Street Fighter V player Takeuchi "John Takeuchi" Ryouta is 18 years old and sitting on a Grand Finals stage for the first time in his life. He's in Puerto Rico, more than 8,000 miles from his home in Tokyo, speaks next-to-no English or Spanish and he's playing what some consider to be among the worst characters in the game — but none of that matters. He can't see them since he's looking at his monitor, but members of the crowd have walked up to the edges of the stage behind him and his opponent so they could dab on camera, mimicking his personal victory pose. The crowd loves him. He might be on the ropes, but they're still dabbing. They want to see their champion, a literal people's champion, pull through.

He loses the first set of the Grand Finals 3-1 to Kishida “GO1” Goichi, a rising star of the Japanese Street Fighter scene who placed fourth at EVO, but somehow, Takeuchi retains his calm. GO1 is the last player standing between him and his first ever tournament win, so he re-adjusts. He focuses on cornering GO1, he takes small steps back after getting knockdowns to ensure he isn't hit by wakeup buttons, he keeps up the pressure. He doesn't just win — he demolishes GO1 in a 3-0 sweep. Takeuchi gets up to hug GO1, then turns to the camera and does his signature spinning dab before flashing a thumbs-up for the internet strangers that got him there.

Over the last two years, popular fighting game community subreddit r/Kappa has sponsored 15 players, including Takeuchi and they've placed in the Top 8 18 times over the course of 37 individual sponsorships. That's a nearly 50 percent success rate for sponsorships, many of which were for players that were effectively unknown in the West before Kappa sponsored them, using characters that no one else played.

Before he was sponsored, Takeuchi was one of those unknown players. He had decent results, sure, but his breakout performance was when he beat Keita "Fuudo" Ai and Haitani "Haitani" Tatsuya in two best-of-one matches at the 2016 Topanga Charity Tournament. During his post-game popoff, he jumped and cheered and dabbed to the camera before bowing to his opponents, which led the meme-loving r/Kappa community to fall in love with him too.

Somehow, they chose a champion, the way they chose so many before him. r/Kappa is a hivemind of meme-loving, porn-posting, blowup-hungry fighting game fans, most of which would never post under their real names, and yet they're one of the most successful teams in Street Fighter.

Kappa’s sponsorships started with Dexter “Tampa Bison” James, now a member of New World Order eSports. Bison had just left his former team, Empire Arcadia, amidst allegations that the team’s owner, Isaiah “Triforce” Johnson borrowed money from him without paying him back, and failed to purchase return flights for players he sent to events. In response, Kappa rallied behind Bison, but also added then Kappa-poster Alex Myers (now with Ronin) and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 player Derrike “Full Schedule” Nunn to their EVO 2014 sponsorships.

That got the ball rolling, but it was an r/Kappa poster known as DrMike who turned the sponsorships into a full-on team. He, along with a handful of other Reddit users worked to sponsor Asian players who didn’t get as much Western exposure out to North American events under the Kappa banner, starting with Furushima “Pepeday” Yudai.

DrMike floated the possibility of sponsoring Pepeday after seeing how Kappa reacted to his play at the 2014 Mad Catz Tokyo Game Show USFIV tournament, and Kappa went all-in. Pepeday’s play is exactly what Kappa was looking for at the time. The USFIV meta was growing a little stale after two years, and people had begun to uncover who the really overpowered characters were. Meanwhile, Pepeday played an El Fuerte so wild that Mike Ross called him “the most entertaining player in Street Fighter IV history," during the Grand Finals of TGS.

Before TGS, Pepeday hadn’t attended a single major tournament. After his win, Kappa sent him to five events over the next five months: The Fall Classic, Canada Cup, DreamHack Winter, Northeast Championships and the Canada Cup Grand Masters. He got Top 8 at every single one.

Pepeday was essential to r/Kappa’s sponsorships. His success brought legitimacy, and the possibility of sponsoring even more players, which gave DrMike more work. Kappa ramped up sponsorships, sending more and more players to more and more events, and DrMike was behind most of it. He would get home from his job as a doctor and contact players, handle the donation money and buy plane tickets, all for to bring a little legitimacy to Kappa.

“When I started with Kappa, it had a bad rap,” DrMike told theScore esports. “People said it was full of idiots. I’m a doctor, there’s a lot of professionals on there. Lawyers and teachers, it’s not all stupid people on r/Kappa. I felt it was a little disrespectful, and I understand it, but a little bit of why I did it was to prove people wrong. In the back of my mind, it was always a little bit of that.

“It paid off when [Nakamura “Misse” Kentaro] and [Lee “Poongko” Chung gon] made it to Capcom Cup finals. Misse beat Infiltration and eliminated him. I was there in the front row, and I was just… wow. Everybody got together, and we had our disagreements, but we wanted to bring hype, and we did.”

Two of r/Kappa’s representatives faced off at the 2015 Capcom Cup finals. In the loser’s quarterfinals, Misse, fresh off his 3-2 win over Infiltration, sat next to Poongko, who had just dropped into the loser’s bracket after a 3-2 loss of his own to Kappa favourite Kun “Xian” Xian-Ho. The winner would advance to play against Daigo Umehara. Poongko was the veteran, and Misse was outclassed.

Misse played out of his mind the entire tournament — beating Takahashi “Bonchan” Masato, Du “NuckleDu” Dang, Taniguchi “Tokido” Hajime and of course, Infiltration. But it wasn’t enough to topple Poongko. The match ended with Misse attempting to escape the corner with a wakeup Ultra, but he didn’t go nearly far enough, and the hits on block didn’t chip Poongko out. Despite making incredible plays against some of the best players in the world, it was one panicked decision that did him in.

Poongko stood up first, walking over from his seat to Misse’s with a hand outstretched, ready to shake his hand. Misse got up and nodded as they grabbed each other's hands, but Poongko went a step further. He reached his other arm around Misse’s shoulder and hugged him. Misse hugged his Kappa brother back. Two players, both using underutilized characters to beat the best in the world, and one had to eliminate the other. Kappa eliminated Kappa to earn a chance to face Daigo.

Aside from the r/Kappa tag, Misse and Poongko had another thing in common — they were character specialists. Poongko was one of just a few top Seth players, while Misse was one of only two top Makoto players. Going all the way back to Pepeday, Kappa has always loved character specialists, the kind of players that eschew top-tier picks to hone their craft on one weaker character, mastering every angle of their kit instead of relying on the few overpowered moves that the stronger characters tend to have. Takeuchi is one of those players. It doesn’t matter how bad Rashid’s fault are, he put in the work and made the character shine on-stage.

“It’s Takeuchi, not just the character. If he had played any other character, like R.Mika or Balrog and did the same pop offs, I think people would still sponsor him,” r/Kappa user Jonas “lolraid” Martinez told theScore esports. lolraid organized Takeuchi’s sponsorship, and helped him all throughout First Attack.

“Rashid is a plus, since he’s not played at a high level, so he’s something different. So many people dislike SFV, but he breathes new life into the game. He feels so perfect in retrospect. Why did we not think about him before?”

According to lolraid, Takeuchi went to play with players from the Dominican Republic the night before First Attack started. He wasn't there, but lolraid heard later that Takeuchi got bodied. This 18-year-old kid, sitting in a den of wolves, got absolutely shredded by the Dominican players, barely taking rounds off of them. But between each round, Takeuchi pulled out a notebook and scribbled down a few sentences. The Dominican contingent was confused, but Takeuchi kept playing, kept taking notes.

The next day, Takeuchi sat down at the casuals setup at First Attack and shredded the players that beat him the night before. He did it again in-bracket, and only dropped a single game all the way up to Grand Finals.

“He said that if it wasn’t for the fact that he played that first day, he would have gotten bodied in the tournament,” lolraid says. “I guess since he got bodied so badly in the Dominicans’ room, the next day he just wanted to play. He just wanted to do better.”

Takeuchi puts in the work, but Kappa didn't know that when they sponsored him. What they knew about him was that he brought hype to tournaments. Beyond the dabbing and the pop-offs, Takeuchi's Rashid is amazing to watch. He plays a meticulous positioning game, always managing to carry his opponents to the corner to ensure he gets the longest, flashiest combo possible. On top of that, he specializes in wonky Rashid combos that most people don't know about, like following counter-hit Whirlwind Shot with anything at all.

But character specialists don’t necessarily win tournaments, and they can’t grow a team all on their own. In between the no-name low-tier heroes they sponsored, Kappa turned to players like Lee "Infiltration" Seonwoo and Inoue "Kazunoko" Ryota to carry their banner to tournaments. Kappa sponsored Infiltration a total of five times, just after his second wind performance in 2015. Infiltration was a god of Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, but the move to AE 2012 stymied him until Ultra was released.Infiltration was in between sponsorships, fresh off his tenure with Western Wolves, and was exactly the figure r/Kappa needed. He wasn’t just getting Top 8 placements, he was a former EVO champion, a household name in the FGC and had mastered thirteen characters at a high level. He brought the hype, which brought eyes to the subreddit.

Infiltration placed third at Stunfest 2015 on May 24. The next day, r/Kappa had 123 new subscribers. Kazunoko's one and only tournament as an r/Kappa-sponsored player was Final Round 18, where he placed fourth on March 22. Over the next few days, the subreddit had 166 new subscribers.

The trend doesn't just apply to Kappa-sponsored players placing well, it also applies to them putting on a show. At EVO 2015, Poongko, then a member of Team Kappa, played Casey "Onisan" Dillon. Onisan took off his shirt to taunt Poongko, who was known for taking off his own shirt during matches in the past. Poongko responded by taking off his shirt as well and proceeding to completely destroy him. That very day, r/Kappa got 159 new subscribers. They got more than 300 more over the course of the weekend. And despite sending strong players to two events between EVO and Capcom Cup finals in 2015, the subreddit experienced normal traffic — no out-of-the-ordinary spikes. When Misse and Poongko both placed in the Top 8 of the 2015 Capcom Cup finals, subreddit traffic spiked again.

Certainly, part of that is likely a bump that most fighting game communities receive after EVO, but the fact that subscriptions increased on Friday, before the Street Fighter tournament was even out of the pool stage, says a lot. Kappa players always put on a show, whether they did it by playing in Top 8 or taking off their shirts, and that got attention. Not just for the subreddit, but for tournaments as well.

“Once the sponsorships blew up, I used to get a lot of messages from events, all over the world, just seeing if Kappa wanted to send someone,” DrMike says. “For Cannes Winter Clash 2015, the organizers got in contact with me and offered to help pay for hotels. The community decided on Infiltration and Poongko, surprisingly Infiltration was okay taking the r/Kappa name, even though it's controversial.

"How we chose players always [was] controversial in r/Kappa too, and it was basically a nomination,” DrMike says. “Whoever Kappa liked, we implemented a voting system. It wasn't always perfect though. At that time, Infiltration and Poongko were the most popular players. Infiltration because he's so well known and likeable, he wasn't technically sponsored, and Poongko was always kind of fun and quirky, ripping off his shirt. He had a sort of bad boy thing, but they were just so grateful to fly out.”

Eventually, as fighting games became part of the larger esports land-grab, the pros Kappa was once able to sponsor were getting snapped up by big name teams. In November 2015, Infiltration signed with Team Razer and in April, Team Secret signed Poongko. Both were bastions of Team Kappa, top players who could be counted on for hype moments and top results. Kappa still had Poongko for the Capcom Cup finals, but getting top professionals for the rest of the season got harder.

Instead, Kappa went back to the character specialists that they started with. Players like Gaku “KitasenjuDJ” Kondo and Hagejin didn't really make huge splashes at events they attended after EVO, but they fit the Kappa brand. The hype died down a little, and Kappa’s numbers didn’t grow again until Poongko and Misse both placed in Top 8 of the 2015 Capcom Cup finals. r/Kappa jumped up by more than 300 subscribers that weekend.

But growing Kappa isn't necessarily the reason the hivemind sponsors players. More users is nice, certainly, but the reason Kappa sponsors players varies. Comments on the nomination threads focus on giving players who don't get to travel otherwise a shot at a larger tournament, or providing hype through wacky character choices. In a strange way, Kappa is about giving the unknowns a chance to prove themselves on the biggest stages the FGC has to offer.

“The reason they sponsor players is to give players a chance they wouldn't otherwise have,” lolraid says. “If you see the list of past r/Kappa sponsorships, it's always a character specialist that otherwise wouldn't get there. Tampa Bison, nobody played Bison. Full Schedule, nobody plays Viper like he does, he’s amazing. And Alex Myers? There was only Chris G playing Sakura.

“After that, it was Pepeday. He wasn't going to be able to travel anywhere if it wasn't for the chance they gave him, and he was such a personality He would pop off, he would play with such heart. I guess that's what attracts people to the players. A mix of character loyalty and personality. It's charisma.”

Kappa sponsorships disappeared after Capcom Cup 2015, at least for a little while. In the weeks and months following SFV's release, many Kappa posters started speaking out about how much they disliked the game. SFV is different from Ultra SFIV, but perhaps most significantly, it's laggier. SFV has approximately eight frames of lag between when you actually input an action and when the game recognizes it. In comparison, USFIV had close to six frames of lag. That's about 120 milliseconds of difference that make it harder to react to incoming attacks.

If Street Fighter is a conversation between two players, then SFV forces you to slow down what you’re saying. It’s not necessarily a bad game, but the lag is hard to ignore, and some members of Kappa were leading the charge against it, including DrMike.

“It’s like watching someone dunk a basketball, You’re like ‘man, I wish I could do that.’ I think the problem with SFV is that they lowered the rim,” DrMike says. “A rim is ten feet to dunk a ball, Capcom decided to lower the rim to eight feet so everyone can dunk. It takes away from the magic.”

Slowly, DrMike pushed away from r/Kappa. His posting frequency went from daily to weekly, then got increasingly sporadic. Now, DrMike mostly comes to r/Kappa to talk about how much he doesn't like SFV, and how Capcom could improve it. He admits SFV is new and can change, but he's just not a fan of the game in its current state, and he feels Kappa is in a strange place right now.

“There’s a line between being a troll and a bully. These guys sometimes don’t care, and that’s the internet. It gives you a lot of freedom to say crazy stuff, especially when no one knows who you are. I think that’s part of the reason I’m not part of the sponsorships as much is because I feel like Kappa disrespected a lot of people they shouldn’t. I just felt bad, some people in the community helped us out so much.”

With DrMike gone, it fell to lolraid to help get the ball rolling on Takeuchi. lolraid is a fan of SFV, a Rashid player himself and he had an in with the organizers of First Attack — he was also key to getting Tobinaga “EX Pugera” Yu out to Puerto Rico for r/Kappa last year — which is what helped the subreddit bring Takeuchi to the tournament.

But there was something more than just connection and an affection for SFV at work. Comments on Takeuchi's pop-offs included calls for him to be Kappa's first sponsored SFV player long before lolraid got involved and his results threads were all about how he was the only SFV player worth sponsoring, win or lose. Even in a different game, Takeuchi's crazy combos, wild play and fun attitude drew Kappa, just like it drew them to Pepeday.

But none of that explains why Kappa is able to pick champions every time. In fact, everything about the past two years of sponsorships points to the fact that they shouldn’t be be able to select Top 8 players with such incredible consistency. They like players who use low-tier characters, but have wacky attitudes. They like players who are unproven at major events and when they wanted to ensure Top 8 performances, they picked known quantities like Infiltration, Kazunoko and Poongko.

Every reason that Kappa tends to go for when selecting a player should be a knock against them. Kappa picks players by hype factor, and yet the hype almost always performs for them. It seems almost unexplainable, but DrMike thinks there’s a simple answer: they players aren’t as unknown as you might think.

“Kappa likes to [pick top players] a lot. People like to think that Kappa loves Japanese players, but it’s not even that. It’s common sense. If you want to promote yourself, you go with a winner. A lot of people might not like that, but from a promotional point of view, that's what it comes down to. You pick players who are top tier, they crack Top 8, and your sponsorship gets publicity. That’s what we were basically doing from the beginning.”

And he’s not wrong, Takeuchi did well at the Chairty tournament before getting sponsored, Pepeday won TGS, even KtasenjuDJ was near the top of the Japanese Arcade rankings. Kappa does tend to pick players with at least a small history of tournament success.

But, lolraid sees it a little differently. For him, it’s less about the players being amazing going into the event — though they’re certainly not bad players — and more about their attitude. Kappa sponsors showmen, and when they’re sent across the world to perform, they know what they have to do. They aren’t just playing for themselves, they’re playing for the hundreds of people who got them there in the first place.

“[Kappa] sees the potential, and the players can harness it. Imagine if you were a player with that much potential and you're expected to do well, you’re playing for the people, not just yourself. You’re playing to please everyone. That’s basically what makes them do so well,” lolraid says.

“Takeuchi says he’s glad that everyone is happy just by watching his play. That’s it. Most of the sponsored players are crowd pleasers. Full Schedule, EX Pugera, Misse, KojiKOG, Hagejin, they’re all players that just want to show off what they can do. Nobody does it as well as they do. There wasn’t anybody that could have fit more perfectly than Takeuchi.”

A week after winning First Attack, Takeuchi was set to appear on Daigo’s weekly talk show. It was supposed to be his second time on the event, but he’d be returning as a champion. Last time, Takeuchi was a player who impressed Daigo with his guile at Tokyo Button Mashers, and found minor FGC internet fame for popping off at the charity tournament. This time, he won an international tournament, defeating a monstrous pro in the process.

He overslept and was an hour late.

Takeuchi bust onto the stream halfway through, awkwardly sliding onto the couch next to Daigo, his backpack still in hand. The audience couldn’t even hear him when he said hello because he hadn’t gotten a microphone yet. Daigo ran him through some personal questions that he’d answered himself while he was waiting for Takeuchi — what celebrity did he most resemble, his favourite phrase, what his ideal woman would be like (Takeuchi said he’d like to date a kind woman).

They moved on to analyzing Takeuchi’s match against GO1 and discussing Takeuchi’s life, before Daigo started stretching and yawning. He was getting tired, and the two hour stream was almost up. Daigo asked his guest if he had any last words for the audience, and Takeuchi looked down at the table in front of him.

“I’d like to thank the people of r/Kappa for giving the opportunity to go,” Takeuchi said in Japanese to the internet strangers who bought him a flight to Puerto Rico. One week later, they’d buy him a flight to North Carolina for The Fall Classic. “I’m really thankful.”

Takeuchi bowed slightly, then looked up the camera and grinned, before speaking in English.

“r/Kappa, uh…” Takeuchi raised one hand in a salute. “Thank you, r/Kappa.”

Daniel Rosen is a news editor for theScore esports. He's a scrub who had a dedicated Focus Attack button for FADCs. You can follow him on Twitter.