« Top Japanese Players Converge In Two Month Long TOPANGA League »

In the coming days, Japan's most well-known Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition Ver. 2012 players duke it out in a special competitive season courtesy of TOPANGA.

It's a 12 "episode" tournament series where Japan's elite battle to prove who is the best.

The first six rounds have already been scheduled. To start off, day one will have Daigo Umehara go against the EVO2K11 AE champion Fuudo and strong Makoto player (in AE and 3rd Strike) Haitani.

The events will be held through Nico Nico Douga and will make use of premium membership offers that require a fee to watch. If you are interested in viewing the event, make sure to follow this guide Fubarduck posted last year regarding Tougeki ~Super Battle Opera~. Also if you live in the US, wake up around 8AM on the East Coast and 5AM on the West Coast to tune in.

Check after the break if you wanna see specific info such as all the players, schedule, and pricing (thanks to the Tokido fan blog).

Invited players are:
- Daigo Umehara (Ryu)
- Mago (Fei Long)
- Tokido (Akuma/Gouki)
- Fuudo (Fei Long)
- Sako (Ibuki)
- Momochi (Cody)
- Kazunoko (Seth)
- Kindevu (Cammy)
- RF (Sagat)
- Haitani (Makoto)
- Bonchan (Sagat)
- Uryo (Sakura)


The league will stream every Wednesday Friday-Sunday night, all time below is based on JST/Japan Standard Time (+9 GMT), convert to PST/Pacific Standard Time (GMT -8) will be -17 hours from the time below. The league schedule dated as:

Online matches (R1-R6) Fixture here
- Jan 20 - Round 1 (10:00 PM)
- Jan 21 - Round 2 (10:00 PM)
- Jan 22 - Round 3 (09:00 PM)
- Jan 27 - Round 4 (10:00 PM)
- Jan 28 - Round 5 (10:00 PM)
- Jan 29 - Round 6 (09:00 PM)

Offline matches (R1-R6)
- Feb 10 - Round 7 (10:00 PM)
- Feb 11 - Round 8 (10:00 PM)
- Feb 12 - Round 9 (09:00 PM)
- Feb 24 - Round 10 (10:00 PM)
- Feb 25 - Round 11 (10:00 PM)
- Feb 26 - FINAL (09:00 PM)

Winning rules:
PART 1: From Round 1 to Round 6 (online)
- 2/3 rounds to win a match
- 3/5 matches to win a set
- 2/3 sets to win a game
- If players won the same amount of game, player who played lesser sets will place on top. If the amount of the sets are same, player who played lesser rounds will place on top.

PART 2: From Round 7 to FINAL (offline)
- 2/3 rounds to win a match
- First to 6 matches to win a set (duece when 5-5)
- 2/3 sets to win a game
- Whoever lose in the part will be eliminated. Players have to defeat/eliminate the player with rank above him to stay in the league, unable to do so himself will be eliminated. So the higher ranking players take lesser challenge. Means this will begin from the player at the lowest rank. The highest rank player only have to defeat the player below him (or whoever beat the player below him) to win the competition.

Nico Nico Live is pay per view video website, you may purchase the ticket with 500 yen per episode/Round or 3,500 yen for all 12 episodes/Rounds. More details about the league can be found HERE

UPDATE: Provided by Beast Note, here is the are the prize money earnings.

1st place - ¥555,555 ($7208/€5560)
2nd place - ¥100,000 ($1295/€1001)
3rd place - ¥50,000 ($649/€500)
4th place - ¥25,000 ($324/€250)
5th place - ¥20,000 ($260/€200)
6th place - ¥15,000 ($194/€150)
7th place - ¥10,000 ($130/€100)
8th place - ¥5,000 ($65/€50)
9th place - ¥1,000 ($13/€10)
10th place - ¥500 ($6.50/€5)
11th place - ¥100 ($1.30/€1)
12th place - ¥5 ($0.06/€0.05)