Do you think any runs in SASUKE 40 are "last stand" runs?

[sasukewarrior333]

Feb 28, 2023 1:38:42 GMT -5 YourResidentKojiFan said:

Feb 28, 2023 0:28:15 GMT -5 dakohosu said:

Yeah just leave it dude. To say this thread has taken a tangent would be a criminal understatement. None of us want these back and forths to continue.

^This.

The fundamental thing here is that opinions are the holder's to have and as long as they don't cause harm to anybody, no reason to try and change them. Now while I can't speak for everybody here, nor will I try to, I personally don't like seeing anybody here get into an argument.

Forgive me if I sound corny here, but everybody here is like a friend to me, one that I can discuss SASUKE with, and I'd wager that some others feel the same way. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say there's probably around 15 members here that are at least somewhat regularly active, so not a lot by forum standards. I think most if not all of us would hate to see that number shrink by any means, let alone over a mere disagreement.

My bottom line is this: Opinions are opinions, they're absolutely fine to have, but others can have opinions too. Lord knows I'm not changing anybody's mind about SASUKE 19, but I've been a member for almost a year and I've never had any issues with anyone. And this is coming from somebody who's had plenty of temper problems.

Now forgive me again if I sound mini-moddy, but I'm just trying to get my thoughts across. I'm sure if we move past this, it's all gonna fizzle out like most back-and-forths. So shall we? I don't want to see any bans handed out or anything like that, nobody does. We can at least all agree on that, so let's agree that what's said has been said and put this to bed.

I agree, and if I may add? I'm very grateful this forum exists in the first place. I don't talk about this much, but I'm a member of several other communities regarding stuff I'm interested in about different movies, shows, games, music and even other stuff. The consistent thread that links most of these communities is that they are much bigger than the one about SASUKE. Very few are smaller than this one, and yeah, there are Discord servers to turn to, but in terms of civilised discussion, this is basically it. If a specific section of a community I'm in died out, I'd have alternatives to turn to in most cases, but I'm not sure that's the case here. I've made plenty of friends on here that I wouldn't have found otherwise, and I'm very grateful for that.

I know I'm very off topic at this point, so I apologise for that, but I felt it was worth saying. 

[dakohosu]

Can only reiterate what KojiFan and sasukewarrior have mentioned.

This forum and the active members have brought me out of many a gloom and dark and lonely times (you know who you are, thank you it means more than I can describe in words). No one I know personally is into Sasuke and I’m very invested in it (trained for 10+ years because of it) so it’s nice to have a kind of hub where everyone thinks on the same wavelength as you because I rarely get that in real life.

Hence I hate for unnecessary arguments and back and forths to detract from otherwise hours of entertainment. It’s just a shame when that happens really.

I’m not a mod (obviously) but the most salient rule of discussion forums should always be to respect others’ opinions even if you disagree with them. Deep diving into these topics and having debates are what brings so much joy not only to SMF but also more generally Reddit and Discord etc. about different topics (I’m on a lot of gaming forums). Full blown arguments just cause unnecessary stress, which I can tell you I do not need more of in my life as an early Gen Z running his own business.

[hoseasasuke]

I'd say Kanno and Suzuki's runs in 40 were last stands. Kane and Shingo still probably have a couple of 1st Stage clears left in their respective tank. Tomo, on the other hand, has more left than the other two, the problems for him are mental. If he sorts his mental problems out, he can very easily get to Stage 3 in the next 2-3 tournaments. The same thing goes for Yuuji, who has more left in the tank than Tomo

[dakohosu]

Mar 4, 2023 12:52:13 GMT -5 hoseasasuke said:

I'd say Kanno and Suzuki's runs in 40 were last stands. Kane and Shingo still probably have a couple of 1st Stage clears left in their respective tank. Tomo, on the other hand, has more left than the other two, the problems for him are mental. If he sorts his mental problems out, he can very easily get to Stage 3 in the next 2-3 tournaments. The same thing goes for Yuuji, who has more left in the tank than Tomo

There is definitely a mental aspect to Tomo's failures, but imo we'd need to see how he performs in the next couple of tournaments to verify if he has lost a lot of his mojo from a few years ago on a physical level as well. Personally I think it's a bit of both, failing the wall three times is going to cause a mental block for sure, but also watching his older runs he looked so much more fluid and less exhausted towards the end of the course.

The guy is well into his 40s now, a good 10-15 lbs heavier (he bulked up for the Tackle+WW), and barely cleared Stages 1 and 2, nearly failing the wall again and cutting it closer than close, respectively. His Stage 3 performance also wasn't that great either, definitely decent for how long it's been since he last made it there, but nowhere near the level of his older performances. If he had breezed through the first two stages and reached the Cliffhanger I'd be a lot less skeptical. 

Let's also not forget that with the number of clears we saw in 40, there's likely to be some kind of buff to the course, which I feel could easily screw Tomo given how narrowly he made it through this time round. I don't want to say this could be a Nagano in 27 like situation where he gives one good last performance and then declines further, I'd again have to see him perform in the next couple of tournaments to make a better judgment, but it wouldn't surprise me if this ended up being the case, though the opposite wouldn't really either.

Agreed on Kanno and Suzuki for the above reasons. The former has entered a black hole of perennial Stage 1 failures and injuries at this point and can't get past it as it is let alone a harder variant, while the latter is pretty inconsistent and always fails on buffed courses. I can't see Suzuki bouncing back at like 47-48, unlike Yuuji.

[subtleagent]

I remember seeing Shunsuke's run and hearing the clear theme. I was like "oh God, now TBS is in on memeing him?" But then he clears the Dragon Glider which I actually called in the Moonshots thread and I was actually shocked. Then he went on to clear the wall and I was just was like "holy s***!" To think TBS just is allergic to giving him screentime. Mind you his resurgence was no Shingo, but it was definitely refreshing after seeing him struggle on the Dragon Glider for so long.

And then he fails the Spider Drop... again. Makes me wonder if he could get back to Stage 3 in which case that would probably be a last stand run given he only got to the Cliffhanger once and if he couldn't do it then I'm fairly certain he won't be able to do the Dimension. I'm honestly not even sure he can beat Swing Edge considering he's even more out of shape than Tomo. Age really has not been kind to Shunsuke.

[dakohosu]

Mar 7, 2023 15:01:00 GMT -5 subtleagent said:

I remember seeing Shunsuke's run and hearing the clear theme. I was like "oh God, now TBS is in on memeing him?" But then he clears the Dragon Glider which I actually called in the Moonshots thread and I was actually shocked. Then he went on to clear the wall and I was just was like "holy s***!" To think TBS just is allergic to giving him screentime. Mind you his resurgence was no Shingo, but it was definitely refreshing after seeing him struggle on the Dragon Glider for so long.

And then he fails the Spider Drop... again. Makes me wonder if he could get back to Stage 3 in which case that would probably be a last stand run given he only got to the Cliffhanger once and if he couldn't do it then I'm fairly certain he won't be able to do the Dimension. I'm honestly not even sure he can beat Swing Edge considering he's even more out of shape than Tomo. Age really has not been kind to Shunsuke.

Yeah that was anticlimactic as hell wasn't it? I genuinely thought I was hearing what I wanted to hear instead of the digest fail theme but no he actually cleared after almost 5 years and they still digested him lol. At least they actually showed him clearing the Dragon Glider though. 

I stand by what I said before in that at this point I can't see him clearing Stage 2 anymore if he doesn't apply himself. He's way too slow, especially on the Spider Walk (and even going at a snail's pace, he still fails lol). Size definitely works against you on the current Stage 2 as it's both upper body and speed, both of which are heavily penalised when you're a bigger competitor like he is. He literally had about 30 seconds left when he failed the Spider Drop which was about on par with Kane, so even had he not failed it he would've timed out on the Backstream. 

Imo it's not really age with Shunsuke; he's shown that he's one of the most naturally gifted competitors through his first streak and the fact he came back after several years and still maintained a lot of his consistency. It's more the fact the guy infamously does not train at all; hell, the fact that he cleared Stage 1 with almost zero training is a testament to his natural ability. He obviously prioritizes his career and family life now which is 100% fair, but he does need to actually pick up the pace with practicing obstacles if he wants to improve his results. He did say though that after his performance in 40 he's going to train more often, though I need to see it to believe it. 35 isn't old by any means, especially for someone who's been an athlete for most of their life, he's got time.