Most inconsistent competitors

[darthvaderlim]

Which competitors do you think are the most inconsistent?
Akiyama- After his Kanzen in Sasuke 4, he went into a long streak of Stage One fails, except for Sasuke 11, 12 and 16.
Iketani- Cleared Stage One two times, before timing out on Stage One before clearing it again, and took 5 years to clear again after Sasuke 16.
Suzuki Yusuke- Cleared Stage One each time before failing it again, usually on obstacles that he had cleared previously.
Shinji- Probably the best example since he almost reached the Final on his debut, before failing Stage One twice, and then making it the furthest in Sasuke 14, before failing Stage One again, save for Sasuke 16.

[tns8597]

Disagree with Iketani. the guy made it to the Third Stage 6 times in the space of like 10-11 tournaments when he was in his prime. True he failed Stage 1 four straight times in Shin-Sasuke but a lot of competitors who established themselves in the Nagano era were struggling with the difficulty spike (like Shingo and even Bunpei and Takeda early on). I’m actually impressed he managed to make it to Stage 2 twice after 5 years; most competitors wouldn’t have been able to recover from such a long period of latency. Obvs he did worse than previously in all of his Stage 3 attempts so I guess that in itself is somewhat inconsistent but in terms of getting there he had the record of most Stage 3 attempts from a non All-Star until Kong matched it in Sasuke 25 (I think).

I personally think the most inconsistent competitor we’ve seen is Shinya Kishimoto. Guy clears Stage 1 once and very nearly makes the Final Stage, yet has also failed the Quad Steps twice.

Other competitors you forgot to mention would be Ryo for obvious reasons, Naoyuki Araki given that he has serious Final potential but has failed Stage 1 on 4/6 occasions, etc.

Basically anyone who has serious Final Stage or even Kanzenseiha potential but regards Stage 1 as the hardest hurdle to overcome and thus is highly likely to choke there; so it’s almost like a 0 or 100 performance which leads to them being inconsistent.

[PsychoDelusion]

Shinji Kobayashi. On a good day he was on par with Nagano and had great Kanzenseiha potential. Dude was a monster. These days though were far and few in-between.

[azn]

For a bit, Yuuji was inconsistent, I mean it sucked he had that streak of fails that nearly led to retirement (and thankfully that didn't happen)

Since Araki was mentioned, I think I need to see one more tournament to justify if he's inconsistent, guys like Kenji, Nagano, even Morimoto had their struggles early in their careers before breaking out. Some like Nagano and Kenji had their downward streaks as well before proving us that their legit, so Araki might do the same.

I think another person that can be mentioned is Tajima, after his fail in the third stage he really wasn't the same. I don't like associating fails with anything mental but Tajima is one of the few exceptions

[tns8597]

Kongu was a rare case of someone who experienced a decline (3 consecutive Third Stage appearances followed by 4 straight Stage 1 retires) and came back stronger than his pre-decline years. This was especially prominent given that a lot of competitors who had done well before Nagano’s victory just entered this non-recoverable period of decline due to Shin-Sasuke’s difficulty spike (like Shinji, Shingo, Akiyama) but Kongu came back with a vengeance and on his first appearance back in Stage 3 had his best run yet, then made the Final one tournament later.

Yuuji’s the only other competitor I can think of to come back from decline and actually maintain a strong set of performances, but he’s still not as strong as he was pre-Rising era, but that’s mainly a function of him now being in his 40s (he’s no longer Kanzen potential I’d say). Kongu was still in his prime when he recovered from his decline.

Nagano never really recovered from his decline after Sasuke 23. Yes he made Stage 3 once but even then he barely cleared Stage 2 and went out on the Cliffhanger; he wasn’t the same absolute monster he was before, also this run was only an exception and was surrounded by several consecutive Stage 1 failures.

R/e Araki yes I agree he’s defo not on the same level of inconsistency as, say, Ryo, but as it stands he’s one of these guys who could either make the Final due to his training but is statistically more likely to fail Stage 1, so as I said it’s a 0 or 100. Hopefully this will change with time though.

[daramunya]

I'd put Ryo up there. He rarely reaches the 3rd stage but when he does, u know it's gonna be a great performance.

Shingo during his prime, had a string of tournaments where he reaches the 3rd stage & fails the 1st stage on the next one

[tns8597]

Funnily enough from SASUKE 3-10, Shingo failed Stage 1 on every even-numbered tournament, and made it to at least the Third Stage (and the Final Stage twice) in every odd-numbered tournament.

I always wondered why that was. Maybe due to the pressure of doing so well in the tournament prior? Granted SASUKE 8 and 10 were both close calls, and the former was plagued by rain.

[ChiBiJKT48]

I don't know if it can be true, but I read that Yamamoto was having some sort of allergy in Autumn, hence he never do well on Autumn tournaments, which is the even-numbered tournaments. Also, if you look at his appearance, he always seems uglier during the Autumn tournaments, for some reason.

[tns8597]

I'm not sure how true that is given that he performed well on tournaments like SASUKE 2, 12, 17, and 23, which I believe were all filmed during the Autumn months. If it was to do with an allergy then he'd seem much more lethargic, slower, less agile etc which I don't really think has ever been the case:

- SASUKE 4: he was on top form and going really quickly until he rushed the Yueru Hashi which was a simple mistake, maybe due to the pressure of wearing such a high number which he'd never done before
- SASUKE 6: not sure how to explain this one, but the Rolling Maruta is one of those obstacles that can throw you off no matter what (like the Jumping Spider, Jump Hang, etc.)
- SASUKE 8: it was wet this tournament and he very nearly cleared had it not been for his backflip at the end; relatively speaking he actually did pretty well given we only got 6 clears this tournament.
- SASUKE 10: again, he did really well relative to a lot of other competitors as we only got 5 clears. He just fell foul to the Tarzan Rope's function as a time waster which as we know plagued a load of other competitors that tournament (which ultimately led to the slowest fastest Stage 1 clear time we've ever seen).

Maybe if he'd failed the Soritatsu Kabe on all of these tournaments then an allergy would be a legitimate possibility (e.g. Takeda had a cold in SASUKE 7 which resulted in his Soritatsu Kabe time-out) but none of his fails can really be attributed to poor stamina or feeling unwell.

[Ninja Relaxer]

"Inconsistent" is Shingo's middle name. I love that for most of Sasuke 1-24 he's either pulling off some incredible athletic feat or committing some boneheaded mistake that makes you yell "SHINGOOOO!!!" at the screen. And I say that lovingly: Inconsistency is part of his charm.

I guess it's fair to call Ryo inconsistent too, but in his case, the word has more of a negative connotation to me, because I feel like Ryo hasn't lived up to his potential, whereas Shingo has (after taking his injuries into account). Ryo had one incredible performance where he reached the Final, but then he suffered a long series of disappointments which he has never fully redeemed himself from in my eyes. Yes, I know he has made the Third Stage since then, but I haven't felt like Ryo was a serious contender in a long time. Too bad.

I think it's fair to say that Yuuji has been inconsistent for most of his career. But his peaks were so high (two kanzens!) that it's easy to overlook.