Ninja Warrior SE: stage three, part two

As I said, we only saw ~20 minutes (including a commercial break!) of this stage in the last ep, but thanks to Alexander Mars we at least got to see all of it in action. I think this is a pretty good stage, and the three people who attempted it did a lot better than I thought they would. If Kanal5 were to use the Sasuke format for next year, this would make for a perfect stage two. Not Sasuke hard, but a better challenge for the unprepared Swedes.

Source: Kanal5play.se

We start with a Pipe Slider towards a Tarzan Rope. The Pipe Slider is pretty short and unimpressive, but getting on that rope afterwards should've given people more trouble than it did.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Doorknob Grasper, with ropes at the beginning and end. They made this look pretty easy too, but I guess it would be compared to the Arm Rings and Unstable Bridge. It's also in the beginning of the course, so at this point your arms won't be too sore.

Source: Kanal5play.se

The Death Rope. It looked like any other rope, but I suppose the half-moon shape might make it harder than it looks. Maybe. The name is cool though.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Wall Lifting. I didn't pay attention, but I'm guessing it's the same 30-40-50 kg set-up as in Sasuke. You have to pass the last wall in less than a minute or you won't get to go on to the last two obstacles. All three contestants did that in the last ep, with one second to spare for Alexander and David Johansson. Walker Kearney were Asa levels of fast and cleared it in like 30 seconds

Source: Kanal5play.se

Floating Boards. With the heavy rain this became more or less impossible, although Alexander made it through. Possibly witchcraft was involved, we don't know.

Source: Kanal5play.se

The Cliffhanger. Look at that fucking drop, how are you gonna mae that in the rain? Clearly, you weren't. And so close to the end as well. Oh well that's Sasuke for ya!

And that's it, we've seen all the obstacles. We never got to see the tower/Midoriyama, but it was 20-something meters of Rope Climb, unless I'm mistaken. The exact length may have been specified at some point, but I'm to lazy to check if it was 21 or 23 meters. We'll see if anyone gets there next year!

Ninja Warrior SE: stage three, part one

Technically, this is referred to as "stage one" since what we called stage one on the blog is "qualifying round" and stage two is "semifinals". Yeah, why not? Technically this is also just the same stage we've seen a few times by now, but with some modifications. Hey, why change something that works?

As we saw yesterday, this proved to be quite a challenge for the aspiring ninjas anyway, so maybe it's best to ease into it. I'm sort of hoping the course will be brutally upgraded for next season so that everyone who scoffed at how easy it is (myself included), will immediately fail. A girl can dream, right?

Source: Kanal5play.se

Yes, the Quintuple Step - again. You'd think the contestants would be laughing at this by now, but since we actually saw a guy fail it yesterday, you'd be wrong. This just proves one of the things we love about this show, namely that YOU'RE NEVER SAFE.

Source: Kanal5play.se

This obstacle has changed again, and now it is the Tarzan Rope. Probably easier than the Hang Glider, but there's a longer jump which makes it harder to time.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Cross-Bridge is exactly the same.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Source: Kanal5play.se

Since the angle on the Jump Hang isn't the same in the pics it's hard to tell, but to me it felt like it had changed? It looked like a longer jump than in stage two/semis, but they didn't mention it so I guess it wasn't. They could have gone with Jump Hang Kai here though, that would've been fun.

Source: Kanal5play.se

The "Jumping" Spider. We can't say it without the airquotes, because look at it: no trampoline, no half-circle structure, and no distance to the obstacle. Yeah, it's obviously harder than the Spider Walk we saw before this, but compared to Sasuke, it's a joke. Sorry.

Source: Kanal5play.se

The Warped Wall is "four meters and a little more". How much is a little more? No one ever seems to know.

Source: Kanal5play.se

The Salmon Ladder is still here, but this time around you have to climb five steps before you can go on to the ...

Source: Kanal5play.se

Unstable Bridge! Definitely last episode's Ninja Killer. At first people couldn't even deal with the first bridge, but even those who did lost their grip on the second one. One guy almost finished it, but messed up his jump and slipped of the mattress. Classic Sasuke.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Finally we have the Spider Climb, or "the Chimney" as it's called in Swedish. I can't get over that name. Only one dude finished it, but he had trouble since his technique, having one leg bent and one straight, works a lot better on the Spider Walk/Jumping Spider than it does on this one. Study the Japanese ninjas and you'll see how it should be done.

In ep 9 we also got a good look at the next stage, known as stage two, although I'm calling it the finale part two. I'm not making a separate post on it until we see it in action, because I'm not sure about the order of the obstacles, but here's what they'll face:

Source: Kanal5play.se

That's the order (left to right) they were shown in this ep, but they can't be serious about having the Wall Lifting and then two more obstacles??? Not only is that wrong, it might kill someone. Though to be fair, this course will probably kill them all before they even get that far. It's starting with the Pipe Slider to a Tarzan Rope??? And then there's a rope, the Doorknob Grasper, FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER ROPE. Nah, sure, that's totally reasonable, especially given what we've seen so far. Totally.

Oh, and the third obstacle, that half-moon rope-thingy? It's called the Death Rope in Swedish. I haven't found it on Sasukepedia, so I don't know if it's a thing in any of the other Sasuke competitions, but I suggest that we all start using that name, because it's badass.

Also, you might not be able to tell from these pictures, but rain is POURING by this point. I don't know if it still does when the contestants get to them, but if it does ... well, they're fucking screwed, you know? No way will they survive that.

In any case, it seems we have a very interesting last episode to expect. Well, if anyone survives that Pipe Slider, that is.

Until then: sayonara ninja lovers!

Ninja Warrior SE: episode 9 recap

Air date: 19 March 2015

Obstacle fails:

Who failed what obstacle:

As you can see, only one person made it through this round, where we only got to see what is now referred to as "stage one" of "the finale". Since we've always called the try-outs/qualifying round stage one and the semis "stage two", I'll refer to this as "finale: part one" for simplicity's sake. Though nothing is ever simple with these rules. At least it's straight-forward from now on: if you fail, you're out. Your time won't save you, even though they are still counting, for some reason.

__________________________________________________

Chriss & Ell commentary:

After our usual "omg did you see what are favourite Japanese ninjas posted on Twitter today??"-catch up we were both a bit shocked to see that this is the second to last episode. I really thought the finale would span over several episodes, since it was promising to be so awesome: being way more Sasuke than anything else we've seen so far. After seeing so many people fail part one of the finale, I can see why it won't last for more than two episode. Damn. These guys would not last long in Sasuke.

Anyway, we're sad to see the show be over. We may complain a lot about it not being ninja enoughtfor our hipster standards, but we do love the show and it's entertaining us. And, ten eps is longer than any Sasuke episode, so there's that ...

~*~

Chriss: "Batman soundtrack? I approve."

Was definitely about time they stepped up their soundtrack game. Well done!

~*~

We've seen some changes to the stage again, and I'll make a separate post on that later this week (there were more changes than I expected). The Hang Glider is now the Tarzan Rope (easy-peasy), the Spiderwalk is the "Jumping" Spider (we decided that calling it Jumping Spider was over-selling it, see later post) Arm Rings are Unstable Bridge, and the Rope Ladder by the end have become the Spider Climb. Or, as it is known as in Swedish: the Chimney. Terrible name, really.

~*~

Time for Jesper Eriksson, the second person to take on this course.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Chriss: "Haha, his dad's running next to the course just like Mr. Sasuke."

His dad had also expressed doubts about Jesper's ability to clear the course, which kinda sounds like something Mr Sasuke would do (I'm totally making this up, I have no idea what he'd say since I've only seen three of his lines subtitled, like, ever). His dad was right though, as parents tend to be, because Jesper didn't clear it.

~*~

Time fooor:

Source: Kanal5play.se

Ninja Warrior SE's very own Chuck Norris. As you might remember, Adam Alsing (commentator) made a really funny comment last time he tried the course. Apparently Adam doesn't know when to stop, because he tried two different (well, one was basically the same joke as last time) Chuck Norris jokes, and Mårten Nylén (other commentator) didn't even laugh. Quit while you're ahead, Adam, you're better than this.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Adam then informed us that David Marberg has built his own ninja course at his home.

Ell: "We should invite ourselves to work out at his ninja course."

Chriss: "Yep."

Ell: "I'll try flattering him on our blog so he'll like us.

Chriss: "Yeah, write that we like his beard."

Ell: "I'll be all 'oh wooooow you are so much cooler than the real Chuck Norris'."

Chriss: "'Plz let us come train at your ninja course.'"

There you go, David, in case you googled yourself and found this. We can offer you the exclusive opportunity to guest blog here if we can come train at your ninja course!

(Let's be real, we're 90% sure at least one contestant has found this blog by googling themselves. It's okay, we've all been there.)

~*~

Good thing about the Swedish course: I've never understood the design of Unstable Bridge until they specifically pointed out that the second bridge only hangs on two chains instead of four as the first one.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Probably because in Sasuke, they make it look so fucking easy, you never have to consider why it's supposed to be hard. Now, I see why I was wrong when I thought this would be harder than the Arm Rings, because wow, this took down a lot of competitors. Still, this is a second stage obstacle and Arm Rings are a third stage one ... on paper this should be easier!

~*~

Chriss: "I'm starting to think no one will make it past this stage."

Ell: "I wouldn't be surprised if Kanal5 makes sure that at least one of them makes it to Midoriyama. Kinda like how they made sure the Japanese wouldn't win in American Ninja Warrior: USA vs The World."

Chriss: "Wouldn't surprise me, since we know what NBC did."

Ell: "And we never forgot and we never forgave."

~*~

Second to last out: Björn Strömberg.

Source: Kanal5play.se

Adam Alsing: "This guy is far from an idiot."

Charming, Adam, charming. Though he was referring to the fact that Björn probably kept an eye out on the people taking on the course before him, noticing their mistakes.

Adam: "He runs a flower shop with his fiancé. That's not the very ninja."

Ell: "WELL NEITHER IS BEING A SHOE SALESMAN."

Chriss: "AND HE IS THE MOST NINJA SO FAR IN THE WORLD."

We're weirdly protective of Urushihara Yuuji. Who is probably capable of protecting himself. But still. Your job doesn't mean shit here.

Sadly, we won't get a flower shop Ninja Warrior because Björn Strömberg failed the Unstable Bridge, as so many before him.

~*~

And who had the most supporting family? Why, Alexander Mars of course:

Source: Kanal5play.se

Okay, it's not super-obvious here because they refused to line up properly and the guy with the A is wearing a jacket, but yeah, they're wearing tees that spell out his last name. I expect my friends get together to spell out Ell or Hipster depending on how many are there when I get to compete. ;)

It totally worked though, since Alexander was the only person to clear part one this time around. You go, dude! We're rooting for you, we're all rooting for you!

~*~

At first I was pretty sure that someone would at least get to try out Midoriyama, or "part three" of the finale, but now I don't know. They did not do well on this one, and part two? That's a bunch of new obstacle they've never seen before, which leaves me highly skeptical if anyone will actually make it very far on it. What we've seen so far of the finale hasn't been very impressive, and these guys wouldn't survive Sasuke for five minutes.

Speaking of Sasuke, we were informed during the last minutes of the show that if anyone does clear the final stage of the finale (aka Midoriyama) and claims the cash price, they will be invited to participate in Sasuke, kinda like how the Americans were invited when they did well on American Ninja Warrior until the japanese got mad with them (except for Drew Drechsel: the Sasuke people still like Drew, and so do we). That makes me wonder if someone will make it after all, or if they're just building it up for us? Why hasn't it been mentioned before? I'm suspicious.

I guess I could start spamming the Sasuke producers on Twitter to find out if any Swedes have been invited to Sasuke 31, buuut we have not sunk that low in our Sasuke obsession yet, so we won't. We'll wait a week and find out in due time. Until then: sayonara ninja lovers!

New Obstacle ideas

Something with fire, you say, Chriss? I have some really good ideas in that case. They came to me just as I was about to fall asleep, which might not be when you get the best ideas, but I strongly feel that these could make Sasuke's ratings skyrocket, should they use them in Sasuke 31.

First out, I have an idea for a first stage obstacle that would be called something like the Ring of Fire, or Fire Ring, I'm not picky about which one is picked. I'm thinking it should be right before the Jumping Spider, and it would look something like this (excuse my poor Paint skills):

It's simple, really. You jump on the trampoline, dive through the ring of fire, do some kind of somersault and land on the mat like it's no big deal. No loose cloothing on this obstacle, if you know what I'm saying ...

Yes, some people might argue that it would be really dangerous if someone, idk, did something as absurd as catch on fire while attempting this, but I've already got it figured. If you do it correctly, you won't catch on fire, and if you fail and do get lit on fire, then you're just gonna land in the water below and immediately be extinguished. Perfect, right?

Next up is a third stage obstacle based on the Crazy Cliffhanger. I've heard rumors that they want to remove this obstacle, but I think that would be a bad idea when it could be developed into something even better. I'm not sure on the name for this one, since Ultimate and Crazy is making it very hard to come up with something that will really tell you that we're taking the obstacle to the next level, but after careful consideration I've decided to name it the Motherfucking Cliffhanger.

As you can see, it is exactly like the Crazy Cliffhanger, but instead of landing in muddy water when you fail, you fall into a raging inferno. I think this would be the final motivation certain competitors, such as Asa Kazuma, needs to actually finish this obstacle.

Yeah, I'm totally feeling these ideas. Now I just need to find out how much it would cost to send a package to Japan ...