This is part of “Battle for Tokyo“, a series on the teams competing at the ONE Street Fighter Tokyo Challenge.

On October 6, 10 of the world’s best Street Fighter pros will descend on Tokyo to participate in the first-ever ONE Street Fighter Tokyo Challenge.

There’s more than just personal pride and prize money at stake, as each pro will be representing their country alongside two countrymen.

For Team Japan, Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi will be the sole pro-player representative. He’ll be joined by the two grand finalists from the ONE Tokyo Street Fighter 1v1 Community Tournament.

For a chance to join Bonchan on Team Japan yourself, sign up for our 1v1 Community Tournament here. Entry into the tournament is free.

Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi

Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi has been one of the top Street Fighter pros for the past seven years and is currently having the best year of his career, with an incredible five CPT event wins. He also placed second at Battle Arena Melbourne, and third at the Taipei Major.

In April he won Versus Masters in Singapore, and followed it up in June by winning CEO in Orlando.

In July, Bonchan won VS Fighting in London, where he defeated Victor “Punk” Woodley in an incredible Karin mirror match grand finals.

In August he finally won the one title that has eluded him for his entire career: Evo.

Bonchan had a dominant run at Evo, going undefeated throughout the tournament, and knocking top pros like Yeh “Hotdog29” Man Ho, Yusuke “Momochi” Momochi, Derek “Idom” Ruffin, and DC “Infexious” Coleman into losers, and then defeating Adel “Big Bird” Anouche 3-2 in the grand finals.

Bonchan followed up his Evo win by going undefeated yet again at another CPT Premier event, this time at Celtic Throwdown in Ireland.

Bonchan destroyed the competition, which included a dominant 3-1 victory over Team Korea’s Sim “NL” Gun in the grand finals. The victory also gave Bonchan the top spot on the CPT Global Leaderboard.

Bonchan is the clear favorite to win this year’s Capcom Cup and will be looking to defend home turf in Tokyo.

READ MORE: Battle for Tokyo: Introducing Team Korea’s ONE Tokyo Street Fighter Challenge contenders