Sasuke's digest situation would have gotten out of hand when

[shunsukenumber98]

Here's a list of things that would happen that would official show how out of hand the digest situation in sasuke is: 

-Digesting 3/5 stage 3 attempts (when there is no need for the digest) 
-Digest clearing a stage 3 clear 
-Digesting a stage 4 attempt 
-digesting every single stage 2 clear (we almost had this in sasuke 40......) 
-digesting Yusuke winning for the third time 
-digesting the final clear of stage 1 
-digesting the first and second stage clears for all 3 finalist in the final stage 
-cut out so much of a competitors third stage clear that the only thing that is shown is said competitor attempting and clearing the pipe slider (I get this is more of a mid-cut rather than a digest but you get what I mean lol) 
-digesting the final few clears of the second stage (this has already happened.....) 
-clear digest #91-#99 if that number sequence clears 
-digesting a important competitor and notable runs and clears (we had this with Hashimoto in sasuke 40 and Jessie and Stephanie in their stage 2 attempts) 

[xelA197]

Probably the stage and the tournament with the most baffling digesting choices is SASUKE 33's Second Stage. Digesting 3 of the 5 clears (from #96 to #98, even more weird), on a stage with 8 failures, is another signal of how 33 was utterly trash. Yes, I know there were many celebrities, but it was painfully obvious that they were all going to fail and reach the Conveyor as an absolute max. They all take benefit of a fairly easy Stage 1, it reminds me of the first tournaments, with plenty of competitors failing early the Spider Walk. Imagine they showed almost all of them but they digested most of the clears, luckily Inui was young and inexperienced at the time lol.

But the more egregious example is by far Tatsuya Tada, I believe that his 40 run is the run coming from a finalist that received less coverage during a tournament: digested in Stage 1 and 2, mid-cut in Stage 3 and miracolously shown in full at the Final Stage, but on the other hand they didn't show any interview. What will happen when he will fail Stage 1? Fully cut? Digested like Nagasaki and Kanno? Showed in full to increase the viewers' suspence and suspice?

It happened in 29 (what a surprise), that the final clear in Stage 1 (by Yuuji) was digested, and also in 2 with Akiyama and Tada in 39 (what a surprise again). Absolutely crazy that the only double winner at the time got digested twice while clearing Stage 1 (also in 30). Luckily there weren't a lot celebrities at the time so it would have been even worse. I still can't find the answer about Yuuji's treatment, even Morimoto right now get always shown in full on Stage 1.

We know that Inui infamously over-relies in his celebrities to boost the ratings, so he can do a thing: a better digest editing, with a music that makes you doubtful about the competitor's fate, like Isa Stage 2 run in 38. It's a shame that they didn't do this in 40, imagine how legendary it would have been seeing Yuuji and Tomo's clears with the suspence (they should have showed these runs in full but it doesn't matter), but instead with the clear theme it was obvious that they were going to clear. Same thing they should have did with Tada Stage 1 run in 39, but probably Inui thought that it was better to double digest Keitaro and Tada for marketing purpose.

[dakohosu]

One thing to mention here is that the rate of digests considerably spiked when Inui started to aggressively market the Sasuke TBS YouTube channel from 38 onwards. He basically figured that he could kill two birds in one stone and satisfy both camps (the general fanbase who want to see the celebrities, and the hardcore dedicated fans) by focussing more on the celebrities in the main broadcast at the expense of the stronger competitors' screen time, and instead shoe horn the latter's full runs into the YouTube channel after airing. This also facilitates continued interest between tournaments, which is why Inui showed all of the full runs from 41 (not a spoiler) on the YouTube channel across a period of like 3 months, to somewhat fill the void until the next tournament.

The problem here is that he seemingly disregards the fact that seeing the tournament for the first time has an everlasting impact on your sentiment towards a tournament, especially as you already know the competitor's results by the time their full run gets released on Paravi or YouTube, which obviates any sense of excitement. Not to mention that the editing also spoils a lot of results before they're even revealed; examples being Tomo in 40 and Tada in 39 getting the clear digest theme before they actually cleared ruining the suspense of their incredibly close calls, a certain competitor in 41 who usually gets digested being shown in full on Stage 3 which gave away he was going to fail early, and so forth. He did at least somewhat improve on the former in 41 by not playing the clear digest theme (again this is not a spoiler) during various runs which did increase the suspense, but still not great all round. That said, it's now got to the point that being digested on earlier stages no longer locks a competitor out of a Final run (e.g. Tada and Yoshi in 40), and while this isn't (yet) true for Kanzens, I personally don't really care whether Yusuke wins again or not so him being digested as an indicator of him not winning that tournament doesn't do anything for me really.

Regardless, my biggest issue is just with the pacing of the recent tournaments. Specifically, Stage 1 lasting 3.5 hours, and not even the number of celebrities, but how they're distributed. We'll regularly get extended sequences of slog of several comedians/celebrities in a row (worst of all in the 50s and 60s), not helped by an ad before all of their runs. Then in between these 20-30 minute celebrity streaks, we'll get maybe 2-3 minutes of stronger competitors (tactically placed together for the purpose of being mass fast forwarded) all digested, then the next set of celebrities. So it's a case of slow then fast then slow then fast and not in a good way. Not to mention that most of the regulars shown in full, like Hioki, Yusuke, Yamada, Nagano etc., are either almost guaranteed clears or fails, so even that's not particularly exciting to watch either.

Then Stage 2 is a complete afterthought lasting 20 minutes regardless of number of attempts resulting in mass digests in tournaments with 20+ attempts like 40, and Stage 3 for the most part isn't particularly exciting to watch as barring like 3-4 competitors, everyone attempting it is a guaranteed Cliffhanger fail.

I do wish we would strike more of a tradeoff between satisfying the hardcore and celebrity-driven fanbases in the main broadcast, rather than focussing on one camp for the broadcast and pushing the other to Paravi/YouTube when the suspense and excitement has already died down. Imo, replace the D-tier celebrities who get cut with more talented new blood to drive more diversified results from new competitors with cool stories who can viably get shown in full, and for the big-shot celebrities, space them out more such that we're never too far away from a competitor we want to see and/or invite more athletic celebs like Wasabi etc. who can appeal to both fans of them and the show. Rather than shoe horning 10-20 comedians/randos in a row.

[dakohosu]

May 9, 2024 11:17:59 GMT -5 xelA197 said:

It happened in 29 (what a surprise), that the final clear in Stage 1 (by Yuuji) was digested, and also in 2 with Akiyama and Tada in 39 (what a surprise again). Absolutely crazy that the only double winner at the time got digested twice while clearing Stage 1 (also in 30). Luckily there weren't a lot celebrities at the time so it would have been even worse. I still can't find the answer about Yuuji's treatment, even Morimoto right now get always shown in full on Stage 1.

Thought I'd answer this one separately.

Yuuji infamously wanted to be away from the spotlight due to pressure of being the reigning and only two-time champion at the time. So I wouldn't be surprised if he actually asked to be treated this way, especially considering he asked not to get the number #100. This is also why despite his status he'd regularly get numbers like #89 in 32 and 33, because clearly him being positioned among the more regular competitors would take some of that stress off, same story with being digested. 

Not to mention that this was further exacerbated by the pressure of being at the forefront of Team Japan in USA vs Japan really got his butt handed to him, he really doesn't deal well with having all eyes on him.

What really made this apparent to me was the fact that during the early RISING era (which is when he got digested on Stage 1), there was basically no other pioneer of the show, with Nagano having declined heavily, and no one else being considered a real threat to win (bar maybe Ryo but he was always considered second fiddle to Yuuji anyway, Yusuke wasn't fully established at that point). Inui would've absolutely prioritized Yuuji if he could, and likely wanted to as he outright wanted to replace the All-Stars with the Shin-Sedai in 28, which Yuuji has always been the "leader" of. Also consider that this was WELL before the era of celebrity over-saturation, which only really started from 38 onwards, so the reasoning for his digests would've been inherently different to what we're getting nowadays.

[zoran]

I wonder what digesting a final stage attempt or even a kanzen would look like? I'd guess it would be a Sasuke 24+ situation with 5+ finalists with the several tournaments prior having final attempts. Digesting a kanzen though would be insane. Would be really weird.

[dakohosu]

May 9, 2024 14:57:41 GMT -5 zoran said:

I wonder what digesting a final stage attempt or even a kanzen would look like? I'd guess it would be a Sasuke 24+ situation with 5+ finalists with the several tournaments prior having final attempts. Digesting a kanzen though would be insane. Would be really weird.

Tada in 40 was the closest thing we got to a digest on the Final, they outright skipped him walking up to the bottom of the tower, and had the digest voiceover guy introduce him.

Someone also made this which would somewhat answer your question lol: 

[subtleagent]

I'm under the belief grand champions should never be digested after they've won (but the last few tournaments have spit on that one), but the biggest problem has always been the same people getting the same treatment regardless of screen value and guys like Hioki and Kawaguchi are almost always going to be given screentime even if others have more interesting runs. I guess they've become established and have ins with Inui so its somewhat justified, but without anyway to mix it up a bit it just blends the tournaments together with nothing to identify them. I mean compare M9 to modern tourneys, the former are arguably easier to distinguish whereas if you put say 38 - 40 back to back it'd be a bit harder to differentiate.