Online retailer ebten, which is part of Enterbrain, has posted a sweet, sweet preview of this month's Arcadia magazine, which as most of you know has footage from August's Tougeki tournament. In this clip we see the finals between Shiro and Goshi, and then Kyabetsu and Iyo. The deciding match between Shiro and Kyabetsu, however, will have to wait until the magazine's release in two weeks. In the clip is also the finals for VF5R between YOU/Anaguma/Chotarou against Yutenji/Joseph/Gorgeous Eileen. The quality is definitely awesome! Make sure to check it out!

You should've been there, but if you weren't, no worries, I got your back! Here's a little short clip of some of the highlights from Super Battle Opera 2009. Unfortunately my video camera's battery DIED during the grand finals (that'll teach me not to bring my AC adaptor) so I couldn't capture the finals on camera, but there is a lot of stuff here that you won't be able to see anywhere else. Enjoy!

The stage was now set for the grand finals, and Shiro was up first against Gosho. You could hear that the crowd was definitely behind the duo of Iyo and Shiro, and the latter acknowledged the crowd with a peace sign just before his fight. Shiro made short work of Gosho, fulfilling the promise he made just minutes before to protect Iyo's Dhalsim from Rufus (the match-up is very much in Rufus' favor), and now it was Iyo's turn to take out Cabbage. Unfortunately for Iyo, that did not happen, as one mistake turned out to be the game-winning play. Near the end of the first round, with Iyo at about half health and Cabbage near death, Iyo tried to backdash to safety, but Cabbage read it perfectly and caught Iyo with Viper's Thunder Knuckle. He then performed a FADC and connected with Viper's Ultra to finish off Iyo. Like the match with Gosho and Mago, Iyo never recovered from that round and ended up losing the next round, setting up the final match between Shiro and Cabbage.

In all honesty I really forgot what happened in this match, other than Shiro had it in the bag in the second round, ended up losing it, and then Cabbage stormed back to win the third round in spectacular fashion to win the whole thing. That, and the fireworks really scared the living daylights out of me, being so close to the stage. During their victory speech, Gosho thanked Cabbage once again for carrying his butt to victory (this was a running gag the entire tournament), which drew a lot of laughter from the crowd, especially since Gosho pretty much owned the #1 player in Japan! After the SF4 finals, about 50% of the audience left the venue, and it was at that point I realized just how much SF4 revived the entire fighting game community. No other game has had an impact like this game, other than the original Street Fighter 2. We had a player known mainly for his King of Fighters prowess (Cabbage) win the whole tournament. Nemo and Kindevu are from the Guilty Gear side of things, and Itabashi Zangief and Fuudo are known for being the top Virtua Fighter players in the country. Yet all of them have moved on to Street Fighter 4, which is saying a lot about how this game has impacted fighters this year.

The amount of time required to get to the level of these players at SBO is unimaginable, and I for one know that I'll never have that much time to play, but seeing these guys play their hearts out and seeing the emotions on their faces in times of victory and defeat is nothing short of inspiring to someone like me. I have been to SBO multiple times now, but this year for sure was the best one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens at next year's event!

SBO's tourney format differs from Evo in that it's single elimination, meaning if you lose one set, you're out of the tournament. I know a lot of non-Japanese players hate this format, but I really like it, since it creates a lot of tension in every match, and I love seeing upsets, and there were a lot of them happening this year! The event also gives off the aura of an actual sporting event, whereas Evo tends to be a bit lower key in that regard. SBO has awesome intro video packages to start and end each day, there's a huge stage with a center podium for the finals, and when the most important matches are played, they players actually come out of an entrance, complete with smoke, entrance music and faus fire. It's all really awesome!

But you know what was really awesome? Seeing Makoto, a well-known Vega player, coming out of the last minute qualifying tournament and beating the team of Ojisanboy (the #3 player in Japan) and Tokido (the #1 Akuma player in Japan) with a rock solid game. That, my friends, was the upset of the entire weekend! For you Daigo fans, their match against Namameso and Dashio, also known as Namadashi ended with an upset as Namameso's Honda took out Nuki's Chun-li in dramatic fashion, just after Daigo was upset by Dashio's Viper.

After a quick 20 minute break, we were back with the final four teams; Chicken Groove (Iyo and Shiro), KOF Force (Cabbage/Gosho), 2D Shindo (Mago, Nemo) and Namadashi, who I mentioned earlier. First up was KOF Force against 2D Shindo. During the introductions, Gosho asked Cabbage to please win because he didn't know if he could do it, and Cabbage said, "No problem, leave everything to me!" When Mago got on the mic, he could only get out a few words before the crowd erupted with chants of "2D God", which Mago got him grinning from ear to ear, soaking up all of the glory. Finally, when it was Nemo's turn to talk, the only thing he could say was "man, I wish I was as popular as Mago is." Going into the tournament, 2D Shindo was favored to win, since Mago is known as the best player in the country - and probably in the world - and his teammate Nemo is no slouch either, but this is Super Battle Opera, and upsets happen all the time, and it happened here again when Gosho's Rufus utterly destroyed Mago's Sagat in the first match. The crowd, who just minutes before were chanting Mago's nickname "2D God", was now going wild as Gosho was tearing up Mago with a lot of solid, smart play, and Mago could just not recover. Then Cabbage went up to fight Nemo, but lost a close game. However, Gosho came through once again in a nail-biting final match and defeated Nemo to send his team to the finals! The entire venue erupted as Cabbage started dancing around the main stage in enjoyment, knowing that they had capped off what was going to go down as one of the biggest upsets of the weekend.

The same kind of upset almost happened when Chicken Groove faced Namadashi, as Dashio's Viper nearly perfected Shiro's Abel, but Dashio missed a key combo at the end of the round, and Shiro came up huge and won the round, ending it with a perfectly set up Ultra combo. After Shiro finished off Dashio, Iyo came up and finished them off with a perfectly played Honda, setting up a grand final that was actually a rematch from earlier this year. Some may not know it, but Cabbage and Gosho qualified at Club Sega Shinjuku and became one of the first Tokyo qualifiers for SBO, and they actually beat Iyo and Shiro at that tournament. Because of their loss, it took Iyo and Shiro another three months to qualify for SBO.

Trying to explain to your girlfriend why you're spending over $300 to check out the world's best compete in Street Fighter is something that I wouldn't recommend, and yeah, I'm speaking from experience here. I'm located in the southern part of Japan, so taking the bullet train to Tokyo takes a little under three hours, but it's a smooth ride the whole way and I was able to take a quick nap before getting off at Tokyo station and heading towards JCB Hall, where this year's Super Battle Opera (also known as Tougeki) was being held.

For the past seven years, the very best fighting game players have gathered in Tokyo to duke it out for pure bragging rights. Yeah, Daigo Umehara collected a cool seven grand for winning the recent Evolution 2009 tournament in Street Fighter 4, but that doesn't roll here in Japan; dealing out prize money is considered gambling and thus, everyone is playing for the right to call themselves the best.

 I got to JCB Hall at 8am to check out the last minute qualifying matches, and I happened to run into fellow gamers Osaka (a well-known Japanese Soulcailbur player) and Arturo Sanchez, who you may know better as Sabin online. Now, Sabin and I go way back, and we've known each other for a good 10 years so it was good to see the guy again. He's in Japan almost every year but because he only goes to Tokyo we don't get to meet up that often. The prize money that he gets from winning tournaments in America basically pays for his trips to Japan, where he enters the hyperbolic chamber known as the Japanese arcade to power up before heading back to the east coast to own some fools.

After checking in with reception, I grabbed my media badge and headed into the backstage arena where all of the players are chilling and playing casual games. I reach the restricted area and one of the staff members opens the door for me, and who should walk out but two of the most famous Street Fighter players ever, Nuki and Daigo, whose team name for SBO was Umenuki. They were heading for the event area for their matches, and after setting down my baggage I quickly followed them. I was really surprised by the setup this year; they had stadium seating for all and a ton of staff manning the cameras and capture equipment, so it looks like there will be a lot of awesome footage coming out of the tournament this year.