Monday, May 21, 2007

Ninja Warrior (aka "SASUKE") on G4---awesome tv!

Left to right: Shiratori, Nagano, Yamamoto, and Takeda (SASUKE ALL STARS)


So this past weekend on G4 (one of my sis fave channels ever) I watched a marathon (part of it) of the Japanese TV Show "Ninja Warrior" or "Sasuke" サスケ held in Midoriyama, Japan. I was hooked! I have watched it here and there for the last few months. But we really got to watch many episodes of it.

There is a kids version, seniors, womens and of course regular version. It has been in Japan for over decade. This show tests the phyisical capacity of a person---strength, flexibility and balance. For women's Ninja Warrior it is less about strength but more agility, balance, flexibility. There are several stages of this obstacle course, Olympians, stars, comedians, and regular people have gotten the "Sasuke" fever that they have even made the obstacle course replicas in their own homes!!!!! There are four stages! Everytime a seasons starts, filmed over three days, there are 100 competitors (you have to qualify to make it to the top 100) then a rare amount make it to stage 2, stage 3 and the final stage to race to the top and be NINJA warrior! There first stage is timed, second is timed and the third is not with the final stage a timed race to the top!

In all the seasons of Ninja Warrior only two men have made it to the final stage out of 18 seasons!!!! Season four was a fisherman Kazuhiko Akiyama (he could never do it again despite trying mulitple times) and season 17 Sasuke Veteran and sea captain Makoto Nagano As for Ninja Warrior for women a petite nimble acrobat dancer Ayako Miyake has been successful in making it three times in a ROW!

My sis was glued to the tv as she was saying she had never seen so many buff Asians in one place in her life! (I told her you have never gone to a Dragon Boating competition). I love that they use the original Japanese announcers and subtitle the show. I would have not liked it as much if they dubbed over the Japanese announcer. Plus since I studied Japanese before, I get some Japanese listening practice in too!

For more info check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_Warrior
http://www.g4tv.com/ninjawarrior/index.html

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