Ninja Warrior SE S02E02 recap

I spotted Mårten Nylén when I was at work a couple of days ago (I work at a museum) and as usual when someone mildly famous comes by I mentioned it to my coworkers. Basically got a blank stare in return so I had to text Chriss who reacted much more reasonably, aka by sending me back a message all in caps. Excuse us for being fangirls ...

Aaaanyway, this is what went down in episode 2 of season 2!

Quite a few new obstacles, and they're getting really hard. One clear, and while I won't immediately spoil you as to who that was, maybe you can all make a qualified guess ...

So, what we think happened in this episode was that the fifteen people who made it from the Stockholm qualifiers are now in the Stockholm regional finals, and from there five people will make it to the big finale. We think. It's always a bit confusing to us. 

Source: http://www.dplay.se/ninjawarrior/

First out: Askia Linder, who failed on the rather tricky wind chimes. Apparently they're from ANW, but Chriss and I recognize them as the tampon/dildo obstacles from Sasuke 31. I kinda liked Askia in the first ep, so I'm sad he didn't make it, but I'm laughing really hard at Mårten's comment about how "he looks like a slap in the face". What?

Source: http://www.dplay.se/ninjawarrior/

I completely missed Phillip Lloyd Rochester stealing Usain Bolt's lightning bolt-thing last week. Duuude, you're cool and all, but you weren't even the fastest person through stage one, are you sure you can live up to that gesture? Really?

Well, Philip made it all the way to Cannonball Alley (know as the Chaos balls in Swedish ... and for once I'm gonna say that the Swedish name is a way better name than the English one), and what I found fascinating is that when he got there he looked REALLY tired. We've seen people fail in the most spectacular of ways in Sasuke, but I can't remember anyone making it look like it's as exhausting as that. And look at those muscles, he's not really a weak guy, is he? Then again, Kanno has a lot of muscles and he nevers looks tired ...

Yeah I just wanted an excuse to post this gif again ...

Johannes Ojanpera was the first person this year to struggle with the wall, but after Chriss shouted "I've seen shorter people climb higher walls!" he scaled it like it was no big deal. Maybe he was just messing with us the first two tries ...

Source: http://www.dplay.se/ninjawarrior/

Then we get another proof that the rules can be a little too confusing when Adam says that "everyone here has already cleared the Warped Wall" because ... no, they did not. Ten people cleared it, the other five where just fast enough to get to the final anyway. Keep up with the rules, dude!

They saved the best for last: Alexander Mars, Henning Attlin and Victor Jacobsson (who had the fastest time in the first episode). How did they do? Well ...

Of COURSE the one true Swedish ninja Alexander Mars made it all the way to the top. Honestly, he made it look so easy, and totally proved why he - above everone else - deserved a shot at Sasuke last year. Actually, just watch this clip of him doing it:

BEAUTIFUL. Look at him doing the chaos balls - SO EASY. No one else even made it past them and he made it look like he was just rolling out of bed in the morning or something. I think we're starting to fangirl Alexander Mars pretty hard to, ooops.

Source: http://www.dplay.se/ninjawarrior/

Henning, however, did not do as well. He's never been our fave, but he is definitely good at what he does and fast ... so what the hell even happened here? He almost slipped getting off the Quintuple Step, barely landed on the mat after the Log Grip and while he did the Paddle Boards easily he failed competely at the Jump Hang. That seemed very out of character for him, even though he's fast, he's never really been careless before. Oh well, it's Sasuke Ninja Warrior, these things happen.

Source: http://www.dplay.se/ninjawarrior/

Lastly, Victor Jacobsson. I may be wrong, but I swear his tee touched the water here! It doesn't show in the image, but in the video at least I think there are cleraly ripples on the surface of the water. Though his tee doesn't really look wet later on, but I don't know ... I don't know ...

Source: http://www.dplay.se/ninjawarrior/

He later failed at the Chaos Balls, but due to the confusing rules still made it to the finals along with these other four. Even though only Alexander Mars made it through this stage, I like how different all these competitors are from each other. Johannes Ojanpera is nimble, Phillip Lloyd Rochester is strong and Victor Jaconsson is fast ... but what is gonna be most useful the next time we see them? I guess time will tell ...

A closer look at the second stage will be up this week, then next week Chriss is coming to stay with me for a few days, so we plan on catching up to all the eps we've missed. Next week some of our favs from last year returns, so we are VERY excited.

Until then ....

Sayonara ninja lovers!

Ninja Warrior SE: episode 5 recap

Air date: 25 February 2015

How many people failed each obstacle?

Who went on to third stage/the final?

Source: Kanal5play.se

As you can see, four people cleared the stage, but five from each semi will go on to the third stage/the final. Henning Attlin (the only person in Ninja Warrior SE who could out-hipster us), failed the arm rings as well as four other guys, BUT he had the fastest time finishing the salmon ladder and that meant he went on to the final as well.

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Chriss & Ell commentary:

They're making the rules overly complicated, aren't they? We watched Sasuke with basically no knowledge of the show and not understanding a word of Japanese, but we very quickly picked up on the simple rules: if you finish one stage, you go on to the next. If you don't, you're out. If no one finishes, then the show ends.

I mean, we're happy for Henning, of course, it's always nice when someone's impressively fast time is rewarded (Alexander Mars, with the best time this semifinal, reached the arm rings at least 30 seconds later than Henning, so had he finished his time could have been spectacular), but it ain't very Sasuke to let someone who failed a stage move on to the next.

Personally we think it would make more sense, if it's so incredibly important that 25 people reach the final (I think - but don't quote me on this - that this is 5 people from four semifinals, PLUS the 5 people with the best times over-all, but I might be wrong since they are being a bit vague on how it'll go down), that they should pick the person who got the furthest before failing, even if that would come down to centimeters in some cases.

In any case, there is a risk that we see six people complete second stage/the semi final in the next episode and that one of them won't even make it to the final because they let someone who failed pass the episode before that. Hopefully it won't happen, but it could, and it makes everything way more complicated than necessary.

Honestly, when you turn Sasuke into a competition like this, it feels like watching an entire season of American Ninja Warrior USA vs the world, and we're not loving it. Is the same system used in ANW? I know they let people move on to the next stage based on the time, but is the second stage/semi final done in heats like this?

~*~

Chriss: There should be more celebrities in the show, like they have on Sasuke.

Ell: Well, technically Kitsune is a gladiator, so she's a celebrity.

Chriss: Yeah, but they should get like ... Paolo Roberto for next season.

~*~

Announcer: "Only three people in the world have every completed Ninja Warrior."

Ell: "No, only three people in JAPAN."

Honestly, only the Japanese have done it, and I know they're trying to make it sound more awesome by phrasing it like that, but they are kinda erasing the fact that no non-Japanese person have ever been close to achieving Kanzenseiha when they never mention it. Hey, maybe I'm just overly protective of my faves.

~*~

Despite all our negativity we like the show, but we would love to see the New Stars from Sasuke take it on. They'd laugh all the way through and it'd be amazing.

~*~

And the ultimate proof that the rules are a little bit too confusing came from the announcers, when they repeatedly referred to the qualifying round as the semi when discussing one of the contestants. We know, it's confusing us too, and we should just stick to calling them first, second and third stage to make it simple.

~*~

One last thing: we totally missed that they are airing two Ninja Warrior SE eps this week. SWEET, more Ninja Warrior! Not sweet that we didn't realize this until today, and totally missed to recap this episode yesterday, when it aired. Because of that we will not be recaping today's ep until tomorrow. Sorry about that!