Ideal number of Sasukes per year

[Ninja Relaxer]

Assuming there were no budget constraints, and it were up to you: What do you think the ideal number of Sasukes per year would be?

You could say 365, but obviously that would destroy the continuity of the show. You'd have 30 or 40 kanzenseihas in that year, which would trivialize all the past competitors and their achievements. 

Personally, I think 1 Sasuke per year is not enough -- it's way too long to wait between competitions -- but the ideal number wouldn't be much higher than that. I just can't decide between 2 or 3. 

With 2, it still feels a little too long to wait between competitions, but 3 per year (one every four months) might be too many. I can see 4 per year, but even that might trivialize things too much. 

What do you think?

[m4tt3r0x]

2 is the golden number hands down. Once a year makes the off season a drag for both competitors and fans. Fans have to wait and competitors get less Sasuke attempts while they have adept bodies. 3 a year would just take away from the value of the show I think. Fails mean more if you have to wait 6 months to try again. Back when Sasuke had Fall and Spring competitions yearly it was the most enjoyable anyway.

[Dazed (Wiin)]

I've been thinking recently.

Four per year, which would certainly trivialize things, but... don't make things about needing to be'not-trivial'. What I really mean by this, is don't make it about being a tv show, but make it a sporting competition, with (yeah, here goes the budget) prizes for placements (going the furthest), with like, say, a consistent top 3~5 placement netting you enough to do it full time. So like, have say maybe around $200,000 USD prize pools for each tournament with like $50,000 for first, $30,000 for second, $20,000 for third, and rest is split up for like the next top 20 or something rather.

And then some other things can change, ie, don't need to make 50 minute fluff pieces for a random guy with paint on his face (even though I am a fan of Darvish), and even just have unedited runs, maybe they could show all runs and maybe even do it live (would be very hard, but I could see it being reasonable enough to upload individual runs to youtube or something, seeing as they already upload individual interviews).

This would kill a lot of what SASUKE is, but I think it would get a bit more interest in the show, both domestically and internationally. (Think about all the young guns now that you see training with the Morimoto-Sedai who can do pretty much all obstacles, but they are never on the show because they aren't Tada, Morimoto, a celebrity, or a random person from a random background that Inui would bet his life's savings won't make it past the Dragon Glider. (This does mean these guys do need to be invited though. That's the thing though, invite these guys, rather than random people who can't run, make it competitive, and boom (of course, keep someone like Darvish if he wants to stay because he can perform better than a lot of other competitors).

Yes, there is problems with this. Like I just mentioned, if it is competitive between competitors, it could take away the "competitor vs the course" vibe that a lot of us prefer. Another issue is, potential issues with stuff like bias. Think about the wall, for example, is it fair for competitors who are shorter? And what implication does this have when there is money on the line?

So that's been something I've been thinking about. But as it is (everything staying the same), I'd say two is ideal. (All that just for me to say 2. xD)

[azn]

2 per year is definitely the ideal one, it keeps the prestige of the show and it makes the long waits feel shorter.

Though I will say if they want to keep the current 1 per year status, I think they should at least have one special SASUKE vs. The World Style tournament (once everything is normal), maybe even as the halfway mark before the official tournament, which theoretically means during the summer, which as we saw in SK15 could be incredibly risky, but I feel if they do a SK vs. The World in Springtime and a legit tournament as it stands, I think that would work well

[LusitaniaAngel313]

I feel most say 2 and I'm in that group. Having 3 tourneys in a year could cause some stagnation with less time to train between tournaments and the course most likely staying similar. 2 is good. 1 is too little, 3 is too much. Though... I don't mind 3 tourneys in my eyes but to the competitors and director, yeah nvm. XD

[tns8597]

2 is ideal imo. It means that we only have to wait another 3-4 months before another tournament gets announced and we can start exciting threads of speculation and predictions, but it’s not too many that it undermines that excitement.

1 tournament per year means that between like January and August we’re just waiting for what seems like forever, and also it increases the chance of a tournament’s results coming across as underwhelming given the additional 6 months of suspense and expectation having been built up.

By contrast, I feel like 3 tournaments per year would make the tournaments individually feel much less special and would result in them just feeling like a kind of mashed together era where no tournament had a distinction to another in that year. This would be worsened by the fact that 3 tournaments per year means that competitors have less time to train, which increases the chance of a boring stagnation of results. A key example is tournaments 14-16 which were all aired in the space of 11 months, and we barely saw any progression. Then 17 was aired almost a year after 16, and we got 2 Final Stage attempts. That speaks for itself; also 14-16 saw a huge drop in ratings which no doubt was attributed to there being 3 tournaments in 2005

One thing I will say; whether we have 1, 2, or 3 tournaments in a single year, I’d love to see Sasuke host a summer tournament like they did in 15 (taping in June or July). It would be really interesting to see how the competitors cope in sweltering heat, especially with obstacles like the Tackle and Soritatsu Kabe. Also, heat is an appropriately hindering condition that adds a new element of difficulty and even may encourage interesting new approaches to the course, but doesn’t affect the function of the obstacles themselves (touchwood the motorised ones aren’t prone to overheating....) like the rain does.