The Official KUNOICHI News Thread

[SuperTiger]

About a week ago, I sent an e-mail to whoever is running the SASUKE Facebook pages. Today I finally got a response. I will give you my e-mail message, and the response.

My E-mail:
"Hello, sorry if this comes out a little rough, I'm a fan of SASUKE and KUNOICHI living in the United States, and I have a question pertaining to the renewal of KUNOICHI in the near future, and I'm sorry if I have the wrong address.

Many people are a fan of the show KUNOICHI; however a lot of KUNOICHI's fans were disappointed with the 2009 tournament due to it's new format. Following the tournament, KUNOICHI was placed on indefinite hiatus. I was wondering if there was any potential way to revive the show with the KUNOICHI 2001 to KUNOICHI 2007 format? (100 women attempt the First, Second, Third, and Final Stages individually with no racing against one another.) Along with the resurrection of the show, is it possible to keep the course up to the difficulty it had in KUNOICHI 2007? Despite the leave of KUNOICHI Queen Miyake Ayako, there are still many strong competitors, such as Komiya Rie, Kadoi Satomi, Tanaka Maho, Nishimura Chie, and Arimatsu Tomomi. Since KUNOICHI is essentially at a point where it'd be in a position similar to starting over, many new competitors could arise, and boost the show's ratings, along with SASUKE's ratings. I really hope you here me out, and if you don't I hope to have others send email's with requests to revive the show. I know the popularity of both shows have dropped dramatically, but there are still many people who kill to see this show, and losing it really hurts them. If at all possible I hope you at least attempt to have a KUNOICHI in 2011 or 2012!!! I will enclose a translation from Google just in case you do not understand my message."

Response:
"Thank you for your inquiry.
The reason why KUNOICHI cannot be broadcasted is solely due to the production cost.
It is still very popular in Japan and U.S. and there are plenty of requests from the fans all over the world to resume the competition.
We're planning to hold the competition in the future, so we need your help from the SASUKE&KUNOICHI fans to join our fan club in support"

Basically they want people to join the fan club. Not sure what to think. At least we have some clarification on it's future per say. Thought?

[arsenette]

They want money.

[madmanike]

Jul 8, 2011 15:21:30 GMT -5 arsenette said:

They want money.

They want money and ratings, I say make it an all Playboy Playmates edition. With Jello. Nuff said.

Oh yeah, and they'll have to dress as Anime Characters, like so.
yfrog.com/z/h0tizbvfj

[ES-13]

Can't blame them. But Shin-Sasuke was extremelly expenisve to make, especially with the presence of the Flying Chute, there wasn't enough money left in the budget to make a good KUNOICHI 8 and it took until 23 for them to get the required funds to even make a new KUNOICHI and even then they didn't have enough money to contiune from where KUNOICHI 7 left off. If SASUKE earns high enough ratings for them to get back on track for KUNOICHI, then it WILL happen.

[RiderLeangle]

What are you talking about?... It'd be cheaper to make a normal Kunoichi than make K8... They still got the price for taking up the lot and the workers so that's the same... however, a traditional Kunoichi they'd have most of the course already made and would just have to take the obstacles out of storage, Kunoichi 8 would cost more money... With the exception of the obstacles in Stage 2 (Which still cost some to modify some of the obstacles) it was an entirely new course... And not just the fact it was completely new... They had to pay more to make the obstacles for the race mechanic they had requiring duplicate sets of obstacles on the course...
And this isn't even counting the repecharge round.. Not just did they add an additional area they had to build the motorized spinners and the electricity required to run them (And the 4 revolving start line doors in stage 1 too but still).

So yeah... It's SOOOO much cheaper to make a whole new course that requires setting up more than one copy of obstacles to have 4 people running at the same time, a bonus stage with motorized "obstacles", Modifying half the obstacles of stage 2, and a whole new design of final stage and the workers changing that mid day (So technically they wasted money by not going with the original design), than using a tried and true version with all the obstacles in storage...
The only thing that could remotely count as "cheaper" was that joke of a stage 3...

EDIT:
Also the Flying Chute is cheap as hell for M9... Just a peice of sheet metal they have to bend, some supports with bungee rope and a net... That's cheaper than the Slider Jump that replaced it requiring a track to be built..   

[ES-13]

Yeah, but they had to build huge supports and put in safety stuff and plus, that slide was HUGE!

[TCM]

I highly doubt of all the obstacles individually, this would break the bank the most:

[Deleted]

It's the damn tower that's the pain in the a**.

Hey M9, make an obstacle show out of lame a** s*** looking obstacles, and I'll still watch that s***.

[RiderLeangle]

Jul 8, 2011 19:22:30 GMT -5 @jpjuice23 said:

Hey M9, make an obstacle show out of lame a** s**t looking obstacles, and I'll still watch that s**t.

Weren't we just talking about K8?

[ES-13]

Yeah, I can't see why they'd dispose of the K7 tower, it was so beautiful.

[arsenette]

They never had the Flying Chute in Kunoichi so I have no idea wtf ya'll are talking about.. LOL

[RiderLeangle]

Jul 8, 2011 22:54:02 GMT -5 arsenette said:

They never had the Flying Chute in Kunoichi so I have no idea wtf ya'll are talking about.. LOL

I think Detective is trying to say the Flying Chute in Sasuke cost so much they couldn't host a Kunoichi... Aside from 2 problems... 1 it's cheap for them to make compared to other obstacles, 2 they had Kunoichi 7 between Sasuke 18 and 19, Two tournaments with guess what? THE FLYING CHUTE!

I think detective needs to start trying to live up to his name and get a clue

[ES-13]

Sorry.

[arsenette]

Ah I gotcha Was wondering why it was even a discussion because they don't make those types of obstacles for Kunoichi anyway since the entire point of Kunoichi are balance obstacles. Besides.. I can't imagine that's comfortable landing as a woman.. owwww...

[SuperTiger]

Thread hasn't been updated in over a week now. I thought I'd give some insight for the future of this thread, and the show.

As of right now, I'm trying to get re-directed from the Ninjafan e-mail, mainly b/c no matter what I say to them, they're just gonna tell me to give them my dollars. I'm turning this into a news thread with little discussion, because the fact that about 75% of these posts are about the Flying Chute and Jello (despite how good the idea is) are slightly alarming and off-topic at the same time. Right now, once I get re-directed, (if I even do) I will start trying to get some more in depth answers on the future of KUNOICHI.

Also in the next couple days I will be setting up a competitor thread, information on some of KUNOICHI's key competitors over the years.

If I can ever get a valid e-mail, we will do another e-mail send off, demanding another KUNOICHI in the near future. (With KUNOICHI 1-7 format) If we can even get one, since we know that there are SASUKE rumors flying left and right about the show's demise, nine to one odds say this would be the final KUNOICHI. The purpose of the competitors thread (which will be links to blogs and such) will be to offer support and to attempt to get certain people to compete that have been gone for a while. (Example Mika Izumi)

I know a lot of this so far is a huge task, but any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm just trying to get some wheels turning so we can give the show, one final hoorah.

[Deleted]

"Slightly Alarming?" Get over yourself...

[SuperTiger]

Jul 15, 2011 21:49:42 GMT -5 @jpjuice23 said:

"Slightly Alarming?" Get over yourself...

Not really an appropriate response. If you don't have anything positive to say, or anything to contribute, then just stay out of this thread. This is a news thread with discussion about KUNOICHI, (And it's future) not the Flying Chute and Jello.

[Deleted]

Alright Detective, I'll stay out.

[ES-13]

I really hope they eithier pick up where 7 left off, or just return it to the 3-7 format (Remember 1 and 2 had only three stages) and increase the difficulty to insane levels. As for your message was it because you know of my low joke tolerance that you said that?

[madmanike]

I'll agree with Detective to a point. I would love to see Kunoichi return to its original format of individual runs and 4 stages, with an increased level of difficulty raised in stage 3 and 4. However, I would not miss one bit the timed course for "only this many shall pass" rule they have thrown in the past. I say, if they make it, let them proceed, just like in Sasuke. I also think they should bring back the "international" theme where they had contestants from around the world compete. I think that was the one Kunoichi where it started to take itself seriously before going to elimiation stages and what not. Throw in a few more strength draining obstacles as opposed to an all balance course, and I think they'll find eliminating contestants won't be as difficult as they think. Also, bring back the All-Star theme and start it off some of the fan favoites of the past like Yuko Mizuno, Rie Komiya, Chie Nishimura, and a grown up Rena Higashi. And the main thing they really need to do is promote the show. If no one knows it's coming on aside from the fans, how do they propose to get anyone else to even look at it. I know it's nothing that hasn't been said a couple hundred times over, but it just seems like TBS is into self defeating itself in these matters. If they promoted the show like G4 promotes the hell outta Ninja Warrior, maybe their ratings wouldn't suck.

And of course, J E L L O ;D