Why did Shinji Kobayashi get cut so much

[dakohosu]

Why do you think Shinji got cut so much?

The guy comes in second place in his debut and then gets completely cut in his next two runs, and then gets three out of his four last runs cut despite also coming in first place in one of his attempts. I know these were all Stage 1 fails but we’ve obvs seen a lot of other competitors get their runs shown in full despite also repeatedly failing early.

I’m just wondering if there’s a specific reason for this. I mean with Shunsuke it was due to his management company, with Jun it was due to TBS not wanting to promote parkour due to it being a dangerous sport, and with Drew it was because they didn’t want to market foreign competitors.

[m4tt3r0x]

He kind of was an All Star without the title, so maybe they didn't want to deviate emphasis from the core 6.

[subtleagent]

If I were to guess I would say it was because two of his runs were generic Jump Hang fails and aside from 11 and 14 he really didn't have many stand out runs. I figured they showed him in 15 because he was #98 and it likely would've felt odd to cut him and 20 because that was an anniversary tournament that was going for a "return for this occasion" theme. I'm a little surprised they cut his 18 run given he was the first to beat the Jumping Spider.

I'm almost tempted to call him the Naoyuki Araki of his era, but considering he made it to Stage 3 twice and almost cleared both times, while Araki only did so once and failed the Cliffhanger like everyone else.

From what I could see too, most of his training centered around Stage 3, but like we've seen before, if you can't get out of Stage 1, let alone Stage 2, there's no point. He was seen training for the Jumping Spider with the Americans and the All-Stars, but as we saw he didn't do too well (does anyone remember when he flubbed the trampoline in practice and ended up teabagging poor Nagano?) and his result showed in the tournament. Though that did always strike me as odd that he was able to apparently beat 19's Jumping Spider, but flubbed it in 20 so badly.

[azn]

I think what makes it worse is that his last ever attempt was a timeout on the rope ladder. I mean a timeout run is something to show even if it doesn't end in a clear and yet they just cut it, not even a digest just a cut.

I guess they figured it wasn't worth showing his runs, especially his last one. They probably considered it a waste of time or something among those lines. I mean even I have to admit that he wasn't a needle mover at all, even if he nearly cleared the 3rd stage twice. The producers didn't pull the strings the way they did with Nagano in SK9 to make him feel important - keep in mind Shinji got a relatively high bib in his debut due to placing third in the Monkey Bars Trials. I don't know how big it was but they mentioned it several times before he ran, perhaps they could've done more with that rather than just briefly mentioning that he was third in the monkey bars trials - and Shinji himself was inconsistent to the point that the show must've lost confidence to promote him in the future.

It's a shame but it is what it is, he's still my fav competitor - my profile pic is a dead giveaway - and if anything in his last ever tournament he was seen (SK21) he wore a shirt with kanji that apparently spelt "SASUKE BAKA." I honestly doubt that but according to this it is what he wore, always showed his persona in the littlest of things.

[dakohosu]

Feb 12, 2022 1:09:55 GMT -5 azn said:

I think what makes it worse is that his last ever attempt was a timeout on the rope ladder. I mean a timeout run is something to show even if it doesn't end in a clear and yet they just cut it, not even a digest just a cut.

I guess they figured it wasn't worth showing his runs, especially his last one. They probably considered it a waste of time or something among those lines. I mean even I have to admit that he wasn't a needle mover at all, even if he nearly cleared the 3rd stage twice. The producers didn't pull the strings the way they did with Nagano in SK9 to make him feel important - keep in mind Shinji got a relatively high bib in his debut due to placing third in the Monkey Bars Trials. I don't know how big it was but they mentioned it several times before he ran, perhaps they could've done more with that rather than just briefly mentioning that he was third in the monkey bars trials - and Shinji himself was inconsistent to the point that the show must've lost confidence to promote him in the future.

It's a shame but it is what it is, he's still my fav competitor - my profile pic is a dead giveaway - and if anything in his last ever tournament he was seen (SK21) he wore a shirt with kanji that apparently spelt "SASUKE BAKA." I honestly doubt that but according to this it is what he wore, always showed his persona in the littlest of things.

Yeah he was always one of my favourites as well, especially how his debut performance was probably one of the most impressive of all time, almost making the Final Stage being a complete unknown. He was also quite jokes as well with how he used to do those karate moves, how he hit the buzzer with his foot and also when he lifted the last wall in Sasuke 14 he just put it on his back like 'this is supposed to be hard?'...

I understand why some of his performances would've been cut but it just seemed as though it happened so often that they almost had some kind of vendetta against him (probably not but you know what I mean). Like he reaches the Pipe Slider in his first attempt which is surely sufficient to spotlight him in the next tournament - given that even him failing would've been unexpected based on his past performance and thus would've been worth showing due to the shock value. Yet he's the only competitor that gets cut out of the last 20 runs, while Daisuke Nakata who ran right after him gets a fluff piece, even though he failed even earlier and never had THAT great a track record on Stage 3 especially. And yeah cutting his last run was particularly egregious, though he probably didn't outright state that he was going to retire if he failed Stage 1 in that tournament so they figured he'd just come back again. Mind you, they also cut a lot of decent final runs like Asaoka who also timed out on the final obstacle in Sasuke 15. 

I think Shinji was fundamentally in this sort of no-man's land where he had the distinctiveness to be an All-Star due to his outfit, blue-collar job/not being a pro-athlete, and quirky personality, but his performances weren't good enough to justify being included. He had the inconsistency of Akiyama but obviously wasn't a champion, and like Takeda he never reached the Final Stage but only had 2 decent runs under his belt versus like 10+ for Takeda. They obvs wanted to focus primarily on the All-Stars as they drove most of the ratings (as well as celebs like Iketani) which probably didn't leave enough time for the 'secondary players' per se. Other guys like Masaaki Kobayashi were also almost completely digested for the same reason. Koji Yamada got shown a bit more but that's probably because they wanted to draw some interesting parallels between him and Takeda as they were both firefighters in the same region.


I am still scratching my head as to why they picked Bunpei to be an All-Star over Asaoka though, given that Asaoka actually had a stronger track record leading up to Sasuke 12 and was probably more marketable as the 'Sasuke Sensei'. 

[subtleagent]

My guess is they found Bunpei more marketable or he had an in with TBS a la Kawaguchi nowadays. Like Kawaguchi his runs were almost always shown in full, he had quite a few fluff pieces, and not even Kawaguchi got this one, but in like EVERY one of Bunpei's runs post 12 and bar 30 he had a unique failure theme which is something not even Nagano got to that extent. The Shiratori Shrine in general just feels more marketable than SASUKE-Sensei turned SASUKE writer to the producers I suppose.

My other guess is they were desperate to replace Yamada either not knowing that he would return in 14 or that they were aware that he was in massive decline and Asaoka was absent in 13 so Bunpei was the next viable candidate.

[azn]

 

Just wanted to add this video to this relatively semi-dead thread because it is actually really interesting (cut to around 2:05)

The video above is that of a SK12 promo package from 2003 posted by a guy who I will call red apple - who actually is the same guy who posted those Yamada Zone Segments showing his SK12 unaired attempts - and includes a variety of different competitor packages with the most prominent one and the one which relates most to this thread being an actual dedicated segment showing Shinji, his SK11 3rd stage attempt, his monkey bars attempt and among other things, him doing his 3rd stage training (the one shown in particular would later be used in SK14 albeit in a shortened form) more footage of him at his job, a brief segment featuring his wife and child at his house and him meditating near a waterfall, most of it was either edited or not shown at all in any of his following runs.

This means that yes, I was partially wrong about my initial statement, the producers did in fact actually tried to make him a marketable name.

However I can only conclude that indeed, the show did lose faith in him when he failed the jump hang in SK12, to do all of this just to cut him because he fails the jump hang is semi understandable but also baffling and for Shinji, well it would be demoralizing.

Imagine what would've happened to Nagano if he wasn't given such a high number, he might've been digested or worse. I say this because like Shinji, Nagano would follow up his breakout performance (which ironically enough was a pipe slider fail) with a jump hang fail, as mentioned earlier if Nagano didn't get a high bib nor if he had such a connection with Yamada, he would've been digested or just sacked entirely.

Unfortunately for Shinji, he had neither a high enough bib (which is saying something considering he had #93 in SK12) nor any connection to any of the all-stars or any notable name which most likely explains why he got cut in SK12, and probably the reason why they did what they did to him when he competed during shin.

[subtleagent]

I wonder if higher numbers impacted Shinji's runs. Like he fails the Jump Hang in 12 wearing #93 and the Nejireta Kane in 15 wearing #98. As well as badly flubbing the Jumping Spider in 20 wearing #1985 (85). He definitely seems privy to mistakes and I think being in the starlight definitely impacted that.

And let's not forget Nagano made the Pipe Slider in 9 and failed the Jump Hang in 10, so Shinji could have easily still been a candidate for All-Star. Bad luck just kept hitting him really.

I still found it odd how he is the first to beat the Jumping Spider in 18 and yet he still gets cut (then again Okuyama passed 19's and was the first to pass the Half-Pipe Attack and he gets cut).