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Post by darthvaderlim on Nov 18, 2024 2:24:20 GMT -5
It's been 10 years since Sasuke 30 came out, and I thought I would give my thoughts regarding this tournament.
Stage One is by far the easiest we've had in a while, almost reminiscent of the pre Shin-Sasuke days. As such, it was predictable that many veterans from the previous eras would clear Stage One. The only notable fails for me would be Bunpei, Ijima aka Bruce Lee wannabe, Darvish, and Ishimaru. Not only that, we've had some cut clears for the first time since Sasuke 4.
Stage Two is an improvement over 29 in some ways, but one notable issue still stands out. We've had more clears from veterans like Lee and Shunsuke for the first time in years. Unfortunately, Kongu was robbed on the SSL while Nagano would end his last Stage Two there. Also, Takeda would continue his Salmon Ladder fail streak.
Stage Three had one new obstacle, but nevertheless we had three clears on the Crazy Cliffhanger and the first Vertical Limit fail from Shinya. Tomohiro cleared the Stage on his first try which was quite a surpise for me back then. Ryo clearing was somewhat predictable for me, since he had already did so in 27. The rest all failed the Crazy Cliffhanger including Asa and Kanno for the third straight time
One the Final Stage, Tomohiro would climb slowly, timing out halfway on the Stage. Ryo would come inches to Kanzen like Yamada in 3.
Overall, this tournament felt somewhat nostalgic seeing so many fan favorites like Nagano, Takeda, Shingo, and Shunsuke clearing. But the Swap Salmon Ladder killed any hope for a last stand in Stage Three for them and even the Stage Two age record until Sasuke 40. Not only that, but it could've also broke Sasuke 4 clear record on Stage Two back then.
In hindsight though, it's best that it never happened due to the Stage 2B which would have probably be like the Brain Ship Stage from Viking and would have gone against the formula that Sasuke had.
I didn't even know about this until someone pointed this out years later, so some info would be needed
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Post by dakohosu on Nov 18, 2024 6:53:34 GMT -5
It's been 10 years since Sasuke 30 came out, and I thought I would give my thoughts regarding this tournament. Stage One is by far the easiest we've had in a while, almost reminiscent of the pre Shin-Sasuke days. As such, it was predictable that many veterans from the previous eras would clear Stage One. The only notable fails for me would be Bunpei, Ijima aka Bruce Lee wannabe, Darvish, and Ishimaru. Not only that, we've had some cut clears for the first time since Sasuke 4. Stage Two is an improvement over 29 in some ways, but one notable issue still stands out. We've had more clears from veterans like Lee and Shunsuke for the first time in years. Unfortunately, Kongu was robbed on the SSL while Nagano would end his last Stage Two there. Also, Takeda would continue his Salmon Ladder fail streak. Stage Three had one new obstacle, but nevertheless we had three clears on the Crazy Cliffhanger and the first Vertical Limit fail from Shinya. Tomohiro cleared the Stage on his first try which was quite a surpise for me back then. Ryo clearing was somewhat predictable for me, since he had already did so in 27. The rest all failed the Crazy Cliffhanger including Asa and Kanno for the third straight time One the Final Stage, Tomohiro would climb slowly, timing out halfway on the Stage. Ryo would come inches to Kanzen like Yamada in 3. Overall, this tournament felt somewhat nostalgic seeing so many fan favorites like Nagano, Takeda, Shingo, and Shunsuke clearing. But the Swap Salmon Ladder killed any hope for a last stand in Stage Three for them and even the Stage Two age record until Sasuke 40. Not only that, but it could've also broke Sasuke 4 clear record on Stage Two back then. In hindsight though, it's best that it never happened due to the Stage 2B which would have probably be like the Brain Ship Stage from Viking and would have gone against the formula that Sasuke had. I didn't even know about this until someone pointed this out years later, so some info would be needed Sasuke 30 for a lot of people seems to be a middling tournament, especially being bookended by two of arguably the worst tournaments of all time (28-29) and 31, which had a Kanzen and considerable course improvements. But I honestly quite like it. I liked it watching the tournament live, and that opinion hasn't really changed over time. In many ways the tournament has a lot going against it. Stage 1 was weak, with 27 clears and over in an hour, being a complete digest fest. Stage 2 had the infamous Swap SL issue, and Stage 3 was mostly Cliffhanger fails as predicted. But I'd say the degree of memorable events made up for it, not as much as, say, 31 had, but still enough for me to remember it positively. We had Bunpei's return which, as underwhelming as it was, was cool to see. Nagano and Takeda avenged their past failures on Stage 1. I'd also say Stage 2 had a great balance of being difficult both timewise and with many areas to make mistakes; yes, the Swap SL issue was annoying, but realistically it only robbed Kongu out of a clear. Otherwise, we had a fair few close call clears, a good amount of shock fails from Yuuji and Yusuke, and some breakouts from Hioki and Tomo. Ryo also finally avenged his two-tournament streak of timeouts. It rectified quite a few of 28 and 29's issues, the former being pathetically lenient TL and the latter being way too brutal to be enjoyable. Stage 3 was good imo, and edited well. They digested most of the predictable Cliffhanger fails, while showing the most important moments, like Tomo and Ryo's clears, Kishimoto's standout run, and Asa and Kanno attempting to strike third time lucky. The course was meh; I think the first half being basically unfailable was a bit of a miss, which contributed to the "Cliffhanger or clear" kind of vibe for this era, but it wasn't a massive pain point given the results and editing of the stage. The Final was mixed for me. Tomo's attempt was anticlimactic but Ryo's near miss of Kanzen was a nail-biting end, especially considering that we've never had that from anyone since except Yusuke predictably. Overall I'd probably give 30 a 7.5-8/10. The only caveat is that I didn't watch the Navi before the tournament which having now watched it, would've given away a good amount of the results, such as spotlighting Tomo who had no prior track record, which would've made his breakout a lot less of a surprise. |
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xelA197
Shane Kosugi
Probably the only Italian superfan
Posts: 390
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Post by xelA197 on Nov 18, 2024 8:40:40 GMT -5
SASUKE 30 was the first tournament I tried to watch live but like a fool I forgot the Japanese time zone and when I realized it was too late but at least I managed to see Ryo's final attempt just in time. Since then, every night before a tournament I'm already well-warned.
I still remember my amazement reading a post by Venus Head Trap about Tomohiro. "Remember Kawaguchi? Now he has full hair and has reached the Final Stage!". My reaction was a mixture of hilarity and surprise lol.
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Post by dakohosu on Nov 18, 2024 14:01:35 GMT -5
SASUKE 30 was the first tournament I tried to watch live but like a fool I forgot the Japanese time zone and when I realized it was too late but at least I managed to see Ryo's final attempt just in time. Since then, every night before a tournament I'm already well-warned. I still remember my amazement reading a post by Venus Head Trap about Tomohiro. "Remember Kawaguchi? Now he has full hair and has reached the Final Stage!". My reaction was a mixture of hilarity and surprise lol. I remember Tomo, Ryo, and Hioki being competitors I thought nothing of when I got into Sasuke around 25-26 time (2010). Never expected them to very quickly morph into the top competitors of RISING and beyond. Competitors need time to show what they're made of, Inui doesn't realise this these days with his brutal "one strike and you're out" approach to a lot of competitors these days. |
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Post by darthvaderlim on Nov 18, 2024 18:46:22 GMT -5
Another thing, this was Lee's final appearance in Sasuke and being triple digested no less.
Everyone talks about Kongu being robbed, Shunsuke's management, All-Stars forced retired in 28, but I also think Lee's retirement was also quite baffling. Was TBS trying to prevent another 26 from happening again where he performed the best? If that was the case, then they should just ban all foreigners from competing in Sasuke.
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Post by Anonymous on Nov 18, 2024 22:18:22 GMT -5
Also a tournament America was finally going to see on G4 (it was mostly subbed but not all the way, apparently) before G4 kicked the bucket once again.
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Post by subtleagent on Nov 18, 2024 23:21:25 GMT -5
Another thing, this was Lee's final appearance in Sasuke and being triple digested no less. Everyone talks about Kongu being robbed, Shunsuke's management, All-Stars forced retired in 28, but I also think Lee's retirement was also quite baffling. Was TBS trying to prevent another 26 from happening again where he performed the best? If that was the case, then they should just ban all foreigners from competing in Sasuke. Supposedly he retired due to "politics" which I'm not sure what exactly that means though given Inui's odd history with foreigners (many say Ragivaru was banned for competing on KuroOvi but I don't buy that especially given others who have were still allowed to compete) it could mean anything. I know he was on SASUKE Vietnam, but got DQed on the Rumbling Dice for sliding it too much (which was bullcrap cause that was clearly a design fault). |
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Post by lhii789 on Nov 19, 2024 0:47:15 GMT -5
Among the anniversary tournaments (10s), this is probably my 3rd favorite (40, 10, 30, then 20 respectively).
It's also noteworthy of ONLY tournament to get DVD with EVERY run (minus Yamada) for all 4 stages, including Terukazu Ishikawa, who was entirely cut for some reason.
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Post by dakohosu on Nov 19, 2024 14:23:32 GMT -5
Among the anniversary tournaments (10s), this is probably my 3rd favorite (40, 10, 30, then 20 respectively). It's also noteworthy of ONLY tournament to get DVD with EVERY run (minus Yamada) for all 4 stages, including Terukazu Ishikawa, who was entirely cut for some reason. I'm also a strong defender of 10; I'd pick either 10 over 30 or vice versa depending on the day. 10 was much more of a bloodbath tournament with shock fails and more drama especially with Yamada's last stand, while 30 was more of a clearfest but had a more compelling set of results all round, and a Final Stage. 40 and 20 are by a considerable margin the best and worst anniversary tournaments for me, respectively, though. 40 is best described as "iconic" from start to finish. 20 isn't even that terrible a tournament all things considered, especially not compared to 28 or 29, it was just boring. 19 was a good one-off tournament for that shock factor but having what was basically a replica of 19 with slightly better results was just underwhelming after that shock had subsided. Most competitors did slightly better in 20, but still failed Stage 1. Ishikawa was probably cut on Stage 2 because they had a bunch of fails then Kishimoto right before him cleared, they probably thought it was too awkward to then cut back to the fail digest theme and show one last fail. |
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azn
Komiya Rie
Say His Name and He Appears *clap* *clap*
Posts: 535
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Post by azn on Nov 19, 2024 14:37:19 GMT -5
One thing I just gotta ask though is this:
If you were to tell someone that what they saw would be Ryo's last appearance in both the final stage AND third stage (EDIT: In 5 Tournaments, my dumb brain forgot that part, thanks Zoran), and that he would fail the first stage in the next 5 tournaments, how would they react?
Act Surprised? Act Unsurprised? Call it as BS? Would you get a black eye because they punched you in the face?
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Post by zoran on Nov 19, 2024 14:42:27 GMT -5
One thing I just gotta ask though is this: If you were to tell someone that what they saw would be Ryo's last appearance in both the final stage AND third stage, and that he would fail the first stage in the next 5 tournaments, how would they react? Act Surprised? Act Unsurprised? Call it as BS? Would you get a black eye because they punched you in the face? He made stage 3 in 36 and 39. |
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Post by dakohosu on Nov 19, 2024 15:49:55 GMT -5
One thing I just gotta ask though is this: If you were to tell someone that what they saw would be Ryo's last appearance in both the final stage AND third stage, and that he would fail the first stage in the next 5 tournaments, how would they react? Act Surprised? Act Unsurprised? Call it as BS? Would you get a black eye because they punched you in the face? As zoran mentioned this wasn't Ryo's last Stage 3 appearance. I would say I wouldn't have expected him to fail Stage 1 in five consecutive tournaments right off the bat of 30, but after 31 it wasn't particularly surprising. Inui had already targeted competitors like Ryo and Yuuji (smaller Stage 3 specialists) with the Tackle and harder wall, and we'd already seen the onset of the pressure from wearing #100 that Yuuji experienced. Also how Ryo didn't clap for Yusuke when he won that very tournament, and the fact that 32's renewal was...... a bit of a difficulty spike, it's no surprise that the combination of him feeling robbed of victory and it possibly being his last ever chance with the brutal new Stage 3, he mentally checked out, which culminated in his five tournament long failure streak. He stopped training anywhere near as regularly as he did before, and you could see his change in demeanor. He went from being a happy go lucky youngster to being quite cold and almost looking like he didn't care anymore. Usually a defense mechanism. To be honest, in general it's quite depressing to see what came of the stars of the RISING era. Ryo had his decline and arguably has never regained that caliber of performance, Shunsuke slowly but surely became a laughing stock in the community, Kanno I don't even need to go into at this point, Asa got injured and retired, nothing ever came of Kishimoto's breakout before he had another 1.1 fail then retired due to injury, even Yuuji really struggled post-RISING and only regained his mojo a good 3-4 years later. You can't even play the "it was 10 years ago" argument, because most of these declines were pretty immediate after RISING (in most cases from 32-33 onwards). It's no wonder Kawaguchi got the hype that he did because he was one of the only competitors who broke out during RISING to sustain consistently strong performances in the years to come. Ryo is an odd one because mindset-wise he really seems to have turned a corner, coming out of his stroppy phase and being one of the most active members in the community. But unlike Yuuji, who's mindset change coincided with his improvement in results, Ryo's still clearly got some kind of mental plague from his past failures given his inconsistency. |
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Post by lhii789 on Nov 19, 2024 22:16:21 GMT -5
Among the anniversary tournaments (10s), this is probably my 3rd favorite (40, 10, 30, then 20 respectively). It's also noteworthy of ONLY tournament to get DVD with EVERY run (minus Yamada) for all 4 stages, including Terukazu Ishikawa, who was entirely cut for some reason. I'm also a strong defender of 10; I'd pick either 10 over 30 or vice versa depending on the day. 10 was much more of a bloodbath tournament with shock fails and more drama especially with Yamada's last stand, while 30 was more of a clearfest but had a more compelling set of results all round, and a Final Stage. 40 and 20 are by a considerable margin the best and worst anniversary tournaments for me, respectively, though. 40 is best described as "iconic" from start to finish. 20 isn't even that terrible a tournament all things considered, especially not compared to 28 or 29, it was just boring. 19 was a good one-off tournament for that shock factor but having what was basically a replica of 19 with slightly better results was just underwhelming after that shock had subsided. Most competitors did slightly better in 20, but still failed Stage 1. Ishikawa was probably cut on Stage 2 because they had a bunch of fails then Kishimoto right before him cleared, they probably thought it was too awkward to then cut back to the fail digest theme and show one last fail. Thing I find it bizarre regards to Ishikawa was that he wasn't even shown on digest! At least his run on Stage 1 and 2 was shown on DVD (OOP), but it was weird it wasn't shown during broadcast. Ironically, that was his last tournament, so I guess he was upset that he wasn't shown and quit SASUKE. |
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Post by subtleagent on Nov 21, 2024 1:30:34 GMT -5
30 is one of those tournaments I almost love, keyword: almost. Like yes we got a lot of breakout runs, and yes the All-Stars getting to attempt Stage 2 as a group one last time was awesome, and of course Ryo's Final was a nailbiting finish to the tournament. I think what keeps me from completely loving it is how disjointed it feels. The Swap Salmon Ladder fails really irked me (yes I know 29 had one, but 29 as a whole was bad anyway), Stage 1 was too easy which made it feel less like a challenge and more like a glorified warm-up, and Stage 3 had yet another Cliffhanger bloodbath. They aren't big problems, but they're things I feel prevent the tournament from reaching it's full potential. Maybe a harder Stage 1 with a slight time cut would fix the issue (then again 31 addressed the former anyway).
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