Shishiro Cup goes offline

Shishiro Botan’s Shishiro Cup moved from stream-only competition to a live arena event this weekend, opening April 11 at Yokohama BUNTAI in Japan. (hololivepro.com) The two-day event was billed as the first in-person edition of the Street Fighter 6 tournament Botan has hosted under the Shishiro Cup name. Day 1, on April 11, featured “Shishiro Cup 4th,” an eight-team double-elimination bracket with three players per team. (hololivepro.com, prtimes.jp) Day 2, on April 12, was set as an East-versus-West team match led by Botan for the West side and Laplus Darkness for the East side. Botan’s official YouTube listing said the teams would play under five special rule sets. (prtimes.jp, youtube.com) The shift offline marks a change for a tournament series that had been run online since it began in 2024. Liquipedia lists the first Shishiro Cup on March 31, 2024, and the second on October 13 and 14, 2024, both as online Street Fighter 6 invitational events organized by Botan. (liquipedia.net, liquipedia.net) By 2025, the event had expanded into multiple skill divisions, including master, grand master and legend brackets, alongside exhibition play. An eSports World event listing for Shishiro Cup 3rd described that May 17-18, 2025 edition as an online tournament with rank-based divisions and a promotion system for winners. (esports-world.jp) For this weekend’s arena version, Cover Corporation and esports production company GLOE said they were jointly staging the event after previously supporting the tournament’s online broadcasts and production. Their February announcement said the goal was to combine Hololive talent-led planning with higher-end competitive event operations for an in-person show. (prtimes.jp, gloe.jp) The venue and ticketing also pushed the event closer to a large live entertainment format than a typical community bracket. The official site listed Yokohama BUNTAI as the host venue, with one-day tickets from 7,000 yen to 14,000 yen, two-day passes from 12,000 yen to 25,000 yen, plus VVIP rooms priced at 240,000 yen. (hololivepro.com, prtimes.jp) Botan said in the event announcement that Shishiro Cup had previously been delivered online and that she wanted the offline edition to offer the atmosphere viewers cannot get through a screen. The same announcement said online streaming was still planned alongside the arena show. (prtimes.jp) That left Shishiro Cup in a hybrid spot by April 12: still a YouTube-native Street Fighter 6 event, but now with arena seating, live spectators and a weekend format built around both tournament play and a captain-led show match. (hololivepro.com, youtube.com)