takej hangs up the mouse after a long career in Counter-Strike and VALORANT, where he is now set to take on a full-time content creation role at DetonatioN FocusMe.
JAPAN – Shogo”TomjTakemori has announced his retirement from competitive VALORANT, where he will continue to serve in a full-time content creation role at DetonatioN FocusMe.
The 22-year-old steps away from competitive VALORANT play at the age of 22, but despite his youth, he leaves some impressive accolades to his name. Over the past three years and seven months, he represented notable organizations in Japan such as ZETA DIVISION, REJECT and DetonatioN FocusMe, and claimed two international LAN appearances in Berlin and São Paulo.
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“With the end of my long journey as a player, I want to thank everyone for their support,” Takej saying in his statement. “The only thing I regret is not being able to finish my playing career in a great way! Sorry everyone! But I hope I can bring something different and fun to all of you more than just as a player. Please continue to support me in the future.”
Takej put his name on the radar during his stay on the Absolute roster for most of their Counter-Strike days as Japan’s number one team, which continued after moving on to VALORANT together. Absolute JUPITER (now ZETA DIVISION) had continued its dominance with Takej destroying the local Japanese VALORANT scene in the form of him as a duelist, winning multiple Challengers JP tournaments and qualifying for VALORANT Masters Berlin to cap off the 2021 season.
In contrast, the year 2022 marked Takej’s transition to team REJECT, where he continued to compete at the highest level of JP VALORANT but failed to secure championship titles. However, he eventually returned to the region’s top levels as the next step in his career with DetonatioN FocusMe for the inaugural VCT Pacific season. Unfortunately, it was a challenging year for Takej as DFM faced difficulties finding his feet in Seoul and ultimately concluded the year without a single series win in both the regular season and LCQ.
DetonatioN FocusMe is now down to just two players:
- 🇯🇵Yoshitaka”AnthemEnomoto
- 🇰🇷SEO”He suggested“Jae-young
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Cover photo courtesy of Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games