Sasuke (; ; ) is a Japanese sports entertainment reality television show that has been airing since 1997 in which 100 competitors attempt to complete a four-stage obstacle course. Failing any obstacle during a stage, or running out of time on stages with set time limits, leads to elimination. Finishing a stage by reaching the end and hitting the buzzer will grant advancement to the next stage. Sasuke also has many international versions of itself, mainly called "Ninja Warrior", with 20 local shows.
Recorded at Midoriyama studios in Yokohama, it airs on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), typically between Japanese television drama seasons. The show's namesake is Sarutobi Sasuke, a ninja character in Japanese traditional storytelling. Each episode airs an entire tournament as a single special, ranging from 70 minutes to 6 hours. There have been 43 specials produced, with approximately one or two per year. The show is produced by TBS and began as a segment within the series , another sports entertainment competition, which aired on G4 in the United States under the name Unbeatable Banzuke. Competitions generally start in the daytime and continue until completed regardless of weather or darkness. After Monster9's bankruptcy in November 2011, Tokyo Broadcasting System handed production over to the studio FOLCOM, who relaunched the show under the title Sasuke Rising. For the 35th tournament TBS renamed the show once again, to Sasuke Ninja Warrior, aligning with the worldwide Ninja Warrior brand. The show's logo would be changed for the 36th edition, with the new logo's year being updated for subsequent editions.
History
1991–1995: origins and The King of Sports In 1991, TBS Sports employee Ushio Higuchi began developing ideas for a new sports competition. Having worked up the ladder at TBS enough to produce live sports coverage, Higuchi believed he had the pull to begin creating original series. Following his experiences producing live events such as the 1988 Summer Olympics and 1990 FIFA World Cup, Higuchi had admired seeing athletes perform record setting feats in individual sports, and decided to move forward with creating a sporting discipline that aimed to crown the best all-around athlete. His original concept was to create a variant of the multi-disciplinary sports such as the Modern pentathlon and Decathlon that would test speed, agility, strength and balance. Higuchi submitted a concept pitch to TBS for a series called The King of Sports, but TBS denied the proposal stating that Higuchi would need to form agreements with athletics associations to recruit athletes. Higuchi had attempted to reach out to as many organizations as he could, including the Japanese Olympic Committee and International Olympic Committee, however all denied partnership due to the lack of portfolio on Higuchi's part, a perceived risk of injury to athletes, and a lack of benefit for the organizations themselves.
In July 1992, Ushio Higuchi was producing coverage for the 1992 Summer Olympics, in charge of key elements such as camera angles and narration. During this time, he became closely acquainted with legendary sports commentator Ichiro Furutachi. Higuchi discussed his idea with Furutachi, who agreed to collaborate and provide services as lead narrator for The King of Sports. The coverage of the 1992 Olympics was a resounding success, and so with an increased portfolio and assistance from Furutachi, Higuchi resubmitted his proposal. TBS showed an increased interest in the format, but were still hesitant until athletes could be recruited. TBS suggested using less popular athletes, however Higuchi denied this request stating it would dilute his aspirations for the series.
Throughout 1993, Higuchi worked on recruiting athletes for The King of Sports, and was able to secure contracts with individual teams, creating a roster of 28 athletes from Baseball, Wrestling, Boxing, Golf and Motorsports. With the backing of athletes, The King of Sports was approved, and debuted on December 29, 1993 under the new title Pro Sportsman No. 1. The tournament was filmed in leftover venues from the 1964 Summer Olympics and featured a low budget. The initial tournament featured a pentathlon of five skills: Sprinting, Push-ups, Vaulting, Tug of war and Obstacle Racing. The initial obstacle course, titled "Survival Race", featured hurdles, a balance beam, climbing and rope climbing, all to be completed under a time limit.
Reception to the pilot of Sportsman No. 1 was mediocre, but TBS made enough revenue and saw the potential in the series. A second tournament was greenlit with a higher budget, to air as a special on New Year's Day 1995. In Japan, New Year's is spent with family, and TBS felt that a sporting event was a safe and accessible option to capitalize on this market. Pro Sportsman 1995 filmed in a larger venue with a consistent aesthetic, styling everything in Greco-Roman decor to imitate the classical Olympics. New disciplines such as beach flags and sled pulling were added to increase the number of events to seven. In addition, Higuchi secured more revered athletes to appear in side events called "Dream Showdowns," special exhibition events intended to attract more viewers that would be aired alongside the main event. This second tournament of Sportsman No. 1 was a resounding hit, dominating TV ratings for New Year's Day.
With a successful series in his portfolio, Higuchi pitched the subtitle "Clash of Olympians" for the third tournament. To his surprise, the promotional manager for the Japanese Olympic Committee had watched the New Year's Day special of Sportsman No. 1 and loved it, and helped Higuchi secure an official partnership. The JOC and Higuchi produced two crossover specials, with the first fast-tracked to air March 1995, starring athletes from the Summer Olympics with new disciplines of sit-ups and pull-ups. The second collaboration in October 1995 featured athletes from the Winter Olympics and featured imaginary chair as a new event.
1995–1997: concept revision and Kinniku Banzuke Through 1995, TBS received a high volume of inquiries from amateur athletes and members of the public expressing interest in competing on future installments of Sportsman No. 1. TBS and Higuchi made the decision to keep only professional athletes in Sportsman No. 1, instead launching a sister program named Kinniku Banzuke which would allow members of the public to compete via public auditions.
A pilot season of Kinniku Banzuke began airing at 1:15am JST on July 8, 1995 as a series of eleven 30 minute pilot episodes. TBS believed that it would be an ideal late night program, as it would be a niche program targeting adult men already interested in athletics. These episodes saw sit-ups, push-ups, and vaulting return from Sportsman. Qualification rounds toured to Tohoku, Kansai, Okinawa, Hokuriku, Hokkaido and Kyushu, where the top athletes would then be invited to a final competition in Yokohama at the end of the season.筋肉番付 Broadcasts, July 8,15,22,29 - August 5,12,19,26 - September 2,9,16 1995 on TBS
The series became an unprecedented hit, with record high viewership despite the late broadcast time. This was attributed to several factors; family and friends of competitors tuned in to cheer them on, women tuned in due to the Odagiri effect, and large numbers of youth found the show fun and aspired to compete. TBS immediately pivoted their approach and moved the series to a prime time window on Sundays beginning in October 1995. In addition, they greatly expanded the number of events returning from Sportsman, and created additional competition divisions for women and youth. They also invested in new events, most notably a backflip racing event named Bakuten that attracted success from professional gymnasts such as Yukio Iketani.
In the Spring of 1996, Higuchi decided to branch the series out to include two new categories of events. The first were variations of target practice under different sports disciplines such as Baseball and Soccer, which allowed an influx of professional athletes to compete due to the lowered risk. The second category were skill-based obstacles courses that featured 9 obstacles. Higuchi's initial concept for this was a course inspired by Bakuten that featured athletes navigating different areas such as stairs, parallel bars and ramps while in a handstand. Originally developed under the name "Handstand Jungle", the event debuted in May 1996 as Hand Walk. Hand Walk was extremely popular, and so Higuchi expanded this obstacle course idea into several other disciplines; Super Rider for bike trials, Like a Pierrot for Unicycle, Kangaroo for pogo stick and Bamboo Derby for stilt walking. As expected, these events were similarly popular, and so Higuchi began to expand into original course ideas, such as Sponge Bridge, a precision balance course, and Spider Walk, an event based on the Ninja skill of moving while perched between two walls, as was historically done to move stealthily between two buildings in an alley.
The original courses Higuchi had designed such as Hand Walk were beginning to be defeated after several filming sessions, and so he decided to employ recursive self-improvement in courses, where events would return with an increasing number in their title, featuring renewed and more difficult obstacles to keep competitors indefinitely returning to events. Due to the continued success of Kinniku Banzuke and increased funding from revenue, TBS requested that Higuchi prepare a special broadcast for March 1997 that would have an extended runtime of several hours and feature bigger special guests and larger events. Higuchi designed a grander sequel to Hand Walk called Hand Walk Tower, which featured three stages of increasing difficulty. Competitors would have to complete each stage in order, and if anyone were to complete them all, they would be awarded the title of Kanzenseiha, or Total Victory. This special was extremely successful, in part due to the outstanding performance of Naoki Akiya, who achieved Total Victory on Hand Walk Tower.
1997: Sasuke Almost immediately after the broadcast of Hand Walk Tower, Ushio Higuchi approached Masato Inui, who had worked as assistant producer on Hand Walk Tower among other events, to immediately begin production on a new event for broadcast in a second special, to air September 1997. Higuchi's idea was to create a multi-staged course that used the all around athletic skills of competitors similar to Sportsman No. 1, while being directly inspired by the different skills performed by ninjas, such as Spider Walk. Like Hand Walk Tower, this new project was to be a larger multi-stage course following the same format. He gave this idea to Inui to expand and create the course, while also being directed to save cost by reusing elements from previous events wherever possible.