same event had three n.sagats
yeah the same attitude towards o.sagat might be repeated in the states, and towards other top tier characters in other fighting games. my point is that it’s only in super turbo where those complaints actually translate and are reflected in how often the character(s) are used
The term “soft banned” comes from me. When I lived in Japan, I saw tournament player Yoshimi (ken player, 2nd place at SBO1) make a face when he saw me pick Claw in arcade casuals one day. I asked him what that was about, and he told me that Claw was frowned upon. I pressed him for details, because I’d seen MORE VEGA play Claw all the time at shinjuku MORE arcade. He told me that there was an unwritten rule to not pick Claw or O Sagat. I asked him if that meant they were banned, and he said no… you could enter with them, but they weren’t seen as interesting (The word he used was “omoshirokunai” for those of you that speak japanese)
Anyways later, I wrote a long post (I thought I wrote it on Shoryuken, but it might have been on agsf2) that was a brain dump of a lot of things known in Japan but not generally known on srk at the time. They included:
I introduced the term soft-ban as an analogy in english. Everything Yoshimi told me was in Japanese so this was a term I made up.
It’s annoying that I can’t seem to find this post anywhere 
Anyways, that’s where the term come from. It comes from an american player who was explaning the situation in Japan to other american players. I will also note that I personally saw this after Yoshimi told me about it. I went to many ST tournaments in Japan, and Claw and O Sagat were very rare. I picked up on the vibe … I picked Claw once at one of them, won the tournament, and then never picked him again in a tourney in Japan.
In fact the first tournament O Sagat I saw was at an SBO qualifier who rumor had it was going to be Daigo’s partner! I was very suprised to hear this, suprised enough to ask other players what was going on. I was told something along the lines of “Sagat is discouraged, but yes, he can pick him if it wants.”
I’m not sure there’s a cultural equivalent or direct translation in the US, because US players have a different mentality and culture. A soft ban wouln’t work here… we’re very much “Is it in or is it out?”. This group dynamic towards those characters is a very Japanese thing. “Soft ban” is the term I used to mean all of that in shorthand.
Hope that clears up the situation.
PS: On a random note, while looking for that post above, I found that the term “demon flip” comes from me. First usage I see of it on the net is this:
Tokyo A3 exhibition and ST [Report] - alt.games.sf2 | Google Groups
[02:11:26 p.m.] djfrijoles: hello
[02:11:28 p.m.] djfrijoles: neo
[02:11:31 p.m.] djfrijoles: I have a question
[02:11:44 p.m.] djfrijoles: Is super sagat banned in japan arcades ?
[02:11:54 p.m.] djfrijoles: or was he banned at one time ?
[02:12:15 p.m.] djfrijoles: Do people get offended or mad if the opponent picks super sagat ?
[05:02:26 p.m.] u: no
[05:02:40 p.m.] u: be not banned
[05:03:24 p.m.] djfrijoles: do players get mad if you pick him ?
[05:03:32 p.m.] u: no
[05:03:35 p.m.] djfrijoles: never ?
[05:03:41 p.m.] djfrijoles: not even long time ago
[05:03:57 p.m.] djfrijoles: is there a lot of super sagat players in japan ?
[05:04:22 p.m.] djfrijoles: was yaya a super sagat player before?
[05:04:28 p.m.] djfrijoles: we have a discussion on srk about this
[05:04:47 p.m.] djfrijoles: America thinks super sagat is banned or soft banned
[05:04:53 p.m.] u: he doesnt use super sagat
[05:05:03 p.m.] djfrijoles: never used super sagat
[05:05:09 p.m.] djfrijoles: ok
[05:07:15 p.m.] djfrijoles: what about claw ?
[05:07:20 p.m.] djfrijoles: never banned ?
[05:08:57 p.m.] u: many players use claw lol
[05:09:12 p.m.] u: never banned
[05:09:20 p.m.] djfrijoles: no cares about hui ball ???
[05:09:31 p.m.] djfrijoles: no one cares about hiu ball ?
[05:09:43 p.m.] djfrijoles: repeat repeat repeat ?
[05:10:04 p.m.] u: what is the hiu ball ?
[05:10:08 p.m.] djfrijoles: LOL
[05:10:12 p.m.] djfrijoles: claw dive
[05:10:15 p.m.] djfrijoles: oops
[05:10:17 p.m.] u: aa
[05:10:23 p.m.] djfrijoles: i thought it was called hiu ball
[05:10:40 p.m.] u: every claw user do
[05:10:47 p.m.] djfrijoles: lol ok thank you
[05:11:07 p.m.] u: t.hawk doesnt like claw
“It’s not interesting”, but that does seem like a very Japanese thing. Heard a few stories where Japanese employers won’t actually fire people, they’ll just put them in a dead end position with no hope for growth until the person quits the job themselves.
Yeah, zass, your topic was here: http://shoryuken.com/f2/war-stories-japan-130492/
I wasn’t actually aware you coined that term so that’s a nice bit of history. So in your opinion, would o.Sagat, claw, and perhaps boxer and others be considered soft-banned in the US as well now then? I mean, if I’m playing claw against damdai, he’ll also make a face and tell me that claw is seen as uninteresting (in stronger terms of course).
And what do you think about quite a few claw players in JP casuals and tourneys nowadays? Are the standards different or do different people/areas have different standards?
6:40 PM
yea
6:40 PM
or not fun works
6:40 PM
omoshiroi can be loosely translated as fun
6:40 PM
in some intstances
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instances
I haven’t spent an extended amount of time in Japan like Zass for example but I’ve been there on a few occasions and I remember when I was there for SBO, a lot of ST players were out practicing the week before and MORE VEGA would get on a machine and none of the Japanese players would play against him. He was only playing against American players or the CPU.
That was back in 2003, right? What I wonder is: was it just a More Balrog thing (who was apparently also shunned as a person) or was there something against playing any claw? For example, NKI spoke of Noguchi’s claw but never mentioned whether he was similarly ignored. Nobody minded playing Noguchi in casuals for SBO practice from what I saw last year.
But like I mentioned in my SBO topic, somebody picked Gouki while John Rambo was playing and everybody refused to play against him as he beat the AI.
^^^ lol, Ronry claw player.
if damdai gives you a look or not and you still pick claw nothing has changed though. i didn’t watch all the matches, but didn’t nashville quals have less than two dozen people, but multiple claw, o.sagat, and boxer? if they’re derided by some but people still play them frequently, then it’s not the same thing
yeah it’s definitely a cultural thing that doesn’t translate. and it’s bad etiquette to actually complain verbally about another person’s character choice over there. it’s more that if you win with those characters, no one’s really gonna give a shit
did you see/play many o.sagat’s kuroppi?
there’s a big gap in time from when those guys were there and when you were there G. just basing this from archived tournament footage, but while o.sagat use is still quite scarce, there seems to have been more of it from 2008/9 onwards than there was through the early & mid 2000’s.
@dj. duly noted. I was just asking the questions and pointing out the cultural differences. Shirts mentioned that he likes playing new players and loves the competition aspect of fighting games. He challenged Snakes Eyez but his match vs SE is way overdue.
lol @ ganelon regrets picking claw as his main.
It’s ok gan, I won’t frown upon you when you pick claw. I’ll just concede the match 
Seriously though, you’re one of those that spent the time to master claw, know the match dynamics and there is no sloppiness in your play. Same respect to all boxer, sagat and sim players that spent the time to master the characters, instead of just picking them because it’s a easy win.
Also thanks for the link to War Stories from Japan. Nice read.
lol fuck you for making me feel bad lol. Damn man. Damn. Im an idiot. I apologize.
edit:
fuck man I keep reading your post and I feel worse
no worries frijoles, papasi IS a huge idiot if it makes you feel better.
Yes, that was 2003 so it was a while ago and views could have certainly shifted by now.
I think I did ask Kuni about if it was a MORE Vega (Balrog) thing or Claw thing but honestly I don’t remember what he said. I’ll have to ask him again the next time I talk to him.
Personally, I’ve always disliked the character design of Claw because his extreme freedom of movement goes against the very calcuated and precision spacing that defined Street Fighter II. Having a character with such a different playstyle isn’t a bad thing in itself but I think he needed more penalties for having such an advantage in that area.
However, I will say this to the Claw/O Sagat haters, no matter your feelings towards them, they’re not unbeatable and one still has to dedicate the time and effort into mastering them if you want to beat the best, just like you would with any character in the game. So if they’re so easy to use, show us how it’s done.
Anyway, I’ve always gotten this vibe from others and I’ll make a sports analogy: Look at the MLB and how baseball fans in general have a little bit of a dislike or disrespect for teams like the Yankees or the Red Sox because of the competitive advantage those teams have due to how the revenue works in baseball. They don’t win the World Series every year so it’s not that those teams are unbeatable but I think fans would prefer to see a more even playing field, such as the NFL has.
In the world of Street Fighter, I think the Yankees and Red Sox are Claw and O Sagat.
When I was there, I didn’t see any O Sagats and if I remember correctly, maybe one other Claw player outside of MORE Vega.
Just as a side note, it reads turbo 2 (US/World turbo 1) above the KO symbol on that video. Also, in Thnderbeast Cup and a few other events, I have noticed players would often select speed values other than 3 (US/World turbo 2). A few (if not many) have chosen turbo 1, which would be the slowest speed on World/US board, slower than the ones available when “free select” is enabled.
^ what about it? 
Well, that it does not seem that there is a strong speed standard at all around there. SBO and a few tournaments have it fixed, but many others leave it to the players.
Edit: check this thread.
All the arcades, the danisen events, and most tourneys are set at fixed T3. There are a scattering of free select tourneys where you get the choice of side or speed (where Dhalsim players normally love JP T1) but that’s not the norm.
or they play RPS and the winner gets to pick either side or speed.
sorry that was my mistake, turbo 3 is the most common for events but not all. i’ve seen some japanese matches played on turbo 4 as well