It was supposed to be the start of a new era for us. I remember the buzz of excitement in our team house in early 2023 when FENNEL announced they were bringing on two new coaches, Rader and hanpipe. We were fresh off a grueling run in the Game Changers East Asia qualifiers, hungry to make it to the world championships for the second year running. The official tweet welcoming them, featuring that custom graphic, felt like a promise. A promise of structure, of growth, of finally having the dedicated guidance to push us to the top. Little did we know that promise would shatter in just over a week, teaching me more about the dark side of esports than any game strategy ever could.

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Two days after the celebratory announcement, the world shifted. I was scrolling through my feed, the usual mix of highlights and memes, when I saw it. A reply to our organization's tweet from a popular account, @takigare3, with over a million followers. The words were stark, an allegation that cut through the digital noise: hanpipe had engaged in sexual relations with a minor. My stomach dropped. The atmosphere in our team's Discord server, usually filled with callouts and banter, went deathly quiet. We were players, competitors focused on the game. Suddenly, we were at the center of a potential scandal involving a coach we had just met.

FENNEL's initial response was swift and corporate. They tweeted that they were investigating "the facts" and would report back. For us, the players, it was a period of agonizing uncertainty. Practice schedules were in limbo. Our focus, meticulously built over months, evaporated. We tried to scrimmage, but the unspoken question hung in the air during every silence: Is it true? The specific claim, as laid out by Gareso Takizawa, was horrifying in its detail—that hanpipe had sex with a 16-year-old high school student at her parent's house and tried to cover it up. The tweet offered no immediate proof but claimed to have evidence, and it was viewed millions of times. The weight of those millions of eyes felt like it was pressing down on our entire team.

The Timeline of a Crisis

Date Event Impact on the Team
Early March 2023 FENNEL hires coaches Rader & hanpipe. Hope & excitement for the new season.
March 17 hanpipe retweets the hiring announcement. Normalcy.
~2 Days Later Allegation from @takigare3 surfaces. Shock, confusion, practice halts.
Shortly After FENNEL announces an investigation. Anxiety-filled waiting period.
March 20, 2023 FENNEL terminates hanpipe's contract. Relief, but also trauma and disruption.

The official termination came on March 20. FENNEL's statement was brief and final: they had checked the facts, and "hanpipe himself had admitted to the facts and that the matter had been reported to a third party." Reading that line was a surreal moment. There was a grim relief that the organization had acted decisively, but it was overshadowed by a profound sense of violation and disappointment. Our team, FENNEL Female, was founded to create a space for women to compete at the highest level. In 2023, we were part of an organization that had men's and women's teams, with the men's squad even winning the Japan Challengers. We were supposed to be building a legacy, not managing fallout from a coach's alleged crimes.

Looking back from 2026, that week in March 2023 was a brutal baptism into the non-gaming pressures of professional esports. The incident forced several hard lessons on all of us:

  • The Community is a Double-Edged Sword: The speed at which the allegation spread showed the power of the esports community to hold people accountable. But it also meant we, the innocent players, were subjected to intense, unwanted scrutiny and speculation.

  • Trust is Fragile: We have to trust our coaches implicitly—with our strategies, our mental states, and our professional development. That bond was broken before it even formed, making us more cautious and vetting-oriented with every new staff member since.

  • Organizational Integrity Matters: FENNEL's relatively quick investigation and termination were crucial. It showed us that the organization prioritized its duty of care over protecting a new hire, which helped us begin to rebuild trust internally.

hanpipe never publicly responded to the allegations. His Twitter remained frozen on that March 17 retweet, a digital ghost of a career that ended before it began with us. We moved forward with Coach Rader, who handled an impossible situation with grace, focusing on stabilizing us as a unit. The road to the championships that year was harder, weighed down by this external drama, but it bonded us in a strange way.

Now, three years later, the esports world continues to evolve. Stories like this, unfortunately, are not isolated. They highlight the critical need for:

  • 🔒 Robust background checks for all staff, not just players.

  • 🗣️ Clear, safe reporting channels for misconduct within teams.

  • 🧠 Mental health support for players dealing with secondary trauma from organizational issues.

My first year as a pro wasn't just about learning smokes and lineups on Haven or Bind. It was about learning that the game extends far beyond the server. It's about the culture we build, the people we let into our circle, and the responsibility organizations have to protect their players. We play for trophies and glory, but we compete within a very real, and sometimes very flawed, human ecosystem. That's a lesson no patch notes can ever teach you.