This one goes out to everyone that's spent a little too much time playing SF3: Third Strike.  I'm not usually into saying "this guy has waaay too much time on his hands!" but considering he says it took him 70+ attempts just to get the dances sync'd... yeah. 

Skip to 1:30 for Q's "Smooth Criminal" dance ("Smooth Qriminal").  The opening made me lol for real.

Thanks to WickedElement for the headsup!

Reno, our man in Japan, took the time to write up a great personal report from his trip to this year's Super Battle Opera chock full of great details and pics.  

For anyone that doesn't know, SBO is Japan's national fighting game throwdown, with tournaments on games like Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, SF3: Third Strike, Fate unlimited/codes, and of course SFIV.  Unfortunately, since the SBO kids keep a lockdown on all of their videos, Reno's campfire tales of glorious upsets and amazing underdogs is the best way you can get in on the action for the next couple months.  Fortunately it's a great read, so check it out.

His report is so in-depth that it comes in 3 separate parts on his Unity blog.  Get them here:   

Round 1

Round 2

Final Round!

I've been on a cell-phone-less, internet-less mountain in Montana, but for anyone else under a rock (or on top of one, as it were), check out last weekend's Super Battle Opera results for Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, Fate codes/unlimited, and the evergreen Street Fighter III: Third Strike!

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom (singles competition).  Great competition all around, with a solid variety of characters including the giant "Hardballer" and the miniature Roll!

Top 8:

Pochi (Jun/Ryu) vs. Ogutei (Casshern/Ryu)
Cha-jiman Takeshi (Ryu/Ken the Eagle) vs. G.X (Casshern/Roll)
Hachiman no Koutaishi (PTX-40A "Hardballer") vs. Yuuchan (Ken the Eagle/Chun Li)
Kumo Soto Kagami (Yatterman-1/Karas) vs. Meteo (Ryu/Morrigan)

Top 4:

Ogutei (Casshern/Ryu) vs. Cha-jiman Takeshi (Ryu/Ken the Eagle)
Hachiman no Koutaishi (PTX-40A "Hardballer") vs. Kumo Soto Kagami (Yatterman-1/Karas)

Finalists:

Cha-jiman Takeshi (Ryu/Ken the Eagle) vs. Kumo Soto Kagami (Yatterman-1/Karas)

Winner: Cha-jiman Takeshi (Ryu/Ken the Eagle)

Fate unlimited/codes (singles competition):

Top 8:

SPIKE (Gilgamesh) vs. BT (Rin)
RNP (Shiro) vs. Tatsumi (Rin)
Chinmi (Rider) vs. Oeppu (Rider)
138 (Lancer) vs. Kuroda (Rider)

Top 4:

SPIKE (Gilgamesh) vs. Tatsumi (Rin)
Chinmi (Rider) vs. 138 (Lancer)

Finalists:

SPIKE (Gilgamesh) vs. 138 (Lancer)

Winner: 138 (Lancer)

Street Fighter III: Third Strike (3 on 3 event): 

Top 4:

Boss (Yun) / Rikimaru (Chun) / Momochi (Makoto) vs. MOV (Chun) / Kuroda (Q)
RX (Urien) / Vanao (Ryu) / Koushun (Chun) vs. Ochibi (YU) / Tokido (CH) / KO (Yang)

Finalists:

Boss (Yun) / Rikimaru (Chun) / Momochi (Makoto) vs. Ochibi (Yun) / Tokido (Chun) / KO (Yang)

Winner: Boss (Yun) / Rikimaru (Chun) / Momochi (Makoto)

Gosho (Rufus) and Kyabetsu (C. Viper) won the 2009 Super Battle Opera SFIV competition, defeating Iyo (who you remember as a special guest at the Capcom/GameStop/EVO SFIV finals) and his partner, Abel-master Shiro.

I wasn't happy to see the American teams get iced so quickly, but I still love a lot of things about these results.  First is that the winning characters were two new SFIV challengers.  Second is that Iyo got 1st in the Capcom Japan tournament, and 2nd place at SBO, silencing all his detractors and really repping Dhalsim.   

Finally, as someone with a monkeywrench on the insides of the game, I'm overjoyed to see another great example of SFIV balance in action: 

*Every* character except El Fuerte made it into this SBO main event, and we had 11 different characters represented in the 16 quarter-finalist spots! (Honda, Viper (x2), Abel, Dhalsim, Guile, Sagat (x3), Rufus, Balrog, Akuma, Ryu (x2), Chun-Li (x2)).  When you consider that this was an arcade tournament (so only 17 characters, not 25), this is pretty amazing. The final 4 teams were even better, with different characters in 7 of the 8 spots (Dhalsim, Abel, Honda, Viper (x2), Rufus, Sagat, Chun-Li).  

Congratulations to all competitors and especially Gosho and Kyabetsu's beastly Viper!

This footage is from a recent SFIV tournament at Tokyo's "God's Garden" arcade.  It's not Super Battle Opera, but it does feature much of the top Japanese talent we'll see in action this weekend at SBO. 

The best thing about it is that it's got lots of handy labeled bookmarks so you can skip around to the matches between the players you most want to see, like Daigo, Oji-san, and Mago.  You also won't be able to miss C. Viper player Uryo, who puts on a total cross-up clinic!

Thanks to iplaywinner