'Lady Beast' fights for girl gamers in Japan

Chiba : In her online world, she is "Lady Beast", deftly operating her green monster Blanka in dizzying hand-to-hand streetfighting combat on the global professional gaming circuit.

In real life, she is Yuko Momochi, a 31-year-old slender Japanese woman with short hair dyed light brown, who is hoping to encourage more girls into the male-dominated world of professional gaming.

A former car saleswoman, Momochi got her break in competitive gaming in 2011 after she defeated a previously invincible character in a Street Fighter match, earning her a sponsorship offer from an American team.

She was Japan's first female professional gamer and now also spends her time hosting events and searching for female talent who could one day turn pro.

"My parents wanted me to be a civil servant," she laughs at an interview with AFP on the sidelines of the Tokyo Game Show, one of the world's largest. "A girl raised by steady parents has turned out like this!"

Visitors to the Tokyo Game Show are left in little doubt they are entering a male-dominated world.

Only a handful of female players are in evidence in the loud atmosphere and scantily-clad women in exhibition halls greet the 250,000 mostly male visitors expected to attend the fair.

The violent world of online gaming also tends to appeal more to men, Momochi told AFP.

"When I started going to game arcades, I was playing fighting games, which meant it's all men around you. It was tough to get in there alone," she recalled.

As they are so small in number, female gamers stand out and attract attention, not always positive, she said.

"You often hear names like 'bitch'. It's fine if you can take it but normally you'd be hurt," she said.