In the initial months after Street Fighter 6 dropped in the middle of last year, a player by the name of Ibushigin|Kakeru burst onto the game’s competitive scene with an extremely daunting presence and even more potential. His character of choice? The villainous (in more than one sense of the term) JP.
JP took the Street Fighter community by total surprise with his abilities that didn’t quite look like anything else the franchise had ever seen, and instantly became one of the most hated top tiers in the game. Capcom unequivocally hit JP harder than any other character in their recent update patch, and it seems Kakeru has been exploring Ryu as a potential alternative. Despite having the top ranked JP online, Kakeru is also competing with the might Kazunoko for top ranked Ryu online, and we have some highlight footage below to show you how he’s pulled this off.
Kakeru absolutely dominated the Red Bull Kumite 2023 South Africa Last Chance Qualifier with combos and sequences no one had really seen yet, and went on to place third in the ensuing Red Bull Kumite. Soon thereafter he placed fifth at Evo 2023 and famously took home a whopping $400,000 for winning Gamers 8 a few weeks later.
The red hot youngster from Japan seemed all but unstoppable, but his results in the latter portion of 2023 and early months of 2024 didn’t quite match up with the pace his early victories set. His was one of the names so many were surprised to see fail to qualify for Capcom Cup X, and though he did take two more first place trophies home (Blink Respawn and Abang Bald Cup 5) he wasn’t the shoo in for Grand Finals his earlier performances suggested he might be.
Street Fighter 6 is in a state of rediscovery right now as while there have been notable balance changes made and the community is hashing out what that means in terms of tier lists and character viability, many more are en route in the coming months.
Whether or not JP is at an acceptable spot by community standards now remains to be hammered down, but this clear investment into another character (one of the most buffed in the latest patch, for what that’s worth) certainly leads us to wonder whether the best JP pro on the planet still deems him viable as a main character.
Check out Kakeru’s awesome Ryu matches in the compilation video below from YTYogaFlame24 and let us know what you think about it in the comments.