Why Sasuke 40's editing sucked

[Ninja Relaxer]

I'll let you guys in on a little secret: They don't digest kanzenseiha runs. If anyone kanzens in a tournament, then their Stage 1, 2, and 3 clears will be shown in full. 

So why did Sasuke 40's editing suck? BECAUSE LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE STAGE 3 COMPETITOR OTHER THAN ISA YOSHINORI WAS DIGESTED IN STAGE 1 OR 2.

So unless you thought Isa was going to kanzen (lol), then you knew before Stage 3 even started that the tournament was going to end without a kanzen. And you knew before Stage 4 started that all three finalists were going to fail. That took all the suspense and excitement out of what should have been the most exciting Final Stage in years. 

Seriously, Inui, what the hell? If anyone reaches the Final Stage, then their Stage 1-3 runs should be shown in full to preserve a modicum of suspense. Otherwise we already know the outcome of Stage 4. Gah!

[cb]

I'll give Inui a bit of slack as he had to work with fitting everything in a 5hr time slot (even though 1 hour of it was just ads) and therefore he had to make digests and cuts. However, I do think Inui could have done way better in terms of editing despite the relatively small timeslot. This tournament should have been way longer as the pacing was just terrible: Stages 2 and 3 should've been longer considering how many people attempted each stage. Also, Tada's editing was just terrible - how do you manage to double digest a finalist, then mid cut his Stage 3 run and then give him no fluff pieces for his Stage 4 attempt. This tournament's editing was mostly just bad. It had so much potential to be even greater. Thankfully, Paravi exists and I think the 40 Paravi is the best one out of all the others.

[dakohosu]

The Kanzen point never stood out as an issue for me because if there was going to be one they would've spoiled it a million times already like they did prior to 38.

You also can't say 'the tournament should have been way longer' as it's not up to Inui how much time he gets. 5 hours is the absolute max any Sasuke tournament has been allocated bar 24 (5.5 hours) so I'm sure if there was the potential for more screen time they would've got it.

The editing I thought was honestly pretty standard, standard meaning as typically bad as it has been for the last two tournaments. I don't think 40 took it to a new level, and it was certainly made better by 38-39 keeping my expectations incredibly low. I still maintain 38's edit was the most infuriating for me because that's when they suddenly jumped up the celebrity and joke competitor screen time, and was the debut of the Silk Slider which almost single-handedly drew out Stage 1 unnecessarily. No one was expecting Stage 1 to last three hours back then, nowadays it's pretty much normal practice.

The digesting I thought was a mixed bag. I thought Stage 3 was pretty tastefully done and reminded me of 12's edit, where they showed what needed to be showed and cut what needed to be cut, which was a necessary evil given the record number of attempts. Jun failing on the Cliffhanger was expected so there was no need to show him in full, same with Mutou and Suzuki, etc. Stages 1 and 2 though were very meh. It would probably be better to list my issues out lol:

- Digesting a lot of the close-call Stage 2 runs. Seriously, the entire point of the time limit decrease was to make the stage more nail-biting, and you ruin all of the excitement by fast-forwarding them. Especially Tomo's run where the clear rush theme played so the fact that he cleared, even by 0.09 seconds, was given away. It really just seemed like a waste of potential. I also thought that ABC-Z getting even more screen time than Kane and Shingo, and at the expense of a load of other runs, was pretty ridiculous, even if he did hit a personal best and even if he is a celebrity etc. I actually didn't really care about them digesting Yusuke, him clearing is such a formality anyway. But having just watched the Stage 2 Paravi there were a s*** ton of missed opportunities and dramas that they could've put in the broadcast but just didn't.

- The late #50s-60s being an absolute slog. Seriously this has been an issue for the past couple of tournaments now, I appreciate how they're spreading out stronger competitors more these days, but it's always about mid-way through Stage 1 that there's a HUGE break of immersion by having loads of joke competitors mashed together and it honestly became unbearable. HIKAKIN, Soshina and Seiya, Golden Bomber guy, and a couple of other comedians back to back. I get why these guys need to compete, but there is absolutely no reason to put them next to each other, as popular as they are. Not to mention that they also riddle these guys' runs with ads as well. I would much rather they always make sure a stronger competitor is never more than 5-10 minutes away, whereas this section easily lasted 30+ minutes with the ads.

- The six consecutive digests from #72-77. I'm not superstitious, but they definitely lined these guys up together on purpose so they could digest them, and I'd wager if any of them failed Stage 1 they'd just get cut entirely like Araki did last time. I also don't understand why you'd put the Morimoto Sedai together if you didn't want to market them as the new generation, which it seems like Inui does but then constantly just cuts them. Especially Jun coming back from his injury, people would be anxious to see if he can uphold his clear streak, but nope of course he's just fast forwarded again. I'm also convinced at this point that Tada actually wants to be digested, because he clearly doesn't like the spotlight because of the whole numbers thing. I can't see any other reason why they'd double digest him now THREE times in a row despite his insane track record.

- Fast forwarding the foreigners; especially Jessie as she's incredibly popular among the community and has made history twice, yeah sure she didn't make it back to Stage 3, but let's be real she would've been digested either way.

- Shunsuke and Kanno giving their best-ever runs in a long time but again being cut. These guys have fought losing battles with the Dragon Glider for years now, and you fast forward the one time they each clear, including Shunsuke beating the stage for the first time in almost 5 years.

I didn't really mind the huge digest across the first 30 or so runs, because to be fair most of them were joke competitors and those that weren't gave embarrassing performances, especially the first place trial qualifier failing the Rolling Hill. Can't say I didn't expect that given how underwhelming the trials were.

So yeah, overall 40's edit wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't an anomaly compared to 38 or 39. My biggest overall criticism was that there were so many 'stories' that could've been capitalised on that were just missed. Sure, Kane and Shingo's return stole the show mostly, but they could've gone deeper into Shunsuke's return to form, Jun's injury, the foreigners and particularly Jessie recovering from surgery since she last competed, but they just didn't. And knowing this was just so Soshina and Seiya could get a longer post-Rolling Hill fail interview was, while again expected, still as frustrating as it ever was.

[wrestlingfan55]

Good point mentioned above, regarding the digests. If you're going to digest subsecond/close clears/fails, then don't play the obvious theme music in the background. At least in Stage 2 start off from the Backstream with no background music.

Do the editors actually read anything from this forum?

[Miko]

Dec 31, 2022 23:38:04 GMT -5 wrestlingfan55 said:

Do the editors actually read anything from this forum?

I truly hope not. Any production that changes stuff because of what stranges say in Reddit/forum/Discord/etc is just s***ty production.

[dakohosu]

Jan 1, 2023 10:52:52 GMT -5 Miko said:

Dec 31, 2022 23:38:04 GMT -5 wrestlingfan55 said:

Do the editors actually read anything from this forum?

I truly hope not. Any production that changes stuff because of what stranges say in Reddit/forum/Discord/etc is just s***ty production.

Even if they did, which is unlikely and any points discussed would probably get butchered by auto-translate anyway, they’d probably do nothing about it given that we count for a huge minority of Sasuke fans, and given that TBS shows’ successes run off primarily ratings restricted to Japan only, our opinions are technically completely irrelevant as sad as that is.

Unfortunately Inui goes by what the majority of viewers want to see, which are celebrities and joke competitors given that this majority mainly comprises of casual viewers who don’t really follow all the prolific competitors but know who HIKAKIN etc are. Same goes for the course; the ‘Cliff Dimension’ is a bad obstacle from the perspective of balancing or progression, but most people watching don’t care about that. The more visually interesting or ridiculously hard an obstacle is, the more shock factor it provides and hence the more it’ll ‘wow’ said casual viewers. This is also why Stages 1 and 2 are a lot easier than back in the day; because Inui wants competitors like Snow Man and ABC-Z to get relatively far into the course to maintain viewership throughout the later parts of the tournament. Because otherwise 90% of those watching will turn off after Snow Man fails.

Inui hasn’t really hidden the fact that as time goes on Sasuke is becoming less of a sport and more of an entertainment show, which is sad given how many competitors take it seriously and train their butts off year after year, but what can you do.