SASUKE 22 is coming soon! SASUKE 2009春!

While arsenette over at Rambling Rican has been all over the SASUKE 22 information I figured I should get a post up just to remind those who don't venture outside my blog for SASUKE stuff (whoever that might be).

The dirt:

Airing info-

SASUKE 2009春 will be aired on TBS (and it's affiliates) from 20:00 to 23:24 JST on Monday, March 30th, 2009. There will be a short preview (probably only five minutes long, not the full ten minutes - they need time for commercials) for those in the central Japan area at 19:50.

There is also a SASUKEナビ (SASUKE Navi) on Sunday, March 29th from 14:00 to 15:00 JST. Again, this will only be available to select areas in Japan (boo!).

The participants:

The All-Stars

We'll just assume that -

山田勝己 Yamada Katsumi ("Mr. Somethingorother")
山本進悟 Yamamoto Shingo
秋山和彦 Akiyama Kazuhiko
竹田敏浩 Takeda Toshihiro
長野誠 Nagano Makoto
白鳥文平 Shiratori Bunpei

will be there. Well, actually, we know that Takeda, Akiyama and Nagano were there. If that's a recent picture on Hiromichi Sato's site. Well, Takeda and Akiyama for sure.

More comedians than you can shake a stick at

Yikes. There are A LOT of comedians participating this year. And, this may be good or bad, but many of them are more established comedians, rather than the up-and-comers that sometimes appear. Good in that it brings more star power. Bad in that it might be a sign that TBS has to resort to variety programming stunt casting to get more viewers. Anyway, a list (and where we got the info!):

Nochi of Dangerous デンジャラス　ノッチ says so here. He's best known as the guy who does the Barack Obama impersonation on Japanese TV.
Cherry Pie チェリー☆パイ was there. Via their photo we know that...
Hori ホリ was there. Well, his company profile says so too. He wasn't the only ものまね specialist on the scene as...
山本高広 Yamamoto Takahiro (best known for his Oda Yuuji impersonation) was there too. But wait! Neither his blog nor his profile says he was there. But what about photographic evidence? Because Iketani Naoki has this and Yamamoto's blog has this. And since we know that Kane Kosugi is in Yamamoto's repertoire, well, that's good enough for me. Watanabe Entertainment also has...
ザブングル (Zabunguru - although I'm not sure how their name romanizes) - was there too.
Chiro of Bicsmalln ビックスモールン・チロ was there.
Kasuga Toshiaki of Audrey 春日俊彰 オードリー was there.
Wakky of Penalty ワッキー ペナルティ was there.
Kojima Yoshio 小島よしお was there too. Or at least that's what OnTV Japan says.

And I think that's everyone. That I could find and confirm somehow anyway.

Muscle Musical

And what's a Monster 9 show going to be without any synergy? We know that the following were there (so far):
Naoki Iketani 池谷直樹
Setoda Eiji 脊戸田英次
Nakao You 中尾葉
Inada Ayako 稲田亜矢子

I'm sure they'll be more.

Athletes

Kind of a difficult time since baseball and basketball are still going on so that lessens the pool. But...

Kazuhisa Watanabe 渡辺一久, K-1 fighter was there.
Takeyoshi Tominaga 富永健義 was there too.
Mohammed Yone モハメド ヨネ、
Suzuki Kotaro 鈴木鼓太郎 and
Ishimori Taiji 石森太二 of Pro Wrestling NOAH were all there.
Miyazaki Daisuke 宮崎大輔 and his men of balls,
Iwanaga Sho 岩永生 and
Izuma Masakatsu 猪妻正活 were there.
Paul ANTHONY Terek was there via photo evidence.
Junichi Miyashita 宮下純一, Beijing Olympic Bronze medal winning swimmer was there.
EDIT! Rugby player Tomoki Kitagawa 北川智規 will be there as well. He placed 4th in the 2009 Sportsman No. 1.

Celebs and others

Nakao Akiyoshi 中尾明慶 of TBS show ROOKIES was there. (synergy!)
Issei Sakamoto 坂本一生, a talento was there.
Ishimaru Kenjiro 石丸謙二郎 and
Sato Hiromichi 佐藤弘道 (via link above)
Nomura Masaki 野村将希
Shirai Ryo 白井涼
Lee Yen Chi リー・エンチ of Taiwan
Takahashi Kenji 高橋賢次 via photo evidence.
This guy.

Those darn Americans

Via G4:
Olivia Munn
Luci Romberg
Levi Meeuwenberg (White SASUKE Jesus - as opposed to SASUKE Jesus, Makoto Nagano)
David Campbell (this year's G4 ANC winner)

There were also six SASUKE Trial Qualifiers (STQers) and some other people most of it was found via mixi so I'd rather not say more.

To tell the truth, this year was much easier to find info since so many celebrity blogs have popped up since last time. And it's not like twitter where people may be making fake accounts. Japanese celebs are very self-promotional and very..um..Japanese blogger like, taking photos of food and themselves constantly.

That's pretty much it. I'll probably be liveblogging the SASUKE Navi and of course the main show itself. If only the show had stuck to it's usual Wednesday time so that I could do an April Fool's and say that I wasn't going to do it. That would so disappoint, oh, five people or so.

Oh and don't forget. The TBS site promises the coming of a new hero or some such nonsense.




Man, I think I'm out of liveblogger shape. This might be painful.