Monday, September 29, 2008

SASUKE MANIAC September 28, 2008 Last of the liveblogs? サスケマニア

Last week! We saw a bit more about SASUKE 21! This week we'll get a bit more behind the scenes! And..the last SASUKE Maniac? Say it ain't so Joe!

It's the season of change as one of the JSpo announcers is moving on to other things! Not that I know what her name is and where she's going but OK.

Bloody Monday starts 10/11!

Aww. Why did the show with the Arashi guy change their music? Where's my Space Oddity?

Here we go!

The SASUKE All-Stars were at Muscle Park!

The All-Stars are heroes! We see their trials and tribulations over the years.

OF COURSE we get the Yamada crying clip.

And Nagano finishing the course. And the dip!

Namonakiasuri-to!

And here we are at SASUKE Fall 2008! The SASUKE Trial Qualifiers! I told you they were pushing them as a type of successor group to the All-Stars.

There was much crying that day.

SASUKE Mania! Final!

We see a recap of the SASUKE Trial for 21. From 80 to 33! From 33 to 8! Casey Cummings! We see the people who didn't make it. And the gradual movement downwards the stage of some of the competitors.

If SASUKE is going to develop new All-Stars, these guys are the ones that "fit" the profile.

Ishimaru drops wisdom! Kubota Takayuki! He slips on the Half-Pipe Attack! It would start a chain reaction that would take out all the Trial Qualifiers.

Hashimoto Koji cleared the Half-Pipe Attack but is conquered by the Soritatsu-Kabe.

And Murakami! Does the same!

Sato Jun! He's 16! He's an extreme sportsman! Unfortunately, he doesn't get all the way across for the Log Grip.

Asa Kazuma! We see a bit more of this run. He cleared the Half-Pipe Attack (iikanji says an All-Star) with no problem but times out on the Soritatsu-Kabe.

And then only three were left! Had any one of the STQers made it to the 2nd Stage it would have made for a great story but...

Matachi Ryo! He gets a bit farther than the others as he got past the Soritatsu Kabe only to fall reaching for the rope ladder to the platform on the Flying Chute.

Kawaguchi Tomohiro! He trains with his wife watching on! His wife is nervous! Oy vey man, don't talk about the button just yet!

Shingo thinks he can do it!

And then...Kawaguchi can't keep his balance after the Half-Pipe Attack. Tsugi challenge shimasu says the wife!

And of course the last was Miyagi Takuya, Mr. SASUKE's Assassin.

Mr. SASUKE dispenses a bit of advice at the end but...

He hit the Jumping Spider wrong and that was it for the STQers.

We then see them apologize for their collective failure. Tears are shed. They want to try again! Together!

Bunpei Shiratori!

A brief history of Bunpei! He made it to the Final Stage. And of course the classic comeback after getting put down by the heat.

But like the other All-Stars, he had problems after 17. And then he was too injured to participate.

Lee Yen Chi! Brian Orosco! They were the first to make it to the 2nd Stage!

Then Shingo fell! Shinji Kobayashi sighting!

Let's look at Bunpei's run again! It seemed like a struggle for him but he did it! It was a triumphant comeback!

And there were many smiles by the All-Stars!

Three made it to the 3rd Stage! We will see them next!

CMs.

Back!

Miyazaki! Fell at the Devil Steps!

Takeda! Fell at the Hang Climbing!

Nagano! Fell at the Gliding Ring!

The three of them had a good time!

Next year! SASUKE 22!

108 episodes! of SASUKE Maniac!

And we see highlights from the shows over the years. Lots of cheering! Lots of tears! Lots of different stuff I've never seen before!

One last plug for the keitai game!

And that's it for SASUKE Maniac.

As it was hinted to at the top of this liveblog, tonight is the last episode of SASUKE Maniac! Why? Some will invariably point to the low rating SASUKE 21 got, a 12.2 in the Kantou area. SASUKE 20 got a rating of 14.4 which was the lowest rated SASUKE ever until, well, 21. In both cases, SASUKE ran against a Quiz Hexagon special. Quiz Hexagon is one of the most popular shows on TV right now so the decision to try to run 21 against it even after they got creamed during 20 is bizzare. Why not try to switch it with DOORS? A Sunday SASUKE might draw a bit better than doggedly sticking to Wednesdays. In any case, we don't have the full story about everything yet. For the time being though, SASUKE will recede to the background until next year.

Note: SASUKE Maniac was and has only ever been a Kanto area show. It was never broadcast on any other TBS affiliate across the country.

3 comments:

Arsenette said...

Thanks Ube for that! Going to work on my blog (got my McDonald's fix...) it's still sad even if a small amount of people were even seeing it (I Knew you never did since you are out of that area and the only way you saw it was through KeyHole, TVU and LiveStream).

Anonymous said...

So, wait. All those people cut from the airing, and the mysterious number 95, ... may be a "Secret to Everybody" ?!

What madness.

Arsenette said...

http://ramblingrican.blogspot.com/2008/09/sasuke-maniac-september-28-29-2008.html

Finally got it done..

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