Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 158, page 155: A Sensation in Japan
Having just won the championship, whether to stay with CFO or accept offers from other LPL or LCK teams and go elsewhere is a choice for me.

I'll go back to Japan for a couple of days to rest and adjust before the start of the season, and during that time I'll slowly consider whether or not to transfer.
With this in mind, Shimamura Yuna stopped worrying.

Instead, he let out a long sigh, got out of bed, and walked to the hotel window.

She gazed at the rising sun outside the window, her heart filled with anticipation for the future.

Things will get better and better.

Whether it's the competition or the future.

Yuna Shimamura firmly believed this.
-
The day after winning the championship, Yuna Shimamura took a short trip around South Korea and spent some time in Seoul with her teammates.

If the World Championship had ended by then, it would have been a truly enjoyable time to play.

However, this year's regular season schedule is very tight; the regular season will begin shortly after the Pioneer Tournament ends.

Therefore, Shimamura Yuna needed to decide many things beforehand.

At the same time, she also plans to go back to Japan to meet her sister.

This made her schedule a little busy.

So the next afternoon, she took a plane back to Japan with Akari Kujo.

The other teammates went straight back to Taiwan.

During this extremely busy period of her life, the online discussion and buzz surrounding her continued to grow.

This is truly a phenomenal event, far exceeding the expectations of Riot and Tencent Games.

It's no exaggeration to say that anyone who is even slightly young and plays games knows about this.

Let's not even talk about those who play games.

That meant they were discussing Shimamura Yuna almost all day long.

After all, in recent years, apart from Faker's five championships, there have been almost no other championships with a greater impact.

On this basis, Shimamura Yuna is also very friendly to Chinese audiences, so she can be considered half a family member.

What else should we talk about at this point if not Yuna Shimamura?

Are you discussing TES, who were relentlessly tossed around like a spinning top and almost failed to advance from the top 5 to the top 4?
Well, there's been a lot of discussion about this, and quite a few videos. While it's not as popular as Shimamura Yuna winning, it's not far behind.

Thanks to TES and Yuna Shimamura, the discussion surrounding the entire LPL is now several times higher than when the first stage of the season started, much to the delight of Tencent Esports.

However, we'll leave these matters aside for now and discuss them later.

In short, Shimamura Yuna's influence in the League of Legends community is nothing to be surprised about.

But what's amazing about this is that even people who aren't dog lovers know about it, understand it, and have even joined in the frenzy.

Normally, people outside the entertainment circle may know about celebrities who are into petting dogs, such as JKL and UZI, but most of them only have a superficial understanding of them.

Many people outside the gaming community wouldn't have a strong interest in learning about a professional player in a game they don't understand.

It's simply because the number of people who love dogs is so large, and their voices are so loud that they permeate the entire internet. To a large extent, today's internet culture is influenced by this group.

Therefore, many passersby sometimes have no choice but to passively hear these people's names.

But Shimamura Yuna is different.

When people heard that a beautiful, Chinese-speaking female professional League of Legends player had won the championship while streaming live in China, many people instantly felt a sense of wonder that was hard to describe in words.

You'll think, "Oh, is that true?"

Then I clicked into the video and saw a photo of Yuna Shimamura, and exclaimed, "Holy crap, she's actually quite pretty! Is she really that pretty?"

This attraction is different from that of well-known professional players like Faker and Zywoo, which comes purely from skill and personal charisma.

This is a more direct, visual attraction, unique to beautiful girls.

And this doesn't mean that Shimamura Yuna is just a pretty face.

Beyond her visual appeal, Yuna Shimamura also possesses some of the essential elements that make her popular as a world-renowned professional player.

Beautiful girl + genius professional player
This combination is ultimately a bit too authoritative.

If it's just pretty girls, it will make e-sports viewers think, "Pretty faces are all the same. If I want to see beautiful women, why don't I watch the entertainment industry?"

There are many good-looking people in this world, but just being good-looking isn't enough to attract everyone's attention.

However, if it's just about esports pros, people who aren't interested in esports will think, 'I don't play this game, so what does it have to do with me if the esports pros play it?'

There are many popular games in the world, and each popular game has its own audience. Skilled players often only gain attention within that specific audience. Even League of Legends, the world's number one esports title, is not entirely immune to this limitation.

Both of these single tags have a relatively limited audience online.

However, when these two labels are combined, they become invincible.

A genius e-sports champion, a beautiful cherry blossom girl, who is the world's number one e-sports player.

This is a persona so compelling that it's irresistible, even to those outside the industry.

It gives everyone the feeling that they've seen a fantastical genius girl from an anime come to life.

Who could resist taking a look?
Just how popular is Yuna Shimamura right now?

For example, a player might casually start a game of Operation Delta Force, and then while they're clearing the map in Space, they chat and joke around while opening room cards.

If someone were to say at this moment, "Hey, do you guys know that Shimamura Yuna?"

Then the other two teammates will most likely say, "Oh, I know, I saw her yesterday, she's really pretty, and she plays really well too."

Then they'll talk about Shimamura Yuna for the entire game, constantly marveling at how legendary she is. While they're talking, they might also take the opportunity to belittle TES and JKL, saying something like, "The LPL's top-spinning region isn't even as good as Shimamura Yuna."

Using Shimamura to criticize the entire LPL has become a trend across the internet.

And Shimamura Yuna herself is the epitome of trendiness.

That's right, her popularity has reached that level.

No matter which game or platform you're on, as long as it's a gaming community, everyone knows this.

Yuna Shimamura is undoubtedly another phenomenal player who is known to everyone in China, following in the footsteps of Faker, Simple, and others.

It is a trendy player that can be called a dog trapping device.

But that's it.
In the past two days, Shimamura Yuna herself has felt her popularity and is happy with her current popularity and reputation, feeling that her efforts have paid off.

But one thing she felt a little regretful about was that she was no longer Chinese. It wasn't that she was some kind of "wolf warrior" or particularly eager to return home.

Not that that's the case.

She's a pretty easygoing person and isn't too attached to nationality; she doesn't care where she lives.

The reason she felt it was a pity was that in her previous life, she often saw domestic professional players who achieved success being reported by various official media after they became famous.

Although it didn't really have any practical significance, she still felt envious of such things at the time, feeling that her efforts and achievements would be recognized by the public's values.

This is a kind of ritualistic feeling, similar to a hero defeating a demon king and then returning to the kingdom to marry a princess, which naturally makes people yearn for it.

So she used to fantasize that if she could win a championship one day, she would want to be featured on CCTV and tell her parents about her achievements. How happy she would be!

But now, even though she has won the championship, she can no longer feel that sense of ceremony.

To put it bluntly, she's Japanese, so no matter how popular she is with Chinese audiences online...
But from the perspective of the Chinese government, what does it have to do with China if a Japanese person wins the championship?

If you think you're so great because you're Japanese, then go to Japan and get your story reported there.

However, for Japan, the influence of League of Legends is not enough domestically, and it is not something to be celebrated as grandly as a hero defeating a demon king.

There will definitely be reports, but Shimamura Yuna feels that it probably won't be very grand or have a big impact.

In other words, in places where League of Legends has a large influence, one is an outsider.

In places where they are not outsiders, League of Legends has no influence.

Now that things have come to this, she can only feel helpless.

Sitting on the plane back home, Shimamura Yuna's mind was filled with all sorts of random thoughts.

She had thought that after returning to Japan, she would be an insignificant nobody, just another face in the crowd, just like a big star in China and South Korea, and could spend her short vacation in peace and quiet.

However, having not used Japanese social media for a long time, she completely misjudged her popularity in Japan.

And this will soon give her an absolute shock.
-
Shimamura Yuna's judgment was not entirely wrong.

League of Legends has a limited influence in Japan; it is indeed a niche, obsessive game that doesn't attract much attention.

If it were just a professional player winning a championship in a niche Japanese game, then it would probably be just as she thought: a simple trending topic, like a Chinese kid winning Street Fighter VI, a brief moment of fame, and then nothing more.

However, there is a fundamental difference between League of Legends and truly niche games like fighting games.

Even though League of Legends isn't popular in Japan, it is objectively and undeniably the world's number one esports game internationally.

As fellow East Asians, Japanese and Chinese share many cultural similarities.

Simply put, they all love to win.

If you're talking about "the world's number one esports," then most people probably don't care.

But if you say "the Japanese won the world's number one e-sports game", then it feels completely different.

JP WIN and Cool Japan.

Not to mention, this is a story about a "Japanese supermodel winning the preseason championship of League of Legends, the world's number one e-sports game".

When Shimamura Yuna won the LCP championship and qualified for the World Championship, she had already gained some popularity in Japan because of this kind of news.

Winning the Pioneer Tournament this time has completely ignited the Japanese internet, instantly becoming the hottest topic in Japan right now, bar none.

#League of Legends
#CFO Winner
#YunaShimamura wins
#Japan's once-in-a-millennium e-sports prodigy

A series of topics dominated the trending searches on Twitter.

[Huh? Does such a beautiful girl really exist? Or is she a world champion?]

[I wonder if anyone else watched Shimamura's World Championship highlights like I did? He's so cool! He's super cute in person, such a contrast to his on-court persona!]

This girl is truly a source of pride for Japan! I heard she won't turn 18 until the 20th, but she's already a League of Legends world champion. That's amazing!

Simply talking about influence on Twitter might not give you a real sense of its impact.

After all, those who have the loudest voices online are not necessarily the majority in reality.

When Shimamura Yuna made it to the World Championship, she also trended on Twitter in Japan, even topping the trending list.

But the truth is, after a short while, everyone had already forgotten about it.

Offline, almost no one remembers that there was such a person as Shimamura Yuna.

Ultimately, League of Legends isn't popular enough in Japan, and the LCP championship isn't prestigious enough to generate significant influence, making it difficult to market effectively.

But this time, it's really different.

This can be seen from the school where Shimamura Yuna went.

Although Shimamura Yuna dropped out of school early, before she dropped out, many people in her class still remembered her because of her good looks.

But when she won the LCP championship last time, perhaps because no one in her class actually played League of Legends, the event didn't get any attention at school.

At that moment, after news about Yuna Shimamura topped the trending lists on various Japanese social media platforms, some students in the class realized: "Hey, wait a minute, look, isn't that the person in the news the one who dropped out of our class? What was her name again?"

"Shimamura?"

"Yes, yes, that's her! Her game ID is also Shimamura!"

"Huh? Really??? Then... if they have the same surname, it can't be anyone else, right?"

Both of them found it somewhat unbelievable.

But the facts are undeniable, and they cannot deny them.

So they stared at each other, their expressions filled with shock.

"Has she become this amazing since dropping out of school, whether it's the real her or the fake one???"

"I remember she dropped out of school because of depression."

"Yes, I remember she was completely silent and didn't talk to anyone at school. It's unbelievable that she's become so amazing now."

Then, very quickly, the news spread throughout the entire school.

Suddenly, everyone in the school was talking about how "someone from our school won a championship in League of Legends and is now super famous".

(End of this chapter)