{"id":19896,"date":"2026-05-10T09:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T09:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19896\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T09:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T09:05:11","slug":"evo-japan-2026-interview-with-sto-6-division-winner-yamaguchi-my-first-win-gives-me-confidence-and-i-want-to-balance-my-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19896\/","title":{"rendered":"EVO Japan 2026] Interview with Sto. 6 Division Winner Yamaguchi: “My First Win Gives Me Confidence” and “I Want to Balance My Studies”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview with @yamae1128, winner of the Street Fighter 6 division!
\n\"\u30e4\u30de\u30b0\u30c1\u9078\u624b\"YamaguchiSaiga NAK
\n – How do you feel now that you won?<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: I still feel like I’m in a dream… I can’t really feel that I won at all (laughs).<\/p>\n

– What is your usual winning percentage against Higuchi, your teammate in the Winner’s Final?<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: I haven’t played with Higuchi (@higuchi010914<\/a> ) recently, but the last time we played, we played Viper and lost badly.<\/p>\n

– Was he good against Cammy?<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: I’m good at reading the types, but if I don’t know the information, I feel like I’ll get overwhelmed. I knew that Punk (@PunkDaGod<\/a> ) was the player to beat this time, and I watched his videos on a regular basis, so I think I was able to make use of that in the final.<\/p>\n

\"\u30e4\u30de\u30b0\u30c1\u9078\u624b\"Saiga NAK
\n – How do you feel about the significance of winning on a big stage?<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: I feel that the way people look at me is going to change, for better or worse. Of course I am happy, but I am also worried about whether I will be able to get stronger and keep winning, because I still have many more matches and tournaments to compete in. However, this was my first time winning, so it gave me a lot of confidence, and I feel like I want to do my best again.<\/p>\n

– What do you think is the power of e-sports to excite people?<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: Of course the games are fun, but the fighting game community, including the people playing, the spectators, and the organizers, is so attractive, which is why so many people get together and get excited about it. I joined the tournament as a member myself, and I started playing fighting games because of the community, so I think that is a big part of it.<\/p>\n

– In the winner’s interview, you also expressed your gratitude to your opponent.<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: I feel like I’m in a competitive spirit, like “I’m not going to be defeated” (laughs).<\/p>\n

\"\u30e4\u30de\u30b0\u30c1\u9078\u624b\"Saiga NAK
\n – It seems that Higuchi, who has been in the tournament with me so far, has been ahead of me in some ways.<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: To be honest, results are partly a matter of luck. I don’t think I overtook him at all, because I know that better than anyone else, and I think so too. In fact, in daily practice, I win, lose, and even lose some games, so I think I’ve gotten a little closer.<\/p>\n

– How do you balance your game and your studies?<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: I am actually struggling with this, which is why I took a leave of absence from school this year, so I am playing games for now. But I like to study at the university, and I am often involved in research. We have a good relationship with each other, and I think we have a good influence on each other in the way we think, the way we think about games, and the way we challenge ourselves in games. I want to do both.<\/p>\n

\"\u30e4\u30de\u30b0\u30c1\u9078\u624b\"Saiga NAK
\n – Did you have confidence and trust that you could do Mai?<\/p>\n

Yamaguchi: I ended up playing only Mai, but I was thinking of playing a different character depending on my opponent. For example, against @NuckleDu(@NuckleDuDang<\/a> ), if I couldn’t fight at all, I would have switched to Viper. I don’t really intend to stick to one character, I want to bring out totally different characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interview with @yamae1128, winner of the Street Fighter 6 division! YamaguchiSaiga NAK – How do you feel now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3383,6301,3385,8,17,3386,3384],"class_list":{"0":"post-19896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-capcom","9":"tag-evo-japan","10":"tag-game","11":"tag-japan","12":"tag-japanese","13":"tag-saiga-nak","14":"tag-street-fighter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}