With a date set for EVO Japan, the tournament's organizers took some time at Tokyo Game Show to talk about their hopes for EVO's first ever foreign event.

EVO founder Joey "MrWizard" Cuellar, EVO business development lead Mark "MarkMan" Julio and EVO Japan steering committee chairman Kaneko "Hameko" Noriyuki spoke primarily about the communities they hope to include in EVO Japan.

"I think Japan caters to a different kind of market, they like special Japanese games that maybe the US doesn't like," Cuellar said. "Games like Virtua Fighter or games like Gundam and stuff like that are really something we can look at for holding EVO in Japan. But we want to duplicate what we have in the US and bring it over to Japan because it's very successful and we think it will work very well over here."

During Thursday's press conference, EVO Japan's organizers stated that the full lineup of games that will be played at the January 2018 tournament will be announced at EVO 2017 in Las Vegas, though the final dates for that tournament have yet to be set. However, Kaneko gave fans some idea of the games they're looking at for the Japanese tournament.

"I think that in Japan, the fighting game community and the Smash community are too far," Kaneko said via a translator. "I probably want to join the two at EVO Japan."

Kaneko also stated that he felt he wants to join what he sees as two very disparate communities in the "near future" because he feels that Smash and the FGC are already united in North America.

"I think a few years ago, it was obviously more divided than it is now. I think the gap is becoming really close and we're an overall community now," Cuellar said. "Some people still don't want to believe that Smash is a fighting game but it's definitely a fighting game, just by definition alone. I mean in general the Smash community, everyone will be one happy family. If not at the current event, then next year. I think we're all really close on becoming a community."

Julio also noted that the organization is working with members of various fighting game communities in Japan, and specifically mentioned the organization is looking at older games that are more popular in Japan than in the west. Additionally, he stated that EVO Japan is working with GODSGARDEN founder Inaba Hiroaki and TOPANGA World League president Toyota Kazeyu, both members of the Japanese Street Fighter community.

Cuellar also took a moment to discuss how long EVO Japan has been in the works. Cuellar initially announced a Japanese EVO event at EVO 2010, and was later revealed to be a partnership between EVO and GODSGARDEN set for May 6-7 2011. The tournament was cancelled due to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, and went unmentioned until 2013, when Cuellar and Julio announced that they were still working on EVO Japan following that year's EVO Finals. EVO Japan was formally announced again during the EVO 2016 finals.

"We've been trying to do this for six years now, and I'm happy we'll finally be able to do it," Cuellar said. "Hopefully no natural disasters happen this time where we have to cancel the event. It's six years in the making.

"We hope that the Japanese community sees the vision of EVO and comes out to support the event. That's the only way we can really continue to do it in Japan if everyone comes out and has a great time, we can make it bigger and better and make it on par with the EVO US event, then I think having two events a year will be really cool."

Daniel Rosen is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.