Do you think numbers affect the quality of a tournament?

[dakohosu]

There's always been talk about why certain competitors get certain numbers etc., so I want to settle this argument by asking the community if they generally think numbers affect the quality of a tournament. Specifically, the question is whether the numbers being decided strategically affects the quality of the tournament rather than what was effectively a lottery like Sasuke 1-3, or 18. 

My resounding answer would be 'yes' for the following reasons:
- It fits the most favorable trend of Stage 1 starting on a very happy go lucky note with joke competitors etc then slowly transitioning into a far more serious and nail biting climax towards the end, with the stronger competitors getting the higher numbers. This would undoubtedly account for a proportion of the ratings as actual fans of the show (not just those watching to see Darvish I mean) would stay tuned in until the later part of the broadcast, rather than seeing their favourite competitor wearing #10, failing Stage 1, leading them to tune away almost immediately.
- Having strong competitors randomly dispersed throughout the playing field causes serious issues editing wise given that for every 5 fails there'll be a clear or thereabouts, and given that they usually group fails together and clears together when fast forwarding it could lead to a case like Sasuke 27 where they just ran everything completely out of order which was a mess.
- It just wouldn't be right to see someone like Yuuji or Morimoto run in the first half of the playing field, given that they should represent the absolute climax of each stage they compete in given that they're both two-time champions. 
- There's always a chance that in a lottery, all the strong competitors get grouped in the first half or two-thirds leaving the latter end of Stage 1 super boring and anti-climactic. 

I do think lotteries every now and then are a nice break to the trend provided the editing is done tastefully (which I'd argue it was in both 18 and 25, though that was largely due to the low numbers of clears which meant that every clear was shown in full) but as a general strategy it just wouldn't work.

Let me know your thoughts. 

[ChiBiJKT48]

Yeah, everything is perfectly explained there. In a Perfect World where Ratings and Income doesn't matter to support the show, yes, running order does affect the quality of the tournament. You surely don't want to see *in SASUKE 10, for example* Nagano and Yamada being #901 and #902 instead of #999 and #1000. It just doesn't seemed right.

[dakohosu]

Yeah, I mean some potentially quite good tournaments had some really s***ty edits because the numbers were completely out of order. The best example being Sasuke 27 where #1-95 were basically determined by a lottery. The biggest problem being is that we got 27 clears dispersed throughout the playing field, and usually they group digests of clears and fails separately forcing them to chop and rearrange everything out of order, which was dumb as you could see everyone's number. In fact I'm really surprised the announcer didn't elude to certain competitors having cleared before they were actually shown. I still think the issue would've been there had the numbers been arranged more tastefully given the really easy course but at least half of the clears or so could be grouped towards the end of the stage. Other examples were 17, 19, and 22 where they basically cut half of the last 10 runs in each case which came across as super anti-climactic.

I kind of like the way things are now. We have a load of celebrities and the strongest competitors grouped in the 80s and 90s as that's who everyone wants to see and are willing to wait for, but to prevent people getting bored from Rolling Hill fails we have a few stronger competitors grouped in the first half or so. Things I'd change would be to maybe change up who gets the low number rather than it always being Hioki and the Black Tigers (earlier Sasukes seemed to do this and it still worked pretty well, like giving Nakata a low number in 10 and Iketani a low number in 11 etc.).

Also just a personal idea; I'd make numbers more sensitive to prior results unless you're Yuuji, Yusuke, or Nagano who've arguably earned whatever number they want lol. Darvish, Kawaguchi, and Keitaro should be in the 80s for the next tournament. I really liked this recent trend of grouping strong competitors who've not been doing so well in the 70s but I know that Inui has far too much bias towards particularly the former two to try anything like that.

[subtleagent]

I think they edited the audio so that those who were mentioned prior to their clear weren't mentioned, which just seems like a lot of unnecessary effort instead of just I don't know... showing them in order?

[Ninja Relaxer]

Sept 19, 2021 13:20:22 GMT -5 subtleagent said:

I think they edited the audio so that those who were mentioned prior to their clear weren't mentioned, which just seems like a lot of unnecessary effort instead of just I don't know... showing them in order?

Sometimes G4 spoiled the results with their shoddy editing like this. You'd have 3 clears after the first 40 competitors, then they'd jump to #99 with the announcer saying, "Only 3 people have cleared today! Will [#99] be the fourth?" Which meant that everyone from #41-98 failed. Then they (G4) would go back to #41 to show you a run you already knew resulted in failure. Super annoying. 

[subtleagent]

There would also be random moments where they just cut out audio for no reason (listen to Nagano's Stage 3 intro in 12 in both versions and you'll know what I mean) which led to some really choppy moments.

[dakohosu]

I honestly found the G4 edits insulting both to the competitors and my intelligence in some cases.

I just feel like they didn’t assume that anyone watching Ninja Warrior was an actual fan who understood how the tournament worked, and hence understood that competitors were run in order; hell you don’t even need to be a fan to work that out, as the most hyped competitors always wear 99 and 100 and it’s always mentioned at the start how the competitive list always comprises of 100 competitors. Coincidence? I think not.... either way some of their edits were horrendous, like acting as though Shinji was the last man standing in Sasuke 14 even though he was actually the first to run. Rearranging the order of runs in later stages just so we see all the fails before the clears seems like something they would do for a kids show; it’s such rudimentary editing and it sucks a**.

Also maybe I’m a tad biased as I know some Japanese but they really just didn’t give a s*** when it came to dubbing the announcer and competitor interviews. In some cases it’s so obvious that the competitors didn’t actually say what was written on the subtitles, and it’s always so cheesy like ‘Ninja Warrior is really tough!!!!’. It’s almost insulting. Imagine being interviewed then seeing another language dub your interview to make it out as though you’re speaking like a 10 year old.

Also I hate how unless a run is shown in its absolute entirety it gets fast forwarded on G4.

Anyway, rant over. G4 edits suck, but I can’t hate on them too much as that’s how I discovered Sasuke (well, through Challenge but the English narrator was even worse than the subtitles).

[zoran]

Sept 20, 2021 15:20:08 GMT -5 dakohosu said:

I honestly found the G4 edits insulting both to the competitors and my intelligence in some cases.

I just feel like they didn’t assume that anyone watching Ninja Warrior was an actual fan who understood how the tournament worked, and hence understood that competitors were run in order; hell you don’t even need to be a fan to work that out, as the most hyped competitors always wear 99 and 100 and it’s always mentioned at the start how the competitive list always comprises of 100 competitors. Coincidence? I think not.... either way some of their edits were horrendous, like acting as though Shinji was the last man standing in Sasuke 14 even though he was actually the first to run. Rearranging the order of runs in later stages just so we see all the fails before the clears seems like something they would do for a kids show; it’s such rudimentary editing and it sucks a**.

Also maybe I’m a tad biased as I know some Japanese but they really just didn’t give a s*** when it came to dubbing the announcer and competitor interviews. In some cases it’s so obvious that the competitors didn’t actually say what was written on the subtitles, and it’s always so cheesy like ‘Ninja Warrior is really tough!!!!’. It’s almost insulting. Imagine being interviewed then seeing another language dub your interview to make it out as though you’re speaking like a 10 year old.

Also I hate how unless a run is shown in its absolute entirety it gets fast forwarded on G4.

Anyway, rant over. G4 edits suck, but I can’t hate on them too much as that’s how I discovered Sasuke (well, through Challenge but the English narrator was even worse than the subtitles).

Why do you not like Jim North?

[subtleagent]

I feel like Jim North should have kept his commentary between the runs like Dave Wittenberg did rather than during the runs.

[dakohosu]

His wise cracks and jokes were really cheesy to the point that it was actually quite a distraction from the run in hand.

I didn't expect him to be an English Furutachi but come on.