Historic Rivalry: Bunbun-maru vs Daimon Lau

Old, but I thought I'd post this. The video is about one of the great rivalries of VF history. Boom Boom Maru(Bun Bun Maru) vs Daimon Lau.

Starts off with guys in Tokyo hearing about someone in Kyoto who was unbeatable at VF2.(The first one in the video is Ikebukuro Sarah, followed by Shinjuku Jacky and Kyasao, then Boom Boom Maru) The wierd thing was that practically all his wins were by ringout. Thinking that if the guy was only winning by ringout, he couldn't be that good, a bunch of 20 top players from Kantou(East side of the main island of Honshu) made the trip out to Kyoto to beat him down, and none of them could take a game off him. Daimon Lau was that player.

1:20 is the match between Daimon Lau and Boom Boom Maru from that trip. The Tokyo regiment proceeded to lose about 60 games in a row after that.

According to Daimon and his mate ZAP, they were pleasantly surprised that these so-called top players were getting beat down by him. The visitors arrived full of confidence, but when they left, they looked like they were swearing vengeance.

The key to Daimon's dominance was his being able to do Lau's Shajoshou( ) from a standing position instead of from crouch. Daimon had been doing it accidentally for a period of time, but it was ZAP who figured out the technique to do it consistently. At first Daimon couldn't get the hang of it, and thought it was not going to be a useful technique anyway. However, after some practice, they found it to be very strong. This was the era when information exchange was scarce, so it was something only known in their little area. ZAP goes on to say one of the fun parts about games in those days was to develop your own tricks to try out and surprise people with at the arcades.

Instead of getting dejected, the loss fuelled the fighting spirit of the Tokyo players, and Boom Boom Maru returned to Tokyo where the community started their own experimentation with Daimon's technique, as well as possible counter measures.

Up to the 3rd Athena Cup, Boom Boom Maru had not defeated Daimon. In fact he had even lost to Daimon on a special programme on TV.(that video is also on Youtube)

There were 16 teams in the tournament, and Daimon's team had already drawn their spot - number 13. Boom Boom Maru, when asked to draw, declared "Number 14!" and by some miracle, it came true. The teams were Man the Satanshark, Kassai Lau and Boom Boom Maru vs ZAP, Burun Burun Maru and Daimon Lau.

Man the Satanshark took out ZAP and Burun Burun Maru. Daimon Lau then went on to take him and Kassai Lau out. However, Boom Boom Maru saw that Daimon wasn't having an easy time, and that boosted his confidence.

5:54 - start of the legendary match. Daimon thought to himself "This'll be easy." and proceeded to take 2 rounds. At the time, all thought Boom Boom Maru still had no answer to Laú's standing Shajoshou. What they didn't know was that Boom Boom Maru had been working on backwards crouch dash with Shinjuku Jacky. They had done it in practice, but Shinjuku Jacky thought it would be impossible to pull off in the heat of a tournament.

6:55 - Boom Boom Maru landed backwards crouch dash -> Giant Swing twice in as many rounds, putting Daimon on defensive and allowing him to run in with low throws(this was an option select in VF2 because a failed low throw came out as ) Daimon decided he didn't want to eat any more low throws and stood up into a Giant Swing, giving Boom Boom Maru the win.

There were 300 to 400 people crammed into a tiny arcade for that match.

You can watch the video of the full team match at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51b1obiSn60

And the TV programme at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDDPAxyErL0

 

Thank you for sharing all of that. Great vid and the story behind it makes it even better.

 

ah, the good old days. I know I'm a nostalgic but I haven't seen or experienced anything like the VF2 days. I think that comes down to a lot of factors and not just the game itself though.

one of the reasons I love VF2 is that it was so broken in a lot of respects and yet every time someone created a technique that should have overpowered a character someone else evolved a counter technique, even to the point where they were just mind numbingly crazy ... like akira knee-ing (or sarah d+P+Ging, or Shun dodging or Jacky kickflipping)out of the guaranteed SE-deep body check.

That didn't stop craziness but man did it make it fun.

 

Wow great video and write up, thanks for that.

Edit: just watching the full match video now, Ive never seen so much 2!

 

I remember watching this back in the day... It was interesting to see something this big for VF... I don't think there's any rivalry that is as big as that one... I mean JWong/Daigo or Cl0ckw0rk/Dark Prince doesn't even come close imo... I do wish there was something this monumental here in the states though, something that inspired people to learn new tricks and techniques in VF or any other fighting game for that matter...

Have they fought in any of the recent VFs (3-5FS)???

 

Dude, Evo has a lot more than 300-400 people in it that get inspired for lots of games...just not VF lol

Nostalgia is neat tho. Too bad VF is so dead that's all that's fueling it here.

 

Yeah people there get inspired, but I don't think its in a way that it was with this though... I mean people here see an Evo match and want to tier whore, not necessarily learn a particular character and invest (T5/T6 Steve Fox, Rufus, Sentinel, the other 3 MvC2 god tier characters, 3S Ken)... Not many people see a player use Magneto in MvC2 and say I wanna learn that character and try to figure him out... Most cats wanna learn that ROM combo and some setups and thats it...

I'm pretty sure people saw the LA vs WO match and wanted to figure ways to them both with their character of choice, or saw some things that they both could've done in those matches...

Who ever got inspired to pick up a low tier character from watching them crush at a major tournament or major event??? Not that many... If anything, I'm pretty sure people took note of whatever character that has the best matchups and took to that character (which is one reason I feel tournaments here aren't as diverse in characters, regardless of tiers but that's another discussion)...

I do agree with you with the last statement though...

 

That was dope. Like Familia said, the story behind it made the video much better. Tons of hype in that room. They all get quiet quick when the match begins, then shit starts happening and noise starts, that's whusup, I liked that .

The last 10 seconds of that Lau vs Lau match was great to watch. It reminded me of the old arcade days (playing SF) with people around watching, both players trying to bait each other into throwing something out. Wes doing his impersination of when a random dude in the back yells out "DOO THE SUPERRR!!". Doing real life pump fakes lmao. Just the last 10 seconds of the match let me catch all that, hmph, crazy.

Wasn't till bout, half way through till I realized no one was evading lol. Cause apparently you can't... Giant swing + Pounce = 90% damage, dam ! And Jhow, you got one these at the crib? Man, what? If I ever come through we're playing this shit man.

All bullshit aside though, this vid makes me wanna the shit out of people online now. I have a hard time 'ng with Eileen though cause ever since I started HDR, I have a habit of doing / when I crouch to be in a HDR low defensive stance. And since she has moves linked with them inputs, I accidently do those instead. Nothin a lil repetition can't cure though right? Riighhht.

 

Pretty epic battle. Thanks for the history lesson.

 

Inspiration is inspiration, you just don't like what inspires people in the US; increasing your chances at winning. I bet others tried these setups in Japan after they were done too.

You just USA hatin

 

They did, they did in Japan and they did in the US when all of the Japanese and Korean (more Korean) tricks really started to flow. But there was also a lot of bandwagon jumping to Lau when the M-upkn rush was discovered; people began devising counters specific to the strategy so it wasn't the win button they were hoping for and they moved on.

whaaaa? man, if anything I see people get excited all the time when a character breaks the tier barrier. Seemed like Adon had that jump after GamerBee made him famous just recently. and I KNOW Justin Wong created the Wolverine Tsunami after destroying people in WNF (and Wolverine was considered to be a poor choice before that).

 

I thought Adon was at best mid tier, and was a character no one knew how to fight against, or really prepared for... Yeah Gamerbee did get a buzz from Evo, but I don't think it was as big as the Rufus bandwagon, or even the Abel bandwagon...

Yeah Wolvie was considered a poor choice, but I'm pretty sure that's because he was trash in MvC2 (unless you're Joe Zaza) and no one can really place tiers just yet in MvC3...

When I mean low tier, I mean like T6 Yoshimitsu low tier winning Evo inspiring. Or SCIV Rock coming up in the ranks with some crazy tricks and setups that people didn't think to use... I'm not trying to knock nobody's victories at all...

Edit: Ok, Adon is upper C tier per iplaywinner.com...

 

No not USA hating at all... If Japan or any other place in the world was tier whoring at a ridiculous level and not just simply wanting to learn "x" character for something other than tier placing, then yeah, I'd be saying the same thing... Matter o' fact, those cats were tier whoring in Capcom Fighting Jam (most matches had Jedah and Leo in them)...

At the end of the day, for me a win is still a win... I guess for me its character dedication that matters... I remember a gangload of heads on the Steve Fox bandwagon jumped right the hell off when 5.1 came out, and I thought it was ridiculous...

Anyway, I wonder how that match would've ended if sidestepping we in VF2...

 

Well from I gather about Japan is that the sheer amount of players playing exposes most of the top tiers early on. Dare I say they get used to playing against them so exploiting weaknesses is easier. That, and you don't win money in Japan tournaments do you?

Sometimes I just think US gamers have a idealistic view of Japan. As far as tier whoring, wasn't Lau like god tier if VF2?

 

I never really knew the tier listing for VF2...

Yeah Japan does tier whore... NGBC is another example of that, but because of it, a bunch of anti Mr. Big and Kim strats arose, as well as some characters ended up being bumped up in the tier listing because of new discoveries while trying to stop some of those higher tier characters...

 

a little tidbit: if im not mistaken that video is from an event that was filmed by some of the enterbrain staff for the 10th anniversary of virtua fighter book and DVD called "virtua fighter 10th anniversary ~ memory of decade" http://www.enterbrain.co.jp/jp/p_pickup/vf10th/

for the creation of that DVD, they traveled to different countries (korea comes to mind) and one of them was New York!, when you see Kyasao talking he's actually in New York (i think either battery park or jersey city...i think).

I thought by now the whole dvd was released on youtube but i cant find it....man, if someone is up to translating the whole dvd, I could help subtitling.

anyways, good shit. MEEEEEMOORIIEEESSSSSSs.....

 

There are also cameo appearances of many american players who were at hand to attend the "I love VF" tourney.

 

By help, Sal means he'd say the word 'help' and 'subtitle' and then...well, then you'd have to find him. haha.

 

lol

 

that was a good read/watch - a big smile broke out when that giant swing came