Ryo "BAS" Yoshida avoided the arcades early in his youth. He found them "dangerous" as a student. "And people are smoking in there," Yoshida told Super Lore Boys in a 2022 interview. But enough of his friends had become obsessed with this hot new game called Street Fighter II - Champion Edition, and he could only say no for so long. Despite all the smoke and all the real life fights breaking out over video game fights at his local arcade, which he called "a real-life Rival Schools," he fell in love with the genre. After struggling with motion characters, BAS asked his friends who the strongest charge character was. A new Dictator main was born that day.
BAS really took off after Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting released in 1992, becoming the best player at his arcade and traveling to other arcades across the country to test his skill. Throughout the 1990s, BAS played just about every 2D fighter out there, making a name for himself in Garou: Mark of the Wolves, King of Fighters, and Vampire Savior as well as the Street Fighter Series. After Street Fighter Alpha 3 released in 1998, he was regularly traveling to practice with players like Daigo Umehara.
He would make his first trip to the United States to test his skills in 2001, and he more than proved that he belonged with the best in the world. At that year's Battle by the Bay, aka B5, BAS won the Street Fighter Alpha 3 competition over top Japanese players like Chikyuu and White and top American contenders like John Choi and Alex Valle.
The next year, Battle by the Bay moved to the University of California-Los Angeles campus and became the Evolution Championship Series, and BAS returned to the states for the occasion. The inaugural Evo was also the first major international tournament for a new game, Capcom vs. SNK 2. BAS was locked in on CVS2. He had spent a couple of days helping Capcom beta test it, and you can even see his name in the credits.
BAS didn't immediately repeat his championship performance from Street Fighter Alpha 3, but he was an instant force in CvS 2. He finished fifth at Evo 2002 and fourth at Evo 2003. Mago, the fighting game legend who eliminated him in 2003, was turning into his bracket demon.
BAS didn't make the trip in 2004, but he returned in 2005. He climbed to Top 8 once again, flying through winners side. But there was that demon again, waiting for him: Mago. Instantly, it was obvious that BAS was going to have to work hard for his openings, as Mago's Honda timed out BAS's Vega in the opening round. It looked like Mago's second character, Sagat, was going to maintain the impenetrable wall, but on a sliver of health, BAS managed to open up Mago and bring it all the way back with a huge M. Bison combo. The game would come down to the Blanka mirror, and BAS would steamroll Mago, finally overcoming his demon and earning himself a Winners Finals matchup against Kindevu.
It was out of the frying pan and into the fire, because Kindevu was the reigning Evo CvS 2 champion. He was another player who had mastered M. Bison and Blanka. The only difference was the point characters: BAS went with E. Honda this time, while Kindevu stuck with his trusty Sakura. The Honda set the tone immediately, keeping Kindevu locked in the corner for much of the round while deftly staying out of the range of Sakura's attacks. BAS had nearly a full character lead, but Kindevu's Bison had a full meter, and used it to wipe that lead out in an instant. But the meter advantage was enough: BAS used his own full meter to quickly win the mirror match. He was then able to bounce around Kindevu's Blanka with his Bison, barely able to hold on and win the round without having to rely on his own lightning beast.
But if BAS wanted to earn his first Evo title, he was going to have to make magic happen twice.
Mago had taken out RF, Combofiend and Kindevu to earn his way into Grand Finals, and BAS was now going to have to beat the man who had sent him home two years ago for the second time this tournament in order to take home the trophy. He was going to have to work for it. Despite BAS clawing back deficits not once but twice to bring the game to a nearly tied final round between the anchor Blankas, Mago was able to force a bracket reset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s8rmahAlP0&list=PLNEDfJZKAl4vLviQ5JFpw3Oq_t47WMoQt&index=1
BAS held a small lead after round one, with his Vega outlasting Mago's Honda. This time, the MVP was the character his friends had told him to pick up so long ago in his hometown arcades. Despite the fact that Mago's C-Groove Sagat was sitting on a full meter for most of the match, he just wasn't able to find the opening to spend it, and BAS's Bison slowly but surely whittled him down. He was able to extend that lead against Mago's Blanka, and by the time Mago was able to force the final round mirror, BAS had over a 50% lead. It was far from over: Mago had tons of meter left, and had proven in the first game of Grands that he needed only single hits to confirm into huge damage with it. BAS hunkered down and stayed patient. Mago was chipping away, and had turned it into a truly last-hit situation, but all it took was one tiny opening. BAS saw it, activated his A-Groove super, and that was that: he had finally won an Evo CvS 2 championship.
BAS won another Evo title in 2006, but it wasn't in CvS 2; it was in the 3v3 Guilty Gear XX Slash tournament. He teamed up with MINT and RUU to take down the field, including their Grand Finals opponents, Team Daigo, featuring not only the Beat but Kindevu and RF, both Evo Champions in their own right.
BAS would return for another crack at the CvS 2 title in 2007. Despite the time he had put into Guilty Gear, he wasn't rusty in CvS 2 at all. With the same team that brought him glory in 2005, his trusty trio of Vega, Bison and Blanka, he rolled through the competition and didn't drop a single game in Top 8. He won his second Evo Championship with victories over Ricki Ortiz, Justin Wong, Kindevu, Buktooth, Tokido and more.
"I was happy, but not super happy," BAS recalled in a 2014 interview with Capcom Fighters. Why not? "I played a lot – the most in the world – so I should have won that tournament anyway." BAS would get one more chance at a CvS 2 title in 2008, its final year on the Evo main stage. He would take second place in what he calls the most disappointing loss of his career, falling to John Choi in Grand Finals despite managing to force a bracket reset.
"I won Evo 2007, so everyone thought I was supposed to win at Evo 2008," he told Capcom Fighters. Referring to Choi, BAS said, "He was very good, and he beat me. At that time, I was a little bit nervous, and my choices were a little bit wrong. It was super pressure for me."
The days of CvS 2 in the biggest spotlight were over, but BAS was determined to keep the game alive despite the game's declining popularity. "It was a mix of people really wanting to play the new Street Fighter and Japanese arcades starting to close down around that time," BAS told Twin Galaxies, referring to the 2008 release of Street Fighter IV. "Moreover, some close friends quit because of family, work, etc., but I was still trying to host events to keep it playable."
That work continues to this day, where BAS hosts a YouTube channel that both serves as a hub for contemporary Japanese CvS 2 tournaments as well as one of the greatest repositories of history on the web for any classic fighting game. He also streams the game to a large audience on Twitch, which he started taking more seriously after stay-at-home orders were passed down during COVID.
BAS has made some efforts to compete in modern games. "It's really tough!" he told Ryan Hart in a 2011 interview. "Unlike Tokido and Mago, I don't have hours and hours to play each day as work takes most of my day up, and these days if you want to travel to play abroad you definitely have to be strong at SSF4 before anything else... Working a full time job changes everything."
Even if it wasn't for his work life, though, there's another problem: these modern games just aren't his style, something that hasn't changed in the past 10 years. He's still happy to keep grinding CvS 2, and keep pushing both the meta and the community forward.
And yes, he is still pushing the meta. BAS is still entering tournaments to this day, and according to Liquipedia, the last major tournament he didn't win was that Evo 2008 tournament where he fell to John Choi. From 2014 through 2024, wherever the game has been run, at events like CEO, Final Round, Combo Breaker, East Coast Throwdown, and of course, the Evo community showcase brackets, wherever BAS has entered, he's taken the crown. You can pull up the most recent VoD from his Youtube channel, a CvS 2 monthly tournament held at Big-One Arcade in Saitama, and there he is, winning in Grand Finals with the same exact trio that brought him those two Evo trophies in 2005 and 2007.
BAS is living proof of Matsuda's famous quote, "Fighting games will never die." Players like BAS are the reason why that phrase rings so true. His dedication to Capcom vs. SNK 2 is unparalleled, both as a player and a community leader, and as long as he's around, CvS 2 won't just survive, but thrive.
See more of BAS's journey and story in Evo Legends Powered by Qiddiya Gaming on EvoFGC.
