I used to live in Japan, and loved it. I still watch and read things related to Japan. The other day, I had a youtube video recommended to me by youtube and watched it. It's a girl from Texas who eventually married a Japanese man and now lives there. In the process, I discovered that they (husband and wife) had tried out and been on Ninja Warrior, she wrote a blog about the tryout process and made a short video.
The info about the show/competition is pretty interesting.
10 of which are spent sitting in a large room with at least hundred other applicants, waiting.
We make friends with a girl who works at a temple, a guy who works at a Japanese gym chain, a construction worker, a female stunt double, and a guy who really wants to impress his kids by appearing on Sasuke.
And we play a lot of card games.
We also meet the all-around amazing Jin and Reina, who pass the auditions and end up becoming our training buddies.
The first round of auditions is a 30 second self-introduction (in Japanese) and a physical test – 100 push-ups to the beat of a drum.
I do 30 push-ups and 70 semi-pathetic ones. My husband finishes the full 100 barely out of breath. They cut 80% of the applicants then and there and Ryosuke and I are thrilled to pass.
In between the first and second rounds of tryouts, we learn a bit more about how they pick the 100 contestants for Sasuke. Contestants are a mix of:
Celebrities, who are contractually obligated to be shown.
“All Stars,” who are regular competitors, famous for consistently passing the first stage. They don’t need to go through the tryouts, they are officially invited back each year by TBS.
Repeat competitors who aren’t quite at the “all-stars” level yet but have passed the first stage or made a memorable enough attempt that they’re invited back they next year.
Fluff competitors who get invited back every year and go for memorable (or silly) wipe-outs. They’re silly and fun and make for great TV. Some of these have been doing Sasuke for 5-10 years.
Regular competitors, who try out through the general auditions. This is where Ryosuke and I were hoping to end up (although we learn that there’s only anywhere from 30 – 50 spots open every year).
The second round of auditions is a “group Q & A session” where they grill you about what is on your application, in groups of ten to fifteen.
They flat-out tell us they’re only accepting one person per job/profession or group, either Ryosuke or I (or both) will be cut, since we’re ‘related.’ There are four guys who work as gym trainers at the gym chain Rizap in our group, so they have even worse odds and we count ourselves lucky.
I had applied as an author/manga artist (so far we haven’t met any others with that job) and Ryosuke had applied as a YouTuber/translator (we saw one other YouTuber, a Japanese guy named PDS, and one other professional translator in a different room). His odds seem to be worse than mine. Still, we’re fortunate our jobs aren’t the same as any of the celebrities, all-stars, or repeat competitors.
When it’s our turn, I tell them to pick Ryouske because he actually has the physical strength and stamina to complete the course. And he’s hilarious.
Ryosuke tells them to pick me because I’m a feisty little thing who would complete the course if only to prove everyone else wrong. And if I get picked, I will probably draw a comic or blog about my experience.
We get out of the audition at 9:30pm and back to our apartment well after midnight.
On the ride home, it hit me. The tryouts didn’t have a skill test, like at all. They wanted to gauge how committed you were by how many push-ups you could do (the key, I heard, was to not give up. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you can complete the full 100 push-ups as long as you don’t give up)… but other than that everything was verbal.
By the time we arrive home, we realize the tryouts are probably for “filler spots.” They don’t test your running, jumping, or balance skills because they don’t actually expect you to do well on the course – they just want ‘regular folks’.
Ryouske gets a call a couple weeks later saying “Congratulations Mr. Mineta. Your wife will be on Sasuke 32. Here are the details. Oh yeah and sorry, you didn’t pass the auditions.”
Ouch.
My husband is a good sport about it, though, and still goes onto train with me.
In case you'd rather watch than read
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Steve
'08 Boxster RS60 Spyder #0099/1960
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'88 targa SOLD 2004 - gone but not forgotten
SOLD 2004 - gone but not forgotten
11-11-2016, 10:18 AM
