By J J Orallo
Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Following the firing of former Cyclops Athlete Gaming professional gamer Kana “Tanukana” Tani for offensive remarks against people’s physical characteristics, its Call of Duty manager “Kbaton” was also released for verbal misconduct.
Cyclops Athlete Gaming is a Japanese esports organization based in Osaka which was created by the merger of Infinity Osaka and Cyclops Osaka in 2017. The organization is well-known for its involvement in fostering young esports talents in popular first-person shooters such as PUBG, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Valorant, and Rainbow Six Siege (R6S). The organization also participates in fighting games like Tekken as well.
The organization’s overall performance is subpar, with its most noteworthy achievements coming in local tournaments, including a first-place finish in the R6S Japan League 2021, R6S PAC-CUP Season 8 Japan, and a seventh-place finish in the Call of Duty Challengers 2021 Asia Pacific Finals. A majority of their international placements usually hover in the lower brackets.
In spite of this rather mediocre record, the organization did manage to accomplish some international successes, especially through their now former Tekken representative, Kana “Tanukana” Tani. Her most recent and meaningful contribution to the organization was her first-place finish in the Female World Electronic Sports Games 2019 Chongqing Tekken 7 Invitational, giving the team her winnings of ¥230,000 (US$2,000).
This performance brought her local and international recognition in the female gaming community, and allowed her to be featured in the mainstream Japanese press.
However, her rise to fame and recognition came to an abrupt end after she made several inappropriate remarks during one of her livestreams on February 15. Specifically, she stated, “Men under 170 centimeters (5 feet, 7 inches) should not be allowed human rights. Girls who are A-cup also.”
Tanukana’s ill-considered comments enraged the online community of Japan, with many users criticizing Cyclops Gaming for tolerating her bigoted statements.
Tanukana was already on thin ice for past instances of verbal misconduct.
In 2018, when co-streaming with South Korean Tekken player “Kkokkoma,” Tanukana made several distasteful comments about her cohost, implying in a demeaning manner that he was a homosexual. In a 2020 livestream, she told several of her fans to “kill themselves” and referred to them as “the trashiest trash of society.”
Tanukana released a public apology on Twitter for her latest comments, stating that she deeply regretted what she had said and is remorseful. But the damage was done, and it seems that her career as a professional Tekken player may have come to a conclusion.
Shortly thereafter, another firing occurred at Cyclops Athletes Gaming. This time is was Call of Duty manager Kbaton, who has found to have a long history of homophobia and bashing the LGBT community.
Kbaton’s verbal misconduct came to light shortly after the firing of Tanukana, as Cyclops conducted an internal survey of bigoted behavior by its athletes and staff.
Kbaton’s offenses were discovered mainly on Twitter, where he not only mocked the LGBT community with hurtful slurs but also made slurs against disabled people. Kbaton’s social media outlets were quickly deleted after he was let go by the team.
The organization’s struggle with inappropriate statements are not entirely limited to the recently fired pair. Their current R6S starter Taiyo “Ayagator” Hirayama was found to have made discriminatory claims regarding people of Chinese and Korean descent before joining Cyclops.
Cyclops Athletes Gaming has made several public apologies for their inattentiveness to background checks, and for not taking immediate action on their player’s and staff’s inappropriate statements.
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