Nekomata Okayu Draws Bracket for 14-Player Finger-Sumo Tournament in Switch Sports Resort

HOLOLIVE — Nekomata Okayu revealed the 14 participants in her finger-sumo tournament and drew the bracket live on Tuesday, a day before the event. The online tournament, #ホロゆび相撲 (Holo Yubi Zumo), is set for 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 11, and is played in the finger-sumo mode of Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, a thumb-wrestling game on the Nintendo Switch.

Okayu walked through slides she said she made the night before. The tournament is one-on-one and single-elimination. Because one game of finger sumo counts as only a point, a match is won by taking four of them, which she said she chose after test play showed that shorter matches ended in about a minute. If a player’s connection drops, the match is replayed once. After that, rock-paper-scissors decides it. The top three finishers receive trophies, and the slides carried English text for the overseas participants. She said the rules are deliberately loose and the tournament is meant as an easy-going event.

“Actually, this is my first solo project. My heart’s pounding.” — Nekomata Okayu, on hosting the tournament

She then introduced the field one by one, joking about players’ confident poses in their standing illustrations and about who might have an edge. She said overseas participants would be asked for a self-introduction and a statement of intent, using translation tools to communicate. A web roulette then set the order: two seeds were drawn, and two participants who will be returning late on the day were placed in the last first-round match. The remaining pairings were drawn block by block until the full bracket was set.

Okayu said she had never run the roulette for an event before, only been drawn by one, and said it was fun. She ended with a demonstration, playing one ranked online match in the game to show viewers how a bout unfolds, and won it. She said the day would likely be hectic, with screen-sharing duties on top of hosting, and asked viewers to watch over her in chat. Chat answered with cheers throughout, and the stream drew 18 Super Chats, many of them messages of support for the tournament.