Tokido

• 1. Introduction

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  Tokido has reached the top eight at the Evolution Championship Series 28 times, a total surpassed only by Justin Wong. He won the tournament's grand prize three separate times, in 2002, 2007, and 2017, a spread of 15 years. Along the way he has collected Evo medals in 12 different fighting games. He competed at a high level in King of Fighters, Street Fighter, Tekken, Marvel vs Capcom 3, and BlazBlue. Few players sustain that kind of range across two decades of competition. What changed in his approach to stay on top that long, and what has that competitive life looked like off the screen?

• 2. Neo Geo Beginnings

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  In the 1990s, Tokido was introduced to fighting games through The King of Fighters '94, playing it on the Neo Geo MVS arcade hardware. That machine, built for coin-operated arcades, gave him his first taste of competitive one-on-one combat. His entry into the Street Fighter series came separately, through Street Fighter 2 on the Super Famicom console. That contact with two different systems, one arcade-born and one home console, put him on parallel tracks that would define his career. Both franchises would eventually carry him to Evo gold, though that was still years away.

• 3. The Akuma Vortex

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  Tokido came to Street Fighter IV later than most of the other top-level players in the scene. When he finally committed to the game, his teammate Daigo Umehara suggested he pick Akuma instead of Ryu. Umehara argued that a character like Ryu would be too difficult for him to master. Playing as Akuma, Tokido went on to invent a sequence of moves that became known as the Tokido Vortex. That setup nearly guarantees the opponent takes damage once it starts.

  At CEO 2011, that character choice paid off. He took first place in both Super Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs Capcom 3, and finished third in Tekken 6 at the same event. By 2014, sponsored by Madcatz, he had become a highly successful King of Fighters XIII player as well. The Akuma he had been talked into playing was about to become the character most associated with his name.

• 4. Rebuilding a Playstyle

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  A few months before Street Fighter V arrived in February 2016, Tokido decided he needed to change his approach to the game. He tried adopting what he called a "more fundamental, grounded style," but it did not work out at the 2015 Tokyo Game Show tournament. A month later, that same adjusted approach carried him to a win at the 2015 Canada Cup.

  The shift mattered because Street Fighter V dropped Akuma from its roster at launch, forcing him to rebuild his game around Ryu instead. Through the 2016 Capcom Pro Tour, Tokido reached second place multiple times. He lost only to Infiltration, at Final Round 19 and again at NorCal Regionals 2016. He got his revenge at the 2016 Community Effort Orlando, defeating Infiltration there to qualify for the Capcom Cup. That win over the same rival who had blocked him twice reshaped the rest of his season.

• 5. Between Two Sponsors

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  Mad Catz released Tokido from its roster in 2016, a casualty of the company's financial trouble tied to poor sales of Rock Band 4. That left him without a team heading into one of the biggest years of his career.

  On the 4th of January 2017, Echo Fox confirmed it had picked him up. Weeks later, Akuma returned to Street Fighter V's character roster, restoring the fighter Tokido had built his reputation around. With Akuma back in his hands, Tokido went on to win Street Fighter V's tournament at that year's Evo. A signature character, lost at the start of a console generation, had found its way back just in time for his biggest stage.

• 6. Fighting Game Gods

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  A 2016 Yahoo Esports article called Tokido a "fighting game legend," a veteran of battles spanning over a decade. That reputation earned him a place among Japan's five "fighting game gods." He shares that title with Daigo Umehara, Shinya Onuki, Tatsuya Haitani, and Naoto Sako.

  On stage, Tokido cultivated a more eccentric persona than that description suggests. Footage surfaced of him imitating some of Akuma's taunts and trash-talking his opponent Bonchan shortly before a 2015 tournament. That clip became one of the most discussed moments in the fighting game community. In 2015, Tokido said he intended to leave that kind of behavior behind him. As a professional gamer, he said he wanted "to show that entertainment in game, not out of it." As of the 16th of December 2018, Tokido held the top spot in that year's Capcom Pro Tour ranking. It was the highest season ranking of his career to that point.