Thursday, March 13, 2008

Friday Sports #2: Ninja Warrior by Mamba Bryant

The first ever Japanese show I ever watched was a game show called Takeshi’s Castle. The concept of the show was to take video games out from the console and television and into real life. The result was a hilarious show where the fates of the contestants relied mostly on luck. (Filipino fans were also treated to the crazy antics of Smokey Manaloto and Anjo Yllana )

As the years have gone by the Japanese have continued to be experts in making crazy and hilarious shows (see Hard Gay, Human Tetris and Silent Library). Recently, I found one of their shows to not only be entertaining, but a venue for extreme athletes everywhere as well.

This awesome show is called Ninja Warrior. It pits the skills of the contestant against 4 grueling obstacle courses. At first, I thought it was just another crazy Japanese show where success relied mostly on luck but upon closer inspection, I realized that success in this show required practice, training and discipline, just like any other sport.

The superstars of this show are extreme athletes that have amazing agility, supreme strength, and dexterity + 8 (props to all my role-playing brothers). In fact, I believe that the king of this show, Makoto Nagano, a fisherman (or so they say), is actually a REAL ninja. Who else but a real ninja can do this?



After watching a few episodes of this show, I was psyched enough to try to train for it, or at least do 20 pull-ups on my own! I think this can be something that extreme athletes can sink their teeth into. I know a good friend of mine, extreme athlete and triathlon master Miguel Lopez, would love to have a crack at this course. I’m sure most of the extreme athletes in the Philippines and around the world would share the same thoughts.

Maybe in the future, the next Ninja Warrior to achieve total victory will be Filipino!

BANZAI!

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3 comments:

Rickious said...

There's only one Filipino who deserves to join this competition...

RAM-RAM MARTINEZ!!!!!

Rickious said...

I want Sho Kosugi, the last REAL ninja in existence!

Anonymous said...

don't forget GENTA OGAMI!