Most frustrating stage 3 fail?

[BigT]

I don't mean last obstacle fails, those are always painful. I mean unexpected and wasteful (or "Mottainai" as Nagano would say) fails that squandered huge potential a competitor had.

I have several in mind. Shiratori Bunpei in Sasuke 17. Apart from his balance tank fail in Sasuke 14, he was among the top 3 competitors each time from Sasuke 12 to Sasuke 16, making it to pipe slider in Sasuke 16 when the 3rd stage had become a lot more difficult (after 13). Then out of nowhere he fails the body prop in 17. I like to think he would've made it to final stage as he seemed to train for pipe slider after two fails at it and it looked to be positioned lower than in Sasuke 16. I don't understand why he was given such a low number, too.

Next is Okuyama Yoshiyuki in Sasuke 27. He was only one who made to stage 3 from Sasuke 25 to 27. He made progress on UCH each time and had he made it there third time, he might've cleared it as it was shown in VTR's that he was practicing a lot. He made it further than David Campbell in Sasuke 26 afterall and his lighter body would've helped. In the easier 3rd stage (compared to 26) I can only see Chain See-Saw stopping him. Then again, I am not sure about his rope climbing skills. Still, would've been nice to see him in final stage. All that crushed by careless flying bar fail as he was looking to his right and completely missed left side of the bar.

Lastly, the more recent Yuuji Urushihara pipe slider fail in Sasuke 37. Would've been a blast from the past to see him in final stage although weather would've made winning problematic but I'm sure he would give it his best shot.

Share your ideas.

[ChiBiJKT48]

01. Takeda Toshihiro in SASUKE 24. Always bother me to this day. Six other people had better result than him, and five is waiting for him in Final Stage. Why he had to run out of gas, why?

02. Yamada Katsumi in SASUKE 6. I know that you want to avoid last obstacle failures as much as possible, but, really, this is so unexpected at that time. His failure even caused the water underneath the obstacle to be made bigger *reaching until the sides of the landing platform* to prevent such case from happening again.

03. Shiratori Bunpei in SASUKE 13. Had a very flawless run, and everyone can sense him in Final Stage for the second tournament in a row. But when he made the jump, he fail. Shocking. Just shocking.

04. Asa Kazuma in SASUKE 31. This is just pure painful. Him crying after failing the obstacle for record fourth straight time *I think no one can break this record* clearly just made it more emotional.

05. Takeda Toshihiro (again) in SASUKE 11. As I always type in this Forums, this failure is just frustrating. He train intensively for this obstacle, and then he slip a little and it is over. His face while he was on the water tell you everything.

06. Iketani Naoki in SASUKE 16. Fail Body Prop right after you start it. What a joke.

07. Shane Kosugi in SASUKE 7. Train intensively for Body Prop, only to progress about few centimetres better than previous result. Shame.

08. Hasegawa Ken in SASUKE 3. Seeing that other five had no problem with this Pipe Slider, his performance is just disappointing.

09. Yamamoto Shingo in SASUKE 9. DUDE! Last Man Standing, and you fail Rumbling Dice! What the hell!

10. Takeda Toshihiro (AGAIN) in SASUKE 12. Probably his best shot at Final Stage, and got ****ed up *and injure his shoulder which will play large part in his Third Stage life after this tournament*. Pure BS.

[BigT]

Jul 31, 2020 13:23:11 GMT -5 ChiBiJKT48 said:

01. Takeda Toshihiro in SASUKE 24. Always bother me to this day. Six other people had better result than him, and five is waiting for him in Final Stage. Why he had to run out of gas, why?

02. Yamada Katsumi in SASUKE 6. I know that you want to avoid last obstacle failures as much as possible, but, really, this is so unexpected at that time. His failure even caused the water underneath the obstacle to be made bigger *reaching until the sides of the landing platform* to prevent such case from happening again.

03. Shiratori Bunpei in SASUKE 13. Had a very flawless run, and everyone can sense him in Final Stage for the second tournament in a row. But when he made the jump, he fail. Shocking. Just shocking.

04. Asa Kazuma in SASUKE 31. This is just pure painful. Him crying after failing the obstacle for record fourth straight time *I think no one can break this record* clearly just made it more emotional.

05. Takeda Toshihiro (again) in SASUKE 11. As I always type in this Forums, this failure is just frustrating. He train intensively for this obstacle, and then he slip a little and it is over. His face while he was on the water tell you everything.

06. Iketani Naoki in SASUKE 16. Fail Body Prop right after you start it. What a joke.

07. Shane Kosugi in SASUKE 7. Train intensively for Body Prop, only to progress about few centimetres better than previous result. Shame.

08. Hasegawa Ken in SASUKE 3. Seeing that other five had no problem with this Pipe Slider, his performance is just disappointing.

09. Yamamoto Shingo in SASUKE 9. DUDE! Last Man Standing, and you fail Rumbling Dice! What the hell!

10. Takeda Toshihiro (AGAIN) in SASUKE 12. Probably his best shot at Final Stage, and got ****ed up *and injure his shoulder which will play large part in his Third Stage life after this tournament*. Pure BS.

Very interesting points, I'd like to discuss some of them in detail.

1) Well, endurance has always been a weak point of Takeda. Majority of his 3rd stage fails are a result of running out of gas - body prop in 6, pipe slider in 8, cliffhanger in 13, 14, and 16, devil's swing in 15, hang climbing in 21 and lastly 24. My theories as to why 24 exactly - lack of Nagano being with him in 3rd stage (to give him extra push - get to final so that I can join you), age catching up to him, 5 people making final before, all of them combined having attempted stage 3 less times than him. I think that as more people cleared, the more pressure was put on Takeda who is not used to being Last Man Standing, you can see Takeda getting more and more nervous and you also see enormous relief of Kongu and even usually reserved Okuyama, who cleared right before him.

2) I have to admit - I never would've expected something like this to happen. This is very different from every other pipe slider fail. I believe Yamada's obsession with Sasuke began around Sasuke 3, so this might've been his prime. Well, the dream was certainly alive, which can't be truly said about Sasuke 10 when he was already showing signs of regress as he wasn't as consistent anymore, although that fail struck me as more emotional.

3) I read that platform was moved back a bit. Perhaps that explains it. I guess the way he failed shocked me the most. A little forwards momentum and he would've made it. Maybe with him and Nagano in final, we would see double victory or at least it would give Nagano a boost like Shunsuke in 17.

4) Truly heartbraking. With the speed Asa possesses, he would be a threat to defeat final stage. I'm not sure how much he trained on vertical limit, though. I suppose he had some sort of mental barrier around cliffhanger. While his screaming was memorable, I wonder whether or not he wasted much needed energy that way. I still hope to see him one last time even if not as a serious contender for victory.

5) Agreed. I also remember his reaction in Sasuke 9 and 13. I wonder whether or not at this point his stage 3 morale really dropped, because no matter how much he tried, he still couldn't get to final stage.

9) Especially considering he started to regress with each time in 3rd stage from Sasuke 11 onwards.

10) Yes, that shoulder probably caused cliffhanger fails that robbed him of attempting final part of stage 3. I believe his best chance was Sasuke 23. He just had to make that spider flip and working gliding ring should be a piece of cake compared to pipe slider, which is the main reason he didn't make it to final stage.

[ChiBiJKT48]

Jul 31, 2020 15:40:17 GMT -5 BigT said:

I believe Yamada's obsession with Sasuke began around Sasuke 3, so this might've been his prime.

I read that platform was moved back a bit. Perhaps that explains it.

Correct, and correct.

Remember that at this tournament, Yamada's situation with his family is still OK, they still fully support him, and he already trained intensively for Final Stage before most of competitors know what was there waiting in Final Stage. Then, that happens. It destory his mental forever.

Yes, it was clearly seen with Nagano Makoto. Both of his jump in SASUKE 12 and 13 are similar, but Nagano was closer to the edge of the mat in SASUKE 13. I put this failure into Unexpected category rather than Wasteful. Shiratori was perfect until that point, but one small momentum ruin him *pipe sliding back*. And sadly, that was the closest he will get to second Final Stage attempt *SASUKE 16 jump is much off compared to SASUKE 13 one*. If only he didn't slip on Body Prop in next tournament, I reckon he can clear that jump, which is exactly what you already typed before.

[tns8597]

Controversially for me none of Takeda's Pipe Slider fails make the cut, because he was clearly bad at the jump; he wasn't even close in 12 or 17. 24 for me was quite tragic especially seeing 5 competitors clearing before him, and particularly because he did even worse than in 23.

Some of my others include:
- Naoya Tajima in 24: technically this was on the final obstacle but he could've easily made Stage 4 if not for his stupid slip-up.
- Shinya Kishimoto in 30: I always thought he'd dominate if he could just get past Stage 1 and I was pretty sure he'd clear Stage 3, but his slip on the Vertical Limit was probably the most frustrating aspect of that tournament for me.
- Ryo Matachi in 36: so close to clearing the VL, and it would've been incredible to see his redemption run take him all the way to Stage 4 after 5 early defeats in a row.
- David Campbell in 27: would've made Stage 4 and could've achieved Kanzen if he had held on for literally another second on the UCH.
- Yuuji in 37: no words needed

It also seems super unlucky to me that only 6 people have made the Final Stage more than once, because so many others were so close to achieving this but just got unlucky. Kong could've done it in 23, and would've done it again in 24. Hashimoto could've done it again in 27. Shiratori could've done it in 13. Akiyama in 12 etc.

[Cosmic Castaway]

Kanno in 22 being disqualified for touching the support beam of the Spider Flip. Although from what i recall, he was already gassed out by that point it was still an honest mistake that could have happened to anyone.

[LusitaniaAngel313]

Literally Shingo starting from 12 onward... He just... slowly got worse and worse! 23 I give him a pass since THAT was injury induced.

Takeda in 24... ugh... it's frustrating it was his last chance...

Yuuji in 37. Excuse me you're right there and you do THAT?!

Tajima in 24. That was an idiot move. Ring fail for you.

Tomohiro in 36. Ok no one ELSE failed the first transition but YOU do. -_- #Casual

Hioki in 37. Maybe the first ledge was wet or something...

[tns8597]

I agree about Shingo. Iketani (who had a similar fate of failing Stage 3 earlier each time) I can understand because he was a celebrity who didn't actually train specifically for Sasuke. It must've sucked for Shingo to practice the Body Prop and Cliffhanger everyday just to fail earlier and earlier on those obstacles. Though this doesn't count he did break that spell in ANW USA vs Japan where he did make it to the Floating Boards, so clearly he doesn't suck THAT much at Stage 3.

With Hioki, the ledge wasn't wet. There was a tarp on top of the entire course. Also, the rumour that the Cliffhanger Dimension was halted due to wet weather is false because the Planet Bridge was working just fine. Rene Casselly stated in an interview that because Stage 1 results were relatively disappointing, they wanted to make Stage 3 easier just so that someone would make the final (cos imagine having a Live Final and no one shows up). There were already fewer competitors in a conceptually harder Stage 3 than in 36, with the only person who cleared in the last tournament having failed Stage 1. Hence, they decided to halt the ledges of the new Cliffhanger as a sort of guarantee that someone would clear. Sucks I know.

[LusitaniaAngel313]

Aug 2, 2020 8:22:13 GMT -5 tns8597 said:

I agree about Shingo. Iketani (who had a similar fate of failing Stage 3 earlier each time) I can understand because he was a celebrity who didn't actually train specifically for Sasuke. It must've sucked for Shingo to practice the Body Prop and Cliffhanger everyday just to fail earlier and earlier on those obstacles. Though this doesn't count he did break that spell in ANW USA vs Japan where he did make it to the Floating Boards, so clearly he doesn't suck THAT much at Stage 3.

With Hioki, the ledge wasn't wet. There was a tarp on top of the entire course. Also, the rumour that the Cliffhanger Dimension was halted due to wet weather is false because the Planet Bridge was working just fine. Rene Casselly stated in an interview that because Stage 1 results were relatively disappointing, they wanted to make Stage 3 easier just so that someone would make the final (cos imagine having a Live Final and no one shows up). There were already fewer competitors in a conceptually harder Stage 3 than in 36, with the only person who cleared in the last tournament having failed Stage 1. Hence, they decided to halt the ledges of the new Cliffhanger as a sort of guarantee that someone would clear. Sucks I know.

Oooomph... I can understand that a little bit...

[tns8597]

Yep.

As much as I think the live Final is an incredible idea that really shakes up the suspense, it sort of forces the producers to make sure that someone reaches the Final.

I guess as long as they do the live final then the chances of us having an entertainingly OP Stage 3 (like in 25; not like 32-34, that was impossible) is pretty low, unfortunately.

[m4tt3r0x]

Aug 2, 2020 19:31:06 GMT -5 tns8597 said:

Yep.

As much as I think the live Final is an incredible idea that really shakes up the suspense, it sort of forces the producers to make sure that someone reaches the Final.

I guess as long as they do the live final then the chances of us having an entertainingly OP Stage 3 (like in 25; not like 32-34, that was impossible) is pretty low, unfortunately.

They could fix that by planning a live final every new years regardless if someone clears by guaranteeing at least one fun run by some other guy(s) I suppose.

[BigT]

There is probably not going to be (if Sasuke is held this year) a live final with the covid situation. That might mean the course wouldn't be artificially nerfed.