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What's Wrong With American Ninja Warrior?
Reader Thom Stark (thomst) writes with a pointed review of this year's Americanized version of (awesome) Japanese TV show "Sasuke." "I've been a fan of the program the G4 channel calls "Ninja Warrior" since I first encountered it in mid-2005. For those who are unfamiliar with the show, it's a re-edited-for-American-TV version of a Japanese show called "Sasuke," with often-snarky English commentary and graphics overlaid on the Japanese original. "Ninja Warrior" is a fast-paced, wildly-entertaining program in which 100 contestants of varying skill levels pit themselves against a 4-stage obstacle course that grows ever more fiendishly difficult with each passing season. There've been 27 such seasons to date, and the most current incarnation has become so incredibly taxing that Batman himself would have trouble completing it. Now G4 has teamed up with its corporate parent, NBCUniversal, to bring the world's toughest obstacle course to America, and the resulting show, "American Ninja Warrior" turns out to be distinctly inferior to its Japanese progenitor. The final broadcast in a series that has run for six previous weekly installments appeared on July 9, with segments on both G4 and NBC, and I thought it was fitting that I mark the occasion with a critique of what I believe to be "American Ninja Warrior"'s fatal philosophical and production missteps, and contrast them with the original pitch-perfect product." (Read on below.)
First, it's important to understand that the Japanese program's name has nothing to do with either ninjas or warriors. "Sasuke" means something like "excellence" in Japanese. It has much the same flavor as the Greek concept of arete, the pursuit of excellence as a defining life goal. G4's marketeers clearly decided that their ADHD-addled core audience of video gamers was unlikely to find a show called "Excellence" compelling enough to warrant paying attention, so they decided to jazz it up by invoking ninjas, instead. Oh, and warriors, too, to make it more appealing to the World of Warcraft fanatics. And that was fine, as far as it went, because G4 had the good sense not to mess with the program content itself (other than to poorly translate much of the Japanese-language commentary, again in an apparent attempt to inject some good ol' American zazz).
As a side note, commentary is not the only translational sin of which G4 is guilty. The competition takes place at Midoriyama, a Japanese place name that G4 insists on referring to as "Mount Midoriyama." The problem with that is that "yama" is a Japanese suffix meaning "mountain." Thus, "Fujiyama" means "Mount Fuji" and "Midoriyama" means "Mount Midori" — which, in turn, means that G4's translation is not only redundant, with its repeating of the word "mountain" in both English and Japanese, it's wildly inaccurate, because the Japanese word means "Mount Midori."
But I digress.
"American Ninja Warrior" — the strictly-domestic production — suffers badly from human interest bloat. The Japanese program (at least as it is presented on G4) frequently features mini-portraits of the competitors, but these segments are very short — typically under 20 seconds — and they help to put a human face on the often-superhuman efforts of the program's contenders. In "American Ninja Warrior," the corresponding segments too often are near-epic mini-documentaries that run a minute or longer, and they seriously impair the program's flow — especially because there are so flinkin' many of them. The producers badly need to rein in their out-of-control bathos machinery and reduce both the number and the running time of their athlete portraiture.
But the worst mistake that the brainiacs behind "American Ninja Warrior" have made is to Americanize the competition. The most endearing philosophical quality of "Sasuke" is that the participants compete, not against each other, but individually against the course itself. There is no zero-sum in the game of Sasuke. Should more than one contestant complete the nigh-impossible series of obstacles (an outcome that has never yet occurred on "Sasuke"), both would be equally celebrated, both would be equally entitled to claim the title of "winner," and the accomplishment of one would in no way diminish the glory of the other. To the contrary, such an event would be cause for national celebration, since winners of "Sasuke" are considered national heroes in Japan.
By contrast, not only have the American producers chosen to have the participants compete against each other in regional qualifying events for a spot in the "finals" competition in Las Vegas (not an unreasonable choice, given that they needed to whittle the field down to a manageable number of contestants for the trials at the actual Mount Midori course), but they've made it a zero-sum game. Like the Highlander, there can be only one American Ninja Warrior — which reduces the exalted pursuit of excellence to just another athletic competition, with the top prize of half-a-million dollars going to the one contestant who not only completes the course, but does so in the fastest time. Anyone else who makes it to the top of Mount Midori is, basically, just another chump. An also-ran. A footnote.
And that's what's really wrong with "American Ninja Warrior."
First, it's important to understand that the Japanese program's name has nothing to do with either ninjas or warriors. "Sasuke" means something like "excellence" in Japanese. It has much the same flavor as the Greek concept of arete, the pursuit of excellence as a defining life goal. G4's marketeers clearly decided that their ADHD-addled core audience of video gamers was unlikely to find a show called "Excellence" compelling enough to warrant paying attention, so they decided to jazz it up by invoking ninjas, instead. Oh, and warriors, too, to make it more appealing to the World of Warcraft fanatics. And that was fine, as far as it went, because G4 had the good sense not to mess with the program content itself (other than to poorly translate much of the Japanese-language commentary, again in an apparent attempt to inject some good ol' American zazz).
As a side note, commentary is not the only translational sin of which G4 is guilty. The competition takes place at Midoriyama, a Japanese place name that G4 insists on referring to as "Mount Midoriyama." The problem with that is that "yama" is a Japanese suffix meaning "mountain." Thus, "Fujiyama" means "Mount Fuji" and "Midoriyama" means "Mount Midori" — which, in turn, means that G4's translation is not only redundant, with its repeating of the word "mountain" in both English and Japanese, it's wildly inaccurate, because the Japanese word means "Mount Midori."
But I digress.
"American Ninja Warrior" — the strictly-domestic production — suffers badly from human interest bloat. The Japanese program (at least as it is presented on G4) frequently features mini-portraits of the competitors, but these segments are very short — typically under 20 seconds — and they help to put a human face on the often-superhuman efforts of the program's contenders. In "American Ninja Warrior," the corresponding segments too often are near-epic mini-documentaries that run a minute or longer, and they seriously impair the program's flow — especially because there are so flinkin' many of them. The producers badly need to rein in their out-of-control bathos machinery and reduce both the number and the running time of their athlete portraiture.
But the worst mistake that the brainiacs behind "American Ninja Warrior" have made is to Americanize the competition. The most endearing philosophical quality of "Sasuke" is that the participants compete, not against each other, but individually against the course itself. There is no zero-sum in the game of Sasuke. Should more than one contestant complete the nigh-impossible series of obstacles (an outcome that has never yet occurred on "Sasuke"), both would be equally celebrated, both would be equally entitled to claim the title of "winner," and the accomplishment of one would in no way diminish the glory of the other. To the contrary, such an event would be cause for national celebration, since winners of "Sasuke" are considered national heroes in Japan.
By contrast, not only have the American producers chosen to have the participants compete against each other in regional qualifying events for a spot in the "finals" competition in Las Vegas (not an unreasonable choice, given that they needed to whittle the field down to a manageable number of contestants for the trials at the actual Mount Midori course), but they've made it a zero-sum game. Like the Highlander, there can be only one American Ninja Warrior — which reduces the exalted pursuit of excellence to just another athletic competition, with the top prize of half-a-million dollars going to the one contestant who not only completes the course, but does so in the fastest time. Anyone else who makes it to the top of Mount Midori is, basically, just another chump. An also-ran. A footnote.
And that's what's really wrong with "American Ninja Warrior."
In Japan, people are praised for trying their best. In most seasons, no one wins the final obstacle. In America, there has to be a winner to celebrate, everyone else is a failure. I much prefer the Japanese way of looking at things.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
It just has no soul.
Or rather, don't. Seriously, don't.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
~800 word reviews about "American Ninja Warrior".
He was in the way of the pirate.
This is mostly a disturbingly obsessive whine over details that do not matter, with an actual critique only making up a fraction of the last couple paragraphs. It uses 500 words to lodge exactly two valid complaints:
1. Making a competition out of a challenge, which are fundamentally different.
and
2. Slightly increasing the proportion of the show that is human interest.
If there were some sort of news that made this arbitrary blob of complaining relevant, it would just be badly written, instead of bizarrely atopical and badly written. There's not, and it just seems like completely off the wall "nerd-rage" over nothing in particular. Shameful editorial standards at work here.
I've big a big fan of Japanese Professional Wrestling for decade, or Puroresu as it is known in Japan. But when I attempt to watch American Professional Wrestling, such as Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment, I am frequently left disappointed. Puroresu is full of great athletes telling stories of stength and honor, while WWE seems to cater to children with goofy characters. That's not to say that WWE doesn't have some great wrestlers such as CM Punk and Daniel Bryan that would fit well into Puroresu, but WWE doesn't utilize them in the same way. And when a great Japanese wrestler appears in WWE, such as Lord Tensai aka Giant Bernard, they are never treated as well as they were in Japan.
It's almost as if each is aimed at different audiences and tastes.
I've not seen American Ninja Warrior, but the vast majority of American remakes of popular import shows get the same treatment. First, you start of with something that's popular. Then you assume that Americans are too stupid to understand any culture other than the perfectly homogenised average of the USA as portrayed by Hollywood. Then you remove everything that doesn't conform to this. And then you end up with something that even the target audience thinks is dumb.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So, basically, you're upset that an Americanized foreign show has been Americanized?
SM MBL-VIR looking 4 SIG 4 LTR. must be DDF, no 420, SD ok.
I prefer the clearly dubbed versions of Godzilla to anything made to "resemble" Godzilla. G4s version of Ninja Warrior holds onto the same cheezy camp that makes a Godzilla Dub intriguing. The "American" Ninja Warrior doesn't hold the same level of camp that only can be done via a dub. Maybe if they took American Ninja Warrior and dubbed it in Japanese they would be able to enjoy the same level of camp we do with Sasuke.
>> ""American Ninja Warrior" — the strictly-domestic production — suffers badly from human interest bloat. The Japanese program (at least as it is presented on G4) frequently features mini-portraits of the competitors, but these segments are very short — typically under 20 seconds — and they help to put a human face on the often-superhuman efforts of the program's contenders. "
Oh, just wait until the Olympics. They will do lengthy segments that try to ferret out the most painful moments in every athlete's life (with soft piano music) so the audience can have a little Rocky moment when an athlete wins an event.
His hair was perfect.
The Japanese version does not insult the viewers intelligence. The American version does.
There are two more episods in the July 9th episode, they only did the first stage of Mount Midoriyama.
I do agree that the American show emphasizes competition against each other with the line "who will be the first" instead of "will anyone".
But I do have to ask, how on-point can a review be if the reviewer didn't even watch the show enough to notice it didn't actually go to the end?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Nearly every japanese show that is rellocalized in the US does the exact same thing. Chances are it will bomb or quickly be retooled, (to go on to very modest success). They have trouble understanding that the fans of the original show actually like the show as-is.
It's like the difference between Chef Ramses UK and US Kitchen Nightmares. They are essentially the same show, but in the US version they add dramatic music and minimize their portrayal of the team building exercises, (making it seem more like a battle then his genuinely trying to help the restaurant achieve greatness; and they seem to go looking for the most combatative restaurant owners they can find).
In England there's a hill called Torpenhow Hill. The first mapmakers asked the locals what they called it, and the locals said "Tor", which meant "hill" in the old language. The newcomers spoke a different language, and so they named it "Tor Pen," adding a suffix which meant hill in their own tongue. Few centuries go by, new mapmakers come around speaking Old English, which uses the word "How" for "hill." "Tor Pen, you say? Okay Torpen How it is!"
Finally modern English maps are made and this time they contract "Torpen How" into "Torpenhow" and add "Hill".
So the name of the place, translated into English, is "Hill-hill-hill hill." How's that for silliness?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Chef
And then they bought it to the USA, with William Shatner, and it completely and utterly sucked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Chef_USA
The point is, the TONE was off, it was like drunk golf buddies who stumbled on a casual cooking competition, no reverence for the food, no care for the technique. Much like American Ninja warrior: wrong tone, just as you say.
Luckily, the Food Network made another stab at Iron Chef, and this time it worked, with Alton Brown and the "nephew" of the original Chairman Kaga (Hawaiian Fillipino martial artist Mark Dacascos), and other cross overs like Iron Chef Morimoto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Chef_America
Not as delightful as the original, but it works, it is enjoyable to watch, because the TONE is the same: they really care about the food, and they really pay attention to the cooking and technique.
If something works, don't mess with it!
I am certain some useless Hollywood suit said you need to change Sasuke to suit American audiences. Rightfully, that suit should be fired. If the formula works, don't mess with it, or you have some stillborn mess no one wants to watch.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...an American production company with lots of money and no ideas took (yet) another successful foriegn tv show, "americanized" it.. and not-so-royally fucked it up. No surprises there...whats the issue again?
Their #1 sin? Taking it seriously.
Half the fun is that Ninja Warrior is self irreverent. And the prize for winning should only be winning, not cash.
part of my $165 bill goes to this crap
I was going to post about the American Top Gear too.
It seems that the USA excels at finding good shows from other countries, bringing them here, and then completely missing the point. It's classic Cargo Cult mentality: the superficial form is there, but they entirely fail to understand why it was good to begin with.
But what about Superman? Have you even considered that, just maybe,
that Superman is better than Batman? Superman doesn't have a batmobile
becase he doesn't need one! Even consider that! Thought so...
CAPTCHA = stormed
"American Ninja Warrior" ... suffers badly from human interest bloat.
It's endemic in US TV coverage of any individual sport, it seems. The Olympics have been unwatchable for years, because you get 2 minutes of sprinting or swimming or tumbling, and a half-hour sob story about the life struggles of one of the American athletes. Great, she was orphaned at age 2 and raised in abject poverty by her quadrapeligic great-aunt in the basement of a pig slaughterhouse; it's amazing that she overcame that to become a world champion gymnast. Now can we PLEASE turn off the sad music and cut to cycling or equestrian jumping, or javelin-throwing, or archery, or any one of the other dozen events you've been ignoring all week because there's not a photogenic American with a compelling life story in the top 5 contenders?
0 1 - just my two bits
No! It's the flying fucks I don't give! ...It must be a very slow news day.
America and Japan, are two very different countries, with a much different culture.
While we have similarities, there are also big differences.
For example back when I was a Kid, in Boy Scouts I was Hiking in New Mexico (Philmont a big Boy Scout Camp, where people come from around the world) There was a Japanese Troop that was taking a similar route that we had, and we met up from time to time. At the Trading Posts there was what was called a Swap Box. Where after we get our Rations of food (usually for 2 or 3 days) we can go threw them, drop food we didn't like, and pickup food that we did like. We actually loved it when the Japanese troop was there the same day. They would trade Oat Meal Packets which we really liked, with some energy bars we found to be disgusting. Because Americans Like Sweet food more then Japanese do.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Why are you sperging over what sounds like nothing more than an MXC clone? Life goes on.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
They're just trying to compete with Wipeout. Don't judge too harshly for dumbing themselves down.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Honestly. Its funnier and has a better T&A factor.
Who wants to see something that takes itself too seriously? I'll watch the Olympics for that.
Mr. Stark apparently doesn't know much about Japanese culture. "Sasuke" is a rather straightfroward reference to Sarutobi Sasuke, and the name has been used to invoke the idea of ninjas since at least the 1920's.
The worst part is definitely the little bio bits. Boring, and I just don't care. Reminds me of Olympic broadcasts here in the U.S. Twenty minutes of giving the life story of every American athlete, then thirty seconds of those athletes failing miserably. If there's time left between commercials, they might show the top three or four foreign competitors. Yuck. Drop the "human interest", just give me the goddamn events - as many as you can cram into however much time you have. I would much rather be watching the last place pole vaulter from New Guinea than some shitty story about how American Athlete #3 is bravely competing through the pain of a stubbed toe and their mother's recent diagnosis of a hang nail.
Same with Ninja Warrior - I enjoy the Japanese version from time to time, because 90% of the show is someone actually trying to complete the course. You know, the interesting part that got me to turn on the channel. Minimal time is spent on building up each individual competitor, and the brief sketches they do occasionally give are more than enough to establish who the person is. American version, approximately 60-70% seems to be build-up for athletes who end up eating it on the first obstacle.
I don't know that I agree that a zero-sum game is American.
Everything G4 touches turns to a burning pile of dead ashes. They're like the grim reaper on steroids. That's the only explanation that's necessary really. But this show must be at least somewhat decent seeing as how a story about it somehow ninja'ed its way onto slashdot for no obvious reason. Pretty stealthy.
Your critique of the show turning winning contestants into losers is dead on. Kamerion Wimbley took and completed the preliminary course. Watching a man of his size complete the course was amazing to see. Then we got to see him get knocked out due to other contestants coming in with faster times. And then watched an added insult in the finals when they bring in 'wild card' contestants--many of whom did not even complete the preliminary course. And of course all the wildcards were turned into 'human interest' stories. Thankfully the grandfather wildcard actually did complete the course.
My biggest issue with the show was that they end up giving only summaries of the runs to half of the contestants--even after having 2/3rds of the contestants competing on the G4 show. The original show packed the same amount of content into 30 minutes that NBC is trying to stretch to 2 hours.
While I'm not fond of silly pseudo-translations, I find it sad that someone who doesn't even know that Mt. Fuji is called Fujisan and not Fujiyama in Japanese is complaining about translations.
You forgot one:
Add a presenter who's nowhere near as witty as he thinks he is.
No sig today...
Now, with sports, you'd expect a much easier crossover, but I can see the submitter's points, for sure. But in the case of most other shows that get imported to the States, most notably (IMHO) British comedy, they just don't translate well due to cultural differences. IT Crowd was a fantastic show in the UK... did the US version ever make it past the pilot (almost a scene for scene reproduction which, for whatever reason, was just weak and didn't work?)
The Office is another example people use, although I must admit I've never spent any considerable time watching either. How is the US version of Shameless compared to the UK version?
I'm going way off topic here, but I feel like ranting, so mod me as you will. It seems like ever since the Sonic the Hedgehog commercials of the mid-90s hit the airwaves, America has this obsession with being loud, irreverent, and in-your-face. TV shows and movies largely eschew complicated or subtle humor in favor of lets-see-how-much-we-can-get-away-with. That's what turned me off to Family Guy after the first few seasons. Alright, McFarlane, we get it... you're really pushing the envelope there with your three identical shows. Sadly, most "average citizens" seem to eat this garbage up. I often think of the scene in Idiocracy with the TV show "Ow My Balls".
Honestly, I have Comcast at my apartment solely for the Internet (it costs you more if you don't get TV through them also)... I have about a dozen channels, 8 of which son en Espanol... but I have an XBox360 and Netflix, and far more quality programming to watch than I'll ever get to, thanks to those.
Allow me to digress one more time, though... and slightly back on topic. One Japanese obstacle course show that was aired by Spike was altered to the point of parody, and THAT worked... in the US it was called "MXC" or "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge", and the ridiculous voice overs were done, IIRC, by comedians, and were genuinely funny. I miss that show.
Funny, but I guess it probably isn't really true ...
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+debunking+of+Torpenhow+Hill-a098250320
I got that link from the Wikipedia article on the subject.
Clovis
^ Clovis, look! It's that guy you are!
any thing to boost the carp G4 channel that used to have good stuff and tech tv was cool!
G4 only got most cable systems by buying tech tv.
NOW WHY IS on NBC but the Stanley Cup Final game 3 and 4 is on NBC Sports Network.
The japanese show picked up its name "Sasuke" from a infamous fictional ninja of the same name. A western analog would be producing a show called Zorro to find the best fencer or a show called Hercules to find the strongest man. Sasuke has been a popular name for ninjas throughout Japanese entertainment history. If I recall correctly there was a movie from the early 1900's featuring a ninja named Sasuke. The most recent incarnation would probably be the antagonist from Naruto which now litters google search results for the word Sasuke.
PIN number
Crappy remake
After they completely ruined TechTV? You're part of the problem.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Well, at least we'll always have people who say "the El Alamo."
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I say that on top of what is already mentioned in the original article, the COMMENTATORS on Amerincan NW are a huge part of the problem. Especially the former Olympian (I think that's his claim to fame, by recall). They (and he especially) are ANNOYING. It's likely half the WRITING itself, but when they are talking as if they are doing it LIVE (which they obviously are not) and say things "as they are happening" to make it seem like they're completely on top of what's going down -- it's annoying as hell.
People jump onto the rope hang obstacle, and people landing above or below the "same area" are scolded for being below or above an ideal point (in other words, they are wildly inconsistent in their commentary). They are VERY uninteresting to listen to generally speaking.
The Japanese's way of making it FUN and as the original article points out "men against the course" is much more enjoyable.
Another fine Japanese show Americanized and ruined (just like Iron Chef.. heck, just like Godzilla for that matter, thanks Matt Broderick).
AMMalena (www.Malena.net) "The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote." (Kosh, B5)
G4 TV would cease to exist today if it were not for TechTV's vast cable and satellite market availability that Conca$t sought for their ratings and relevance deprived broadcast network by soliciting 300 million USD to Paul Allen, former owner of TechTV. If you cannot entice the Disney empire with billions to seize ESPN for Conca$t's bid to monopolize the cable broadcast sports entertainment industry, try millions to advance your profiteering standing with G4 TV in the video game realm. Capitalism is great folks.
I loved MXC on Spike TV here in the states..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MXC
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
yes, of course that is their point. who cares? why does it matter?
they get to pick recipes and ingredients beforehand, the food is cooked outside of an hour, you know who your competitor is going to be, you know what the secret ingredient is, the meal the judges eat isn't actually the meal that was just prepared, etc., etc.: it's completely fake, the original japanese version was completely fake too
i read this "expose" in the village voice years ago, i had to laugh: there's people out there who actually ever thought this was real? pt barnum was right, there really is a naive clueless sucker born every minute:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-02-19/restaurants/iron-chef-boyardee/
so fucking what?
are you someone who was actually surprised that a hawaiian filipino martial artist is not actually the nephew of chairman kaga? LOL
the point, for YOU:
it's ENTERTAINMENT
get it?
i mean, do you go see "The Avengers" in the movie theatre and stand up and say "Hey! They are using CGI! That guy didn't actually turn into a giant green monster! It's all fake! I can't enjoy it anymore! aaaahhh!"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Someone sent us up the bomb.
rewriting history since 2109
Therefore, you are wrong and should reevaluate every life choice you have ever made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miHTEa12sao
Watch that and you'll see it has the same length as the bios on the american version. And I always suspected that, because the Sasuke show is yearly, I would guess, weekly event. They even have the dramatic music to go with them too. The american version just cut them down and only showed certain ones for editing on Ninja Warrior on G4. Not really a valid point.
The other issue with regionals, that's an american thing. We have network execs who can't deal with something short, so they always seem to find a way to bloat the show with more episodes. If they didn't have regional qualifying you would have a week long event and that's it. Pretty much the main issue I have with amercian tv right now, which is why I like british tv more. With fewer episodes writers try to pack in more meaning, and if the show is bad you haven't really wasted that many hours watching.
I think the funniest part is watching the two commentators ignore each others teleprompted crap, wait for their cue, then say "That's right," and plow right on with a complete non sequitur. Disturbingly often.
Our group of viewers dreamed up this example:
Moseley: Well Matt, I think Hitler had some pretty good ideas in 1936, and that really shows on the Warped Wall today.
Iseman: That's RIGHT! and vanilla paste makes an excellent... wait. WHAT?
Has SNL hit this turkey yet?
I always hate "your momma" jokes, but I have to admit, that one made me chuckle.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Superman is better than everyone. That's why he's no fun.
Then maybe you should just not watch it?
I've not seen American Ninja Warrior, but the vast majority of American remakes of popular import shows get the same treatment. First, you start of with something that's popular. Then you assume that Americans are too stupid to understand any culture other than the perfectly homogenised average of the USA as portrayed by Hollywood.
Like American remakes of foreign films. I'm thinking of you, "Let Me In".
But all said and done, for me it would go a long way towards reparations if Mr. Octopus showed up and started bitch slapping Jonny Moseley with a live squid. Bread and circuses, baby.
While the human interest bloat is definitely there, the show is just bloated in general. I watched Ninja Warrior to watch people take on the course. In American Ninja Warrior, I have to sit through qualifiers of people taking on part of the course. And then these same people take on the same part of the course with a couple more obstacles added on. And this happens in like 4 different "regions". I got tired of the show LONG before they got anyway near actually taking on the real course. Yes, the qualifiers are important to get a good field, but I don't want to watch them. Just show me the finals of people actually tackling the course and I'll watch it.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
""Sasuke" means something like "excellence" in Japanese."
No, Sasuke has no translatable definition. To say excellence in Japanese, it's shuuitsu, shun, or shunei.
Sasuke is the name of a revered warrior, Sarutobi Sasuke.
Go figure neither editors nor article writer have any real fucking clue about the Japanese language, and thus would have NO clue about the origins of the name of a 'ninja-based' show.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
We're American, because you're in America, okay? Greatest country on the planet.
This show is great, your complaints are silly.
So next you'll complain about having an American version of iron chef? Go back to watching reruns of Takeshi's Castle...
...then the biggest problem lies in the obstacle course itself.
In wipeout, the obstacle course looks stupid easy, and it seems that they only pick contestants that have the dexterity of an infant.
In the Japanese ones that I've seen, i can take one look at the obstacle courses and say "fuck that, I'd never win"
The contestants themselves varied in skill as well. There were some that failed at the gate, and others that would just wow you.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I live near a recently developed community of condos and townhouses. The community is called Lakeside, because of the man-made "lake" they put in. The name of the lake? Lakeside Lake, because its the lake next to Lakeside, which is so named because of the lake its next to, called...
http://goo.gl/maps/w2Cf
Some initial points of agreement:
(1) Americans take foreign shows and remake them in a way that violates the whole point.
(2) American producers are obsessed with dumb-ass human interest stories (Olympics unwatchable for me)
(3) Reality shows are usually their own perfect "essence" in their first season, and interesting as participants try to learn the rules on the fly; and then shows go downhill, violating their essence with the need to vary challenges/ surprise/ shake things up in later seasons.
Compare to the summer show Wipeout, which has some similarities but is American-specific (I think). I adored it in the first season; after that, borderline unwatchable. The problem here is that in the first season, the challenges were at least conceivably doable; if 24 people ran through them and mostly got demolished, maybe 1 or 2 very athletic people per show would dash through them successfully, and it was exciting and awesome to watch ("sasuke", I guess you say). I would applaud. There was a nice narrator arc every episode starting out snarky, and then near the end complimenting and praising the finalists.
The problem is in the second season they started fetishisizing the failures, and the challenges were made so hard as to be impossible. I don't think in the last 2-3 seasons anyone has successfully made it through the first round of the show. There's no drama to it, it's just a dumb-ass repetitive series of people getting dunked. I don't mind competition, but there has to be some chance of something different happening or it's repetitive boring bullshit.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I've never heard that, but saying Rio Grande River is not all that uncommon and quite a few Americans actually know a teeny bit of Spanish. I've even heard that on National Geographic Channel. OTOH very few Americans know any Japanese so criticizing a G4 show for saying Mount Midoriyama just sounds like pedantic whining to me.
"In "American Ninja Warrior," the corresponding segments too often are near-epic mini-documentaries that run a minute or longer"
Just wait until the Olympic coverage starts.... ughh, it's always the worst, I think some of the event coverage is 50% athlete bios.
The problem I have with both the Ninja warrior shows is the focus on upper body strength versus agility, balance, and all around strength.
Posting to undue mod, I thought this was kinda funny, though I'd go with a yutaka for full otakuness.
open source modern art: laser taggi
Wasn't there a guy on the Japanese version that completed all of the courses once or twice? The Gas Attendant (Can't remember his name sorry). Also Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC) was another excellent show that was mangled when brought to the US.
I think "Rio Grande river" can be forgiven. In English, we think of that river's name as "Rio Grande" - not "Grande" (or, worse, "Really Big").
#DeleteChrome
First, you start of with something that's popular. Then you assume that Americans are too stupid to understand any culture other than the perfectly homogenised average of the USA as portrayed by Hollywood.
And I think that the crazy part of it is that they take something popular, and then they go, "Well American audiences would never go for that! We have to change it." No, American audiences *would* go for that. They did go for that. You know they did, because it was popular enough that you wanted to copy it.
I don't think the problem is necessarily that the producers think the American audience is dumb (though I'm sure it's part of it), but that the producers themselves are dumb. Their job is to make television shows that people want to watch, and they're not very good at it.
maybe its just me?
WWE seems to cater to children with goofy characters.
And that's exactly what it is. And amusingly enough, they even admit it. I happened to catch a clip recently with Jericho and the dork that turned the title belt into a spinner (I forget his name). So dork is blabbing away with the microphone and uses the word "fudging", Jericho say "fudging, what are you...9 years old?" and dork say "half of our fans are".
It hasn't happened on /. in years, but this review nails it for the most part.
My fat-ass loves eating ice cream when I watch these shows with crazy-ass people trying nearly impossible tasks, but the NBC version has major flaws:
* Not enough pure action. Screw the human interest and serious comments. The 5-10 seconds before each run is enough.
* Should be no money for winning. Love of the sport should be enough.
* Timed runs make sense. Put a limit on the time for the first 2 levels. That should be enough to weed out too many contestants. Some artificial count sucks. Allowing the producers to add contestants for the next level is unthinkable.
* Kill off the serious commentators. We want Henson-style (or Corbet) comments and a few crazy people in ridiculous costumes making attempts too. A handful of octopi always works.
* Stop holding the contest in cities. It needs to be an effort to travel to the contest - a 7 hour drive to the middle of nowhere.
** Stop acting like the WWE/WWF or whatever commentary.
Mainly they need to stop with the ex-pro athletes as commentors. Use a stand-up commedian instead - PLEASE.
No one here gets out alive.
Oh well. It's a miracle that everyone isn't depressed.
(Or a side effect of religion-induced psychosis. Hi Empiric!)
ironic captcha: Prove Yourself: badlands
What the hell is speaking Kanji? You sir, are in imposter!
My wife is Japanese and there is no shortage of Engrish in Japan. Like any good American husband I am always quick to point it out. So she didn't hesitate to ask WTF is Mount Midoriyama, since the name of the mountain is Midori and yama means mount. Also, Ninja means warrior more or less in Japanese, so Ninja Warrior doesn't really makes since either. You should see her face when I run around yelling "Niiinnjjjaaa Warrrrriiioooorrrr" in my 'best' Japanese accent and get the kids all riled up, it is priceless.
Personally, I too am irritated with all the excess of human interest stories, especially in the case of American Ninja Warrior where I'm sure they have PLENTY of footage to fill up the time.
However, the reason they did it is probably for the same reason that NBC adds human interest stories to the Olympics: because people want them. Believe it or not, most Americans actually do want the human interest stories to help humanize athletes. Otherwise, it's people watching a whole slew of sports that they barely understand. I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but this is why it happens. People don't enjoy watching just straight feeds of raw sporting footage.
The phrase "News for nerds" has never been more appropriate.
There is nothing "warrior" about "American Ninja Warrior".
Perhaps "warrior" in the title is on the theory that Mount Midori is an obstacle course reminiscent of the one that soldiers in boot camp have to complete.
Someone needs to go back to Ninja school. The word Sasuke has a long tradition related to the ninja. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarutobi_Sasuke
In Japan (WWII time period or earlier), it used to be that to lose/surrender without dying meant the ultimate disgrace and lack of honor.
Now look at them. They all cheer for the loser(s).
Maybe they are more American now than ever.
"First, it's important to understand that the Japanese program's name has nothing to do with either ninjas or warriors. "Sasuke" means something like "excellence" in Japanese."
I don't know where the writer got this idea. I'm Japanese and I'm pretty sure the word Sasuke is a male name. It is often associated with mythical great ninja name Sarutobi Sasuke. Looking up online about sasuke does not get anything about excellence.
What a nice way to start a review with completely false statement.
First, if it's made for American TV from scratch, it won't have the periodic exclamations of "Sssaaaaaaaaaaaa...." or entertainingly Almost English names for obstacles such as Cur-ten Kringoo, or Blidge of Brades... (Japanese are so cute when they try to borrow our words, especially ones with L's and R's in them.)
I don't get G4 anymore, so I am missing watching Mr. Ninja Failure try and fail over and over again, becoming more of a joke with each passing season, or Mr. Octopus getting three or four steps in before stepping into the muddy water, almost as if it's what he meant to do, which is truly hilarious. What is he, 70?
All kidding aside, I do miss the greatest Ninja Warriors, the cute little pink-haired chick, (Ayako Miyake) who looks like she could do the (women's) course in her sleep, and Makoto Nagano, probably the greatest athlete to grace the course... in every important respect. I know I could personally do one, or maybe two obstacles tops out of all four stages, maybe not even those... but watching people fail is at least half the fun, especially when they blow 10 or 15 precious seconds screwing around before tackling the first obstacle.
As for the American version, if it doesn't have all that, there's no reason to watch. I didn't even know they had one, I thought American Ninja Warrior was a contest held by G4 to see if they could find any Americans, amongst the masses of fat, lazy, and stupid ones, (am I right, guys?) who could actually stand a chance of passing the course. Levi did an awesome job, and I recall he came impressively close, but that tower at the end is a NIGHTMARE.
Who knows, I might even give it a try, if I can find a copy somewhere.
By the Old Ones, you just redeemed half a year of AC trolling with that, my dear coward!
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
This reminds me of that show Iron Chef. I loved watching the Japanese version with the dubs just like 'Ninja Warrior'. But when they made American versions, I thought it was just utter crap and couldn't stand watching it.
Well, at least we'll always have people who say "the El Alamo."
I prefer this one...
NGDT: Does it disturb anyone else that "The Los Angeles Angels" baseball team translates directly to "The The Angels Angels"?
https://twitter.com/neiltyson/statuses/222860309830967296
Or the twits in Chicago who call the train "the El".
I sense sarcasm.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
The La Brea Tar Pits :-)
I never saw the original (or the American edited version of the original), but am interested in American Ninja Warrior.
The "often-snarky English commentary and graphics overlaid on the Japanese original" sounds less interesting than the original Japanese version (subtitled or dubbed) would be in full. It sounds like they basically turn it into "Wipeout". (In fact, on the Engadget HD podcast, one of the co-hosts compared the original to "Wipeout". Wipeout has gotten boring because it's TOO goofy.)
I'm not sure I'll watch further seasons of "American Ninja Warrior", but I think it's entertaining, and the proportion of "sport" to contestant profiles seems very high to me. Then again, I record everything, and if the profiles got boring, I'd just FF (just like I do with any of the Olympics that bore me). Though I basically watch all of the non-actual-competition part at 1.5x anyway. (Except for scripted sitcoms & dramas, I pretty much watch anything else -- news, documentaries, game shows/reality shows, faster than realtime.)
Too long, didn't give a fuck.
What the fuck slashdot? This is without a doubt the worst content you have ever served up. Two paragraphs of whining that's so full of mistakes and false assumptions a 12 year old would be able to see through it.
For fuck's sake read this shit before you approve it.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
And similar to Ninja Warrior -> American Ninja Warrior, there's an American TV show based on Takeshi's Castle ('MXC') called Wipeout, and it's also completely lost the point of the original series (though unlike American Ninja Warrior it's an unlicensed ripoff to boot).
The real problem with American Ninja Warrior (aside from there being no American Ninjas), is that there aren't enough Monkey Pirates fighting Cyber-Dinosaurs with Shark Lasers.
I really hope Slashdot gets around to penalising people abusing their mod-points. The current meta-moderation system doesn't work because it's like finding a needle in a haystack. Much better if you can click a link on a post that says 'the moderation here is suspect'.
OK, I like the original show. I've watched the US one for about 30 seconds before I turned it off.
However, the Japanese one definitely has had a winner before.
What is wrong with it is that there are no such things as ninjas, and there never were. They are a fantasy creation, there are no historical documents or manuscripts than anyone can cite that show that such a thing actually existed, because it never did. They are fantasy, just like how chivalry was invented for the purposes of telling stories. Might as well have called it American Jedi Warrior.
No it is because my Pinky finger isn't being utilized as much as my other Fingers, while typing.
Besides, I like to capitalize Nouns, it seems more German to me.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
First: Most of what Thom Stark is saying is pure "Stuff nobody cares about" and then proceeds to ad hoc insult for G4. Not a good way to make your point or be taken seriously by saying:
G4's marketeers clearly decided that their ADHD-addled core audience of video gamers was unlikely to find a show called "Excellence" compelling enough to warrant paying attention, so they decided to jazz it up by invoking ninjas, instead. Oh, and warriors, too, to make it more appealing to the World of Warcraft fanatics.
Making generalizations or making speculative claims == Fast and easy way to lose any kind of respect or take your POV seriously.
Secondly: Has it ever dawned on Thom Stark that trying to translate a popular TV/Anime/Game/Song/Media/etc. from Japan to English verbatim will cause even those "ADHD-addled core audience of video gamers" to be confused because of the cultural differences? That translating something 100% will confuse those not familiar with the culture 100% of the time?
In other words: A lot of what is said and done in Japan won't make sense here in the US. Vice Versa is true too.
Finally: As stated in the first sentence: This is being aired by NBC on their network. Therefore people aren't going to care for much of what this "review" is about. Much less about being called "ADHD-addled core audience of video gamers". Most that will watch it will be the ones that like shows like American Gladiator or Wipeout. Hardly MMO players or G4 fans.
First episode of Veep was awful compared to The Thick of It. Didn't bother watching the rest.
Also, US portrayal of the English is beyond weird. If I stated as fact that every American is exactly the same as that fat bloke in Caddyshack, there are at least Americans like that. There aren't any English people like those portrayed in US programmes.
Yes, I agree with all that was shared in the article. The commentary in the American Ninja Warrior series borders on the banal and often reaches an unprecedented level of idiocy. I typically forward through the athletes' profiles since they are presented like mini docudramas. There is room for much improvement.
I've been annoying my wife ranting and raving about how they keep talking for 2 minutes at a time about these contestants that fail in the qualifiying round, but there are people in the finals I don't even know anything about....if you're going to show us a 2 minute bio about George and all that he has overcome in his life, how he has built his own training course in his backyard, and how he is competing for his grandma who is fighting some kind of rare cancer PLEASE dont show him then failing on the quad steps....if you want to build drama, why not start telling me some of the stories of the people you know advance....Let the Drama build, NATURALLY....I admit you must mix it up a little, but when the first 45 minutes of the show is a bunch of people failing and then they start telling me "what I missed during the break" were jimmy and timmy both finishing the course while in the previous 45 minutes no could make it pass the rope junction....LAME
Producers, Directors, and Hosts need a shake up.....