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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."
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.
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.
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!
You should be cancelling cable because it's $165.
I don't know, Kancho has me a little disturbed...
Just like we Americans TV did to The Office, right?
There's plenty of hit and miss both ways. I've been suck into too many episodes of Law and Order (eh, it's a small vice), but Law and Order UK? Pass. And why the hell did they feel they needed Geordie Shore? Someone over there saw jersey Shore and thought that it was a good idea?
Fun reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_television_series_based_on_British_television_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_television_programmes_based_on_American_television_series
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Just like we Americans TV did to The Office, right?
Yeah, but the American "The Office" was made by the person who made the British one. I think if American Ninja Warrior was made by the same people who did the Japanese one, it would be much truer to its original format, and consequently much better.
""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.
I think you're right... But it isn't that simple.
Japanese go in with more realistic expectations. They know they might not win, but their give it their all anyway.
Americans, on the other hand, are all taught they're special, that they're all destined for greatness. So they bank everything on that expectation of greatness and then come out the other side bitter because they couldn't achieve it. It's strongly reflected in entitlement mentality.
These divergent attitudes make for a difference in how the two cultures approach life. Japanese, like most Asians, will take the more pragmatic approach to life. Americans, especially the youth, have the unrealistic expectation that you can have your cake and eat it too, that you can do something fun, hip and exciting AND earn a great living doing it.
And of course it's popular culture is responsible for perpetuating these expectations. In American movies the hard-working individual is depicted has having a dysfunctional life and the freeloading slacker is the sage who's got it all figured out. This attitude is virtually non-existent in Japanese film. So then you've got American game shows that glorify the victory and present the challenge as almost a footnote. And when conflict is present, it's depicted in the standard, cartoonish, us-versus them manner. Think American Gladiator.
Now, the nice thing about the American philosophy is that people will strive for greatness, at least, when they don't believe they're entitled to it. They're less likely to be unquestioning drones.
On the other hand, the Japanese approach leads to more productivity and less resentment. People have a more realistic outlook.