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Post by ItalianNinja08 on Feb 26, 2024 11:59:23 GMT -5
I have a great memory of SASUKE 31 because it was the first tournament I watched live, and when I discovered thanks to VenusHeadTrap that a kanzen will happen, it gave me even more hype en route to watch it.
Before the tournament aired, which competitor do you thought it was the most likely to Kanzen?
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Post by dakohosu on Feb 26, 2024 12:19:08 GMT -5
Ryo for me, with a pinch of salt.
Asa and Kanno at the time were perennial Cliffhanger fodder.
Kawaguchi's Final attempt in 30 wasn't confidence inspiring in the slightest (at the time I wasn't aware that 30's Spider Climb was abnormally slippery), and his consistency at the time wasn't really well defined as he had just broken out the prior tournament after a string of early fails.
Yuuji and Yusuke were maybes for me. They had the meticulous training and light upper-body biased build to beat both Stages 3 and 4, but Yuuji had entered a bit of a decline while we'd never seen Yusuke on the Final and he was still somewhat unproven in competition as his run in 29 was under different circumstances (unlimited rest). Ryo by comparison had all of the aforementioned, but also almost won in the last tournament.
What made it quite interesting to speculate though was a couple of things: 1) the Navi was completely focussed on celebrities so didn't really spoil anything in terms of results, unlike 28-30's Navi. 2) While Ryo, Yusuke, and Yuuji would've been the obvious picks, the Navi did reveal the Tackle+WW combo, which was specifically designed to take the smaller lighter Stage 3 specialists out. So I went with Ryo purely for no other reason than he was the favorite to win with his prior run and wearing #100, but realistically I had no idea as I knew he could've also failed Stage 1.
Also, on a slightly related note, I remember watching VenusHeadTrap back in the day. Good times.
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Post by arsenette on Feb 26, 2024 12:41:44 GMT -5
It's funny.. I ALWAYS thought Yuusuke was going to win. Being there live, I had a chance to sit in the 3rd stage and was asked by him to watch. So there I was sitting in the stands after being asked to sit there to cheer for him. Everyone else was confused because he wasn't hyped to win but I was certain he was. There was a fire in his eyes all week going into that tournament and he was sooooooo ready. I knew he would win if he got to the final and he was the only one in my eyes that could get there. I didn't even think Drew could despite the murmurs of him being the next one to win.
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Post by ItalianNinja08 on Feb 26, 2024 12:49:37 GMT -5
I really believed and hoped that Asa would have been the winner and when he failed the Cliffhanger for the gazillionth time I remained extremely disappointed and sad for him. He was my favourite competitor in that moment, and I believed till the end that he would have broken the Cliffhanger curse.
For Kanno, I remained absolutely astonished when he cleared the Cliffhanger but at the same time it was fairly obvious that he was going to fail the Vertical Limit, and the double digest in Stage 1 and 2 added even more probability on him not reaching Final Stage (unlike Asa who naturally had hoards of screen time, a factor that deluded me).
Kawaguchi I believed that as an absolute max he would have timed out on a similar fashion to Ryo in 30, but his Cliffhanger fail really surprised me because I hoped to see a 'Yusuke vs Kawaguchi' in the Final and in the moment when he failed I realized that Yusuke will win, another huge surprise for me as I thought that he was a one tournament wonder and instead his 31 performance was absolutely stellar, dominating a brutal course at just 24.
Yuuji I have not believed too much on him given he had already won twice, while for Ryo, I obviously thought that he was the best candidate before the tournament started, but him wearing #100 (the famous curse broken by Yusuke in 38 you know), the presence of the Tackle and the fact that the two competitors before him (Nagano and Yuuji) failed, gave me a presentiment that he will going to fail too.
Finally, I didn't believed in Yusuke early on but when his Stage 3 run started, I began to have the feeling that he was going to win, especially after clearing the Crazy Cliffhanger.
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Post by dakohosu on Feb 26, 2024 13:06:03 GMT -5
I really believed and hoped that Asa would have been the winner and when he failed the Cliffhanger for the gazillionth time I remained extremely disappointed and sad for him. He was my favourite competitor in that moment, and I believed till the end that he would have broken the Cliffhanger curse. For Kanno, I remained absolutely astonished when he cleared the Cliffhanger but at the same time it was fairly obvious that he was going to fail the Vertical Limit, and the double digest in Stage 1 and 2 added even more probability on him not reaching Final Stage (unlike Asa who naturally had hoards of screen time, a factor that deluded me). Kawaguchi I believed that as an absolute max he would have timed out on a similar fashion to Ryo in 30, but his Cliffhanger fail really surprised me because I hoped to see a 'Yusuke vs Kawaguchi' in the Final and in the moment when he failed I realized that Yusuke will win, another huge surprise for me as I thought that he was a one tournament wonder and instead his 31 performance was absolutely stellar, dominating a brutal course at just 24. Yuuji I have not believed too much on him given he had already won twice, while for Ryo, I obviously thought that he was the best candidate before the tournament started, but him wearing #100 (the famous curse broken by Yusuke in 38 you know), the presence of the Tackle and the fact that the two competitors before him (Nagano and Yuuji) failed, gave me a presentiment that he will going to fail too. Finally, I didn't believed in Yusuke early on but when his Stage 3 run started, I began to have the feeling that he was going to win, especially after clearing the Crazy Cliffhanger. After Stage 1 it became blindingly obvious to me that Yusuke was going to win, mainly because by that point all of the other competitors I had hopes for had been eliminated (Yuuji and Ryo specifically), and also the the edit. Yusuke was constantly being given large fluff pieces, all of his runs were shown in full, and he was frequently being shown on the sidelines in response to other competitors' clears and fails. This was a treatment that no other competitor got imo, so it defo gave it away. My hopes for Tomo and Kanno were immediately vanquished when they both got fast forwarded on Stage 1, and I didn't think too much of Asa because he had always been given lots of screen time from 28-30 due to his on-screen personality, so I figured if he was the winner they would've massively hyped him up a load more than they did typically, but it seemed like a normal tournament for him edit-wise, which made me predict from fairly early on that he was going to fail the Cliffhanger yet again, or at best fail the Vertical Limit Kai. On that note, they really need to stop teasing Kanzens where there's a lone Finalist, because it spoils who's won before they've even..... won (at least in terms of airing). That's part of why I loved 24 so much, a Kanzen was teased but with 5 Finalists there was all to play for, even if, similar to how Yusuke was treated in 31, they did allude to Yuuji being the winner based on his edit. That said you can read into that quite easily retrospectively if you know already who won, it may not have been as obvious watching it live, which I didn't in the case of 24. |
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Post by arsenette on Feb 26, 2024 13:14:30 GMT -5
On that note, they really need to stop teasing Kanzens where there's a lone Finalist, because it spoils who's won before they've even..... won (at least in terms of airing). That's part of why I loved 24 so much, a Kanzen was teased but with 5 Finalists there was all to play for, even if, similar to how Yusuke was treated in 31, they did allude to Yuuji being the winner based on his edit. That said you can read into that quite easily retrospectively if you know already who won, it may not have been as obvious watching it live, which I didn't in the case of 24. And thus.. Higuchi/Inui choices are back in the forefront. I don't think Inui is a good editor or director. He didn't like it when I told him but it doesn't change reality. |
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Post by ItalianNinja08 on Feb 26, 2024 13:25:08 GMT -5
And in 24 they show all clears in full with also fluff pieces, so he would have been literally everyone, unlike 31. Thanks Inui for your magnificient editings.
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Post by arsenette on Feb 26, 2024 13:36:49 GMT -5
I think the thing that pissed me off about Inui was finding out that he preedits the show to fit a narrative he wants to push before the tournament starts. Literally before a single competitor hits the stage. Even when confronted with the results of the show.. he will not deviate from the "story" he wants to say. MANY tournaments have failed because of it. Even the "divisive" Sasuke 32. This was NOT the tournament I was present for. What I saw on television was not what happened. I actually had positive thoughts about the tournament before I left Japan.. then I saw the show and I couldn't believe what I saw. I'm sure my reaction to it is what caused them to ban me for future events. He does not like criticism at all even though everyone needs constructive criticism every now and again. That's the difference with Higuchi. He didn't preedit the show.. he treated it as a sports event. Inui treats it like a reality show.
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Post by ItalianNinja08 on Feb 26, 2024 13:46:54 GMT -5
Just see the draconian treatment reserved for Anastase, completely banned from every thing, only because he appeared on KuroOvi.
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Post by dakohosu on Feb 26, 2024 14:16:21 GMT -5
Just see the draconian treatment reserved for Anastase, completely banned from every thing, only because he appeared on KuroOvi. I think that's speculation, unless I've missed something there's nothing to suggest that he was banned. Koji Saikawa appeared on KuroOvi and got on Sasuke a few years later, Kong also appeared on KuroOvi too, though the former is a celebrity and the latter a well esteemed veteran of the show (though not enough to get snubbed from 28, but yeah). |
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Post by ItalianNinja08 on Feb 26, 2024 14:26:33 GMT -5
Just see the draconian treatment reserved for Anastase, completely banned from every thing, only because he appeared on KuroOvi. I think that's speculation, unless I've missed something there's nothing to suggest that he was banned. Koji Saikawa appeared on KuroOvi and got on Sasuke a few years later, Kong also appeared on KuroOvi too, though the former is a celebrity and the latter a well esteemed veteran of the show (though not enough to get snubbed from 28, but yeah). Something probably happened after SASUKE 32, that's why he was digested in 33 and even triple digested 34. |
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Post by dakohosu on Feb 26, 2024 14:34:12 GMT -5
I think that's speculation, unless I've missed something there's nothing to suggest that he was banned. Koji Saikawa appeared on KuroOvi and got on Sasuke a few years later, Kong also appeared on KuroOvi too, though the former is a celebrity and the latter a well esteemed veteran of the show (though not enough to get snubbed from 28, but yeah). Something probably happened after SASUKE 32, that's why he was digested in 33 and even triple digested 34. He was actually forced (not in its literal term but pressured at the very least) to compete on short notice for 33, the reason he failed was because he was jet lagged and underprepared, he was digested in 33 as it was a Rolling Hill fail. 34 was likely due to the high numbers of clears and the fact his fail was pretty generic, being one of 6 Cliffhanger fails that tournament. |
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Post by arsenette on Feb 27, 2024 14:22:50 GMT -5
Just see the draconian treatment reserved for Anastase, completely banned from every thing, only because he appeared on KuroOvi. I think that's speculation, unless I've missed something there's nothing to suggest that he was banned. Koji Saikawa appeared on KuroOvi and got on Sasuke a few years later, Kong also appeared on KuroOvi too, though the former is a celebrity and the latter a well esteemed veteran of the show (though not enough to get snubbed from 28, but yeah). No.. it's not speculation. It is exactly what happened. Anastase did not have the history with the show and he was not having fun on the show so him leaving didn't bother him. But he was banned. I know that personally. As for Kong, he was forced to as well but he had a history with both Inui and Higuchi so they "retired" him by letting him have a farewell show. But make no mistake, he was absolutely excoriated for being on KuroOvi. As far as Talentos.. they are represented by a company. Anyone can tout not knowing any better but Kong.. it was his loyalty to Higuchi that did him in. |
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Post by dakohosu on Feb 27, 2024 14:28:27 GMT -5
I think that's speculation, unless I've missed something there's nothing to suggest that he was banned. Koji Saikawa appeared on KuroOvi and got on Sasuke a few years later, Kong also appeared on KuroOvi too, though the former is a celebrity and the latter a well esteemed veteran of the show (though not enough to get snubbed from 28, but yeah). No.. it's not speculation. It is exactly what happened. Anastase did not have the history with the show and he was not having fun on the show so him leaving didn't bother him. But he was banned. I know that personally. As for Kong, he was forced to as well but he had a history with both Inui and Higuchi so they "retired" him by letting him have a farewell show. But make no mistake, he was absolutely excoriated for being on KuroOvi. As far as Talentos.. they are represented by a company. Anyone can tout not knowing any better but Kong.. it was his loyalty to Higuchi that did him in. So Kong was forcefully retired against his own will? |
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Post by arsenette on Feb 27, 2024 14:41:57 GMT -5
No.. it's not speculation. It is exactly what happened. Anastase did not have the history with the show and he was not having fun on the show so him leaving didn't bother him. But he was banned. I know that personally. As for Kong, he was forced to as well but he had a history with both Inui and Higuchi so they "retired" him by letting him have a farewell show. But make no mistake, he was absolutely excoriated for being on KuroOvi. As far as Talentos.. they are represented by a company. Anyone can tout not knowing any better but Kong.. it was his loyalty to Higuchi that did him in. So Kong was forcefully retired against his own will? Correct. Even had to publicly apologize to TBS for his "lack of judgement". |
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Post by darthvaderlim on Feb 28, 2024 2:01:42 GMT -5
I remember when Sasuke 31 came out, I predicted Ryo would Kanzen and Yusuke as well, which would be the first time we get more than one Kanzen. I also thought Kawaguchi would reach the Final, but once he failed the Crazy Cliffhanger, I knew Yusuke would Kanzen.
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Post by darthvaderlim on Feb 28, 2024 2:05:08 GMT -5
So Kong was forcefully retired against his own will? Correct. Even had to publicly apologize to TBS for his "lack of judgement". I always wondered why he got cut in 31 on Stage One, that tournament could have been much better if they didn't cut him along with the Swedish guy and Kikuchi, but the latter two failed early on Stage Two. First he got screwed by the Swap Salmon Ladder DQ in 30 and then he gets his Stage One clear cut l |
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