Muscle Musical returns to Las Vegas, Nevada

Muscle Musical - Las Vegas 2009 announcement ©Monster 9

As I had posted back in June, Muscle Musical (created by Monster 9 - the creators of Sasuke and Kunoichi) are bringing their show back to the Las Vegas Strip. Some time had gone by without any updates but today both the Muscle Musical site and the The Imperial Palace in Las Vegas both showed the dates of the show. It starts this Friday, July 31st and runs through next year.

Muscle Musical seems like they will be splitting the normal cast (and even a few of the MM participants in Sasuke) since the summer show back in Japan is going on during the same time. This means perennial Sasuke participant Naoki Iketani will not be going to Las Vegas this year. Daisuke Nakata will be also be in the Muscle Musical back in Japan.

As I mentioned before perennial Sasuke performers will still be a the Las Vegas show starting this Friday. The list of participants (it's split between male and female and as of yet there are no photos) are in the latter pages of the website still in Kanji. From the names I was able to figure out:

Males: (noted which Sasuke's that I have blogged where they were participants)

Katayama Keitaro 片山敬太郎 - Sasuke 21

Tatsumi 龍美 - Sasuke 21 and Sasuke 22

Wan Jen 王健 - Sasuke 21

Yasuaki Yoshikawa 吉川泰昭 - Sasuke 21 and Sasuke 22

Takayuki Kawashima 川島孝幸 - Sasuke 21 and Sasuke 22 also a SASUKE 1 finalist

Tomoyo Haga 芳賀友也 - Sasuke 21 and Sasuke 22

Females:

Hiroyo Shimada 島田裕代 - Sasuke 22

It's nice to see a few names I recognize (especially recent Sasuke's I've blogged) getting an opportunity to perform in Las Vegas! Hopefully they will enjoy their stay here in the United States and get an opportunity to meet the Sasuke community! If you get a chance to head to Las Vegas check out Muscle Musical!

Beach sports Miyazaki Prefecture Competition 2009

Beach sports Miyazaki Prefecture Competition 2009 Banner ©MRT

As I blogged about before, this weekend was the Beach Sports Miyazaki Prefecture Competition in Miyazaki City, Japan. This marked the first qualifier (that I know of) for Sasuke 23. The event was unfortunately rained on all day. Even from where I am in South Jersey I checked the weather reports and saw friggin thunderstorms rolling in the area. I logged in the following day and sure enough Ube was there to find the first set of pictures from the event. Did I explain how much I love Ube? Yes yes.. I do :) He's awesome :D

Makoto Nagano (L) and Toshihiro Takeda (R) pose with competitors of the MRT Beach Competition ©JoyFit Blog

First and foremost Akiyama wasn't there :( Even knowing that ahead of time I was still hoping he would show up since the MRT site still had him listed. Either way, Nagano and Takeda were still there. They sported their own shirts with their names on them. Soaked like puppies in the rain.. Takeda .. still.. looked the same.. LOL Maybe because he is constantly sporting the "wet-look" hairdo he's famous for.. I don't know.. and btw.. why does Nagano always look like he's protecting his privates in these pictures?? LOL Still.. I can't believe I'm finding Takeda looking hot today.. dunno.. maybe because he let his eyebrows grow in a little and they don't look "pretty" anymore :p I feel myself digressing badly.

Makoto Nagano posing with another competitor ©Personal Blog

Ube found 2 blogs (technically 3 since one of them (the picture below) referred to his friend (the picture above) who posed with Nagano after his demise from the competition. The first blog was of a lady from Miyazaki who had the group picture shown above who apparently at least survived the Beach Flags competition (it's unsure if she's going to post more after that right now).

Makoto Nagano and Toshihiro Takeda ©Personal Blog (hey.. those are the same shorts from last year Takeda :p Makoto went shopping ;p )

The next 2 blogs were friends who went together. The second blog Ube found had the picture above where he was pissed he lost the beach flags. He also had the great picture above of Takeda (complete with sporting water bottle in his pants pocket) and Nagano (who apparently has a nervous tick and keeps grabbing his pants). Granted I can't complain about Nagano wearing black to the beach again.. the sun wasn't out to burn him this time around although he's already quite tan from the summer. This is also the blog that had pictures of food they had that day.. and home of one of the great bablefish disasters of all time "This is what behavior EMO cattle." Apparently Miyazaki, Japan is home of the EMO cattle :p ahhahahahaah Ehem.. anyway the third blog was of his friend who apparently was jealous of Nagano's magnificent arms.. "Nagano's thick arms Oh ~ ~ ！ ! ！ ! " because HE lost in the Arm wrestling portion of the competition :p

Note that the air date for this event is actually on August 8th (2 PM local time). Still unsure if it's going to be MRT only? or part of Sasuke Navi in TBS..

The only photos published from the event by MRT ©MRT

Stretch that groin.. er.. legs.. Nagano and Takeda doing morning exercises to loosen up before the event.

Later in the September Ube found this for me :) A blog with pictures from the actual event :D OH! and high quality photos :D

Takeda and Nagano - HQ version of the picture above.

Kunoichi 8 IS Kunoichi 8

Logo from the official Kunoichi 6 TBS site ©TBS 2006

After I read on the Monster 9 site that there was a new Kunoichi tournament there has been rumors flying around that it was not in fact Kunoichi. People expressed concerns that it might not be since they didn't come out and name it Kunoichi but instead called it "Female Sasuke". I then emailed back Monster 9 and withing 24 hours they wrote back with this message.

It is a new version of KUNOICHI. It is not a part of SASUKE.

Any more details have not been decided yet.

Thank you.

Rest assured.. this is Kunoichi 8. It might actually look kinda different but it is the next installment of the 7 year old series that M9 has been producing. And as previous history can attest.. it may be sometime around October or later. Depends when they can organize it. This has to be one of the earliest times they have ever announced it - I think partly to our email campaign from the past 10 months.

P.S. This is the email I wrote to them (to help clarify):

There seems to be a little bit of confusion with the new update

Some fans are confused with the update. It doesn't say "Kunoichi" but it says "Female Sasuke". Is it really Kunoichi 8? or a renamed competition? Or is this a part of Sasuke 23? Any clarification would be most appreciated.

So as you can see.. this.. IS.. Kunoichi.. not a new competition. Think of it this way.. Sasuke 23.. is NEW..

Kunoichi 8 - Official Announcement

Logo from the official Kunoichi 6 TBS site ©TBS 2006

After we found out that Kunoichi 8 was canceled for 2008 there was a genuine fear that the Women's Sasuke event that is known as Kunoichi (And Women of Ninja Warrior in the USA) was officially canceled. The fears arose from the mass exit of former Muscle Musical stars defecting to their own show last year which included 3-time and defending champion Ayako Miyake. I figured M9 wasn't sure what to do with this problem of their defending champion not returning and the fact that they were cutting down on shows (since they also canceled the Celebrity version of Sportsman #1 for the first time last year). Since we got an English version of Monster 9's address and we had an email that worked (and they did return some emails back in English to fans in the USA) we at Sasuke Maniacs Forums did a massive email campaign to Monster 9 (the Creators of Sasuke and Kunoichi, etc.) about making some sort of announcement since we were not sure there would even BE another Kunoichi.

M9 finally emailed me back this week with a couple replies to previous questions and I replied back with my usual last questions that arose from the last correspondence. Kunoichi's fate was one of them. Today (since I check their site every single day for new updates) we FINALLY got an announcement about the fate of Kunoichi 8! Similar to Sasuke 23's announcement (and they even share the same page now on the M9 site) they are asking for applications to be sent directly to Monster 9 and not TBS again.

Incoming bablefish disaster!!! (Official Link to the original here)

"Great recruiting female participants SASUKE"

SASUKE decision also female! (Details will be announced later)

Great looking women who play in limited.

We think that women and Susumu Hayo,E!

[Wanted] Large players

"Female SASUKE" big recruiting participants!
And enthusiasm for playing sports history Name Age Address Occupation
Applicants please write your address below. "Photo" or "VTR" please enclose.

Monster 9 Inc. 18F Shibuya Inforce Tower 20-1 Sakuraoka cho Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0031 "FemaleSASUKE" seeking entry clerk

Looking for the players!

A couple things to note. Monster 9 is handling the applications.. (please note new address) AND as of this date.. there is no deadline. This is definitely expected since Sasuke 23 is first and it's a large competition to have to handle. Where the part of "Looking for the players" is set at the end.. the previous time it said the actual deadline. Given that it is early.. they probably don't have a set date from TBS yet but are at least acknowledging that they ARE having another tournament. THIS is awesome news :D

I fully expect this to be sometime in October or even later.
Edit: August 23, 2009 - The taping to Kunoichi 8 is officially September 2nd!

Anyone else getting excited? :D