Wishes for SASUKE 41

[katoshiho]

It going to be crazy again. This will be another fabulous tournament.
Let's go!
1 Darvish Kenji will return, of course. He manage to clear Stage 1 again with a wonderful weather.
2 There will be 30+ clears, including 5 to 8 people who first clear.
3 Wasabi cleared Stage 1 for his 3rd time and fallen at Reverse Conveyor.
PS: bgm is wagaki band ver “千本櫻” when he cleared.
4 For truth, Izumi Hikari is going to compete SASUKE 41 finally. She become the first Japanese woman reached Stage 3(and failed the first transition of Cliffhanger).
5 Iwazaki Shinya proof himself this time that he can reach Stage 3.
6 Matsuda Daisuke didn't retired AT ALL. He finally manage to clear Stage 1 for his 10th time, and ultimately time up at Wall Lifting.
PPS:his bgm when he cleared is “完全勝利”.
7 Ishikawa Sho compete. He becomes the strongest rookie in SASUKE history which able to double '逆手' clearing Dragon Glider and also another new rookie finalist since Rene.
8 Asa Kazuma is freaking back! By the way he failed at Dragon Glider sadly.
9 Soccer idol, Kageyama Yuka and her Soccer player friend, Uchida Atsuhito, both reached Dragon Glider but Kageyama failed at landing and Uchida failed at second bar.
10 Soccer Japan representive Maeda Daizen cleared Stage 1. Unfortunately he then failed at Rolling Log.
11 Morimoto Yusuke shockingly not reach FINAL.
12 How would Kato Shiho cleared Dragon Glider Even though her arm is not strong? Well, everything is gonna happen.
13 4 Johnny's all manage to clear Stage 1 for the same tournament, but only Sugeta Rinne barely failed Sidewinder.
14 Matachi Ryo proved SASUKE 40 is just a hilarious mistake. He did well in SASUKE 41 though.
15 Kanno is back!
16 Sakuma Kota finally cleared Stage 1 and get 4th SASUKE teacher spot.
17 There is Chinese representive.
18 Except Saito Kyoko, other members from Hinatazaka at least reach Dragon Glider.
And surprisingly Saito Kyoko is Fish Bone.
19 Kawahara Takuya back and cleared for the first time! But Spider Drop tragedy.
20 Sh*t, Ugada didn't make to Stage 2 because a time mistake on Fish Bone.
21 Seiya, He failed Silk Slider! Congratulation!
22 Kasuga Toshiaki did a slow pace and failed at Silk Slider.
Slow is safe. This idiot should know.
23 What the? Muto failed at Rolling Hill?!
24 Not only Kato Shiho, Higashimura Mei also cleared not only Stage 1, but Stage 2. A Sidewinder fail.
PPPS Kato time out at Wall Lifting 1.
25 Urushihara is in, Suzuki is out. Second Stage reality.
26 Saikawa Koji is damned on Swing Edge, but another better score for him.
27 Nasukawa Tenshin, which is the guy who beaten Takeru, first compete had further than Takeru's best score.
28 Kanechika Daiki time out at Soritatsu Kabe. He grabbed it but still late 3 seconds.

[dakohosu]

I'm going to divide mine into the two main issues we're currently facing - course and editing.

Course:

Stage 1 needs an overhaul, at this point just a time limit decrease isn't going to suffice. Imo the Dragon Glider needs to go; it takes up too much space, isn't as tough as it was in its first couple of tournaments, and they've effectively proven through 38 and 40 that they can't implement the obstacle without it malfunctioning. Obviously with that damned Double Warped Wall we "don't have enough space" for a backend climbing obstacle, but they should definitely replace it with something equally dynamic and technical but not as broken. Something like a Double Circle Slider, or even a Double Metal Spin or Roulette Row would be pretty deadly while much less capability to be broken like the DG.

The Silk Slider also needs to go, it has no right to stay on the course given that it was a COVID precuation yet still remains despite its laughable failure rate. It also single-handedly caused the issue of joke competitors getting way too far and drawing out Stage 1's runtime massively, as the Wing Slider it replaced was a reliable filter of fodder. I'd say replace with something like the Domino Hill, mainly because Yusuke admitted that balance was his weakest link and it was an absolute massacre on Sasuke Indonesia.

The Rolling Hill I'm not a huge fan of as it too draws out the runtime unnecessarily with joke competitors taking 30+ seconds to clear the obstacle, but given the supposed 'budget issues' I'd focus primarily on a Silk Slider and Dragon Glider replacement as imo those are more pertinent. Besides, the former can still do some damage like it did to Ryo and Darvish recently, while the Dragon Glider pretty much takes out no one who practices it, well except those who get done by its occasional malfunctioning.

I also think the time limit needs to be addressed. I was shocked that they still kept the same time limit despite 39 having 25+ second clears, and Kajihara's run this time proved that. Given that the last time we had this many clears (Sasuke 34) we got a decent revamp, I feel like being quite mean. 85 seconds I think would work. I'd like to see a return to the 8-10 clear range, as by today's standards that would be a bloodbath lol.

Stage 2 I honestly think isn't too bad with the reduced time limit and buff to the Backstream, but imo the Salmon Ladder at the very least needs to be modified. It failed no one out of 23 attempts in Sasuke 40 which tells the whole story. Yeah sure it can be a time waster but that's what the entire back half of the course is for, and the Salmon Ladder was always seen as a formidable foe until the Nobori/Kudari got overly played out. It's really not that hard or expensive to buff the obstacle, you could literally just space out the rungs more, or recreate the Extension Ladder or Criss Cross Ladder from ANW. They're just being lazy at this point keeping it.

I'm honestly pretty fine with Stage 3, I appreciated that they addressed the weakest link of the course for 40.

I don't really know what to say about the Final Stage and Yusuke coming so close. I'd say reduce the time limit to delay the inevitable from happening (Yusuke V3), but then that would screw over the other hopefuls 1000x more. A part of me kind of wants Yusuke to win so Inui can wake the f*** up about his laziness, but then I don't want a repeat of Sasuke 38 either. I just hope whatever changes we do get at least do aim to address Yusuke's weaknesses; it sounds like I hate him, I really don't, but they have no reason not to do this when they aggressively did it for Nagano, Yuuji, Ryo, etc. which is part of the reason none of them dominated so monotonously in the way that Yusuke does.

Editing:

Yeah, I get it, celebrities need to be on the show to drive the ratings, but the sheer fact that guys like Yuuji and Yusuke had to get digested, as well as 6 consecutive Stage 1 and 2 clears being fast forwarded, just to show the same joke competitors and comedians fail on the Rolling Hill as they always do, was honestly embarrassing. Inui needs to decide whether he wants Sasuke to be an entertainment show or a sport, as his editing decisions imply he can't decide between the two. Sure, having a harder course would somewhat address this as fewer clears means fewer digests and more deserving competitors shown in full, but that doesn't address the fact that his editing choices were terrible in 40 - even with the number of clears we got he just made bad decisions left right centre. Inviting internationals, all of whom did very well, to expand Sasuke's reach outside of Japan, yet triple fast forwarding them; cutting Yuuji and Yusuke in order to show, I don't know, a few more reactions to ABC-Z's run. 

In 41 I'd like him to adopt a similar edit to how he did with, say, 36-37, covering a few new competitors like Araki and Keitaro (as they're part of the Morimoto Sedai he inconsistently keeps trying to market) and so on. Obviously celebrities still need to be present and get their fair share of screen time, but it's always a law of limiting returns, which he's more than passed given that even a lot of the celebrity competitors he invited for 40 had to be digested or cut, thus defeating the entire point of their presence. 

I'd also prefer the celebrities to be more evenly spaced out just like the stronger competitors have been recently. Having one celebrity every few runs is perfectly fine, but #56-70 was a borderline unbearable slog with a load of these joke competitors, all of which got boat loads of screen time, running back to back, with the exception of Omori and Kajihara. It just felt like a huge immersion breaker and slowing down of the pace, and also resulted in very disjointed editing. The first 40 competitors were skipped over in about 15 minutes, likely to accommodate this consecutive chunk of celebrities. Having celebs and strong competitors evenly spaced out would mean that someone you want to see is never going to be more than 5-10 minutes away, which would make Soshina and Seiya's runs less torturous. 

[dragstar]

Treat the celebrities as less of joke competitors and more as proper ones. If they could do it for the likes of Saikawa, Kane, ABC-Z and Iwamoto, why can't they do it for the Youtubers and comedians? Maybe show them also training for the competition.

Like the poster above me, they could've also spread out the celebrities along the numbers, and only put interviews for runners (including celebs) that actually finished or ran pretty far through the course. (At least clearing or making it to the second half of Dragon Glider) A compromise could be a 10-15 second commentary segment from celebrities that failed.

Stage 2 could've been around 40-45 minutes instead of 30 minutes. Stage 1 seemed too long despite we skipped some runners and digested several clears. Maybe fast forward anyone stuck for more than 15 seconds on Rolling Hill.

For competitor related wishes:
- Iwamoto clearing first stage once more, and maybe made it through Backstream. Same goes for Ajima and Sugeta.
- Female idols clearing Dragon Glider
- Karen clearing Fishbone
- Kaiou and Yuta clearing first stage as new generation stars
- Oshima conquering the Spider Drop
- Foreign reps clearing second stage
- Boru clearing first stage
- Yaegashi clearing first stage
- Omori clearing Dragon Glider
- One comedian (eg. Shimofuri Myojo) making it to Dragon Glider

I wonder if Nagano is still up for one more, but I don't think he'll clear the wall anymore. It looks like his bane. But oh boy I'd like to be proven wrong.