What if Sasuke 26?

[darthvaderlim]

What if Sasuke 26 happened today? How would this forum react to so many Japanese compeitors failing Stage One and a lot of Americans clearing? How would you react to the bad editing?

Would any of us rage quit before Stage One is over? The closest I came to quiting was in 28, where I lost interest after Nagano timed out on the Wall due to the All-Stars forced retirement. In 26, I was confused by the editing instead and wondered "WTF am I watching?"

[dakohosu]

I think it would go down better in some ways and worse in others.

I don't think the editing would be as heavily criticised if the tournament happened today as the standards now are a lot lower. 26's editing was as criticised as it was because it was somewhat anomalous compared to 23-25's much more narratively engaging edits, while 26 then suddenly bastardised a lot of those approaches and turned everything into an incohesive and mish mashy mess, part in due to the lower runtime but early Golden Era tournaments which also had 2-3 hour broadcast slots render that excuse somewhat limited in terms of viability. Nowadays though I think some might actually kind of warm to the fact that Stage 1 isn't 3.5 hours and massively drawn out with celebrities, but then there are also issues that don't exist today like running competitors out of order to fit some fake narrative, as well as digesting competitors on Stage 3 despite the low number of attempts. But as mentioned because 26's editing was much more of a dichotomy compared to 23-25's than it would be compared to today's tournaments it wouldn't be as much of a pain point.

I think the course would be looked on much more fondly. I remember being semi-disappointed that after 25 they reverted largely back to the same Stage 1 as 24 but just with a few new additions, but over time I learned to appreciate how balanced and well flowing that course was. Stages 2 and 3 were great as ever. I definitely prefer it to today's course, which has a very unbalanced and largely unchallenging Stage 1, a stale Stage 2, and a Stage 3 far too specific technique focussed. I'm a firm believer that 26 actually has the best overall course of any Sasuke tournament, so it'd be a far cry from the issues we have today, as well as fodder and celebrities failing significantly earlier thus allowing for more focus on key competitors, even with the bad editing approach and lower runtime.

The results would be another case of better in some ways, worse in others. I think a lot of unexpectedly early failures on Stage 1 like we got in 26 would be a welcome addition following a set of tournaments where largely the same competitors clear time after time due to the stagnant course, even if the impact of those fails are dampened by the editing style, it still counts for something. The clears coming largely from foreigners though is a different story, because it would be pretty catastrophic for Inui and his YouTube channel, with there being not much success from domestic competitors that he can market on the YouTube post tournament to drive continued interest throughout the several months between tournaments. If we're also assuming that the American results get spoiled like they did on G4 in 26, then that would kind of suck for overseas fans as well, given that I remember hearing that we had four Americans on Stage 3, and thinking that we'd get loads more domestic competitors making it that far as a result, only to find out it was just Lee and Okuyama. I think many would find this underwhelming even today, especially the Japanese fans who wouldn't know a lot of these American competitors so wouldn't really be able to root for them. So for marketing it would be pretty bad all things considered.

I certainly wouldn't rage quit. I watched 26 live after getting used to the editing style of 23-25 and didn't turn it off, so I'd be much less likely to quit now given that I'm now used to sitting through 3.5+ hour Stage 1s with loads of filler and drawn out celebrity runs that are, for the most part, far more painful to sit through, if not as baffling as the out-of-order runs that we got in 26. As mentioned I'd at least now be somewhat pleased at the fact that Stage 1 was more concise, though I'd still not be a fan of the false narrative stuff like with Hashimoto and Okuyama, and the general mish mashy editing.

[ItalianNinja08]

If 26 had a decent editing, it would have been an A-B tier tournament for me.

[shunsukenumber98]

how was 26's editing bad? I watched 26 through G4 and not the normal japanese broadcast, any reason why?

[YourResidentKojiFan]

Mar 7, 2024 22:16:37 GMT -5 shunsukenumber98 said:

how was 26's editing bad? I watched 26 through G4 and not the normal japanese broadcast, any reason why?

I think 80% of the disdain for 26's editing comes from them showing Hashimoto (#98) before Okuyama (#97) in Stage 2, the only time Stage 2 runs have ever been shown out of order. This was done to add more drama to Okuyama's clear seeing as he was "the last Japanese competitor standing", but to those who paid attention in grade 3 maths and realised that yes, 98 is a bigger number than 97, it pretty much revealed what would happened before Hashimoto's run even started, taking away most of the shock value to both Hashimoto's fail and Okuyama's close clear.

In case you're wondering, the other 20% comes from Stage 1, what with them FFing Kanno and Kong and showing more runs out of order.

[zoran]

Is that it with 26's editing?

Tbh I don't see the issue, Okuyama pushing through for his country was a pretty cool narrative and imo one of the few highlights of 26 imo. Ffing Kanno and Kong seems okay too since they failed on the most common area. I was expecting worse given how people talk about 26's editing.

[dakohosu]

Mar 8, 2024 3:06:06 GMT -5 zoran said:

Is that it with 26's editing?

Tbh I don't see the issue, Okuyama pushing through for his country was a pretty cool narrative and imo one of the few highlights of 26 imo. Ffing Kanji and Kong seems okay too since they failed on the most common area. I was expecting worse given how people talk about 26's editing.

You have to consider it relative to the time period.

23-25 had much more cohesive and narratively impactful edits, spotlighting a lot of new and old competitors, and showing most key runs in full. Then we suddenly go to 26 which shows a load of runs out of order, loads of cuts, skipped runs, etc. etc. Obviously this is partially due to 26 only getting 2.5 hours compared to like 5.5 for 24, but as mentioned the fact that most Golden Era tournaments were also 3 or so hours yet utilised much better use of that time means that the low broadcast time for 26 is limited in terms of how much one could use that as an excuse.

Imo 12 was an example of a tournament that had a low broadcast slot but lots of clears but they edited it in the best way given the constraints they were faced with. Digesting Stage 2 clears as clear after clear would've become mundane to watch, and skipping over Rumbling Dice attempts because everyone cleared it anyway, yet still giving off a cohesive and emotional impact with backstories and surprises etc. I get 26 only having only 2.5 hours but there was still no excuse to show as many runs out of order in such a disjointed manner. The All-Cuts and some digests generally are to be expected but the rest was baffling and unnecessary to me.

I also think the main issue people had with showing runs out of order was simply that it spoiled a lot of the results. Shingo being shown before Kanno implied that Kanno had failed Stage 1 before he was even shown, similar story with showing Kong's fail before it was his turn in the running order. I also agree with YourResidentKojiFan in that they spoiled what could've been an incredibly nail-biting run by showing Okuyama as the "last Japanese competitor" standing, even though he obviously wasn't, thus making it obvious he was going to clear, which is a shame as his Stage 2 run was a genuinely close call. It felt like too much of a false narrative to be genuinely impactful. Also while this isn't directly relevant to the Monster9 edit itself, revealing the Americans' results on G4 prior to 26 airing further adhered to this notion of runs being spoiled left, right, centre.

I agree 26's editing gets a bit too much flack, especially in light of the newer tournaments with their bafflingly long Stage 1s and perennial digests of top tier competitors, but fundamentally your overarching sentiment towards a tournament is heavily influenced by your first impression watching it live or for the first time generally. And for most who watched it live, 26's editing was a nasty surprise in terms of how many steps back they took editing-wise compared to the past few tournaments.