Japan e-sports players with disabilities shoot down stereotypes

TOKYO: Street Fighter player Shunya Hatakeyama has muscular dystrophy, so he uses his chin to launch devastating combos. He is not the only Japanese gamer proving that disability is no barrier in e-sports.

Naoya Kitamura, who is blind and relies on sound to play beat 'em up game Tekken 7, also hopes that his skills in a billion-dollar industry will help make society more open-minded.

"I'll block a move and the sound it makes will tell me what kind of move it was," Kitamura said.

"Then I'll react and make my move," he told AFP, demonstrating a dizzying attack with Tekken character Lucky Chloe.

Competitive gaming is booming worldwide, with global e-sports revenues estimated at more than US$1 billion, and many think it could one day be at the Olympics.

The sector is not as big in Japan as in e-sports-crazy China and South Korea, but it is gradually starting to take root.

Keen to offer Japanese gamers with disabilities a chance to be part of the action, social welfare worker Daiki Kato founded a company called ePara in 2016.

Kato's firm employs players such as Hatakeyama and Kitamura, who are both 28, and gives them time to practise around their other duties, which include working on the company's website and helping organise gaming events.

Hatakeyama mostly enters Street Fighter V tournaments that are open to anyone - disabled or non-disabled - and says the beauty of fighting games is that "you can overcome handicaps and compete against different people".

"When I play in a tournament I don't want my disability to be an issue," he said.

"I want to move people with the way I play."

Hatakeyama was born with degenerative muscular dystrophy and has used a wheelchair since he was about six years old.

He has always loved fighting games, but