Submit your unpopular sasuke opinions

[shunsukenumber98]

Give us the forum your unpopular sasuke opinions that's gonna make us go screw you (JK please be nice to one another) 

Here are mine, feel free to comment about them: 

-I actually like the swap salmon ladder idea, and I believe it's better than the version we have, and I also believe that the DQ rule would be somewhat justified if they made that rule better, but the excution of the obstacle was pretty bad nevertheless. 

-I personally like digests, ok with them up to a certain degree 

-kanno's career was far better in 28-31 than his best run in sasuke 23, as in that tournament, he seemed quite shaky and got lucky. 28-31, he seemed to be more in control. 

-I believe that spreading out very top competitors like Hioki, Isa and so on is a bit weird to me. I believe that these competitors, who are strong and note worthy enough should be put in the 80s and above and the spreading out of the stronger competitors should be done for those who have a shot at clearing stage 1 and have never cleared stage 2 or have only made stage 3 once or twice (eg Saikawa). 

-I personally think that yusuke should not achieve a third kazen as seeing him dominate over and over, while impressive is getting boring 

-I personally believe that the introduction of the crazy jumps on the cliffhanger has made the obstacle so much more better than it was before, even better than ultimate cliffhanger 

[edaan]

Sedais/Stars groups should never exist. The All Stars were good, but this led to mistreatment of other stars such as Asaoka and Koji Yamada, who eventually left the show perhaps for those reasons. Inui tried to remedy this problem by not focusing as much on the Shin Sedai and instead focusing on other competitors, but this led to mass digests (97-99 in 29 was the worst digest of all time, 3 finalists who were huge players in that era all getting clear digested to show Hiromichi Sato fail the Long Jump, not to mention the late 80s/early 90s with another 3
all getting clear digested).

This brings me on to my second point, Inui has never edited a good tournament. He has had good results, but there has always been some substantial flaws with the editing.

Yuuji is one of if not the most underrated competitors of all time. He has the speed of Nagano (24 stage 1, 29 stage 2 up until the backstream) and almost the strength of Yusuke (36,37,40 stage 3) but due to some weaknesses that Inui targeted every tournament his prime was cut short and he was sent into a slump.

11 is one of the most underrated tournaments of all time, definitely in my top 10 and maybe in my top 5.

Yusuke is not the strongest competitor on upper body we have ever seen.

Yamada had he not skipped 13 would have been possibly one of the better all stars in longevity, and perhaps could have still cleared well into Shin Sasuke.

I think personally that it’s time for the spider walk to go. Everybody knows how to do it, and there are many more creative obstacles that can be put in stage 2.

[ItalianNinja08]

-I always found Shinya Iwasaki very overhyped and when he failed the Fishbone I wasn't that surprised
-I'm a big fan of the Dragon Glider because it's the "All or Nothing" moment in Stage 1
-I don't know why so many people ranked SASUKE 16 as a 5/10 tournament, it's a very enjoyable tournament for me
-SASUKE 17, excluding Nagano's Kanzen, was a rather forgettable and unmemorable tournament
-Kawaguchi deserved to be Mr.99 in the Post Rising Era, because there weren't other competitor who really fitted that number
-Darvish is much better than Snowman
-SASUKE 35 is on my top 3 of the Inui Era tournaments
-Shin SASUKE is my least favourite Era, mainly because of the runs shown out of order in Stage 1, this really irritate me

[zoran]

Feb 10, 2024 6:22:30 GMT -5 ItalianNinja08 said:

-I always found Shinya Iwasaki very overhyped and when he failed the Fishbone I wasn't that surprised
-I'm a big fan of the Dragon Glider because it's the "All or Nothing" moment in Stage 1
-I don't know why so many people ranked SASUKE 16 as a 5/10 tournament, it's a very enjoyable tournament for me
-SASUKE 17, excluding Nagano's Kanzen, was a rather forgettable and unmemorable tournament
-Kawaguchi deserved to be Mr.99 in the Post Rising Era, because there weren't other competitor who really fitted that number
-Darvish is much better than Snowman
-SASUKE 35 is on my top 3 of the Inui Era tournaments
-Shin SASUKE is my least favourite Era, mainly because of the runs shown out of order in Stage 1, this really irritate me

Some other memorable moments from 17 imo

1. The introduction of the circle slider.

2. Lee En Chi's debut.

3. Nagasaki's best performance.

4. Shiratori's shock fail on the body prop.

5. Paul Anthony Terek making it to the cliffhanger despite his weight disadvantage.

6. Most well balanced and difficult stage 2 of the era, complimenting a harsh time limit with a tough gauntlet of obstacles.

7. Koji Yamada's shock fail on the metal spin.

8. Takeda's best performance of his career.

9. Kota Honma finally breaking though and becoming the youngest stage 1 clear, this is the same boy we watched come close to clearing since he was like 12 and finally his passion and training is rewarded.

10. Yamada's last stand run, pretty bittersweet, he didn't clear but he "ended" his career on a high note beating the wall.

11. Daisuke Nakata making it to stage 3 despite his wrist injury and becoming the first person to fail the arm rings.

12. Kenjiro Ishamaru almost becoming the oldest competitor ever to clear stage 1 at 52.

Also for your point on Shin Sasuke, what tournaments had runs out of order?

[ItalianNinja08]

Feb 10, 2024 8:38:10 GMT -5 zoran said:

Feb 10, 2024 6:22:30 GMT -5 ItalianNinja08 said:

Also for your point on Shin Sasuke, what tournaments had runs out of order?

Every tournament from 18-27 especially the digests, I still today struggle to find notable runs from these tournaments because of the RNG editing, like Tada in 19, Keitaro in 20, Mori in 21 and Kawaguchi in 22.

[dakohosu]

Given my opinionated nature I'm full of incredibly unpopular opinions, so be prepared:

- Sasuke 13 just kind of sucks for me. Fairly ineffective renewal on Stage 1, and near identical Stages 2 and 3 but weirdly worse results with almost everyone regressing from their previous performances. 12 had multiple breakthroughs and Nagano's near win, 14 saw a significant renewal to Stage 3 which annihilated the field, 13 is just kind of there for me, a very 'nothing' tournament.

- Okuyama's consistency/streak was more impressive than either Takeda or Jun's, despite being only 6 Stage 3 attempts long compared to 7 and 9 respectively. Much tougher and more varied/changing course, unlike the other two had a clear during his streak, and was well into his 40s during a time where this was very rare. He also likely would've had 8-9 or more consecutive Stage 3 appearances had he not been snubbed for 28, had 29's Stage 2 not been ridiculous, and had he not injured himself.

- Suzuki is massively overrated. Sure, he is incredibly athletic for his age, but it does say a lot when no one really talked about him until he beat the Stage 2 clear record in 39, which was only due to circumstance like most candidates retiring before then (Okuyama, Lee, Nagano etc.). He's an incredibly okay competitor, quite inconsistent and an upper limit of an early Stage 3 fail, and there are arguably far more talented 40+ competitors like Hioki, Yuuji, and even Tomo. I'll bet money that if there's ever a significant difficulty spike to Stage 1, Suzuki will be one of the first competitors to decline, as he's arguably a beneficiary of an easy/rarely changing course.

- I actually really like Sasuke 10. Stage 1 was a strong mix of unexpected redemption and breakout runs, and several shock fails from All-Stars. Stage 3 was also very interesting seeing competitors who'd not made it that far in a long time like Asaoka and Iketani, Nakata failing to avenge his prior fail, and Yamada's last stand. I definitely prefer it to 9, which had a much less exciting Stage 1, and not much of note bar Nagano's breakout.

- Sasuke 18 is arguably the most overrated tournament. The course was completely unfinished, and the results post-Stage 1 were highly predictable with 3 Salmon Ladder fails and 3 Shin-Cliffhanger fails, both obstacles that had been aggressively marketed for their difficulty on the Navi. The results were also very slightly below average despite the desire to fail all 100 competitors early, with only a couple of notable shock fails like Bunpei.

- Ryo's never making it back to the Final Stage. He makes it to Stage 3 so rarely that he's always behind the curve. He failed the end of Stage 3 in 36, could've cleared it in 37-38 due to added training but doesn't make it there, by the time he does finally get back there in 39, it's buffed and he fails a new obstacle. Same story with 40, with added training he could've possibly cleared, but failed early, and now we have the BURST, which could very easily thwart his chances of ever clearing again. Same story with Tada, who's struggled massively with even the previous VL, so right now I'm unconvinced he's capable of beating the BURST, given that he almost failed the last variant in 40 despite having trained it for 5+ years.

- Araki is currently the worst member of the Morimoto Sedai. Yusuke is Yusuke, Tada has two Finals to his name, Keitaro has seen a great streak of improvement recently, Sato has his consistency, while Araki has none of these. His best performance is neck and neck with Sato who's frequently lambasted for never being able to clear the Cliffhanger, and he's also considerably the most inconsistent member of the group. I've always failed to understand the hype surrounding him, as his results would just suggest he's a fairly generic Stage 3 competitor, which right now he just is.

[zoran]

Some of mine

Someone would have eventually failed the drum hopper kai.

The hang climb is the most underwhelming obstacle with it having the same fail rate as it's joke of a predecessor.

I don't understand why people are so confident Tarvis Allen Shroeder would have kanzened if he didn't derail the pipe slider, he was over 200lbs and  climbing 15m in 30 seconds carrying that weight is no easy task.

While I do like Okuyama's consistency and skill on the course as well as understanding his stoicism, his perpetually solemn/stoic look and "vibe" just makes it difficult for me to like/root for him in any capacity.

[YourResidentKojiFan]

- SASUKE 32 was actually a pretty good tournament (impossible Third Stage aside) and I don't think the editing is anywhere near as bad as people say it is.

- SASUKE 19 is my favorite tournament, I loved the difficulty of the First Stage and IMO they fixed all of 18's problems with it.

- Jun will end up clearing the Cliffhanger at least once in his career.

- Inversely, Hioki will never make it back to the Third Stage again.

[zoran]

Mar 3, 2024 10:35:56 GMT -5 YourResidentKojiFan said:

- SASUKE 32 was actually a pretty good tournament (impossible Third Stage aside) and I don't think the editing is anywhere near as bad as people say it is.

- SASUKE 19 is my favorite tournament, I loved the difficulty of the First Stage and IMO they fixed all of 18's problems with it.

- Jun will end up clearing the Cliffhanger at least once in his career.

- Inversely, Hioki will never make it back to the Third Stage again.

Why do you think Hioki will never make it back to stage 3?

[brz0ny]

Akiyama wouldn't have been much better if he didn't have sight problem, just more consistent as he would have less shock fails.

Lee En-Chih was the most disappointing competitor of all time.

Koji Hashimoto had Kanzen potential at one point.

Dragon Glider needs to be replaced or modified.

Consistency is too underrated in the community because of how little people actually Kanzened, or even reached the Final Stage in recent years.

[dakohosu]

Mar 3, 2024 15:58:53 GMT -5 brz0ny said:

Akiyama wouldn't have been much better if he didn't have sight problem, just more consistent as he would have less shock fails.

Lee En-Chih was the most disappointing competitor of all time.

Koji Hashimoto had Kanzen potential at one point.

Dragon Glider needs to be replaced or modified.

Consistency is too underrated in the community because of how little people actually Kanzened, or even reached the Final Stage in recent years.

Why was Lee the most disappointing competitor?

Former Finalist + two first place finishes, and overall the most successful foreign competitor the show’s ever seen. Also definitely had more left in him had he not been retired and replaced.

[ItalianNinja08]

-Shin Cliffhanger is an incredibly underwhelming downgrade compared to the Cliffhanger Kai and so it's one if not my least favourite Cliffhanger variant(s). It was only failed: in its introductory tournament where anyone didn't know how to clear it; by two Stage 3 rookies in 22; and twice by a very overrated competitor (Levi). All the others cleared it with absolute ease.

-They should have kept the Spider Walk from 5-6, it was a shortened version of the original very cool to see, 7-17 version was good but not as the first two versions.

-I liked the Drum Hopper and I hope it will come back instead of the ultra-underwhelming Flying Bar, maybe with some motors (Inui you love the motors come on).

-Kajihara is the new Sato (I hope that this will age badly).

-Yamada was targeted too much for his infamous Stage 1 failures streak, don't forget that his downfall started when he was 40, and until 24 just four competitors cleared in their 40s (Inoue, Nagasawa, Bunpei and Hiromichi). The bad thing is that the former never accepted the fact that he's finished while the latters yes.

[brz0ny]

Mar 3, 2024 17:59:13 GMT -5 dakohosu said:

Mar 3, 2024 15:58:53 GMT -5 brz0ny said:

Akiyama wouldn't have been much better if he didn't have sight problem, just more consistent as he would have less shock fails.

Lee En-Chih was the most disappointing competitor of all time.

Koji Hashimoto had Kanzen potential at one point.

Dragon Glider needs to be replaced or modified.

Consistency is too underrated in the community because of how little people actually Kanzened, or even reached the Final Stage in recent years.

Why was Lee the most disappointing competitor?

Former Finalist + two first place finishes, and overall the most successful foreign competitor the show’s ever seen. Also definitely had more left in him had he not been retired and replaced.

Because he had only two first place finishes and one Final. Idk I kinda felt like he should have been way better than people like Okuyama and Kongu especially considering he was a rock climber.

[dakohosu]

Mar 4, 2024 3:53:40 GMT -5 brz0ny said:

Mar 3, 2024 17:59:13 GMT -5 dakohosu said:

Why was Lee the most disappointing competitor?

Former Finalist + two first place finishes, and overall the most successful foreign competitor the show’s ever seen. Also definitely had more left in him had he not been retired and replaced.

Because he had only two first place finishes and one Final. Idk I kinda felt like he should have been way better than people like Okuyama and Kongu especially considering he was a rock climber.

"Only two first place finishes and one Final" is still pretty good going lol, especially given that one of those first place results was on 26's brutally hard course which felled a LOT of veterans, and all of this being in his late 30s, at a similar age to Shingo and Takeda who had fallen off a cliff by that point. 

Even as someone who's favorite competitor is Okuyama, I'd definitely say Lee was comparable and probably on equal footing in terms of everything bar consistency. Both reached the same point in 22, 24, and 26, and Lee surpassed him in 25 and 29, while Okuyama did better in 23 and 27. Kong had better potential than both but lacked the consistency of either so I'd say the two are fairly comparable as well. I kinda group all the 24 Finalists bar Yuuji in the same bracket for this reason, I don't think one is inherently better or worse than the other overall, maybe Hashimoto was a step above because he was a lot younger and probably had the highest potential of all four, coming closest to winning in 24 and potentially in 27 too.

Sure, he had a bit of a rough patch in 27 and 28, though 27 was clearly a freak accident, and 28 was on a buffed Spin Bridge which also took out competitors like Hashimoto, and given his performances in 29 and 30, it was clearly an anomaly, unlike Kong who regularly had streaks of Stage 1 fails during his career. 

Let's also not forget that he almost cleared the Cliffhanger in his final ever performance before getting replaced, so there's a good chance he could've continued reaching Stage 3 and even reaching the Vertical Limit well into his 40s. I've seen his Instagram and the guy just does not age at all, and put down some pretty strong performances on international shows as well, again well into his 40s. So a potentially even better track record was cut short by circumstance, unlike Okuyama who injured himself and Kong who was forcefully retired due to KuroOvi but was clearly well past his prime at that point. I legitimately think Lee could've matched Yuuji in terms of longevity had he continued competing. He had the right build to do well being quite tall but not at the expense of upper body strength.

I'd personally say competitors like Ryo and Kishimoto are more disappointing because of their inability to realise their clearly incredibly high potentials, Araki and Goto as well for the same reason but less so as they've not made any notably deep runs; Keitaro I would've also formerly put in this category but he's obviously massively turned a corner in that regard recently. I'm also a huge fan of Shinya Iwasaki's feats of strength, so to see him fumble Stage 1 in an entirely avoidable manner, possibly blacklisting him from returning, also puts him on this list.

[brz0ny]

Mar 4, 2024 7:04:08 GMT -5 dakohosu said:

Mar 4, 2024 3:53:40 GMT -5 brz0ny said:

Because he had only two first place finishes and one Final. Idk I kinda felt like he should have been way better than people like Okuyama and Kongu especially considering he was a rock climber.

"Only two first place finishes and one Final" is still pretty good going lol, especially given that one of those first place results was on 26's brutally hard course which felled a LOT of veterans, and all of this being in his late 30s, at a similar age to Shingo and Takeda who had fallen off a cliff by that point. 

Even as someone who's favorite competitor is Okuyama, I'd definitely say Lee was comparable and probably on equal footing in terms of everything bar consistency. Both reached the same point in 22, 24, and 26, and Lee surpassed him in 25 and 29, while Okuyama did better in 23 and 27. Kong had better potential than both but lacked the consistency of either so I'd say the two are fairly comparable as well. I kinda group all the 24 Finalists bar Yuuji in the same bracket for this reason, I don't think one is inherently better or worse than the other overall, maybe Hashimoto was a step above because he was a lot younger and probably had the highest potential of all four, coming closest to winning in 24 and potentially in 27 too.

Sure, he had a bit of a rough patch in 27 and 28, though 27 was clearly a freak accident, and 28 was on a buffed Spin Bridge which also took out competitors like Hashimoto, and given his performances in 29 and 30, it was clearly an anomaly, unlike Kong who regularly had streaks of Stage 1 fails during his career. 

Let's also not forget that he almost cleared the Cliffhanger in his final ever performance before getting replaced, so there's a good chance he could've continued reaching Stage 3 and even reaching the Vertical Limit well into his 40s. I've seen his Instagram and the guy just does not age at all, and put down some pretty strong performances on international shows as well, again well into his 40s. So a potentially even better track record was cut short by circumstance, unlike Okuyama who injured himself and Kong who was forcefully retired due to KuroOvi but was clearly well past his prime at that point. I legitimately think Lee could've matched Yuuji in terms of longevity had he continued competing. He had the right build to do well being quite tall but not at the expense of upper body strength.

I'd personally say competitors like Ryo and Kishimoto are more disappointing because of their inability to realise their clearly incredibly high potentials, Araki and Goto as well for the same reason but less so as they've not made any notably deep runs; Keitaro I would've also formerly put in this category but he's obviously massively turned a corner in that regard recently. I'm also a huge fan of Shinya Iwasaki's feats of strength, so to see him fumble Stage 1 in an entirely avoidable manner, possibly blacklisting him from returning, also puts him on this list.

To be honest, I was mostly talking about his Final Stage attempt which was pitiful for a rock climber. I guess I forgot about those names lol, so I guess I should change it to "Lee was the most disappointing competitor in Shin Sasuke era".