Daigo Umehara

Daigo Umehara (梅原 大吾 Umehara Daigo, born 19 May 1981), is a renowned Japanese arcade fighting video game player. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as just "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the west and "Umehara" or "Ume" in Japan, Daigo is being hailed as the world's most famous Street Fighter player  or the greatest Street Fighter player, he currently holds a world record of "the most successful player in major tournaments of Street Fighter" in Guinness World Records.

Before properly being called a progamer from signing a sponsorship deal with MadCatz, Japanese media usually referred to Daigo as "God of 2D fighting games" (2D格闘ゲームの神 "2D Kakutou Game no Kami").

Early career
Daigo began going to an arcade game center and playing fighting games at around 10 years of age when he was an elementary school student, the same time when Street Fighter II and Garou Densetsu (Fatal Fury) hit the game center. Because the SF2 cabinet had a very long line and also had older kids playing, his first fighting game is actually Garou Densetsu. Because there was usually a long line in his free time and he could not stay too late, Daigo first started challenging other players in Street Fighter II Dash (Champion Edition) even though he felt shy and had to ask for permission to challenge first, but that was also when he started to like playing with other players.

Around the time when he was a 13-year-old middle school student, Daigo shifted his main game to Vampire Hunter because he thought he did better than SF2 and first developed some reputation by setting a 286-win streak record before he was forced to leave due to closing time at Akihabara Sega (now Club Sega ) game center. He first joined a tournament when he entered GAMEST Cup's national Vampire Hunter tournament in 1995, though he lost in the block's finals. His second tournament and also his first tournament winning is GAMEST Cup's national Vampire Savior tournament in 1997 where he defeated Ōnuki (now Nuki) in the finals.

In 1998, Daigo participated Capcom's official Street Fighter Zero 3 national tournament and advanced to the finals which took place on a stage in Tokyo Game Show 1998: Autumn on October 11. After winning the tournament by defeating Ōnuki 3-1, as the champion, Daigo went on to face Alex Valle, who was the winner of the U.S. national Street Fighter Alpha 3 tournament. The international "Grand Championship" was held in San José, California on November 8. This is Daigo's first trip to U.S. and first overseas tournament. The match was played as best out of three games, with each game as best out of five rounds. Daigo won 2-1. These two events received a 50-minute TV coverage in Japan.

In September 2001, Daigo gained enough fans to have a book about him published. The title is VERSUS, also known as "Umebon" (ウメ本) or "Ume Book." It contains both his background and stories behind his competitions and opponents.

In 2002, Daigo appeared in U.S. versus Japan theme exhibition matches in Japan. American players competed in four games (Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike and Marvel vs. Capcom 2) for the right to battle Japan's best players in those respective games. Daigo only entered the 3rd Strike exhibition, but defeated all of his opponents, ending each round with Ken's fierce Shoryuken. These events were filmed for the documentary Bang the Machine.

In 2003, Daigo won Super Street Fighter II Turbo tournament in the first Super Battle Opera (Tougeki) and won the same game in Evolution Championship Series when he joined the event for the first time in the same year, making him the first player to win both SBO and Evolution in same year on the same game. Daigo also went to Evolution 2004 and Absolution 2004 on April 18 in England and won SSF2 Turbo there.

Daigo has participated regularly in a number of tournaments, appearing at at least one each year since beginning in 1997, with a brief hiatus in 2008.

The Dramatic Comeback
Daigo started becoming famous internationally from the YouTube video clips  of his match in the Losers bracket final in Evolution Championship Series 2004's Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike competition where he made a dramatic comeback against Justin Wong's Chun-Li. In the final round of match 1, Daigo's Ken was down to his last pixel of vitality. At this point, any special attack would knock Daigo's character out if connected, since special attacks deal chip damage even when blocked. In an attempt to win the round, Wong attempted to hit Daigo's Ken with Chun-Li's multihit Super Art move "Hou Yoku Sen" (鳳翼扇). However, instead of avoiding it, Daigo chose to "Parry," a technique whereby an incoming attack is blocked without the player losing any health, but by doing so requires moving toward opponent's direction in the same time a hit lands, within four of thirty frames per second of the impact animation. After the move was launched, not only were all 15 hits Parried, but Daigo also managed to get into a good position to make a powerful attacking combo that knocked Chun-Li out instead. This moment was recorded and later spread on the Internet, gaining immense popularity.

An NHK's TV program, MAG-NET, has called this moment "Kiseki no Gyakuten Geki" (奇跡の逆転劇) or "The miraculous reversal play"

Street Fighter IV era
In July 2008, Daigo came out of retirement and aims for competition once again. This time, his focus was on the newly-released Street Fighter IV. Because of this, Japanese arcade gaming magazine Arcadia has included a DVD featuring "Umehara Concept Matches" in its January 2009 issue (released on November 29, 2008) and "The God has returned" was stated in Daigo's player introduction part. The DVD contains exhibition matches between him and Japan's 6 top players such as Inoue, Itabashi Zangief, Fuudo, and Nemo. He beat everyone but Mago.

Appearance on Gamer's Koshien
On March 5, Daigo made an appearance as the "God of fighting games world" in a TV show "Gamer's Koshien". He and the fellow Japan's 4 top players (Soushihan KSK, Itabashi Zangief, Mago, and Tokido) had to compete with each other and with celebrities in a Street Fighter IV round-robin tournament where the top players had to win the amateurs overwhelmingly in order to get a good point as a handicap.

GameStop International Exhibition
On April 18, at GameStop's Street Fighter IV National Tournament 2009, Francisco, California, there was exhibition matches between 4 players from 3 countries after the actual competition ended. It featured Iyo who had recently won the Japanese National SF4 tournament, Poongko who won the Korean SF4 National Tournament, Justin Wong who won the American National SF4 tournament, and Daigo Umehara who came by Capcom's invitation. Daigo defeated Iyo, Poongko and Justin Wong to win the tournament. He was awarded a free trip to Evolution 2009 in Las Vegas.

Daigo gained more fame after the footage of his matches in GameStop's competition were spread on the Internet. Arcadia, Japanese arcade gaming magazine, called Daigo "God of 2D Fighting Games World" on the cover of its July issue. Daigo began writing a column in Arcadia starting from the August issue, called Umehara Column: Michi. ("Umehara Column: Street")

Evolution 2009
For his win at the GameStop tournament, Daigo started his Street Fighter IV competition as a seeded player in the semi-finals on July 18, which is the second day of Evo 2009. He beat 4 opponents and had to start the next day by playing against Justin Wong. In the third and the last day, Daigo defeated Wong and put him into the Losers Bracket, then advanced to the grand finals just to meet Wong again. In the final showdown, Wong changed his character from Abel to Balrog (boxer, called M. Bison in Japan) to counter Daigo's signature Ryu. The two fought until the last game possible, but Daigo won the competition. It was this point of the tournament that had more than 23,000 users viewing the stream broadcasting.

Umehara's Concept Matches Vol.2
The September issue of Arcadia magazine included a DVD featuring the second of "Umehara's Concept Matches". This is the sequel to the DVD from late 2008. This time Daigo fought Japan's 5 top players: Mago, Iyo, Nuki, Nemo, and Shirou. He beat everyone but Shirou, the highest ranked Abel player in Japan at the moment.

GODSGARDEN #1
On August 7, Daigo participated in an all night tournament called "GODSGARDEN." Though he managed to win against Momochi (highest ranked Akuma player in Japan at the moment ), he lost to Uryo, the highest ranked C.Viper player. Daigo lost again in the Losers Bracket to Mago, the highest ranked Sagat player who later won the tournament by defeating Uryo.

Exhibition matches in Taiwan
Daigo participated in exhibition matches in a Street Fighter IV competition in Taiwan on October 10. He beat the top 3 players in the tournament, losing just one round. The matches were broadcasted live on Famitsu's web channel.

Seasons Beatings IV
Daigo went to America again to join a tournament called Seasons Beatings on October 16–18 in Columbus, Ohio. He participated in the Street Fighter IV 3 on 3 on the second day with two American teammates. His team, Daigo Company, finished third overall. On the same day, there was an exhibition match between him and Justin Wong which he won by ten games to two. Daigo started the third day by winning Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix competition, despite it was his second try of the game since Evo 2009. For Street Fighter IV Singles, Daigo lost in Winners Bracket's final to Justin Wong, who this time chose to play Fei Long. He later bounced back from Losers Bracket to win the competition.

Exhibition match on Nico Nico Live
On November 26, Daigo and 5 other top Japanese Street Fighter IV players joined a Nico Nico internet live show to talk about the second GODSGARDEN tournament. The show also held an exhibition match between himself and Mago, where he beat the highest ranked Sagat player 2-0.

World Game Cup: Cannes 2010
Instead of participating GODSGARDEN #2 (March 6), Daigo flew to France to enter Street Fighter IV tournaments in World Game Cup gaming event that took place between March 3–7. For the main tournaments, he finished the second place in singles and first in 2 on 2. For the special event, Daigo lost in the quarter-finals.

Japan's SF4 National Tournament 2010
Daigo and two teammates participated official Street Fighter IV National Tournament on April 4. His team lost in the quarter-finals. The tournament was broadcasted live on Nico Nico Live channel, which gathered more than 48,000 attendees and 200,000 comments total.

Super Street Fighter IV launch party
Daigo went to America to join Capcom's Super Street Fighter IV "Fight Club" launch party in Los Angeles on April 23. The party held exhibition matches in which he played various characters including Hakan, Guy and Dee Jay against a dozen of challengers. The event ended with a 3-out-of-5 match, which had over 6,000 users viewing simultaneously on the live stream, between him (using Guile) and Justin Wong (using Rufus). Their draw result from double K.O. at the end left Daigo undefeated in that night.

It is also revealed in the event that Daigo accepted a sponsorship deal from Mad Catz and will play under their name in the future tournaments.

Exhibition on e-CAPCOM Special DVD
The limited edition of Super Street Fighter IV game from e-CAPCOM store comes with a special DVD featuring two tournaments between Japan's 8 top players: Daigo, Tokido, Iyo, Shirou, Kin Devu, Momochi, Tokidoki Nukings, and Itabashi Zangief. The first one is a "new character only" tournament where Daigo played as Adon. The second one is for old characters.

Exhibition on Technical Guide DVD
The Super Street Fighter IV Technical Guide published by Enterbrain which was released on April 28 includes a DVD featuring exhibition matches of the new characters played by Japan's 7 top players: Daigo, Tokido, Kin Devu, Iyo, Momochi, Itabashi Zangief, and Shirou.

Appearance on NHK MAG-NET
On May 9, Daigo made his appearance as the "Super Player" on an NHK's Sunday night program "MAG-NET" which had a scoop on Street Fighter. The show told the story about his fame (including his 2004 dramatic comeback), his life, his competitions and his opponents. There was also Daigo's tutorial session where he demonstrated his arcade stick gripping method called "Umehara Mochi" (ウメハラ持ち) or "Umehara Grip" and his signature Ryu's combo technique—Shouryuuken > Focus Attack Dash Cancel > Metsu Hadouken. 

Matches on Nico Nico Live
On May 15, Nico Nico Live held a Super Street Fighter IV online competition where participating online players on Xbox Live got a chance to fight Japan's 3 top players: Daigo, Mago, and Tokido. They also have offline matches and a short talk corner. The 200 minutes live show received more than 44,000 attendees and 200,000 comments total.

Evolution Asia-Pacific
Daigo went to Australia for the first time when he participated Evolution APAC's Super Street Fighter IV tournament in Sydney on May 29–30. He won the tournament losing just one game and, as the grand prize, earned a paid flight to Evolution 2010 in Las Vegas where he will start off as a seeded player.

Xbox Live Park participation
On June 4, Daigo joined the 106th Xbox Live Park online event held by Microsoft Japan with Famitsu's editorial department. Participating Xbox Live Gold members got a chance to have a Super Street Fighter IV online match and chat with Daigo in the 2-hour period.

Evolution 2010
After the invitation to play in Electronic Sports World Cup (July 3–4) was cancelled and after getting the 2nd place in Nagoya Street Battle 15 (July 4), Daigo joined Evolution 2010 between July 9–11 and faced a tougher challenge than before with over 1,700 players from around the world participating in the Super Street Fighter IV tournament. However, without going down to Losers bracket, Daigo won the tournament in front of ten thousands of audiences both in the hall and in front of computer screens. The live stream of the event set a new record with approximate 48,000 viewers at peak 2 channels combined (Stickam 18,000 and Ustream 30,000) during the SSF4 grand finals before it went down due to technical problems. Beside the prize money, the medal, and the SSF4 trophy, Daigo also received Evo exclusive golden arcade stick with serial number 1.

SBO 2010 Final
After winning the qualifier on May 22, Daigo's team participated in the Super Battle Opera 2010's Street Fighter IV finals on September 19 and won the second place. The event took place as a part of Tokyo Game Show 2010 at Makuhari Messe International Convention Complex. A pay-per-view live stream was distributed by Nico Nico.

Tournament placings
Most of data from 2007 and older is provided by beastdaigo.jp. Complete list and more data on smaller-scaled tournaments can be found on the Japanese fan site. All data is verified by sources as of May, 31, 2010. Reports from official sites are included if available. Only first, second, and third place are displayed here.