IBUSHIGIN’s Kakeru won the Capcom Cup 11 over the weekend, taking home the $1m (£775,730) grand prize. He should probably split the prize with his wife, the one who told him to use JP for the duration of the tournament.
The Capcom Cup 11 was the culmination of the 2024 Capcom Pro Tour, which featured the best Street Fighter 6 players from around the world competing in Japan on March 8-9th after qualifying at events throughout the year.
Kakeru has been steadily playing JP since 2024 after a Street Fighter 6 patch made the character viable once more. However, Kakeru admitted in an interview with Walker Plus that he had wanted to play Mai Shiranui at Capcom Cup 11.
Mai Shiranui is the newest playable character in Street Fighter 6, implementing Shiranui-ryuu style of ninjutsu into her moveset — a blend of ninja techniques and traditional dance. The Street Fighter 6 community has applauded Mai so far thanks to her competitive viability and design. In fact, some even believe she could be OP at this time.
Despite the community’s praise, Mai was not seen in the Top 8 at Capcom Cup 11. However, Xiahai, OilKing and Nephew had used Mai during the tournament, showing off her capabilities until Mai was never seen again after Top 16.
Kakeru had debated it but told Walker Plus that this caused a fight between him and his wife. He said: “I wanted to use Mai and that’s actually the reason me and my wife were fighting. In the end, we decided together ‘JP is going to work better’ so I stuck with JP only for the event.”
This decision paid off big time.
Kakeru climbed to the Grand Finals, competing against formidable opponent Blaz, who chose to use Ryu. This is a matchup that Kakeru knows all too well and he was able to stop Blaz’ momentum and win the whole thing. Who knows if he would have won with Mai, but it seems like his wife made the right call.
