Kuramochi Minoru

Kuramochi Minoru (倉持 稔), widely referred to by his fans as Mr. Octopus and Tako-tencho (たこ店長), is a challenger of SASUKE. His main trademark is bringing octopi onto the starting line in an assortment of ways. Although he has founded a name for himself, competing in SASUKE 18 times, he has not been known as much of a winner; he has repeatedly failed the first obstacle of the First Stage, making it to the third obstacle at best.

From SASUKE 9 and SASUKE 11 to 14, Kuramochi would fail in the first obstacle in each of his appearances.

In SASUKE 15, he managed to clear the Hurdle Jump, but failed to catch the Butterfly Wall and fell into the water. In SASUKE 16, he was able to clear the Rokudantobi by clinging to the top of the 5th step before making it to the mat, but was subsequently eliminated on the Sandan Rolling Maruta. Failing there again in SASUKE 17 in an all cut performance.

With the presence of a kanzen renewal in SASUKE 18, he would participate in the 1200-meter run where he would get a low start position number. During the tournament, he would fail on the Rope Glider, overshooting himself in the landing platform. In SASUKE 19, he cleared both the Rokudantobi and the Log Grip, but when he got to the Pole Maze he hesitated and ended up stranded on the pole unable to move it from it's start position. He spent most of his run clinging to the pole and even doing the splits to stay above water, however by the time he got back to the mat time expired.

The string of first obstacle fails would continue on SASUKE 20 and SASUKE 22 to 25.

In SASUKE 26, Kuramochi gave his most impressive performance. He reached all the way to the Rolling Escargot where he failed near the end of the obstacle. In SASUKE 27, many expected him to repeat his performance, but sadly he missed the rope on the Step Slider and failed.

His final tournament was in SASUKE 28 where he made it to the 4th step of the Godantobi, however he slipped and fell into the water.

After then he still stay for his Pub until 2021 for special reasons, after that he become a Gym coach, having his own Gym. If he can have chance come back to SASUKE, then he will break the oldest competitor at all competitions.

VIKING
In contrast to his performances in SASUKE, Kuramochi manages to go far into the First Marine Stage of VIKING. In his first appearance on VIKING 2, he made it all the way to the Parley. Kuramochi managed to beat Parley in VIKING 3, but failed the Cannonball.

Trivia

 * Kuramochi, Harashima Masami, and Aoki Yasuo are usually given consecutive start positions.
 * Kuramochi is known to work at the Edokko Pub in which he has his own replica of the Godantobi where him and his other customers can practice.
 * In addition to this, the Pub would become well known as other notable competitors such as Jamie Rahn and Jessie Graff, who are at the time participating for SASUKE 37, would visit the store.
 * In a recent interview, Kuramochi mentioned that the reason why he would bring props such as a live octopus at the starting line in each of his appearances was because he was inspired by Akiyama Kazuhiko, who was also known to bring a prop in the starting line which is a string of crabs.