It all started with a conversation on IRC. Several of us who had attended GDQs in the past had been fantasizing about seeing GDQ become a worldwide event. Sure, we had plenty of European runners in attendance in years prior, but Japan had yet to really be represented on the GDQ stage. Most of our interactions up to this point with the Japanese scene had been through IRC or Nico streams. There were a few Japanese runners who were discovering Twitch at this point, but it was largely drowned out by Nico still.

I was feeling particularly motivated at this point in my speedrunning career. I wanted to make a meaningful contribution to the community I loved so much. With that in mind, I threw caution to the wind and created JRTA. I had no idea what to expect as far as community participation. It turned out that many people in the community shared an equal interest in seeing Japan represented at GDQ. In fact, the marathon raised an unbelievable $13,280! Once we had met our goal, we transferred the remaining funds to charity. Due to the overwhelming support from the community, we’ve been able to do JRTA three more times since then.

This marathon has more memories than I recall in one list, but I’ll try! Highlights included:

• Runs by each Japanese runner we raised money for (0xwas, Ohon, and Hanage)
• A Gal*Gun race, which was somehow placed on the front page of Twitch
• A pre-recorded Yoshi’s Island run that fooled us all
• A Mega Man 9 showdown between D N G R and usedpizza
• A UNIEL showdown!
• Paris-Dakar Rally
• Shasta hijacking the stream by mistake during Ellonija’s Rockman 3 run

Unfortunately some portions of the runs were lost due to inexperience with running an event of this scale. Most of the runs are preserved, though. Look at those now defunct Hitbox restreams! Check out all the fun we had in this JRTA1 playlist!

And here are the Japanese participants’ runs, sorted by runner, performed at AGDQ 2015.

Hanage:

0xwas:

Ohon: