Most Divisive Competitor

[darthvaderlim]

Which competitor do you think is the most divisive?

For me, it probably have to be Darvish, some hate him because he gets too much screen time, high numbers, every fail/clear cutting to his reaction, etc. Then there are others who like him, due to him being passionate and regularly training for Sasuke, while also being capable of clearing Stage One

[subtleagent]

For me it was Asa prior to his retirement. I admired his enthusiasm and passion but even by modern SASUKE standards it was overkill. Not so much because he did it, but because it was implied to be the only reason he got screen time. He grew on me over time and I appreciate him more now, but still everything I said production wise still stands.

Nowadays I guess I would have to pick Sato. I have nothing against him as a person and his sick consistency is admirable, but he's all Cliffhanger fails and is giving off hints of becoming a Levi. Not as questionable as his 32 - 34 attitude but still. Obviously I'm not expecting him to be prim and proper, but I'm not the biggest fan of showboating so...

[dakohosu]

It definitely used to be Darvish but arguably isn't anymore.

The reason Darvish got so much hate back in the day was because he was the only major big-shot athletic celebrity competing and hence was the ONLY competitor subjected to the whole "gets too high numbers and too much screen time relative to his ability", so he was very easy to target by a lot of the fan base who seemingly didn't understand the reason for the treatment he got. This was also why Hiromichi Sato was quite heavily disliked during Shin-Sasuke too. People have warmed to him a lot more now for a number of reasons. Firstly, he's actually proven that he's a pretty good competitor, especially after coming in 6th place in Sasuke 35 and reaching Stage 3 in 36, which inherently reduced the sentiment that he was "overrated". Secondly, with how many joke competitors and comedians etc. we're getting these days, who get similarly long amounts of screen time, people are more appreciative of the fact that Darvish is at least passionate and is capable of doing well. Whereas beforehand they painted him with a similar brush to how they're now painting competitors like KAREN etc. Personally I can find Darvish's overreactive nature quite annoying at times, especially with how often the show cuts to his reactions, but I also realise that it's simply out of passion and I appreciate how dedicated he is to training etc.

In terms of who is the most divisive competitor currently I'd have to go with Tomohiro. He pretty much gets the same s*** as Darvish got back in the day, arguably even more so because he's not a celebrity. Frequently gets called overrated, undeserving of his screen time and high numbers etc. and it has at times resulted in some pretty mean comments towards him, like laughing at him being "unemployed" in Sasuke 40, and people seemingly disregarding his prior track record because of a few rocky runs. But then there are others like me who've always been a fan of him, and I'd argue he deserved his reputation due to his consistency from 30-36, as well as representing Japan on multiple international shows, and also Per-Adra being a huge selling point for him. He's definitely the most over-hated competitor right now imo. Like yeah, he had a weird slump with the wall, and is arguably well past his prime, but so are a lot of other competitors who still get the same amount of hype as they did when they were performing better.

Ultimately I think the moral of the story is that people tend to let how a competitor is treated on the show influence their sentiment towards them as a person, which I personally don't agree with as the two are completely unrelated.