Serious Question: Do You Think Sasuke Is Dying?

[GlobalNinjaFan]

Let's be real here. Monster9 and G4 dying. The rise of ANW and decline of Sasuke in the west. Dozens of spinoffs worldwide. Sasuke Rising.

All of these have contributed to a decline of Sasuke, ESPECIALLY outside Japan. RISING has always had a tenuous grasp on staying afloat, with deals seemingly changing often, and with the current New Year's format, this seems to be the same.

I remember sitting in the finals of the latest season of Ninja Warrior UK. The usher stated: "Tim Champion will be the first EVER to take on Mount Midoriyama!". Then someone in the audience shouted: "People in America already have!" That anecdote shows just how obscure Sasuke and "Ninja Warrior" is outside of Japan. 

The Sasuke 27 board on this forum has seven pages of threads, with just over 5K posts. The 31 board has four pages of threads with around 3K posts. Sasuke 37? Two pages with under 700 posts.  Over 8 years and 10 tournaments, this board, the biggest board for Ninja Warrior on the internet, has bled 86% of its discussion. 

But is it just this place? Or the wider internet? Sasuke 36 on Youtube has nearly 400K views. Sasuke 37 already has near 45K. Plus we have communities like those on Reddit, Facebook and Instagram. Youtubers like The Sasuke Nerds, Universaltuber, Armchair Ninja, TwoTwentyTwoProductions and the now defunct Griffin Tremaine and Rambling Rican. 

So I suppose it comes down to the question: do these extra communities make up for the loss here? Or is it a net decline overall? How much has the Sasuke community eroded over time?

[m4tt3r0x]

Sasuke's been supposedly "dying" for at least a decade now. I remember when Sasuke 25 first aired and the ratings looked so terrible that the next April Fools joke thread on this board was about the show's cancellation. Obviously it's not where it was at its peak before shin sasuke, but it's maintaining well. The ubiquitination of the show's brand worldwide has only helped matters really. TBS gets royalties, and is constantly shown proof there is always a market out there for this type of show.

As for this board, yeah, most of the former regulars have peaced out since a while ago. A lot of that has to do with the show's rebranding, how times have changed with people watching/who participated on the show, etc. Former hardcores just don't like modern Sasuke (good example is how different the editing and tone is nowadays, especially with celebs in the mix). But another big part is that a lot of people just moved away from this board to other places like Discord, hence the lost post count in the Sasuke 37 thread and the like.

tldr Sasuke as a show is fine. Old maniacs moved on with their lives especially due to how much Sasuke has changed. Other mediums are used for discussion now.

[ArbuthnotBlob]

Ultimately I can't say because I only came on board SASUKE properly during 31 - I am not and have never been part of any kind of old guard and have no real concept of what the community was like during the M9 era.

So the fact that people like me are finding the newer tournaments and coming on board? I'd say that means the fandom isn't dying - mutating, sure, but I wouldn't say it's dying. And maybe we're losing people faster than we're gaining them but this has never been the most accessible interest on the planet - hey, wanna watch 5 hours of unsubbed Japanese TV about people falling off obstacles - it's a hard sell, I've only sold it fully to one person in about 5 years. And the more easily accessible, short-form content appears on the internet the more niche this will become.

The show itself, however? Being outside of Japan, it's hard for us to know, but my pessimistic take on the situation is that this New Years Event position SASUKE is in now could be something of a last gasp. The standard ratings were slumping so it's now in a slot where it's typical to pull small percentages - as was just pointed out in the thread on the ratings for 37 this is not necessarily bad - but it doesn't have any real potential for growth. And therein lies the problem - we can grow new hardcore fans and new competitors from those fans, but the likelihood of growing a larger casual audience is probably decreasing.

Put bluntly, SASUKE is old hat - it's been running almost non-stop for 23 years and the absolute core idea of the show has basically not changed in that entire time. It would be like if Gladiators had run constantly from the 1990s in the UK. Personally I'm hoping the show will hang in for a while yet, and maybe the new time slot will allow it to do so, maybe even have something of a revival - but we're probably looking at the writing being on the wall, again.

But for now, it isn't, and frankly there is nothing we can do to influence its health, being outside of Japan as the vast majority of us are. I didn't actually vote on the poll - as I said I don't feel I have the historical context to answer that question and my perspective on the show itself flip-flops all over the place. In the end we should enjoy it while it is still here to enjoy!

[m4tt3r0x]

Really people have been revolving in and out of here forever. People used to complain that Sasuke even before Rising was not the same as it was in the past, and would move on. A lot of the new members on SMF I notice nowadays discovered ANW or a foreign country derivative first, but they actually really do like and appreciate Sasuke now as well.

[PsychoDelusion]

This may be because I'm European, but in my mind ANW hasn't really outweighed SASUKE here for 2 very important reasons.

1. Content of ANW has become exclusively region locked minus some FB posts in the last few seasons
2. ANW is a show more than anything (heartbreaking stories and classic American TV Show stuff), while SASUKE feels like the real deal, a challenge. The price is not even that big. You don't do it with the money in mind, you just do it for the fun of it, the glory.

With that being said, SASUKE has definitely declined steadily with the decline of Nagano and the All-Stars, since nobody, not even Yusuke can really fill his shoes and the questionable 24-26 SASUKE tournament period. The RISING era has been a hit and miss, mainly because it was largely experimental, from the dinner setting in 28, to the attrocious celebrity booth in 29-I don't remember when it stopped, to the Live Finals now and the NYE timeslot. Personally I don't think that SASUKE can really justify a double show per year audience wise, but a NYE special? Absolutely! I think it has finally settled down and with the diversity of ethnicities participating, the staple names and the celebs (who take the course seriously more than ever before) to a very pleasant combination that I look forward to more and more. Can't really see the show fading away anytime soon as long as they keep going at it.

[wolf4537]

I've definitely lost my drive for Sasuke compared to years past, but I still enjoy it very much. However, nothing will ever beat being able to come home from school/work, turn on G4 and watch the classic competitions and then actually get to see G4 take American competitors to the show. I'll always love the series, but to me I don't think it will ever get to that point of excitement again that made me obsessed with it from around 2008-2010.

Though I was still insanely happy to meet Shingo Yamamoto when I visited Japan in 2015.

[Ben Baker]

Jan 7, 2020 23:26:02 GMT -5 wolf4537 said:

I've definitely lost my drive for Sasuke compared to years past, but I still enjoy it very much. However, nothing will ever beat being able to come home from school/work, turn on G4 and watch the classic competitions and then actually get to see G4 take American competitors to the show. I'll always love the series, but to me I don't think it will ever get to that point of excitement again that made me obsessed with it from around 2008-2010.

Though I was still insanely happy to meet Shingo Yamamoto when I visited Japan in 2015.

ANW definitely needs to put that back in the mix somehow, the ANW format is so over used I really don’t see how keeps going. I think I would rather go back to boot camp days or use the regionals as qualifying for boot camp then the top people go to Sasuke. There would be no Vegas just Sasuke

[Rafas]

I hope when we see another total victory (probably very soon) the course gets a huge revamp and sasuke gets revolutionised.

[Messup434]

I would love to see a huge revamp after the next Total Victory, but it'll probably only be one or two new obstacles and a couple of modifications . I do think it'd be best to not have a winner for awhile longer - have about 13 tournaments till the next win like Nagano had before his win. I think they may need one sooner for ratings tho. The sad truth is that we'll almost certainly never get back the time in Sasuke where every tournament offered a couple of completely new concepts and changes (the golden age, in my opinion).

[bravercoolio]

SASUKE already hit its decline a long time ago, somewhere during the end of the Shin-SASUKE and Kanzen Renewal Eras. Of course this began earlier than that with the end of Kinniku Banzuke (26.0% ratings for SASUKE 7 compared to 9.5% of SASUKE 25). It was only a matter of time before Monster9 hit the dust and we all knew it was eventual before SASUKE 27. Not only that, it just lost a lot of it's juice; and SASUKE Rising era continued that coaster down. Of course ratings aren't everything, many obstacle choices especially SASUKE Rising - Early Post Yusuke Total Victory Era (long long long title yuck) were just mediocre. It doesn't help the budget for the show is not much compared to the earlier days so it's expected that the amount of changes will not last. But that doesn't mean they can't create 1 - 2 interesting obstacles. I will say with some of the new entries from 35 - onwards have changed the show for the better and I will say so myself that the last 3 tournaments have been excellent. Does this mean the show will peak in popularity, eh probably not; but they might as well ride it to the end and try to at least make it decent.