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Three men have beat Sasuke: the original guy, Nagano Makoto, and the shoe salesman.

In reply to this comment by Bidouleroux:
>> ^ctrlaltbleach:

Announcers never cheer on the American version of the show. This lady has won several times but I can't remember if a lady has ever won in the mens competition.


lol. not even the men win the men's competition. In fact, in all history of the show only two won.>> ^lucky760:

It's worth mentioning that this is not the same Ninja Warrior tournament that only 3 men have completed, Sasuke, but the women's version, Kunoichi.
Even more worth mentioning is that not only did Ayako Miyake beat Kunoichi her first time out, but she won three tournaments in a row. Impressive.


Only two ever won SASUKE. Also, KUNOICHI is kind of a joke. For comparison, the third stage of SASUKE (the men's competition) has no time limit; that's just how difficult it is. And after that you have the final stage, with a rope twice as long as the women's pole. IMO, they could just have the women do SASUKE with less of the upper arm endurance (replace it with full body endurance or leg endurance) and add time to the time limit on the first, second and final stages. The fact that such a scrawny girl, an acrobat at that, won shows it takes more balance/coordination/lightness than muscle/endurance/speed to win KUNOICHI, so the girls who train with SASUKE in mind are disadvantaged (especially, they can't have enough muscle and endurance to beat SASUKE, but they have too much to beat KUNOICHI which requires a lighter, more "balanced" - in every sense - body).

Also, the English commentator is piss-poor. It's even more infuriating than the Japanese guy who keeps screaming like she's winning the first freaking gold medal of History. At least the Japanese guy does it consistently in a crescendo and not only when he thinks there's "action" happening in a weird counterpoint or worse, whispering for no reason since she CAN'T BLOODY HEAR HIM. The Japanese guy comments live and doesn't whisper, why the hell would he do that. He should be imprisoned for noise pollution over the airwaves. Also, get rid of the ridiculous overlays, it's distracting.

Happy anniversary! Today marks year number 4 since you first became a Sifter and the community is better for having you. Thanks for your contributions!

To be honest, every sound except the らりるれろ is in the English language in some way or another, it's just that people generally aren't very good at forming new speech habits. I got pretty lucky in sort of inheriting a talent for language study (my great grandfather spoke five or six languages semi-fluently, plus his native English). It also helps that I've been to Japan twice and have been studying the language for five years, lol. I get annoyed at how quickly it deteriorated to merely "okay" Japanese both times after I returned from Japan...using it as your primary language day in and day out really gets it flowing smoothly. When I came back, I found myself using あいづち while my Dad and I talked on the way back from the airport, lol.

In reply to this comment by Bidouleroux:
In reply to this comment by JAPR:
考えられなかった is practically a tongue twister, and I'm really rusty, lol. Thanks for the compliment.

In reply to this comment by Bidouleroux:
What impresses me more is hearing a person of English mother tongue pronouncing Japanese almost correctly! マジ感心.

Yeah, those られる are a mouthful. But I was most stricken by how well you can hold off your English stress accentuation. Stress-timing also massacres the rhytym of Japanese mora-timed sentences. You regularly hear English-as-mother-tongue naturalized Japanese speak with a worse accent than a Chinese grandma, even after some ten to twenty years hearing and speaking nothing but Japanese. I have it easy though, as my mother tongue is French (no stress + all mora except ら り る れ ろ).