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Post by dakohosu on Jul 9, 2021 12:26:15 GMT -5
Sorry for bumping this seemingly dead thread but I thought of another one.
Koji Yamada could’ve been better than Takeda if he didn’t retire so prematurely.
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Post by subtleagent on Jul 9, 2021 13:23:32 GMT -5
I'm honestly not sure about this given Koji Yamada has been known to not be the best on swinging obstacles (ex. Jumping Bars in 15, Devil Balanco in 16, Salmon Ladder in 19) and like Takeda he was only good for short bursts of stamina (and while he did get revenge in on the Jumping Bars in 16, it was on a nerfed stage 3 whereas Takeda made it to the Devil Balanco in 15 on the same Stage 3) rather than being able to go through long term. That said I would say his Metal Spin fail in 17 was something of a freak accident seeing as the reason he failed was when he jumped for the rope his feet were too close to the edge of the mat and it threw off his balance. Maybe he would've fared better if he had another shot at Stage 3 in 17.
So if any I would say they were on par.
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Post by dakohosu on Jul 9, 2021 14:25:07 GMT -5
subtleagent yeah I agree with everything you said, hence why I said he 'could've' been better. For all we know he could've got incredibly lucky in Sasuke 19 (given that Yuji Washimi cleared that tournament as well then proceeded to fail a nerfed version of that Stage 1 in subsequent tournaments) and he also only competed 7 times so it's hard to gauge his overall consistency and potential.
But the reason I mentioned this is that I feel like we never saw Yamada's true potential, whereas we did with Takeda. Yamada may well have cleared Stage 3 in Sasuke 16 had he gone after Bunpei (who laid the foundation for the Devil Balanco strategy that everyone else used from then on and cleared) and seen his technique. Had he not messed up the Metal Spin in 17 he also could've had a real running shot of clearing, especially as all of his Stage 3 attempts saw him doing better than before. And then there's obvs the 'what if' he continued to compete in Shin-Sasuke. I definitely think he could've made the Final Stage in Sasuke 23-24 had he kept up his consistency (which I think was proven somewhat by Sasuke 19, provided he didn't just get lucky which is always a possibility).
Takeda on the other hand we'd seen attempt Stage 3 thirteen times and he failed every single time; I don't think there was any speculation that he could've reached the Final Stage (except for I'd argue Sasuke 23), given that the Pipe Slider jump seemed to be his Achilles' heel and none of his attempts were even close.
I suppose the question comes down to whether you think Koji Yamada could've reached the Final Stage at some point had he continued competing. The answer to that from me is 'maybe', either in Sasuke 17 or in late Shin-Sasuke had he kept competing.
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Post by salt on Jul 14, 2021 5:33:21 GMT -5
I think a lot of early third stage obstacles end up getting unfairly labelled as “too easy” mostly due to their positioning in the stage. For example, the Arm Rings did basically nothing as an opening obstacle in SASUKE, but whenever they showed up deep into an ANW course, they were much more deadly. Granted, they’re probably not as hard as something like the Roulette Cylinder, but I wouldn’t dismiss them as a free obstacle either, especially if the course designers put them after the Cliffhanger or something.
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Post by subtleagent on Jul 14, 2021 14:31:43 GMT -5
The Arm Rings did seem much harder when they gave it a Pipe Slider like jump at Muscle Park. Honestly I wouldn't have minded them as the final obstacle with said jump in place of the Gliding Ring (which really didn't fit in Stage 3 at all), it would've likely taken out a lot more people.
The majority of Stage 3 has been overshadowed by the Cliffhanger for years since these days it really boils down to that.
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Post by sackeshi on Jul 15, 2021 8:02:50 GMT -5
I think production was scared about having the 3rd stage not be beaten in like 10 tournaments because of people failing to make a final jump.
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Post by subtleagent on Jul 15, 2021 17:14:08 GMT -5
I really don't like Inui's editing style compared to M9's. Like... at all if that one counts.
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Post by dakohosu on Jul 16, 2021 8:14:36 GMT -5
I really don't like Inui's editing style compared to M9's. Like... at all if that one counts. Neither do I. That said, don't forget that Monster9's last two tournaments were probably the worst edited we've ever seen (26-27), with even Stage 1 and 2 clears shown out of order etc. It makes me think that they would've potentially sunk even lower had they not gone bankrupt. It's weird how they almost suddenly went down that rabbit hole of s*** editing given that they were also responsible for some of the best edited tournaments we've ever seen, including Shin-Sasuke which directly came before those two tournaments.
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Post by sackeshi on Jul 16, 2021 12:02:08 GMT -5
Shin Sasuke had god editing because of the low clear rate. Having less clears in stages 1 means you can use 80% or more of the time slot on stage 1 allowing for a coherent edit.
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Post by subtleagent on Jul 16, 2021 18:31:49 GMT -5
Yeah M9 definitely had their hiccups. One such tournament I never understood the digests in was SASUKE 15. It had only 7 clears and no one made it to the Final Stage. I guess the things they cut we really didn't need to see THAT badly, but it always did confuse me as to why they would even need them. Sure Shingo was well into his decline by this point, and Morgan Hamm was a foreigner with a rather underwhelming result in Stage 3, but honestly all full runs shown would've been like what? Maybe an extra 10 to 20 minutes? That would've still been barely shorter than 14's length. 14 I understood since there were 10 people in Stage 3 with no Final Stage attempts, but 15 only had 6. I suppose this can also be chalked up to the fact that Stages 2 and 3 were unchanged sans a 2 second time drop in Stage 2.
But then I look back to SASUKE 10 which had the introduction of the Balance Tank and the only full runs we got in that stage were Nakata and Yamada. Probably because they just wanted to get Stage 2 out of the way because the only one who failed was Arai and he was a noob. I could never quite wrap my head around M9's editing style, but honestly it did feel more fluent than Inui's more static focus on the same people.
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Post by dakohosu on Jul 17, 2021 3:42:20 GMT -5
I’ve mentioned before that they tend to digest whenever there are several clears or fails in a row. The reason being is that once 2/3 people in a row clear Stage 2, it becomes pretty predictable that basically everyone else is going to clear as well so to show all those runs in a row would be a bit of an immersion breaker. Also most clears pan out in the same way. The competitor gets through all the obstacles and clears before the time runs out; there’s really not that much difference between those runs. The only runs I would’ve liked to see are the ones where the competitor clears with like no time left (like Isa’s Stage 2 run in 38) or where the competitor weirdly times out really prematurely as I’d like to understand what caused them to be so slow.
Sasuke 12 is a perfect example of editing done right imo (which itself is probs an unpopular opinion). Most Stage 1 runs were shown. In Stage 2, got 10 out of 11 clears, 8 of which were in a row, so it made sense to digest some of those 8 clears as to see everyone clear one after another would get a bit boring and would fundamentally take more time out of the broadcast for some genuinely interesting Stage 1 or 3 runs. Stage 3 was executed really well imo; they skipped out all the easy stuff like the Rumbling Dice and just focussed on the real nail biting parts.
Sasuke 26 I always think had the worst editing because we only got 10 Stage 1 clears and like 6 Stage 2 clears but they still managed to digest half of those, as well as just completely cutting most competitors and the ones they did show were run out of order. I suppose they did have a much shorter broadcast time than usual but it’s still a rubbish excuse.
And yeah I agree some of Inui’s editing choices have been downright terrible: especially Sasuke 28, 32 and 33 come to mind. 29, 30, and 34 I can forgive due to the high clear rates, 35-37 I honestly didn’t have much problem with. 38 I think got tiring due to the huge numbers of celebrities all of which had their runs drawn out to the Dragon Glider due to the imbalance in Stage 1’s difficulty but I won’t complain as they help ratings. 31 I think was okay but they did what they did in Sasuke 4 where they just completely cut a few clears and didn’t acknowledge them until the end of Stage 1, which I think was unacceptable.
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Post by salt on Jul 21, 2021 5:32:27 GMT -5
I think The Wedge from ANW would be a good replacement for the Pipe Slider at the end of the third stage. Both obstacles involve carefully maneuvering a bar to a problematic dismount that involves not moving the bar too much while trying to build up swing, but the Wedge is much more precise and easy to choke, as we've seen from the dozens of ANW competitors failing it. Seems like a logical successor now that the Pipe Slider has been mastered by most competitors.
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Post by dakohosu on Jul 21, 2021 7:37:07 GMT -5
That's not a bad idea, but I personally don't think Inui is innovative enough to introduce such a novel obstacle into the show.
I would still go with the Flying Bar as my choice for the final obstacle, in its original form with the six normal-sized cradles, and without that dumb wire to compensate (like seriously, what's the issue with just having a few spare bars if you can't dry them in time?). The funny thing is how Sasuke invented the obstacle as the final stand for the rennovated Stage 3 in Sasuke 25 (which I still maintain was the best Stage 3 of all time; the difficulty was balanced throughout the entire stage but still hard af, and the Ultimate Cliffhanger can be beaten by rigorous training compared to the 180 crazy transitions which everyone seems to fail in competition which makes the results kinda boring), yet they never used it and instead went with the 3 wider cradles to accommodate the nerfed difficulty of Sasuke 27, and just stuck with that.
Every other international show has used the Flying Bar as that final obstacle because they clearly see the value in having such a nail-biting finish to the most gruelling stage, where no matter how well you've done you can still f*** it all up with one false transition, and unlike the current Pipe Slider it's actually appropriately hard for the end of Stage 3. Why Sasuke won't use an obstacle that they invented themselves and instead implements a washed out obstacle, which is easier than the variant they used 15 years ago, I have no idea.
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Rafas
Honma Kōta
sometimes
Posts: 123
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Post by Rafas on Jul 27, 2021 0:07:39 GMT -5
Bunpei wasn't influential or impactful enough to be considered an All Star. When the all stars were first started being called the all stars Bunpei hadn't even made it past stage 1 yet. He was made an all star later on
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Rafas
Honma Kōta
sometimes
Posts: 123
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Post by Rafas on Jul 27, 2021 0:11:06 GMT -5
Dude screw stage 3, just screw it. I want to see the vertical limit removed and replaced with something like a triple chain see-saw and more difficulty at the start of stage 3, like a roulette cylinder doorknob grasper combo but extended or something. I hate how the first obstacles of stage 3 are basically definitely getting passed by all competitors.
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Post by subtleagent on Jul 27, 2021 1:21:53 GMT -5
I think in the case of making Bunpei an All-Star, they wanted to replace Yamada because they thought he was retired after 12 (which we all know the story there...) and they wanted to keep the group at 5. And the only real choices were him and Asaoka.
While the latter would've arguably been a more sensible choice given he had been around since SASUKE 3 and had 3 Stage 3s, and a final under his belt while having contributed a lot to the show's rise, he didn't compete in 13 and ended up retiring two tournaments later (still thinking he didn't have time to train anymore being the reason). So Asaoka was kind of scratched off, amongst the other candidates Koji Yamada and Shinji Kobayashi were too inconsistent to really be considered, Nakata and Iketani were celebs which didn't really fit the bill for being an All-Star (ordinary people, not pro-athletes). And then you had Maasaki Kobayashi who had two meh Stage 3 attempts, which kind of locked him out.
So that left Bunpei, who was arguably the best choice of the bunch. He had the highest potential and came VERY close to making the Final in 13, so he was by default the most ideal to replace Yamada. Funnily enough they have eerily similar Stage 3 records: One clear where they almost win the Final (3 for Yamada, and 12 for Bunpei), and two Pipe Slider fails with their first fail being bad luck (Yamada in 6, and Bunpei in 13) and their second being heartbreaking as well as the best performance of the tournament (Yamada in 10, and Bunpei in 16).
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zoran
Jessie Graff
Posts: 1,026
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Post by zoran on Jul 27, 2021 6:06:40 GMT -5
I think in the case of making Bunpei an All-Star, they wanted to replace Yamada because they thought he was retired after 12 (which we all know the story there...) and they wanted to keep the group at 5. And the only real choices were him and Asaoka. While the latter would've arguably been a more sensible choice given he had been around since SASUKE 3 and had 3 Stage 3s, and a final under his belt while having contributed a lot to the show's rise, he didn't compete in 13 and ended up retiring two tournaments later (still thinking he didn't have time to train anymore being the reason). So Asaoka was kind of scratched off, amongst the other candidates Koji Yamada and Shinji Kobayashi were too inconsistent to really be considered, Nakata and Iketani were celebs which didn't really fit the bill for being an All-Star (ordinary people, not pro-athletes). And then you had Maasaki Kobayashi who had two meh Stage 3 attempts, which kind of locked him out. So that left Bunpei, who was arguably the best choice of the bunch. He had the highest potential and came VERY close to making the Final in 13, so he was by default the most ideal to replace Yamada. Funnily enough they have eerily similar Stage 3 records: One clear where they almost win the Final (3 for Yamada, and 12 for Bunpei), and two Pipe Slider fails with their first fail being bad luck (Yamada in 6, and Bunpei in 13) and their second being heartbreaking as well as the best performance of the tournament (Yamada in 10, and Bunpei in 16). And 2 painful balance tank fails and both have failed the first obstacle of stage 2 and have 2 shock fails in stage 3 (Bunpei 17 and Yamada 4) and have both came close to timing out on the second to last obstacle of Shin Sasuke (Yamada 23, Bunpei 19, although he did actually time out instead of failing) and finally both have had shock fails on the jump hangs in tournaments they would have been expected to pass it(Yamada in 14 and Bunpei in 30).
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Post by subtleagent on Jul 31, 2021 13:19:26 GMT -5
Yamada's ban in 30 was not only stupid, but also pointless.
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Post by darthvaderlim on Jul 31, 2021 16:05:30 GMT -5
Yamada's ban in 30 was not only stupid, but also pointless. Especially, considering that they decided to overturn it in 33 due to anniversary reason. I mean, he did get into an argument with Inui, and that's pretty much it.
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Post by dakohosu on Aug 4, 2021 13:30:35 GMT -5
Another unpopular opinion from me: Sasuke 18’s renewal was fairly mediocre. It was only until Sasuke 19 that we saw the renewal to its full potential as many of the changes for the latter tournament were cemented as staples of the Shin Sasuke era.
Hear me out. Sure, 18 brought in cool new obstacles like the Jumping Spider, Flying Chute, and Salmon Ladder but I REALLY feel like they cut corners on every stage or just ran out of ideas. Stage 1 was probably the least offending stage as the only questionable obstacles were the Great Wall and Bungee Bridge. The first half of Stage 2 was cool but the second half was a joke with the Net Bridge and Shoulder Walk. Stage 3 was probably the worst offender here as the first half was easier than that of Sasuke 17’s (no doubt done on purpose to make sure that the new Cliffhanger was attempted). Then the latter half of the stage was left unchanged except for the Spider Flip and Gliding Ring, the latter of which didn’t even work until 4 tournaments later.
Then 19 comes around and all of the aforementioned issues are fixed. We get the Half Pipe Attack and scaled up Warped Wall in Stage 1, Stage 2’s second half brings back the Wall Lifting as well as showcasing a cool new idea in the form of the Skywalk and the time limit reduced to not be ridiculously lenient. Stage 3 was fixed as well; not that the first half took anyone out in its tenure but it was a lot better than combining two of the easiest obstacles and thinking that’s acceptable for a renewal. We also got the Climbing Bars replaced with the Sending Climber which was a suitably harder replacement.
So yeah, if you’re going to give any credit for the Shin-Sasuke renewal it should be for Sasuke 19 rather than 18. For every great idea 18 had, it also had a terrible/ill thought out/lazy one, and production even knew it hence why all of the above issues I mentioned were got rid of for the following tournament. 19’s revisions I think are what made the Shin-Sasuke era such a hit obstacle wise.
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