Wednesday, March 21, 2007

新SASUKE 2007春! On! Tonight! (plus G4 tantalizes viewers of Ninja Warrior!)

Well, in about five hours a nation's pain will come to end as TBS will air the latest edition of SASUKE! (Or Ninja Warrior to G4 viewers). The last competition was aired on October 11, 2006 and since then TBS and Monster 9 have decided that they should overhaul SASUKE (to the point of virtually blowing up the final stage):
鋼鉄の魔城がついに陥落!

あれから半年・・・生まれ変わったSASUKEの新ステージがいよいよ登場!
(I can't give a good word for word translation but basically, "The previous challenge has been conquered and now, half a year later a new SASUKE stage has been born!")

They go on to ask of the first stage: "Will there be a jump hang?" "What of the rolling log?" "Is SASUKE All-Star Nagano not the 100th entrant?" "What about loser boy ?" Oops. That last one is supposed to be "What about Katsumi Yamada?"

We will find out from 6:55!

I will try to do a sort of live blog of the show. At the very least I will have results up after the show is finished. Stay tuned!

Extra: So what is a SASUKE fan to do when there is no SASUKE? Well, there are a couple of things:
We know about the Sportsman No. 1 competition on New Years Day.
But also there is the Muscle Musical which features several SASUKE and KUNOICHI (SASUKE's female only competition) participants. It was partially created to give earlier SASUKE flame-outs something to do.
And you can always go to the Muscle Park! It's an indoor mini-theme park based with various games based on SASUKE et al that adults and kids can try. And you can have the Monster Burger! which is based on the Monster Box competition from Sportsman No. 1.

Extra the Second: So on G4 TV's website on their Ninja Warrior page (let it be noted that I wish they had kept the original name) they mention that new episodes would be airing from the 19th of March. Now, we know the following points:
SASUKE is pre-taped.
It will be aired in Japan on the 21st of March.
G4 was there and did a behind the scenes look at the 18th competition.
Thus, lots of people (myself included) assumed that the new episodes were going to be of the 18th competition.
Well, G4 promised new episodes of Ninja Warrior. People got new episodes of Ninja Warrior. But new episodes of Ninja Warrior are not the same as new episodes of SASUKE. G4 has gone back and subbed and dubbed past competitions and is airing them, perhaps in a run-up to the 18th SASUKE. Viewers were confused and mildly annoyed. I was mildly amused because that means I still get to see the show before almost everyone else. Heh.

Oh, I should add that SASUKE is broadcast as a single three hour program in Japan, not in half-hour episodes like on G4. The live blog will attempt to cover the whole program which means SPOILERS!

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