SASUKE 37

SASUKE 37 (officially,「SASUKE2019」) has been officially announced by TBS on Twitter, on July 29, 2019. It was the sixth tournament after Morimoto Yūsuke's kanzenseiha and the first tournament of the new Reiwa era (which started on May 1, 2019). It was aired on December 31, 2019 at 7pm JST with a time slot of approximately 5 hours and was the first New Year's Eve of the Reiwa era.

In addition, this is the second time and two consecutive times that a tournament was aired on that date after the previous tournament, with another live Final Stage attempt.

This marks the first time in SASUKE history that in between two tournaments back-to-back was aired with a duration of exactly a year.

Applications
The application was released on July 29, 2019 on their Official Website, Twitter and Facebook. Application's deadline is on September 6, 2019 and auditions has took place at Tokyo in September 13 and 14, 2019 and Osaka in September 20 and 21, 2019.

A special auditions were held on October 11 for celebrities that consists of the Quad Steps and a bar simulating the Dragon Glider.

Filming
The taping took place at November 23 and November 24, 2019, with the first half of the First Stage took place in November 23 while the second half including any possible runs for the Second Stage, Third Stage will be on November 24.

However, due to the bad weather, the filming was postponed by a day from its original date, mainly for safety reason. With that, the original competitor's list revealed on the November 23 had changed due to scheduling conflict from some of the competitors, thus not able to compete.

For the second and two consecutive times, competitors who made it to the Final Stage will attempted it at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, the same venue from the previous tournament, which concurrently airing with the pre-taped broadcast on New Year's Eve.

In addition, it is the second and two consecutive times in SASUKE's history where one of the stages do not take place at Midoriyama Studios, disregarding the fact where SASUKE 1 took place in Tokyo Bay NK Hall.

Summary
The First Stage was modified with a newly revised Fish Bone, adding 9 more poles which spun clockwise painted in yellow. Unfortunately, due to bad weather, especially with mist that shrouded the course during the last 10 runs, performances were, on average, worse than in the previous tournament. The time limit was increased to 88 seconds and an addition of 32 seconds for the time limit imposed on women and/or over-50 competitors compared to SASUKE 36, totaling to 120 seconds. As such, this signifies the fifth tournament to have a time limit difference and the first time in SASUKE history to do so in two consecutive tournaments. For the first time ever, Yamamoto Shingo is the only All-Star to compete in the tournament, but ended up failing on the Dragon Glider. In the end, only 10 competitors cleared, with a lot of shocking fails of top competitors such as Matachi Ryo, Nagasaki Shunsuke, Darvish Kenji, Mori Wataru, Yamamoto Keitaro, Kawaguchi Tomohiro, and the most shockingly, SASUKE 31's champion Morimoto Yusuke. Overall, Two Yamada Black Tigers (Yamamoto Yoshiyuki and Isa Yoshinori cleared, alongside 2 international competitors, Rene Kaselowsky and Jessie Graff along with 41 year old Urushihara Yuuji and Suzuki Yusuke. Other finishers included Tada Tatsuya, Saikawa Kōji (in his rookie effort), Hioki Masashi and, for a record ninth straight time, Sato Jun.

The bad weather also affected the Second Stage as well, with the stage being modified with a new obstacle. The Ring Slider was replaced by the Rolling Log as the new first obstacle. However, it was then announced that competitors would need to skip this obstacle due to the rain causing the log to slide and stop rather than roll down the track rendering the obstacle unable to complete, hence resulting in each competitor starting on the Salmon Ladder Nobori, officially reducing the number of obstacles to seven. In addition, the time limit imposed on the Second Stage had to be revised without the new obstacle with 100 seconds, a reduction of 10 seconds from the previous tournament. The women competitor's time limit on the other hand has an addition of 10 seconds, a total of 110 seconds, signifying the second tournament to have a time limit difference on multiple stages. The Backstream's jets were reduced and the Reverse Conveyor's belt was slowed down. With that in mind, 8 of the 10 competitors (the only failures being Saikawa Kōji and Suzuki Yusuke) managed to clear with 7 out of those 8 (Isa Yoshinori being the only exception, although Jessie Graff was given an extra 10 seconds) left more than 10 seconds on the clock.

The Third Stage was lightly modified with the Ultra Crazy Cliffhanger being replaced by the Cliffhanger Dimension, which took out 5 of the 8 competitors who attempted it, despite how the ledges that were originally meant to move being halted due to the weather issues persisting. However, Urushihara Yuuji, Rene Kaselowsky, and Tada Tatsuya managed to clear it. Furthermore, nobody failed at the Vertical Limit and Kaselowsky and Tada managed to clear the Pipe Slider and move on to the Final Stage, the former of whom being the first rookie to clear the Third Stage since SASUKE 8, while Urushihara made a fatal error on the Pipe Slider, resulting in the bar slipping off the left side and rendering him unable to complete the obstacle. In addition, Kaselowsky became the fourth foreigner (officially considered as the third foreigner possibly due to Kane Kosugi's Japanese heritage) to complete the Third Stage (after Jordan Jovtchev and Kane Kosugi in SASUKE 8, and Lee En-Chih in SASUKE 24). The results for the Third Stage overall were vastly better than in the last few tournaments, being the first time since SASUKE 30 that more than one person cleared and the first time since SASUKE 31 that no competitor failed any obstacle preceding from the Cliffhanger.

With the first occurrence of more than one finalist since SASUKE 30, the Final Stage was broadcast live, both Tada and Kaselowsky failed on the Salmon Ladder Jūgo Dan, somewhat attributed to the slippery bar and rungs. Tada made it only a couple of rungs from the top of the ladder, landed lop-sided, causing the bar to slip down the rungs; he subsequently could not find the strength to correct himself and timed out. Kaselowsky made it about halfway up the ladder, similar to Tada's attempt, landing lop-sided, only for the bar to slip off from the obstacle resulting in his failing, ending the tournament with no competitor reached the Tsuna Nobori, occurred for the first time since SASUKE 7 during Yamamoto Shingo's withdrawal due to a shoulder dislocation. This was also the first time since SASUKE 13, where less progress was made on the Final Stage than the previous tournament, where Morimoto Yusuke reached the top of the tower in SASUKE 36 before timing out.

Obstacles
① Quad Steps クワッドステップス

② Rolling Hill ローリングヒル

③ Wing Slider ウィングスライダー

④ *Fish Bone フィッシュボーン

⑤ Dragon Glider ドラゴングライダー

⑥ Tackle タックル

⑦ Soritatsu Kabe そり立つ壁

Time Limit: 88 seconds (120 seconds for female and/or over-50 competitors.)

^ Denotes New Obstacle

* Denotes Modified Obstacle

Second Stage
Due to poor weather, competitors had to skip the Rolling Log, and start directly at the Salmon Ladder Nobori, thus, the obstacle itself will not be numbered.

Obstacles
^Rolling Log ローリングログ

① Salmon Ladder Nobori サーモンラダー 上り

② Salmon Ladder Kudari サーモンラダー 下り

③ Spider Walk スパイダーウォーク

④ Spider Drop スパイダードロップ

⑤ *Backstream バックストリーム

⑥ *Reverse Conveyor リバースコンべアー

⑦ Wall Lifting ウォールリフティング

^ Denotes New Obstacle

* Denotes Modified Obstacle

Time Limit: 100 seconds (110 seconds for female and/or over-50 competitors)

Obstacles
① Flying Bar フライングバー

② Sidewinder サイドワインダー

③ Planet Bridge プラネットブリッジ

④ ^Cliffhanger Dimension クリフハンガーディメンション

⑤ Vertical Limit バーティカルリミット

⑥ Pipe Slider パイプスライダー

^ Denotes New Obstacle

* Denotes Modified Obstacle

Obstacles
① Spider Climb スパイダークライム (8m)

② Salmon Ladder Jūgo Dan サーモンラダー15段 (7m)

③ Tsuna Nobori 綱登り (10m)

Time Limit: 45 seconds.