Fish Bone (フィッシュボーン) is a new obstacle introduced in KUNOICHI 2017 Spring's RED Stage (First Stage).
The obstacle consists of several spinning crosses (eighteen bars) and four pedestals. Competitors have to maneuver from pedestal to pedestal while dodging the spinning crosses in counterclockwise direction that are above the pedestals.
This obstacle caused chaos in its debut tournament, eliminating over half of the competitors who attempted it, including Mizuno Yuko, a KUNOICHI 2002 and 2003 finalist. It again eliminated a lot of competitors who attempted it in KUNOICHI 2017 Summer and KUNOICHI 2018.
SASUKE Appearances[]
It was revealed through images of the First Stage posted online that the Fish Bone became the fourth obstacle in SASUKE 33's First Stage, replacing the Orugōru. In this version of the obstacle, the pedestals differentiate in height, while in KUNOICHI 2017 Summer they were all at the same height. It was revealed via a trailer that the width of the surface is 30cm for each pedestal. Each pedestal is also padded differently, with the last pedestal having the most padding, making it more unstable.
The obstacle was proven to be relatively difficult, much like its KUNOICHI counterpart, managing to take out Shin Sedai member Matachi Ryo, and nearly eliminating SASUKE champion Morimoto Yūsuke, with his foot just inches from touching the water.
Competitors would be disqualified if they skipped the last pedestal by jumping to the other side. In SASUKE 33, Liao Long Zhun allegedly did so, when he noticed that he broke the rules, he ran through the course nervously, didn't step on the trampoline of Double Pendulum properly and fell into the water. The rules were officially disclosed in SASUKE 38, three instances of violation occurred on the obstacle when Yamamoto Akihiro, Takano Kairu and Takeda Toshihiro were disqualified post-run for skipping the last pedestal by jumping to the other side as all pedestals must be utilized to complete the obstacle. All three continued on the course and while Yamamoto and Takano would later fail the Dragon Glider, Takeda was revealed via Paravi to have finished the remainder of the stage with 14.83 seconds left.
In SASUKE 34, it was known that two additional bars were added to make the obstacle tougher, making it a total of 20 bars. It was proven to be as difficult as the previous tournament, as Matsuda Daisuke failed for the second consecutive time, even though he built the obstacle and trained on it. Dion Trigg also failed at this obstacle. During the broadcast, it was revealed that out of 80 competitors, 20 of them has failed this obstacle. Two additional bars were yet again added in SASUKE 35, totalize the number of bars to 22 and making it one of the many obstacles to be modified in three consecutive SASUKE tournaments. It managed to take out Suzuki Yusuke, Takeru, and Yamamoto Shingo, all who had passed during the previous two tournaments.
In SASUKE 37, this obstacle was heavily modified, an addition of two more pedestals and nine more additional bars which spun clockwise (in opposite with 22 bars which spun counterclockwise) were added at the end, with a grand total of 31 bars. This made the obstacle more difficult, as it wiped out Araki Naoyuki, Oshima Ayano, Nagasaki Shunsuke, and Matachi Ryo, all who had passed this obstacle in the previous tournament. Despite that, the obstacle had a higher success rate than in KUNOICHI, due to the fact only 50 competitors competed in KUNOICHI from KUNOICHI 2017 Spring onwards.
In SASUKE 39, the obstacle became a hard obstacle for women competitors, as out of the 10 women competitors who reached the obstacle, only Ando Miki and Oshima Ayano managed to clear the obstacle. In addition, another instance of a rare rule violation occurred in this tournament as Hashimoto Nao was about to fall into the water but managed to hang onto the pedestal using his hands, which was also not allowed to do so.
To increase the difficulty of the obstacle in SASUKE World Cup 1, mainly due to the international competitors, the bars would be modified to have a different configuration as two more bars were added for a total of 33 bars. The new configuration was a 'X' shape, narrowing the gap and making it harder for competitors to time their crossing. It knocked out R.J. Roman, Viktoria Krämer, Yamada Katsumi, and Philipp Göthert (who got disqualified for grabbing onto one of the poles). Among the failures, three of them are international competitors who had no experience attempting the obstacle. The fourth, Yamada Katsumi, had failed the obstacle once beforehand on SASUKE 40.
Competitors' Success Rate[]
- All results based on the TBS broadcast and external information found.
KUNOICHI[]
| KUNOICHI | Clears | Attempts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 14 | 35 | 40% |
| 10 | 20 | 32 | 62.5% |
| 11 | 27 | 43 | 62.79% |
| Total | 61 | 110 | 55.45% |
SASUKE[]
| SASUKE | Clears | Attempts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 33 | 37 | 55 | 67.27% |
| 34 | 48 | 69 | 69.57% |
| 35 | 39 | 55 | 70.90% |
| 36 | 44 | 54 | 81.48% |
| 37 | 34 | 49 | 69.38% |
| 38 | 50 | 66 | 75.76% |
| 39 | 45 | 65 | 69.23% |
| 40 | 49 | 68 | 72.06% |
| 41 | 55 | 72 | 76.38% |
| World Cup 1 | 28 | 32 | 87.50% |
| Total | 429 | 585 | 73.33% |
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