Go home Aftonbladet, you're drunk

So, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet tried their hands at writing an article about Sasuke, and, well, they didn't do very well. Luckily not too many people will read the article, because to access it you need their special "plus" subscription, which costs more and allows you to read pointless articles about what the actors in Dallas are doing today. And, of course, factually incorrect articles about Sasuke.

It kinda pisses me off even more that you'd have to pay for it and it's still competely wrong? I mean, yeah, it gets some things right: Sasuke started airing in 1997 in Japan, only three people have achieved Total Victory, and there is an American version of the show. They don't call it Sasuke though, only Ninja Warrior, which isn't technically incorrect, but would one mention of the original name kill them?

It gets worse when they try to present the only three people to ever achieve Total Victory, or Kanzenseiha as is the Japanese word for it. Sure, they get the basic stats on Akiyama Kazuhiko right, such as his age, height and which Sasuke he won. Well done. But then it gets a little iffy ...

Some are only small errors. Saying he "set a new record" when finishing final stage in Sasuke 4 is of course not wrong, but, er, of course he set a new record, no one else had ever finished it before him! It says he is now known as "Sasuke All-Star", but it isn't mentioned that this is a GROUP of people, not his personal nickname.

Then it says that "Galgfärden" in Sasuke 4 eliminated all other competitors. Galgfärden is the name they use for the Hang Glider in the Swedish competition, and that sure as fuck wasn't a part of Sasuke 4. I think they may mean the Pipe Slider, which no one but Akiyama finished in that one.

But it gets worse! They then inform us that he retired in "Sasuke 18", and isn't likely to return again. While he did retire in Sasuke 18, he has returned in Sasuke 20, 22, 24, 25 and 28. This isn't mentioned at all in the article though, leaving people to believe we haven't seen him since Sasuke 18. We have though, Aftonbladet, we have.

Then we get to the outright lie, stating that Akiyama usually has trouble with the Wall Lifting and the Spider Walk. Sure, he had trouble with the Wall Lifting the first two times he tried it, but never after that. In fact, looking at his stats at Sasukepedia, it is clear that the Warped Wall has brought him much more trouble. And the fucking Spider Walk??? Sasukepedia makes a point to say that he is the only All-Star to NEVER fail the Spider Walk. How can you credit that site as your source of information and then not read it??

As far as I can tell there are no factual errors in the text about Nagano, except he says he won on "the 17th try", which makes it sound like he personally tried seventeen times before winning and we know that's not how it went down.

The last thing is pretty hilarious though. I can see why they got it wrong, because it took me a while to find out what the truth was. However, if you can't find a fact, I don't think it counts as journalism to make some shit up instead of admitting you don't know it. So what is it that they did? They claim that Urushihara Yuuji is only 152 cm tall. At first I couldn't find a good source on this (it's not on Sasukepedia, and we know that is as far as Aftonbladet's research went), but even so THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL!?

If Urushihara is 152 cm, how short would that make Matachi Ryo?? And we know that he is 162, so unless that photo has been brutally manipulated then Urushihara is defintely taller than 152. Then I realized I should be able to find his height in Sasuke 27 where it was stated before everyone's performance, and sure enough, I was right on where I'd find the information, and I was right at guessing he's taller than Matachi Ryo. With one cm, but still:

But idk, actually taking the time to watch something you're writing an article about is clearly too much work, so I guess I'm being way too hard on the person who wrote the article. Making shit up when you don't know the facts is what true journalism is about, after all.

After this the article does have nice graphics of the Ninja Warrior SE stage, and hints as to what stage 2 will include, but given the factual errors we've seen so far I'm not gonna trust that to 100% until I see it on TV.

Should you happen to have Aftonbladet plus and wanna subject yourself to this inaccurate excuse for journalism you can read it here.