Rambling Rican: Sasuke Rising (28) Navi

Title for Navi - Sasuke Rising: 放送直前スペシャル
(housou chokuzen special) {Chokuzen is "immediately before"}

It's that time again! This is Sasuke Navi 「SASUKE」ナビ- which is a 1 hour special promoting Sasuke Rising (better known to us as Sasuke 28! Previous Sasuke Navi's can always be found on my site (Sasuke Navi 27, Sasuke Navi 26, Sasuke Navi 25, Sasuke Navi 24, Sasuke Navi 23, Sasuke Navi 22 and Sasuke Navi 21). Massive thanks to Jason again for helping us with the paid service (WIST) and to scnoi and blt (from SMF) for hosting a stream for the community. Massive thanks for Jams for helping us all out in getting a clean copy of the show so I can do this blog! Thanks to Bret for his help with some last minute kanji and translations! Everyone watching online at that time (and remembered the right date.. LOL) is what makes this experience so fun! Btw.. mental note I'm going to take my time with these blogs.. I don't want to get sick. LOL

As you can tell from the frequency of blogs of late that THERE IS A TOURNAMENT COMING! This is the special everyone was waiting for and it's finally here! The tournament preview show starts right at the dramatic night line up in front of the Final Stage Tower. This was in all of the commercials, teasers, etc. aired so far and prominent here.

As it has been said already this is the LAST tournament with the Sasuke All-Stars. The 5 here represented are (Left to right) Sasuke All Stars Kazuhiko Akiyama 秋山和彦, Toshihiro Takeda 竹田敏浩, Shingo Yamamoto 山本進悟, (Mr. Sasuke) Katsumi Yamada 山田勝己 and Makoto Nagano 長野誠 (Bunpei was not present)

TBS Facebook posted the above pic as a wallpaper.. Drool...

Immediately they show Stage 2 lit up dramatically. There have been stark changes to this stage including a huge addition that contrasts it from years past.

We get a spoiler highlight reel right from the top of the show! Wipeout at the Rolling Escargot..

Another at the ~~Cannonball Run from Viking~~... er... er.. sorry.. Spin bridge

And another from the new Jump Hang-type obstacle that had me perplexed for a while

And HERE IT IS!.. We've been calling it the "water tank" for a little while now since we didn't have a name for it.. but THIS is the new Stage 2 obstacle in Sasuke. Now you have to SWIM in stage 2.. wow... poor bastards who can't swim (or can't swim fast) will be crying looking at that..

And the moneyshot of the tournament: (Left to right) Sasuke All Stars Kazuhiko Akiyama 秋山和彦, Toshihiro Takeda 竹田敏浩, Shingo Yamamoto 山本進悟, (Mr. Sasuke) Katsumi Yamada 山田勝己 and Makoto Nagano 長野誠 Take a good look folks.. this is the last time you'll see them compete!

As expected they will be spending some quality time going through the history of Sasuke and the Sasuke All-stars. Starting with All-Star (Mr. Sasuke) Katsumi Yamada 山田勝己 (I'm not even going to try to name the tournaments these clips are from. It's not important anyway :) )

And All-Star Kazuhiko Akiyama 秋山和彦

All-Star Shingo Yamamoto 山本進悟

All-Star Toshihiro Takeda 竹田敏浩

All-Star Makoto Nagano 長野誠

Sasuke All-stars (with Bunpei Shiratori 白鳥文平 in the middle) celebrating Nagano's win.

And just to highlight.. not all was pretty with the All-stars. Now TBS takes the time to explain how much they have been sucking lately.. LOL Here's Akiyama totally whiffing on the Half Pipe Attack.

And one of the plank fails of Shingo.. This one being the most painful because he actually CLEARED before his feet tripped him up..

And who can forget the dramatic Warped Wall time out that retired (again) Yamada from a couple tourney's back. (yes.. he's back again and this time didn't have to beg)

TBS interviewing Yamada.. probably being cruel right now..

Akiyama just laughing off whatever he was asked

Akiyama running on the beach in a gorgeous winter backdrop

Takeda in a gym

LOL Nagano's shot looks washed out.. he's running

And Yamada working out at home... dressed up

And yes people are running with pads on their elbows and knees

Speaking of pads.. you place your breasts gently against.. wow could you imagine the male dominated crew rushing to see the camera on this obstacle right about now? LOL

And a top down view of the new Jump Hang.. yes.. another whiffing

Who's cuisine will reign supreme? Crap.. wrong show.. Oh btw the title came right about here.

Just to let you know they used this commercial over and over and over again. The full version was part of the 2 minute All-Star trailer I blogged about earlier in the month.

We're back and they start at the beginning again. Sasuke 1. A project spin off from Kinniku Banzuke back in 1997. One could argue that Sasuke became a lot more famous than it's parent show Banzuke. Btw a little known fact (for those who never followed the original and only listened to G4's horrible dub that was often wrong.. Sasuke's course has always been referred to in Japan as the Iron Castle)

Still showing history of the course over the years (no I didn't post all clips)

Now we are up to 2012. After a long year and a half absence here we are!

The new stage 2! We've got spotlights coming out of the wazzu!

And we got a new chick alert.. Seems we are going to be talking about obstacles already!

And .. oh that's what Inui was talking about. The CG of the First Stage introduction.

Seems they are just highlighting certain features. As you know this is the ~~Cannonball Run from Viking~~... er... er.. sorry.. Spin Bridge スピンブリッジ in Stage 1.

I actually love this obstacle from the first time I saw it on Viking. I'm so happy it's back. Unlike the bouncy wtf disaster of ANW4.. it's nice to see the original come back with a new polish.

Here they are showing what the old Jump Hang ジャンプハング looks like. There have been a few variations on it and a lot of mixing of this obstacle with something else.

This.. is the new iteration of that thing. It's called the Jump Hang Kai ジャンプハング改 and it's basically the Jump Hang with 2 cargo nets facing away from each other. Originally in the earlier video angles provided it looked like the pipes supporting it were vertical but they are horizontal.

Seems straight forward enough.. pick a side and jump .. splash.. yeah.. trying to grab a smaller surface area because it's sideways is going to reaaaally kill a lot of people!

Here it is in reverse (and testing/building phase) where someone tries to grab it from one side

Here's another staple of Sasuke. The Soritatsu Kabe (そり立つ壁) of what I got used to calling it - the Warped Wall because of the G4 broadcasts.

Well damn.. now there's TWO of them. Here's the *Ni Ren Soritatsu Kabe 2連そり立つ壁 or what I call the Double Warped Wall. G4 is dead so I can call it that if I want :p Bite me. basically you start off with the a lower wall

and you end up with the normal size wall everyone is used to. Only.. back to back. The block in black you see on the left is where the firepole is to drop down from the first wall into the well of the second wall.

And there you have it. People who had a lot of trouble with the walls (Cough.. Yamada.. cough) will have a heart attack when they see THIS in their path..

Okay. Now for Second Stage highlights!

It's that chick again..

Ya'll remember the Double Salmon Ladder ダブルサーモンラダー

Where you go up one full side then jump and continue another set of rungs up the other side?

Well.. where you TRIED to go up the other side..

Well.. we are going to make it different. Instead of going up one side completely..

They want you to go up jumping across in intervals over and over until you reach the top.

And there you have it. The Swap Salmon Ladder スワップ・サーモンラダー

As you can tell from the building of the obstacle that unlike the CG of the obstacle.. the rungs do not pop in and out.. it's a solid set of rungs. The graphic was to show the direction they want you to go up.

At least that's my take on it. The suckers are bolted in as such. I think the SMF kids are taking the graphic too much to heart. Though we'll see shortly if any of us interpreted the graphic correctly on Thursday. I'm also curious if you are allowed to outright jump the rungs if you can do it.. You know.. the way Keita Tomino 富野恵太 (Cliffer #4) did like 3 years ago? LOL

Edit: I asked the director.. he laughed and said no you can't.. ahahahhahahahaha

So that's one of the major changes to Stage 2.

I see Wall Lifting ウォールリフティング still finishes the stage.

And.. here is what has people going nuts on the SMF boards.

THIS is what we called the Water Tank (in the absence of a name given before). But it's actually called the Back stream バックストリーム

Back stream is a water tank with jets of water (presumably to give you current resistance?) as you go across the water to the next obstacle.

TBS provided this photo today as a "countdown to Sasuke" on their Facebook page. This is an example of someone inside the back stream in action.

Onwards to the 3rd stage highlights!

In the past they've given you variations of the Cliffhanger (btw.. why is perennial favorite Yoshiyuki Okuyama 奥山義行 NOT in Sasuke? Wtf..)

Now.. we have the Crazy Cliffhanger クレイジークリフハンガー

Yes you heard me right.. This is the Crazy Cliffhanger.. why is it called Crazy??

THAT is why.. it's been mixed with the Spider Flip where you have to JUMP from one cliffhanger ledge to another Cliffhanger ledge BEHIND YOU!

Now.. what I find amusing in this whole thing is that I've seen this before.. again.. built by the Cliffers in their endless pursuit of Cliffhanger domination.

I put this up so you can see about how wide the jump is with someone on it.

Usually perspective of the cameras can't exactly show distance very well.

Oh.. and for the record.. those of us who have been following SuperSheep's SIM Sasuke.. THIS IS SHIN CLIFFHANGER ELITE (SCHE).. that's all I have to say.. so technically there are 2 people that should get royalties for this obstacle.. LOL

ANYWAY.. those are the highlights in Sasuke. Are you pumped yet?

Up next are the profiles of the retiring Sasuke All-stars

(Insert of commercial clip that played over and over) Akiyama with his 2 boys.

Anyway we are back with the remaining 5 Sasuke All-stars. If you want to get technical.. the original ones as Bunpei was added last but first to retire.

Akiyama video showing how difficult it is for him to actually see (He has degenerative retinoschisis)

and stock footage of him training at home

And Stock footage of Takeda who is no longer a fire fighter LOL

And Shingo who no longer works at the gas station

Yamada who still sells beer because he still doesn't have a real job..

And superstar Nagano who has been traveling the world

And meeting Prime Ministers

Shingo.. wow this is old. He looks the same though.. that's scary..

Takeda with what we now consider to be an easy cliffhanger LOL

Nagano when he used to not dye his hair every 10 seconds and had his original teeth..

Akiyama at the original Jump hang

Yamada's last and only taste of the final.. so close..

Shingo being bored and playing with his middle finger..

Takeda looking like he needs a nap..

Yamada from previous years

All-star constant reaction.. "Gaaaaaaaah.."

The next section is the All-star section. I decided to break this up into the next blog but here is the preview until I post the new entry. Sasuke All-star Kazuhiko Akiyama 秋山和彦 (whom you remember is my favorite Sasuke competitor) who hails from a tiny village off of the north end of Hokkaido, Japan. Where it snows... a lot..

Akiyama is 39 years old (He'll be 40 in January)

Takeda is 37 years old

He's the baby of the All-stars a full decade younger than Yamada

Nagano is my age 40 years old

Wow the camera they used on him is so washed out.. it looks .. weird..

As I mentioned before, Yamada is 47 years old

LOL he hears cars coming..

And decides to stop trying to do pull ups so damn close to the side of the road.. he's about to get run over.. ahahahhahaha I guess that's quite the additional hazard of having such a thing so close to the roadside.

And finally Shingo is 38 years old now

LMFAO on TBS being bastards about this.. The average age of the All-stars is 40.2 years old! ZOMG... open the nursing home!

Mini commercial again this time with just the All-stars. Takeda and Akiyama doing the secret handshake.. can't tell with the damn chyron in the way LOL