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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!