Season 18 Overview

After Nagano's victory in season 17, we expected the course to be a lot harder this time around. In fact they exceeded our expectations, and came up with the toughest Ninja Warrior course we've yet seen.

All but a few obstacles were completely new, and only two were unmodified from previous seasons. The new obstacles ranged from insanely difficult (Jumping Spider, Salmon Ladder) to a few that were a bit dull (Bungee Bridge, Net Bridge). Overall the effect was to make the course much more challenging.

Of course I don't know the producers' minds, but from watching the show's history they seem to prefer about 10-12 people to complete stage 1, about half that to get through stage 2, and none to one completing stage 3. The success rate seems low this time, and I wonder if they will adjust the course in future seasons to be less crazy. On the other hand, in the "behind the scenes" show on G4 they interviewed the show's creator, who said that his intent was to design a stage 1 that everyone would fail. So maybe they want it this way.

Most of my favorites were there: Aoki the model-maker, Kuramochi Minoru aka Mr. Octopus, Kenjiro Ishimaru the actor, and of course the all-stars. Absent (from the G4 footage if not from the competition) were Kota Honma the teenager, Hiroyuki Asaoka aka Sasuke Sensei the teacher, and Kasuhiko Akiyama, the first champion. I wonder if Akiyama has finally given up on Ninja Warrior. I kind of hope he has retired: He's already been the best, so in a sense there's noplace for him to go but down. It makes me sad to see him keep going out in stage 1. I feel the same way about Yamada (Mr. Sasuke). Sometimes I have to fast-forward Yamada's run because it's just too painful too watch. From the way they describe him on the show, it seems like it would be better for his life & mental health to forget about Ninja Warrior. Yamada didn't make it to stage 2 this time, but considering how hard the course was he did extremely well. Better than most of the all-stars, now that I think about it.

I'm a little unclear on how they define "All Stars." We had assumed that the All Stars were any competitor who had completed stage 3. But this time, they made several references to Shunsuke Nagasaki as a "would be all star" who was "giving the all stars a run for their money," that kind of thing. And Nagasaki has made it to stage 4, which by our definition would have made him an all star. So our understanding must be wrong. In any case, the All Stars were all there (excepting Akiyama). Of them I think only Nagano and Takeda finished stage 1.

The shallow:
Bunpei Shiratori still favors the teeny tiny shorts, but they seem to be bike shorts now, a bit more stylish than the shiny little track shorts from previous seasons. And the "Worst Hair of the Season" award for once does not go to Nagano. This time the honor goes to Kenji Takahashi, whose close-cropped hair with a curved design shaved into it resembled a basketball. (Nagano's hair, while still poofy, was not that bad this time. Blowing my theory that the badness of his hair is directly proportional to his success on Sasuke and general fame.)

The stats:
Stage 1: 8 obstacles, 130 seconds, 6 cleared
Stage 2: 6 obstacles, 95 seconds, 3 cleared
Stage 3: 8 obstacles, untimed, 0 cleared
Stage 4: ?