cool story like that behind it.

Double A Battery: Actually, I was looking at the names of other tournament series and noticed that all of the names were really simple. Since my tournaments were originally in the basement of my dorm they became known as Battery Basement. We moved from the basement after Battery Basement 3 because we outgrew it. I thought of changing the new series to Battery Ballroom but decided to keep it true to its roots. I now host Battery Basement and Shield Breaker on alternating months so now there are tournaments once a month in my region.

Vayseth: Your tournament series name is awesome as well! Since we're both in Japan I was hoping you could tell everyone how many times you have been to Japan and entered Japanese Smash tournaments.

Double A Battery: I am actually half-Japanese and half-American, so I have been coming to Japan almost every year since I was born. This is only my second year attending Japanese Smash tournaments though. My first tournament was Master Hand 6, where I was able to see aMSa battle against Rudolph in grand finals. It was an amazing set and Rudolph is such a charismatic guy.

Double A Battery in full TO mode.​

Vayseth: On your trip this time you have been to all three of Japan's major tournaments: Umebura, Sumabato, and now Master Hand. How do they compare to tournaments in the US?

Double A Battery: One thing I immediately noticed was they compensate for lower numbers with higher average player skill. Melee for example is a very tight-knit community and many people have been playing since the game first game out and never moved on. From a TO perspective I noticed they have a very large amount of staff.

Vayseth: That is very true! Sumabato's staff is 30+!

Double A Battery: I have once had like six people help out at my tournaments but nothing like Sumabato. In general, I learned a lot about how tournaments are run here. Many tournaments don't get nearly as hype or rowdy as US events, with only a few exceptions. Japanese Smashers will get hype every now and then, but it isn't a constant. I heard from 9B that some people decide to go to a tournament or not based on the tournament's perceived rowdiness.

Vayseth: That reminds me of Ayuha's hilarious "How to Cheer" slide that he debuted at Umebura 23. They definitely want to try and get the crowds here more hype.

Double A Battery: It's all about respect. One thing I wanted to specifically note about the Japanese scene is top players are not bothered by playing matches with lower level players. They are very welcoming. The first time I came here aMSa played me for like 30 matches and I got wrecked but he kept playing. I have played like 50 matches with Ranai and I was able to only beat his Shulk once and Villager once but he let me keep playing him over and over. It's just a lot more noticeable in Japan. You do not see a lot of people trash talking each other either.

@TheAABattery debuts his dual-language commentary at May's Umebura.​

Vayseth: Yeah it really is the little things that stand out. I also noticed you were able to do some commentary for Umebura. How was that experience? Have you done commentary in the states?

Double A Battery: I do sometimes do commentary in the US but most times I focus on TOing and playing. If given the opportunity though I gladly do commentary. Every time I was commentating in Japan I noticed there are a decent amount of American viewers so they started writing everything in English. Master Hand has set ups and overlays all in English.

Vayseth: I was able to do some commentary at KVOxTSB2016 with Ayuha and Kei and also was able to talk to the chat a bit at a previous Sumabato. I definitely noticed everything being in English as well.

Double A Battery: Japan is definitely aware that a large chunk of the audience is full of English speakers. Most American viewers are not going to go to these tournaments so their only way to experience the event is on streams. Dual language commentary or even an English commentary block should be considered at future tournaments. My theory is that ZeRo was able to figure out all the top players for each character partly due to having a video source to influence his list. The hub for Smash 4 and Smash in general is America so you want to make sure that they are aware of your heavy hitters.

Vayseth: I absolutely agree! Maybe I should step it up! I want to thank you for your time and please let the people know where they can follow you!

Double A Battery: Follow me on Twitter on @TheAABattery, Feel free to come to my tournaments in Fort Collins, Colorado! Join the Colorado Smash Facebook page for Colorado Smash content, and CSU Smash for Fort Collins Smash content!

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I really hope everyone gets an opportunity to come out and enjoy the Japanese Smash community first hand. I am currently trying to work on a way to get more Smashers out here and send more Japanese players to compete in the US. I hope we are able to bring our two communities closer together than ever before by the end of 2016.

Sayonara until next week.

 

"Half-Japanese, half-American."

What does this mean?

 

"Half-Japanese, half-American."

What does this mean?

It means that one of his parents was American, and the other was Japanese.

 

It means that one of his parents was American, and the other was Japanese.

But what's American? Is it black, white (assuming because it's the majority), Latino, Asian, etc... You can't say American because that's not a actual Race, unlike the Japanese who are by far the most abundant ethnicity group in Japan.

 

But what's American? Is it black, white (assuming because it's the majority), Latino, Asian, etc... You can't say American because that's not a actual Race, unlike the Japanese who are by far the most abundant ethnicity group in Japan.

My mother is Japanese, my father is white (Scottish, Welsh, etc.)

 

"Half-Japanese, half-American."

What does this mean?

You're confusing nationality with citizenship. When you're dealing with people who are married from different countries you say the countries they are from.

For example, if my father was born in Canada and my mother was born in America I could say I am half-Canadian and half-American and no one would be like, "Does that mean you're white, hispanic, black, asian or etc??"

If you're "half X, half Y" but both of your parents were born in the US, yeah it sounds strange to say it like that, but that isn't the case here.

 

You're confusing nationality with citizenship. When you're dealing with people who are married from different countries you say the countries they are from.

For example, if my father was born in Canada and my mother was born in America I could say I am half-Canadian and half-American and no one would be like, "Does that mean you're white, hispanic, black, asian or etc??"

If you're "half X, half Y" but both of your parents were born in the US, yeah it sounds strange to say it like that, but that isn't the case here.

Way to shut down whatever the hell they were trying to insinuate... 4stocked em too lol

 

Way to shut down whatever the hell they were trying to insinuate... 4stocked em too lol

Not trying to shut anyone down, just trying to clear things up. It's a very common thing Americans do because ever since we are at a young age we are encouraged to embrace our nationalities so we rarely think about when two people from different countries get married and have kids.