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Kel's Japanese information thread- updated with JAPANESE TIER LIST

Kel

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
4,605
Location
Cincinnati, Ohio
I'm sorry if this is the wrong place for this, Mods. We were discussing this stuff in the MK boards and I figured that the questions were important enough to give everyone. The 'International' region board never gets visited so I figured this would be the best place to put this. If it isn't, feel free to move the thread.

Anyway, my name is Kel. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. I often take top spots in Midwest tournaments. I main Metaknight. I'm an exchange student living in Nagoya Japan right now. I've finally discovered the Japanese community and I've been playing with the locals in the area a lot on the weekends. They're really nice and super informative.

This thread derives from this one http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=231305 located in the metaknight boards. I answered a lot of questions there that I figured others would be interested in. If anyone has any questions about the Japanese smash scene, I would be glad to answer those questions- and if I don't know they answer, ask my Japanese crew mates.

Tactically, they play just like the US. They play defensive when they need to and offensive when they need to. I've asked and they don't use the ledge grabbing limit rule (from what I've seen and heard around here) that everyone's heard of coming from Japan. They ban the MK infinite cape glitch, just like us. They grab the edge and ledge camp like we do to a certain extent.

They are against banning metaknight.

Tournament stages
They use random to select the first stage. The stages on random are: battlefield, Final destination, and Smashville. You can also counter pick Yoshi's Island, Halberd, and Lylat cruise. Those are the only stages allowed. This obviously makes certain characters better, like Diddy, Dedede, and Olimar

They don't play for money, but they're still just as serious, if not more, as we are in the states. They work on combos and grab releases a lot over here.

A lot of questions were asked and answered in the thread I linked above, so please take a look at it. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try my best to answer them, or find someone who can.

Videos:
I take a lot of videos while in Japan. I have a special youtube dedicated to my time in Japan. My original youtube (complete with MW tournament videos and such) is youtube.com/papayasown . The youtube that I upload all of the Japanese videos to (including smash videos) is youtube.com/kelinjapan

videos I've taken so far include:
Gonta- One of the best Olimars in Japan
Calamity- The best yoshi in Japan
Takeshi- toon link player
Zwei- a Nagoya metaknight player
and, of course, me playing some of these people

I have 20 videos up so far from last Saturday and I'll be adding tons more pretty much every week. Keep in mind that they are just friendlies, but at the same time, they don't play for money so videos are almost as good as tournaments. I'll be taking videos of a lot more players whenever possible. I can try to fulfill requests, but remember that I live in Nagoya, not Tokyo or Kyoto (where a lot of the known players live).

I've asked my crew about the best in Japan. This is the ranking list they gave me:

1) Rain- Falco player from Tokyo
2) Masashi- Pit player from Kansai region (Kyoto and Oosaka)
3) Souther- Snake player from Kansai
After that they dropped some names but weren't really sure of the ranking. I asked about Bombsoldier and they said he's kind of fallen out.

There's going to be a big tournament in my area in Summer. Hopefully it will be before I return home so I can enter. There's a huge tournament in Tokyo in a couple weeks, but I can't go. It's invitation only and I came into their scene too late to get invited. I'll try to get my crew to take a bunch of videos for me and I'll upload them for you guys though.

So, um, I guess that's about it for right now. I'm sure there are typos above that I'll fix later. Sorry if my sentences are screwey, my English has suffered since I've been in Japan haha. please ask any questions you might have though!


Japanese tier list
This is the current tier list for Japan that my friend gave me:
Raw Form:
■SS
メタナイト、スネーク
■S
ファルコ、ピット

■A
DD デデデ マルス フォックス Mr.G&W

■A
ワリオ ピクミン&オリマー ウルフ ロボット ルカリオ

■B
ゼルダ&シーク トゥーン ゼロスーツサムス アイスクライマー ピカチュウ ドンキー

■C
ピーチ カービィ マリオ ルイージ アイク

■D
リュカ クッパ

■E
リンク ポケモントレーナー ソニック プリン

■F
ネス ヨッシー サムス ファルコン

■G
ガノンドロフ

In English:

SS:
Metaknight, Snake

S:
Falco, Pit

A:
Diddy, King Dedede, Marth, Fox, Mr. Game and Watch
Wario, Captain Olimar, Wolf, R.O.B, Lucario
B:
Zelda + Sheik, Toon Link, Zero Suit Samus, Ice Climbers, Pikachu, Donkey Kong

C:
Peach, Kirby, Mario, Luigi, Ike

D:
Lucas, Bowser

E:
Link, Pokemon Trainer, Sonic, Jigglpuff

F:
Ness, Yoshi, Samus, Captain Falcon

G:
Ganondorf

My friend went on to tell me that they don't REALLY think Ganon is in a low tier by himself, but they put him in G tier because it stands for "ganondor tier"


As for the best players of each character, my friend gave me a lilst:
メタナイト(まさし、あきら、ボムソルジャー)
スネーク(9B、サウザー)
ファルコ(RAIN)
ピット(まさし)
シーク(*あーす)
ワリオ(カイト)

デデデ(スマッシャー)
ロボット(*リュウジ)
ピーチ(IKKI、White)
ゼロスーツサムス(IKKI)
リンク(*スマッシャー)
リュカ(*たいへいた)
ガノンドロフ(イイ)

Metaknight: Masashi, Akira and Bombsoldier
Snake: 9B, Souther (Sauzaa)
Falco: Rain
Pit: Masashi
Sheik: Earth * (aasu)
Wario: kite (kaito)
Dedede: Smasher (sumasshiyaa)
R.O.B: Luuji *
Peach: Ikki, White
Zamus: Ikki
Link: Smasher* (sumasshiyaa)
Lucas: Taiheita*
Ganondorf: II

The ones with the stars by their names are local Nagoya-area players, which means I'll probably have a bunch of videos of them eventually.
 

Garquille14

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jun 26, 2008
Messages
173
Location
Massachusetts
This is interesting. I've always been curious on whether or not they have an equivalent of smashboards. Do you know?
 

:034:

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 9, 2007
Messages
7,562
Location
Netherlands
Ah, I have a question! *holds up his hand*

Would you be interested in showing the Japanese Brawl+, or at least telling them about it? They might find it interesting.
 

castorpollux

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
2,502
I love this ruleset. It def. does make it easier to fight against MK.

Also, can you re-confirm the their tier list. The last japanese tier list was shown a months ago. I'm curious to see how it has changed.
 

Vyse

Faith, Hope, Love, Luck
BRoomer
Joined
Jul 6, 2005
Messages
9,561
Location
Brisbane, Australia
This thread is good and Kel's English is better than most people on the internet :)

What I'd really like to see is a summary of Japan's tournament history (Like the big ones) from the last few months. That Tokyo tournament sounds heated too, so it'll be interesting to see.
 

Vyse

Faith, Hope, Love, Luck
BRoomer
Joined
Jul 6, 2005
Messages
9,561
Location
Brisbane, Australia
This thread is good and Kel's English is better than most people on the internet :)

What I'd really like to see is a summary of Japan's tournament history (Like the big ones) from the last few months. That Tokyo tournament sounds heated too, so it'll be interesting to see.
 

HiddenBowser

Smash Master
Joined
Jul 27, 2007
Messages
3,511
Kel, thanks for doing this. I didn't see any links to this in the MW boards, and I'm sure a lot of them would be interested in hearing about this, so I'm gonna stick one in the MW circuit east thread. Good luck and show Japan how the US ***** at smash!
 
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
19,346
I've asked my crew about the best in Japan. This is the ranking list they gave me:

1) Rain- Falco player from Tokyo
2) Masashi- Pit player from Kansai region (Kyoto and Oosaka)
3) Souther- Snake player from Kansai
After that they dropped some names but weren't really sure of the ranking. I asked about Bombsoldier and they said he's kind of fallen out.
I'm both glad and a bit surprised to hear that Rain is the best player. I main falco and it's nice to see some representation of Falco for a change, but I've seen a few vids of Rain playing and I wouldn't have thought that Rain was best in Japan. Perhaps things change. Is there a site that the smash community there goes too?
 

Kel

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
4,605
Location
Cincinnati, Ohio
Would you be interested in showing the Japanese Brawl+, or at least telling them about it? They might find it interesting.
Well, the thing about Brawl+ is that it's made from the idea that Brawl is flawed. The Japanese players curse out Sakurai's name or look at their opponent in a matter-of-fact voice and say "party game!" when someone trips just like we do, but they still like the game. I haven't heard any complaints about Brawl other than tripping, this includes tactics like Chain grabbing and me using metaknight's tornado over and over again. They were calling something the "japanese combo!", so I just started hitting B with metaknight and tornadoing all over the place and calling it "USA combo!" they all laughed. They know how to deal with stuff, so they take the game as it is.
I brought twilight princess with me in case I decided to instal homebrew while I was here, but I don't have it yet, and I'm reluctant to do so because I don't want a bricked wii. I've never played Brawl+, so I won't knock it, but I really don't think the Japanese would be in to it considering they don't consider Brawl to be a bad game anyway.
They play Smash64 on virtual console for a Brawl break from time to time. They usually do free for all, items, all stages. They were also playing Melee for a bit last time, but not long.
I can tell them about Brawl+ for you and see their reaction and thoughts on it.

I love this ruleset. It def. does make it easier to fight against MK.

Also, can you re-confirm the their tier list. The last japanese tier list was shown a months ago. I'm curious to see how it has changed.
They, of course, have metaknight at the top right next to Snake. I've asked them a couple times about a tier list, but it was always in person. I'll try to get a written out tier list so that I won't miss anything. They have Ganondorf and Ness at the bottom of their tier list though.

And yeah, the rule set isn't that bad. I reminded them that in America we get to ban a stage and they were like "ohhhh yeah! I remember hearing that!" kind of like how there's always been rumors about the Japanese community floating around America.
Metaknight definitely takes a hit from this rule set considering he has a 2/3 shot of playing a diddy on fd or SV for the opening stage. Olimar, Diddy and Dedede definitely get better with this tier list.

This thread is good and Kel's English is better than most people on the internet :)

What I'd really like to see is a summary of Japan's tournament history (Like the big ones) from the last few months. That Tokyo tournament sounds heated too, so it'll be interesting to see.
Well, my English isn't bad because I'm from America haha. My Japanese isn't too good speaking, but I can understand most of what they say over here. I was just commenting that my English has gotten a little jumbled since I've been here for a while. So, sorry if I forget to put a word in, or have bad spelling or something. I can clarify whenever needed.

I don't know about a history of all tournaments. They don't have them too often. I can ask my friend about this though when I ask him about the tier list.

Kel, thanks for doing this. I didn't see any links to this in the MW boards, and I'm sure a lot of them would be interested in hearing about this, so I'm gonna stick one in the MW circuit east thread. Good luck and show Japan how the US ***** at smash!
Good ****, Bowyer haha. Yeah, I didn't hype it there yet because I just started this thread today and wouldn't really know where to tell the MW.
As for ****** them: haha, they're pretty good. The best Metaknight in Nagoya knows his stuff really well in Metaknight dittos. I go even with him now, but I've only played 2 days for a total of 12 hours since Lucario is Paw-some, so I'm a little out of practice. I've seen them talk about me in the boards and stuff and they all say I'm really good.

I asked them who they know from America: They of course said M2K, Ally, Chu Dat, the usual haha. They know of Anther etc.

Oh, sorry I missed a multiquote about the "smashboards of Japan" question.

They have a community site, but it's more like a Japanese Facebook with a smash theme. It took me months and months to finally track down real people to play. They mostly use the site to organize online tournaments because most people in Japan work waaaaay too much and don't have time to play except after work. It's a lot easier for those people to play on Wi-fi, so this site is mainly used to find people to play online/ make friends.

This is the site
http://smacom.so-netsns.jp/?m=portal&a=page_user_top

If you don't know any Japanese, it's going to be nearly impossible to navigate the site. Japanese people KIND OF know English, but not really. They know English like the average American knows Spanish (not counting Texas or the corner states); they take it in High school, learn the grammar and then pretty much forget it except for a couple words. This is where 'Engrish' words and phrases derive from- they pretty much take a couple words they think look cool and put em on the back of a shirt. It's awesome. But, uh, yeah....my point is that it'll be hard to navigate the site, much less communicate if you don't know any Japanese. Also, it took me months to track down a real person to play in Nagoya.
 

ithrowthings

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ithrowthings
So how does Sonic stack up over there? Any good sonic mains? Do they think he's a terrible character? I think I've heard of a Sonic named RATS from japan, not sure though.
 

HiddenBowser

Smash Master
Joined
Jul 27, 2007
Messages
3,511
Good ****, Bowyer haha. Yeah, I didn't hype it there yet because I just started this thread today and wouldn't really know where to tell the MW.
As for ****** them: haha, they're pretty good. The best Metaknight in Nagoya knows his stuff really well in Metaknight dittos. I go even with him now, but I've only played 2 days for a total of 12 hours since Lucario is Paw-some, so I'm a little out of practice. I've seen them talk about me in the boards and stuff and they all say I'm really good.

I asked them who they know from America: They of course said M2K, Ally, Chu Dat, the usual haha. They know of Anther etc.
Good **** going even with Nagoya's best MK without practice! By the time you head back to the states I wanna see you at the top of the Japanese power rankings! Hopefully they'll allow an American on their PR'ings ;)

And that's ****ing awesome that they know about Anther.

MW represent!
 

ShortFuse

Smash Lord
Joined
May 23, 2007
Messages
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Location
NJ/NYC
I maintained the old Japanese Everything thread (the most popular thread when Brawl was coming out) and I found a bunch of sites. I mostly hit 2ch.net and sometimes sumabura-x.com
Sumabura is short for smash bros so that might be why you're not finding a lot of sites. There were a bunch of others but I erased them from the main post. Sorry

If you look through the thread you might find other sites:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=134394
 

BentoBox

Smash Master
Joined
Aug 11, 2005
Messages
3,214
Location
Montreal
When you say that they don't play for money, that means that their tournaments generally have no entry fees?

And how frequent is it for the players in Japan to travel across country to face some competition? Japan is about the size of California right?

Also, where did you learn japanese? :p
 

SamuraiPanda

Smash Hero
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
6,924
Amazing thread, Kel. Thanks for doin' this.

I better be hearing that you're the best player in Japan by the time you get back to the states :D
 

ihavespaceblondes

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 29, 2005
Messages
4,229
Location
Memphis, TN
I wondered what had happened to you Kel, I hadn't seen you in any results threads for like a year. Glad you're having a good time in Japan.
 

:034:

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 9, 2007
Messages
7,562
Location
Netherlands
Well, the thing about Brawl+ is that it's made from the idea that Brawl is flawed. The Japanese players curse out Sakurai's name or look at their opponent in a matter-of-fact voice and say "party game!" when someone trips just like we do, but they still like the game. I haven't heard any complaints about Brawl other than tripping, this includes tactics like Chain grabbing and me using metaknight's tornado over and over again. They were calling something the "japanese combo!", so I just started hitting B with metaknight and tornadoing all over the place and calling it "USA combo!" they all laughed. They know how to deal with stuff, so they take the game as it is.
I brought twilight princess with me in case I decided to instal homebrew while I was here, but I don't have it yet, and I'm reluctant to do so because I don't want a bricked wii. I've never played Brawl+, so I won't knock it, but I really don't think the Japanese would be in to it considering they don't consider Brawl to be a bad game anyway.
They play Smash64 on virtual console for a Brawl break from time to time. They usually do free for all, items, all stages. They were also playing Melee for a bit last time, but not long.
I can tell them about Brawl+ for you and see their reaction and thoughts on it.
True, but I also enjoy playing Brawl, admitting that it is flawed (as is any game). Brawl+ is a lot of fun and might interest them. I can also tell you there's no risk of bricking your wii when using Homebrew (and if you don't like B+, you can still use codes like no tripping, infinite replays and texture hacks). But I appreciate the effort, nonetheless.
 

IxxI

Smash Fence
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
Messages
2,147
Location
Berkeley, CA
Do the Japanese do anything different than we do here? What have the Japanese discovered that we haven't? What have you shared with the Japanese?

Sorry for acting like a knowledge whor*, I'm just really curious. >_>
 

M@v

Subarashii!
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Oct 13, 2007
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Pittsburgh, PA
good stuff Kel. Can you ask around fox there? Hes a lot more popular(and successful) over there.
 

Noa.

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 2, 2008
Messages
3,758
Location
Orlando, Florida
Why do they have so few stages on their stage list? And from what your'e saying, America seems better at brawl than Japan?

Also, how does G&W do over there?
 

MajorMoses

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 23, 2008
Messages
405
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Pittsburgh, PA
I see that Masashi's the second best in Japan. Did you hear anything about Aniki? He was one of the best Link players back in Melee and he's Masashi's brother. I'm wondering if he still plays Link and if he's still good. (Of course, he did switch to Samus later on in Melee).
 

Silent Beast

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 6, 2008
Messages
427
Location
NJ
I maintained the old Japanese Everything thread (the most popular thread when Brawl was coming out) and I found a bunch of sites. I mostly hit 2ch.net and sometimes sumabura-x.com
Sumabura is short for smash bros so that might be why you're not finding a lot of sites. There were a bunch of others but I erased them from the main post. Sorry

If you look through the thread you might find other sites:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=134394
Cool, I'll look through the thread. I was, in fact, searching for "sumabura" (in Japanese, no less), but I had issues sorting through the clutter, since I was looking for something organized like Smashboards, rather than fansites that listed each character's moves.

I asked them who they know from America: They of course said M2K, Ally, Chu Dat, the usual haha. They know of Anther etc.
One of the times I was looking for a Japanese tier list, I came across this:
http://jbbs.livedoor.jp/bbs/read.cgi/game/43902/1208065440/

Post 328 has a tier list that supposedly reflected the sentiments of 2chan (I'm assuming that's what "2ch" is), and has Pikachu as the last character in B tier (for those of you that are wondering what the list is, I wouldn't look at it as a legit Japanese tier list, as it lists Snake, Falco, and MK, in that order, as the top 3, which clearly conflicts with what Kel has told us, even if it was posted in January). The next poster mentions that he's surprised that Pikachu is that high, and that he thinks Pikachu is more like D/E tier. Some people respond with things like his chaingrabs and thunder, while post 333 simply replies, "anther."

Oh, sorry I missed a multiquote about the "smashboards of Japan" question.

They have a community site, but it's more like a Japanese Facebook with a smash theme. It took me months and months to finally track down real people to play. They mostly use the site to organize online tournaments because most people in Japan work waaaaay too much and don't have time to play except after work. It's a lot easier for those people to play on Wi-fi, so this site is mainly used to find people to play online/ make friends.

This is the site
http://smacom.so-netsns.jp/?m=portal&a=page_user_top

If you don't know any Japanese, it's going to be nearly impossible to navigate the site. Japanese people KIND OF know English, but not really. They know English like the average American knows Spanish (not counting Texas or the corner states); they take it in High school, learn the grammar and then pretty much forget it except for a couple words. This is where 'Engrish' words and phrases derive from- they pretty much take a couple words they think look cool and put em on the back of a shirt. It's awesome. But, uh, yeah....my point is that it'll be hard to navigate the site, much less communicate if you don't know any Japanese. Also, it took me months to track down a real person to play in Nagoya.
Thanks. I'd seen that site before, but didn't spend too much time there since you have to sign in to see anything. I'll look into it. I wouldn't quite say I'm fluent in Japanese, but I have used it at home my entire life, so I should be more or less OK.

I've seen them talk about me in the boards and stuff and they all say I'm really good.
Is this the smacom site?
 

WolfCypher

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ANyone know what the current Japanese tierlist is?
 
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