Rambling Rican: Sasuke 23 - Spoilerific Review

SASUKE 23!!

PART TEN

(PART ONE) (PART TWO) (PART THREE) (PART FOUR) (PART FIVE) (PART SIX) (PART SEVEN) (PART EIGHT) (PART NINE)

Sasuke spoilerific review ;) Warning.. incoming blog of Sasuke 23.. if you don’t want to know.. you have been warned :D Please sign the Sasuke DVD Petition! I'd love for EVERYONE to be able to have their own copy of Sasuke to watch at their leisure. For a preview of this event.. Please see SASUKE NAVI FALL 2009 (1 hour review of Sasuke 23 with fluff pieces of all the major players in the upcoming Sasuke!) Oh.. and as Ube says: If you are from the G4 Forums, DON'T POST THIS THERE. They expect everyone to stick their head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist..

UBE'S Sorta-LIVE-BLOG FOR SASUKE 23 IS HERE!

(Massive thanks to Ube for his help on the names in English and Japanese of all the competitors!!)

Before I start the 2nd stage.. remember this picture? The one I was messing with earlier? Got a true translation on this! (this was before Nagano's second run) And as far as Nagano coming out of the tent when he's about to do the first stage again,
Nagano is basically like "Ahh man, again.." and Takeda says "もう一回” (mou ikkai) in a tone that means like "Let's do this, one more time!"
Nothing more than that.

And this one? This was before Nagano's second run
Something funny after that however is when Urushihara and Kanno are talking
Urushihara: But man he's amazing! If he can make it, then....---"
Kanno: Yeah, if he makes it then he's definitely god"
Urushihara: Yeah, he is god!

SECOND STAGE!! There are 16 people here!

TBS reminding us of the first major obstacle that have pwned people in the past. The Salmon Ladder and the Stick Slider (that's the part on top where you dismount).

TBS showing a few deaths by Salmon Ladder. This is Levi Meeuwenberg's from Sasuke 21.

NEW OBSTACLE! This is the Unstable Bridge. As you can see a little from the tester you jump onto a wooden plank (held by 4 chains) and then transition to another wooden plank (held by 2 chains so this can flip around). This replaces the Swing ladder from 22.

Sasuke New Stars. 4 STQ'ers (Sasuke Trials Qualifiers), 1 Qualifier from a beach competition, and 2 returning STQ'ers from Sasuke 22.
Top row: Naoya Tajima 田島直弥, Koji Hashimoto 橋本亘司, Satoshi Nakamura 中村哲, Jun Sato 佐藤惇
Bottom row: Yoshiki Itou 伊藤圭槻, Hitoshi Kanno 菅野仁志 and Yuuji Urushihara 漆原裕治.

STQ'er Naoya Tajima 田島直弥

STQ'er (again) Koji Hashimoto 橋本亘司

STQ'er Satoshi Nakamura 中村哲

STQ'er (again) Jun Sato 佐藤惇

Former STQ'er Hitoshi Kanno 菅野仁志

Former STQ'er Yuuji Urushihara 漆原裕治

The foreigners! Top Row: Taiwan's Lee Yen Chi リー・エンチ, America's Richard King リチャード・キング
Bottom row: Brian Orosco ブライアン・オロスコ and Levi Meeuwenberg リーヴァイ・ミューエンバーグ

The Heroes group - Top Row: All-stars Shingo Yamamoto 山本進悟, Toshihiro Takeda 竹田敏浩 and Makoto Nagano 長野誠
Bottom row: Kenji Takahashi 高橋賢次 and Yoshiyuki Okuyama 奥山義行

Shingo sporting his grey wifebeater™

Takeda changed .. again.. back to his black/red ensemble from earlier since Nagano is wearing his other shirt...

Speaking of other shirt, Nagano is happy he is back in the Second stage after that debacle in the first stage!

Satô Fumiyasu 佐藤文康

Using the same music as they did in Sasuke 22 - Could anyone identify this music??
Edit - I LOVE UBE!! As I was posting this exact blog he posted on the forums this:
The song is "Operation Room" from the PS3 game Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight (known as Crossfire in the United States)

Richard King リチャード・キング

Looks like he put some pants on :p

First obstacle is the Downhill Jump

Second obstacle is the Salmon Ladder. A little slow but not bad.

3rd obstacle is the Stick Slider. (As you can see.. the bar now has something on it to keep you from failing it.. like Okuyama did in Sasuke 20.

This is the 4th obstacle the Unstable Bridge.

Oh crap.. He flipped the second plank...

Yep.. it rotated... Richard King - Death by Unstable Bridge

Levi and Brian lament the loss

Showing how difficult this simple obstacle is actually. Since the chains are supported differently for each plank the strategy hasn't been figured out yet on how to approach it. Unfortunately Richard was the guinea pig on this one..

"I think I got a little in my head about that".

Shingo.. well.. Being Shingo now that he's confident enough that he will make the 3rd stage tells the group "Welcome to the harsh reality of Sasuke".

Naoya Tajima 田島直弥 is up next!

UP YOURS.. er.. Representin'..

Oh crap.. he's having all sorts of issues...

And the problems continue..

Okay.. more hokey pokey..

Okay he got it straight now..

Oh crap.. down he goes.. Naoya Tajima 田島直弥 - Death by Salmon Ladder

Koji Hashimoto 橋本亘司 already on deck for his run.

Naoya Tajima 田島直弥 doesn't get the Female Head Tilt™ either..

Koji Hashimoto 橋本亘司 finally gets to the 2nd stage after 3 straight Qualifying competitions

Fanclub includes Tomohiro Kawaguchi on the far left with yellow sneakers..

Koji mounts the Salmon Ladder

... and WTF???? Wait.. what happened.. I think I blinked...

Omg .. what happened? It happened so fast! (wow he's pissed..)

His poor Mom (I can only assume it's his Mom)

Shingo, Kenji and Kanno are in shock

I think Shingo blinked too...

Koji is still seething.. wtf happened?

K he was on the Salmon Ladder...

Uh.. on the first impact of him missing the 2nd rung.. he just snapped off the bar

Yeah this was his push to the 2nd rung...

And I guess he either wasn't prepared for the force or he just had a lapse of concentration and loosened his grip.

Thanks Rider for the .gif

Koji Hashimoto 橋本亘司.. I hope he comes back for Sasuke 24! Death by Salmon Ladder

Crap.. they are fast forwarding again.. Satoshi Nakamura 中村哲 is on the Salmon Ladder..

He's having issues.. wait.. hold on.. did they stop his run??

K he lost control towards the top..

Oh! Ube says that he used his foot to support himself on the Salmon Ladder. That's against rules.. so we have our first Disqualification ever on Salmon Ladder.

Satoshi Nakamura 中村哲 appologizing for his DQ.. wow they used Pink words for it..

STILL on fast forward.. Jun Sato 佐藤惇 is up next..

Poor STQ'ers didn't get their day in the sun.. they fast-forwarded through both of their runs..

Oh crap.. he pulled back too far and fell off the tracks

Jun Sato 佐藤惇 - Death by Salmon Ladder

Thanks Rider for the .gif

Jun Sato 佐藤惇 is just gutted :( He was the last of the 2009 Fall Sasuke Trial Qualifiers.

Crap.. still on Fast forward.. Yoshiki Itou 伊藤圭槻 the Qualifier from the MRT Beach competition

Yoshiki Itou 伊藤圭槻 - Death by Salmon Ladder as well!!

Yuuji is not liking what he's seeing...

Next is Brian Orosco ブライアン・オロスコ who was defeated on the Salmon Ladder back in Sasuke 21

Brian returns to the Second Stage. Will he avenge his loss from the last time?

Hope he doesn't have a hangover.. :p

OH crap.. problems already..

He's pushing.. but he's struggling through this thing.. still hanging on though..

Phew.. cleared Salmon Ladder and Stick Slider but look at the time.. he's lost a lot of time on it.

K he's the next person to get to the Unstable Bridge

Wow he's taking a long time but maybe he's got the hang of this thing. he managed to get to the other plank.

K just the dismount at this point

OH NO! He's lost his balance and is going Backwards!!!

Brian Orosco ブライアン・オロスコ - Death by Unstable Bridge.

Levi lamenting Brian's loss (had another Don't read lips moment..).

Takeda (who seems to have perfected the Perpetually perplexed look™), Nagano genuinely shocked and Yuuji who can't be feeling all that confident all watch the 7th STRAIGHT elimination.. NO one has passed the Unstable Bridge!

I can almost see the Nagano depression already building up.

Brian Orosco ブライアン・オロスコ still smiling after all that

"I've gotten further every single time I come. So.. I'm still happy"

Kenji Takahashi 高橋賢次 is up next! He hasn't been in the 2nd Stage since Sasuke 18!!

Nice to see they are not going to fast forward through his run this time either. Geez.. has to be a record.. they always fast forward his runs.. or at least part of it..

Kenji destroying the Salmon Ladder... he's uber confident since he's been practicing the hell out of these obstacles.

.. okay.. now for the Unstable Bridge...

Oh.. nice and steady.. he's kinda inching his way quickly at an even pace.

Okay.. trying to dismount like Brian did...

FARK! Commercials.. grumble.. Grumble...

We're back! Okay he survived! 5th obstacle is the Metal Spin!

Getting ready for the run up...

Good he's caught it...

WHOOT he's on the last obstacle! The Wall Lift! (First wall is 30kg = approx. 66 pounds / Second wall is 40 kg = approx. 88 pounds / Last wall is 50kg = approx. 110 pounds)