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2003 viral video from Japan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Umehara ga kimeta or Crazy Live Commentary (Japanese: 電波実況, romanized: Denpa Jikkyou) was a live commentary that was made in response to a match by leading video game player Daigo Umehara at a national fighting game video tournament in Japan in 2003.
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Umehara ga kimeta at the Tougeki – Super Battle Opera (SBO 03) | |
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Venue | Makuhari Messe |
Location | Chiba, Japan |
Date | 23-march-2003 |
Competitors | 5,823 |
Teams | 1,941 |
In 2007, a 17-second video clip of 'Crazy Live Commentary' was posted on a video-sharing website. The cry of the commentator became a popular video with millions of views. In addition, 'Crazy Live Commentary' videos became a standard material for Mashup movies (videos remixed by individuals), and hundreds of Mashup movies using Crazy Live Commentary as material were posted and shared.
'Crazy Live Commentary' became notable as a live commentary of a video fighting Game, and is regarded as a great live commentary in Japan. The phrase "Crazy Live Commentary," "Umehara ga kimeta," has become known as an internet meme even outside of Japan.
The "Crazy Live Commentary" was a play-by-play commentary by "Gama no abura" on a match between Daigo Umehara, the top player of the popular fighting game Guilty Gear X2 at the time, and the prestigious fighting game tournament in Japan, Tougeki – Super Battle Opera (SBO), which took place in 2003. The phrase "Umehara ga kimeta" is the most passionate exclamation in the "Crazy Live Commentary."
The stage for the Crazy Live Commentary was the fighting game tournament SBO. SBO was the largest fighting game tournament in Japan, held from 2003 to 2012. It was planed by the arcade game magazine, Monthly Arcadia, and organised by Enterbrain, the publisher of Arcadia. Unlike tournaments organized by game manufacturers to promote their games, SBO was sponsored by game manufacturers and featured a large number of competitive fighting games each time, without bias toward games from any particular manufacturer.[1] SBO, in which leading professional gamers from abroad also participated, was the first internationally recognized e-sports tournament in Japan.[1] SBO is considered one of the pioneering forms of "e-sports" in Japan in recent years.[2]
SBO operated on the premise of media development. Microphone performances were one of the highlights of the SBO, such as saying something cocky before a match or stirring things up like a Professional wrestling match.[3]
The 2003 SBO was the first tournament held at Makuhari Messe, an event facility in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, from March 22 to 23, 2003.[4]
There were seven titles chosen to compete in the SBO'03, including Guilty Gear X2. GUILTY GEAR X2 had a prominent number of participants among all seven titles.1,941 teams from all over Japan entered the competition, and the 32 teams that made it through the preliminary rounds competed in the main competition held at Makuhari Messe.[4] The format of GUILTY GEAR X2 matches was tournament-style, 3-on-3, with teams of three players fighting one by one until one of them lost, and the team with the remaining winner would advance to the next match.[4]
Daigo Umehara, then 22 years old, was already a charismatic player in the 2D fighting world in Japan. The team that Umehara formed with two other well-known players in the Guilty Gear X2 division took first place in the preliminary survey to predict the winning team, more than three times ahead of the second-place team.[4] Umehara also made it through to the main competition of all four of the seven titles he entered in SBO'03, finishing as the individual runner-up in Capcom vs. SNK 2 and the team champion in Super Street Fighter II Turbo.[4]
SBO's play-by-play was performed by "Gama no abura" (23 years old at the time), who started working part-time at a video arcade before he was 20 years old because of his love of video games and because he wanted to play a tournament of his favorite title. He also said that he originally started the tournament because he wanted to participate in it, but that he has become more interested in conveying the greatness of the players and making the event more interesting than in his success, and that he participates less and less as a player.[5] At the time, the number of new arcade game titles being released was declining. Gama no abura was involved in the launch of the fighting game tournament, believing that if the industry could be boosted by holding national tournaments for multiple games at the same time, manufacturers would be more willing to create new titles in search of a way to revitalize the industry.[5]
The 'Crazy Live Commentary' took place in the second round of the main tournament. The team including Umehara lost two of its players to the other team's spearheads, leaving Umehara alone. However, Umehara beat two members of the opposing team, and in the final round of the generals' match, in which the third round was at stake, Umehara won a one-sided victory over his opponent to advance to the third round with a convincing win.[4] The actual situation that took place at that time is later referred to as 'Crazy Live Commentary'. The full text of the commentary is as follows
Umehara ga! Tsukamaete! (Umehara grabs!)
Umehara ga! Gamenhaji! (Umehara pins him against the edge!)
Burst Yonde! Mada Hairu! (He predicts the burst! [The combo] still continues!)
Umehara ga! Tsu・・・Chikazuite! (Umehara gra—closes in! )
Umehara ga kimeta! (Umehara finishes it!)[6]
— Gama no abura
The team that included Umehara was eliminated in the semifinals, leaving a best-of-four record.[4] At the time, there was no such mechanism as Live streaming,[5] but the tournament was recorded and sold on the DVD "Tougeki SUPER BATTLE DVD TRILOGY-DISC3" released by Enterbrain.[4]
On March 6, 2007, a 17-second video titled 『電波実況 「ウメハラがぁっ!!!決めたぁぁーっ!!!(Crazy Live Commentary "Umehara ga kimeta!!!"』 was posted on the Online video platform NicoNico.[7] This video is one of the oldest on NicoNico, which started as a video sharing service on March 6, 2007.[8] The commentator's enthusiastic commentary captured the hearts of NicoNico users and became widely popular,[9] leading to a significant increase in the number of views.[5] As of 2024, it has over 3 million views.[7]
Once Crazy Live commentary videos were posted on NicoNico, a large number of secondary Mashup videos were created by splicing and editing images and audio from the Crazy Live commentary.[9]
According to IT news site Mynavi News, "ふぃぎゅ@ウメハラ," which forced Crazy live commentary to sing the theme song of ふぃぎゅ@Mate, an adult game for PCs, as audio material, triggered the Crazy live commentary Mushup craze in earnest.[9]
On his streaming channel, Umehara was asked by a viewer how he felt about Crazy live commentary comical upsurge on NicoNico, " I didn't feel bad about it honestly, Although I didn't get what was so funny about it.[10][11]
Gama no abura has a positive view of Crazy Live Commentary becoming famous[5] and has officially approved of its use as Mushup material.[12] "There were a lot of comments and stories about that play-by-play, but I heard that there were people who got to know Umehara because of that play-by-play, and that there were people who became interested in fighting games, so I think it was a success in a sense. At the time, I wanted people to understand how great he was, even if it meant making a laughingstock of myself.[12]
'Crazy Live Commentary' is often regarded as a masterpiece of live commentary, and was described by Inside, a gaming media outlet, as "a great commentary that not only captures the momentum, but also accurately captures the development of the game.[6]
The online information media outlet Netorabo introduced crazy live commentary as "game jargon-free, easy-to-understand, and emotionally expressive shouting" and praised the commentary for "making a significant contribution to the resurgence of fighting game popularity.[5]
Esports website Gamer Gamer described Crazy live commentary as the No. 1 best live commentary in Esports. The site says that Crazy Live commentary is a great way to convey the excitement of the competition, comparable to announcer Fujio Kariya's famous commentary of the men's team gymnastics final at the 2004 Athens Olympics: "The parabolic line drawn by Moonsault is a bridge to glory!". Gamer Gamer pointed out that the crazy live commentary and “Bridge to Glory” have things in common that many people memorize the entire phrase and that they continue to remain in people's memories.[13]
In 2015, on the occasion of the release of the Umehara-themed manga "Umehara FIGHTING GAMERS! 2," a promotional video for the new book was released, narrated in Crazy Live commentary style by Gama no abura himself.[14][15][16]
In 2022, during a Street Fighter V match in the TOPANGA CHAMPIONSHIP, a long-running Japanese league tournament, the MC saw Umehara's strong edge attack and exclaimed, "Umehara ga!!! to which the commentator replied, "Gamenhaji!!" and Crazy Live commentary was replayed. This act became a hot topic on SNS as a Crazy Live commentary in reiwa era.[6][17]
In 2024, A new song, "Rolling Sobat," was released by the rap crew RainyBlueBell.[18] The song's lyrics are interwoven with Crazy Live commentary's signature phrase.[19][20]
In 2011, when Gama no abura arrived in the United States to distribute in Japanese at the Evolution Championship Series, the world's largest fighting game tournament,[21][12] Gama no abura was interviewed by the local media and, at their request, replayed the Crazy Live commentary.[22]
In 2015, in the final match of the Ultra Street Fighter IV division of the fighting game tournament Stunfest 2015 in France, Umehara showed a one-sided attack, to which the commentator responded in Japanese, "Umehara ga..." and used a meme to play the game.[23] The meme released at Stanfest was included in the official PV for "Umehara FIGHTING GAMERS! 2".[16]
In 2010, Umehara signed a sponsorship deal with an American video game peripheral manufacturer and became a professional gamer who plays video games as a profession.[24][25] Umehara is considered to be one of the earliest professional gamers in Japan.[26] As of 2024, Umehara is still active in the top scene of the fighting game world, while also working to expand the player population.[27]
Gama no abura is now working as the director of Esports-related activities, which includes founding an organization that organizes fighting game events. He has fewer opportunities to do actual play-by-play work.[5][12]
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