It's so close we can taste it

Sasuke 31 starts taping in FIVE DAYS. That's in no time at all!

As if things weren't real enough, THEY ARE CONSTRUCTING THE STAGES NOW. Yesterday there was even a Nico Nico broadcast where they showed the assembly of Final Stage, but of course I totally missed out on that by sleeping through it. I thought the point of liking a Japanese show was that things would not air in the middle of the night??? Okay so it wasn't actually middle of the night, but who is awake at 6 am on a Saturday? Not me, that's for sure.

Oh, well, luckily there's a good recap of it over at Rambling Rican's, so I know what I missed, which wasn't much. Not many surprises there: I didn't expect Akiyama or Bunpei to show up, nor any of the other older competitors. I won't miss the Hedgehog or Long Jump too much either, and I'm glad that there's at least one Warped Wall! Now, if they could just bring back Half-Pipe Attack, aka the best First Stage obstacle ever, that would be awesome.

Anyway, we are not the only ones who are excited! I took to Twitter to see how our favourite competitors are preparing for the competion next week:

Source: https://twitter.com/urushiharayuuji/status/599150097469820929

Urushihara and a mysterious masked man took to the pool for some Backstream-training. Hmm, I wonder who THAT could be ...

Source: https://twitter.com/urushiharayuuji/status/599212985693773824

Nice, hooray! Yeah, I don't think anyone was surprised by that reveal. We all know this obstacle is their nemesis ...

Sorry, but this was the greatest moment in television history and no one can tell me differently.

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/599383415670976512

The start of the final stage construction! It's weird, because I know I read somewhere that Final Stage construction doesn't start until they're sure people will actually compete in it, but I always thought that sounded like total bullshit and now I know it's not true. It is finished in just a day though!

Source: https://twitter.com/inuimasato/status/599466549510975488

Words cannot describe how excited I am for the steel muscle festival!

Source: https://twitter.com/37Mistr/status/599801980173684736

Oh, and more great news: MR SASUKE IS NOW ON TWITTER. I haven't told Chriss this yet, because I wanted to dramatically reveal it on the blog. He's not competing, but the black tigers are and seems to be ready! I hope they do well, they have been a bit disappointing in the last Sasukes. I'm also kinda glad Mr Sasuke is not competing, because that means he won't be cut like last year.

Source: https://twitter.com/hiokimasashi/status/599595067536379904

Of course Urushihara is eating Shingo's wife's homemade cake, that guy tweets about food 90% of the time. I didn't screen print it but I'm pretty sure I also saw Kanno saying something about drinking beer for protein. The Sasuke diets are very interesting. Shingo himself seems to mostly be talking about the gym he's about to open and not preparing too much, but then again we all know that no amount of training is going to save him from Shingo'ing it up at some point...

Source: https://twitter.com/hitoshi_kanno/status/599729345742024704

I don't know what this means, but whatever. This is the amount of selfies we're already getting, and even though we won't know the results of Sasuke 31 for months I AM SO EXCITED FOR THE AMOUNT OF SELIFES THAT WILL BE TAKEN. I will be fucking pissed if no one brings their selfie stick to the competition to give us at least SOMETHING.

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/599816233177853952

Someone went to pray for a good Sasuke and safe competitors. Good idea, we do want to see spectacular fails and clears, but we don't want people to actually hurt themselves while they're at it. Except for Torisawa Katsuhide, of course, but hurting himself is kinda his thing.

Source: https://twitter.com/fujinosasuke/status/599854542235111424

The final adjustments! I'm not sure what the bathing is about, but Green Mountain of course means Midoiryama so I think we all know what they're preparing for. I think this is Kanno Hitoshi, Kishimoto Shinya (third stage in Sasuke 30), Kawaguchi Tomohiro (final stage in Sasuke 30) and Nagasaki Shunsuke (also third stage in Sasuke 30). Though why an earlier tweet from Nagasaki Shunsuke was in Chinese I don't know ...

Well, that's it for now, but I'm sure we'll all just be more and more psyched for the next few days. I'm extremely jealous of anyone who gets to go see it being taped, but you know ... next year I'll win Ninja Warrior SE and then I'll be there, so it's okay. For now let's just wish Rambling Rican a nice trip, and hope that Alexander Mars does GREAT in the competition as well. We're rooting for you, Alexander!! We're all rooting for you!

But until we know more ... Sayonara ninja lovers!

Sasuke 31 Osaka audition

Soooo, the Osaka auditions for Sasuke 31 happened on Saturday, making it an actual reality that's going to happen. I can only sum up our feelings on this tumblr style, if you'll allow me:

Well, if you - for some bizarre reason - don't obsessively stalk Sasuke people on Twitter to get the latest (badly translated) news, then I am here to keep you updated.

We got some tweets from the official Sasuke_tbs account, WITH PICS. OMG. Have a look at this:

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/584147045327347712

I really need to learn Japanese. I mean, this translation was at least coherent, but from the pics I kinda could've guessed what was going on anyway ...

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/584160907351101440

...you know what, Bing? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you just gave me the wrong translation. But you're not entirely wrong, because I guess we CAN see the muscle in the audition room.

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/584174898718773248

If anyone who speaks Japanese reads this and can inform me what that tilted smiley face letter means, I'll be eternally grateful. And if someone wants to work fulltime as the Sasuke Hipster translator, we could probably pay you in gifs or something.

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/584198892503207936

I, too, AM SUCH A FEELING AFTER SEEING THIS. I don't know what you do with those yellow bars, but after seeing this tweet from Inui Masato (the director of Sasuke) with a video, I'm gonna guess that you do push-ups while, um, staring at them. Oki, I guess they're place markers or something:

Source: https://twitter.com/inuimasato/status/584212803101143040

SASUKE31回大会 大阪オーディション 山田勝己の腕立てふせ なう pic.twitter.com/uU965UjYhs

— 乾 雅人 (@inuimasato) April 4, 2015

Hopefully you'll see the video when I post this, otherwise you can watch it at the source tweet. And YES, that means Mr Sasuke was there!! We're happy, because the last thing we heard was that he was banned from Sasuke forever, and that would've been sad. According to my sources (aka what I've read at the Sasukemaniac forum, I don't have any sources ... yet) he wasn't there to audition for himself though (even though Bing translate certainly makes it sound that way), just cheering on his Black Tigers team-thingy. But that's nice of him!

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/584213481877970944

Okay, yeah, this tweet from two minuets later definitely makes it sound more like he was just there for moral support, and did some push-ups just for fun. You know, AS YOU DO.

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/584233943647420416

We don't know who were lucky enough to be interviewed in those chairs, but let's hope they did well.

Source: https://twitter.com/sasuke_tbs/status/584286498091966464

Three hours (!?) later it was over. Don't worry though, we saw some other things worth noting that was posted by Inui afterwards:

Source: https://twitter.com/inuimasato/status/584321325394632704

ASA!! Asa isn't on Twitter, and he doesn't seem to hang out much with those who are, so it was nice to see him. Also because I had personally become a bit worried he might've gone all domestic and decided to spend time with his girlfriend instead of doing Sasuke, but, eh, that might just be me being paranoid ...

Source: https://twitter.com/inuimasato/status/584321325394632704

This was followed by a long discussion with Kanno that I didn't understand at all, because as I said BING TRANSLATE LEAVES A LOT TO WISH FOR. Google Translate is slightly better, but I mean, I don't have time to run every single tweet through that, I have a life, you know (lol no I don't).

Source: https://twitter.com/inuimasato/status/584336723854757888

This was followed by another tweet that is impossible to stand, but I like to think that "to the muscle"  partis Inui personally addressing Kanno in this tweet. Probably not.

LUCKILY, there are more competent people than me around, and thanks to lostinube on the Sasukemaniacs board I now know that he is talking about the changes to the stages in Sasuke 31:

Source: http://sasukemaniac.proboards.com/post/130996

Makes sense! And that also means that they did NOT select my Motherfucking Cliffhanger as one of the winners for the obstacle competition. So upsetting. :( I knew I should've submitted the Ring of Fire instead ...

I guess we'll have to wait to know exactly what these changes are going to be, buuuut apparently people with better conncetions than me know for sure that the Swap Salmon Ladder is gone, but that the Backstream is staying:

Source: http://sasukemaniac.proboards.com/post/131022

Mmm, good. I mean, because the backstream is such a great measure of athletic abilities that truly captures the spirit of Sasuke and not at all because I like seeing everyone getting out of it all ... wet ...

Um, yeah, right. There are more auditions to come, and you can expect me to cover them as well. But, in the meantime, there are of course a lot of other things on the Ninja Warrior horizon ...

Sasuke 29: recap

Here's out first review of one of the Japanese broadcasts. Let's start with some general stats, for those looking for some quick info, that I compiled with information found on Wikipedia and Sasukepedia:

Air date: June 17 2013

Obstacles:

Bolded obstacles have no transition between them.

Results:

Notes: because of the SASUKE ASEAN OPEN CUP-thingy taking place later in 2013 only the person to finish third stage with the best time would have gone on to the final stage, although this never became an issue due to no one clearing third stage. Thank the gods BECAUSE THAT WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA since the best part about Sasuke is that everyone who clears a stage gets to go on to the next one.

________________________________________________________________

Chriss & Ell commentary:

Here we are, looking super-serious as we're embarking on yet another Sasuke adventure.

~*~

Torisawa Katsuhide starts strong by breaking a baseball bat on his neck.

Ell: "Just don't cut yourself like that guy did with a beer bottle."

Chriss: "Isn't this the same guy?"

Ell: "Yeah, you're right."

Ell: "You know, I think he did exactly this in Sasuke 24 as well."

~*~

Our friend Hanna kept texting us through-out this, since she was watching Sasuke for the first time with her husband. Made us feel like seasoned experts as she asked us questions about the show and the contestants, and - like us - wanting to get her hands on the USA vs Japan special. After she alerted us of the allegations of it being rigged Chriss did some research, and while we're not sure what to make of it, we're certainly in camp "it's fucking fishy that team Japan would lose so brutally as they did".

~*~

Then Hioki Masashi cleared first stage and we were all so happy for him:

So, um, happy we could cry apparently:

We can't decide what we love more: all the crying, or Matachi laughing at his crying friends. Not that he was fucking immune to it, though:

WIPING HIS EYES. He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did.

~*~

Chriss: "OH MY GOD, HE DROPPED HIS SHOE."

Ell: "WHAT!?"

Chriss: "Look!"

Ell: "It's still there, he's picking it up!"

~*~

WHY IS ASA WEARING A SCARF? WHAT IS UP WITH HIM AND SCARVES? I can't fucking deal with this anymore.

~*~

After Asa completely dominates first stage Matachi Ryo, Kanno Hitoshi and Urushihara Yuuji's attempts at first stage was completely cut, only showing them starting and finished. Naturally this was a bit upsetting.

Chriss: "They CUT him!? And we know he won't pass second stage! I can't believe this! I'm crying! ...oh, that's a cute baby!"

It is indeed a very cute baby. But not so cute that we'll forgive them for cutting out one of our faves like that.

~*~

Moving on to the second stage! Yamamoto Shingo times out during the water obstacle, giving us this shot:

Chriss: "There's an army of children again! They can't possibly all be his!"

This is basically brought up every time his army of children is shown, and we're still not sure what to make of it.

~*~

Looking at the water obstacle, a lot of people are struggling with it, not just Yamamoto Shingo (to our distress this includes Matachi Ryo).

Chriss: "Nagano would probably be great at this though, being a fisherman."

Ell: "Yeah, I hope he gets to try it sometime. He must be good at swimming if he works on a boat, right? Didn't we see him do situps on the side of his boat?
Chriss: Yeah."

Note: this is from the ANW special "25 reasons to watch Ninja Warrior"
also note I'm not 100% it is Nagano but you get the point

Ell: "You'd be insane to do that if you're not a good swimmer."

~*~

Chriss: "Did the announced just call Morimoto Yūsuke Sasuke-kun!? He's a tiny Sasuke boy."

~*~

After Morimoto fails third stage.

Chriss: "Where's Asa? Why isn't he crying!?"

~*~

If you're telling me you didn't cry when (what we're assuming is) Takahashi Kenji's daughter brought him a drawing of him achieving Kanzenseiha then get the fuck out of here, you grinch.

This is a show about ninjas and crying and we love it.

~*~

My last note just says "much crying :(" which I'm assuming is a reference to everyone failing third stage. My heart breaks just a little bit every time Asa fails the stupid Crazy Cliffhanger (okay, so it's not actually stupid, but I'm still upset about it!).

This concludes our Sasuke 29 recap, I hope you enjoyed it.