Motomu Sakai is one of the most talked-about names in Japanese darts right now. He came up through soft-tip darts, then broke onto the hard-tip international stage in 2025, picking up multiple PDC Asian Tour titles along the way. Here's who he is, how he made the jump from soft tip to the PDC World Championship, and the story behind his viral anime-style walk-on.
Who is Motomu Sakai: a soft-tip star from Tokyo
Sakai was born on December 3, 1997, in Tokyo. He came up through the DARTSLIVE JAPAN tour circuit, the same soft-tip system Taiwanese players already know from the boards at home. Fans in Japan call him もっち (Motchi); some overseas sources list his nickname as The Creature instead. Both show up in the record, but neither is a single settled nickname.
2025: the year he broke through from soft tip to hard tip
Sakai started entering the PDC Asian Tour in 2023, at first just as a regular competitor. The real turning point was 2025: that year alone he picked up 4 PDC Asian Tour titles, beating Singaporean legend Paul Lim and Hong Kong's Man Lok Leung along the way. Add the 2 more he's won in 2026, and he's now up to 6 PDC Asian Tour titles total. That same stretch also included a run to the SUPER DARTS 2024 final, where he lost to fellow Japanese soft-and-hard-tip star Seigo Asada and finished runner-up.
2026 PDC World Championship: a viral debut
Sakai made his PDC World Championship debut in 2026, walking on to the theme song from the classic anime Ojamajo Doremi with his signature dance moves, and the crowd went wild. He beat Thibault Tricole 3–0 in Round 1, carrying that momentum into Round 2, where he ran into Andreas Harrysson, who'd come through Nordic and Baltic qualifying, and lost 0–3 to close out an eventful first World Championship run.
These days Sakai plays for Target Darts. His soft tip signature darts are in our online darts shop: search for 酒井素 (the shop is in Chinese, so search his name in Japanese characters). Going from a soft-tip tour circuit to the PDC World Championship stage, his path is proof that the soft-tip boards Taiwanese players already know can be a real starting point for international hard-tip darts. Want to meet more Japanese players? Check out our notable Japanese darts players guide. AI DARTS runs Phoenix soft-tip machines 24 hours a day, menu here, and if you want to build up your own track record first, take a look at our membership system.