Ninja Warrior: Difference between revisions

** What makes this really strange is that Wittenberg is an anime voice actor, so you would think he would be used to Japanese pronunciations.

* [[Action Mom]]: Chie Nishimura, who returns later in Kunoichi, making it to the third stage, showing even as a housewife, she's still got it.

** Channel guides list the Kunoichi competitions as ''Kunoichi Women's''. A kunoichi is the term for a female ninja.

* [[Awesomeness By Analysis]] / [[Badass Bookworm]]: One guy overcame the Warped Wall obstacle (basically a wall curved outward) by studying tapes of it and writing a trigonometric equation.

* [[Fan Service]]: The Kunoichi episodes. Come on, man. Come on.

** Female viewers have [[Shirtless Scene|a lot to enjoy]] in the Sasuke episodes as well.

* [[Faux Action Girl]]: Yuko Mizuno; she's a very accomplished woman, but has suffered a lot of bad luck lately.

* [[Gag Dub]]: The Spanish dub is a pretty lame [[Gag Dub]], with a lot of toilet humor and lame risqué jokes, that tries to capitalize on the smashing success that Takeshi's Castle had in Spain, in [[The Eighties|the 80s]], with a similar (though much funnier) dub.

** Kane Kosugi's runs actually are shown, mostly because he was a regular in early seasons (along with his brother Shane) and is better known for action movies than ''Kakuranger''. Likewise Ishimaru, who is one of the oldest competitors to clear the First Stage, and is credited for his travel show and work as a narrator more than being on ''Den-O''.

*** [[Retroactive Recognition]]: A few ''Ninja Warrior'' fans probably got quite a surprise when Kane Kosugi showed up in the ''[[Dead or Alive]]'' movie as [[Ninja Gaiden|Ryu Hayabusa]].

* [[Joke Character]]: "The Octopus", "The Butterfly", "Superman", and a cavalcade of comedians, [[Cosplay|cosplayers]], near-nudists, and humorous pro wrestlers. They usually don't get very far in Stage 1. Only twice did one of these guys - both times comedian Kinnikun Nakayama - manage to get to Stage 2.

** It should be noted that Kinnikun Nakayama is very, very muscular.

* [[Lost in Translation]]: Hiroyuki Asaoka - a teacher of the Japanese equivalent of elementary school - is known by the alliterative pun nickname "Sasuke Sensei". In the English subtitles and narration, the nickname is changed to "Professor Ninja Warrior", which ruins the pun.

* [[Luck-Based Mission]]: Even the best of the contestants will fail with one slight mistake.

* [[Mighty Glacier]]: Travis Schraeder can best be described as this; he's an extremely strong competitor and rarely loses the course by falling, but never manages to outrun the clock.

** You What? He competed 2 and timed out once. On his first attempt, he posted the fastest Stage 1 clear.

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: A Barack Obama pastiche runs in the 22nd edition, complete with the crowd waving flags and chanting, "Yes, we can!". {{spoiler|He fails, and the announcer shouts out, "No, you can't!"}}

* [[No Export for You]]: The UK rebroadcast of Ninja Warrior is basically the same as its US counterpart, but has the narrator changed to [[Stuart Hall]] (who has kinda [[Its A Knockout|done this sort of thing before]]).

* [[Platform Hell]]: Definitely a [[Real Life]] example. Boy howdy! Only ''three'' people (Kazuhiko Akiyama in the 4th Competition, fan favorite Makoto Nagano in the 17th Competition, and Yuuji Urishihara in the 24th and 27th Competition) have completed the entire course in 27 competitions. If you include the ''Kunoichi'' competitions, with Satomi Kadoi, Rie Komiya (who couldn't get past the Halfpipe Attack in ''Sasuke''), and Ayako Miyake (who beat the ''Kunoichi'' course '''three times in a row'''), only six people have ever completed the course.

* [[Positive Discrimination]]: Women can compete in both ''Sasuke'' and ''Kunoichi'', but men can only compete in the former.

* [[Promoted Fanboy]]: Those who made it to the tournament thanks to G4's "American Ninja Challenge" tie-in.

** The best of these is Levi Meeuwenberg; in the 20th Competition, he got further than any other competitor..is ''immediately asked back'' for the next tournament.

* [[Serial Escalation]]: If there is any stage or obstacle that is considered "too easy," it will be redesigned for the next tournament to make sure it is harder. In Sasuke 19 and 22, ''Stage 1'' eliminated all of the Ninja Warrior All-Stars.

** Not only did Sasuke 19 eliminate every All-Star in Stage 1, but 98 of the 100 competitors were eliminated on the stage. The two remaining competitors were both eliminated on the Salmon Ladder, an early but difficult Stage 2 obstacle.

* [[Shocking Elimination]]: Arguably every time an "All-Star" (save [[Failure Hero|Katsumi Yamada]]) fails to make it past Stage 1. Ayako Miake in ''Kunoichi 7'' on Stage 2.

** In Sasuke 27, {{spoiler|Li En Zhi}} failing the ''first obstacle'' of the first stage, after having made it past the first stage in the last 6 attempts.

** And just to add to the confusion, the name pronunciation, and the name used on the Sasuke Wiki, is Li En Zhi, a fourth possibility.

** It's ''Wakky'', not Wacky. G4 doesn't seem to understand this.

* [[Spin-Off]]: Until about the 8th Competition, the background is dotted with the emblems for ''[[Unbeatable Banzuke|Muscle Ranking]]''; ''Sasuke'' was initially run during that show, and was spun off.

* [[Super Strength]]: You'll need as much upper-body as can be humanly summoned to beat Stage 3.

* [[Take Your Time]]: Anyone that reaches Stage 3 has an unlimited amount of time to complete it. Considering the obstacles in this stage, this is ''very'' justified.

* [[Tempting Fate]]: During one competition, the announcer mentions that the current competitor, {{spoiler|Makoto Nagano, barely ever made mistakes. Upon nearing the end of the course he forgets to kick off of the right part of the second to last obstacle and fails the course.}}

** In Sasuke 25, {{spoiler|right before Toshihiro Takeda takes on Stage 2, he smugly remarks how no one's failed at the new Double Salmon Ladder yet. Guess who's the first one that does.}}

* [[Title Drop]]: The Japanese announcer whenever one of the G4 competitors is running the course.

** The Japanese name is Title Dropped a lot.