How Kakeru Finally Qualified For His First Capcom Cup

Kakeru is a fighting game player from Japan with the team IBUSHIGIN. He first rose to prominence in 2022 when an infamous match against Caba at Evo that year caused a stir as a last-gasp walk-up dragon punch from his Ryu ended the match in his favor. He was playing under the name Uzura. 

He finished in 33rd place that year. 

But, he really came into his own with the release of Street Fighter 6 where he picked JP and went straight to work. He first stunned everyone with a win in the Japan qualifier for Red Bull Kumite 2023 which held in South Africa. 

Then he traveled to South Africa for the Last Chance Qualifier and got his ticket into the tournament defeating crowd favourite EndingWalker in the process. 

He eventually made it all the way to the semi finals of RBK falling to Big Bird. He added to his lore by totally dominating at Evo 2023 before losing to Tokido and AngryBird in tense matches that were very close. 

He went to Gamers8 soon after and that was where he infamously perfect parried AngryBird to oblivion. His performance was so good, they practically nerfed the move, but he was the winner of the competition which would eventually become the Esports World Cup. 

2023/2024 was great for Kakeru, but he somehow failed to qualify for Capcom Cup. The format for Capcom Cup X was for players to either qualify through the World Warrior program, the online premier, the last chance qualifier. There were also a qualifier in Singapore which Gachikun won and qualified for Capcom Cup. 

Unfortunately, Kakeru couldn’t make it despite being one of the most consistent players from Japan.

Then Capcom Pro Tour 2024 came around with some new rules. First, the online premier was canceled and in its place, stronger regions were designated as super regions, this meant that players could qualify either by winning the World Warrior event (finishing top of the table with the highest points) or from the regional finals. On top of that, there were more offline premiers that counted as a spot for Capcom Cup. 

The rule for qualification via the league table was that the top three highest finishes of each player was what was going to be considered. So, if a player won 3 tournaments and garnered 150, he would qualify over someone who placed 2nd all five times, even though that would have earned the player 200 points. This was to ensure that a tournament winner wasn’t overlooked for someone who simply got points. 

Kakeru was up against his home region which is stacked to the rafters with amazing talent, and on top of that, JP received nerfs at the start of SF6’s second season which led to Kakeru trying out both Akuma and Bison. He used these characters to a decent level, even winning Japan World Warrior #1 with them, but it just didn’t feel the same. 

He would qualify for the Esports World Cup and also tried to qualify through the super premiers in Singapore and Japan, but went out fairly early in both tournaments. He also didn’t place highly in the second World Warrior tournament. In the third tournament though, he went on a tear again, reaching grand final only to lose to former Evo winner, and the most unpredictable player in the world, Kawano. But with a 1st and 2nd place finish, there were signs and hopes that if he got another good placement, then he would have a shot. 

Then in December, Kakeru tweeted about going back to JP and he started to practise with the character again and this was the character he went with for the fifth and final World Warrior tournament. He had 90 points at this time and was tied with Higuchi who was also on the hunt for a qualifying spot. Kakeru fought his way to top 8 defeating many strong opponents on the way including former Capcom Cup champion, Gachikun. 

At top 8, he was still faced with the problem of Higuchi and Momochi both of whom could qualify if he didn’t do well. Higuchi was in losers side, but Momochi was in fine form, but with much less points. Kakeru took a huge step towards his goal by defeating Go1 and booking a place in winners finals, this meant he would not finish less than 3rd and would need Higuchi to drop out somewhere in losers. 

Kakeru lost to Momochi in winners finals and dropped to the loser's bracket waiting for whoever was going to make it through the grueling fights in loser's. His hopes would have been not to face Higuchi and possibly lose. Higuchi was already doing well with wins over Tomorokku and Narikun. He just needed to win against Go1 to make loser's final and challenge Kakeru. 

In a tense match, Go1 was able to get the better of Higuchi, meaning that the Guile main fell at 4th place and sealed Kakeru’s Capcom Cup qualification. If Kakeru had even lost to Go1 in loser's final, he would still have been 5 points ahead of Higuchi, so his fate was decided already. 

He did defeat Go1 again, and went into Grand Final hoping to overturn the deficit against Momochi and get a gratifying win. But he was unable to, losing again to Momochi to finish second, but with the relief of knowing he was finally going to Capcom Cup. 

It’ll be his first ever and fans are excited to see what he will be able to do especially on home turf.