Trivia / Ninja Warrior

• Contest Winner Cameo: Following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, G4 and Sasuke's producers auctioned off a spot in the 27th tournament, with the proceeds going to the recovery efforts. The winner's run was shown, and though he failed on the First Stage he said he was honored to be there at all and glad that his money would be helping people.
• Creator Backlash: While he wasn't present during the Shin-SASUKE era, having left after SASUKE 14, current director Masato Inui wasn't fond of its obstacle design, considering the First Stage to have been too long, and finding the Salmon Ladder to have broken Stage 2's speed scaling, as the time limit essentially has to be checked to accommodate it.
• No Export for You: The UK rebroadcast of Ninja Warrior is basically the same as its US counterpart, but has the narrator changed to Stuart Hall (who has kinda done this sort of thing before).
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Said dub is now banned because Stuart Hall was convicted of indecent assault. The episodes ended up getting redubbed with Jim North.
  • The entire series has been this since the 34th competition in the UK and the 27th competition in the US, despite still going on in Japan.
• Refitted for Sequel: The Salmon Ladder was once considered as a potential obstacle all the way back in SASUKE 5 for the Third Stage. It was eventually introduced in SASUKE 18 for Stage 2.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: After SASUKE 29, due to a dispute with SASUKE producer Masato Inui. Katsumi Yamada has been banned from directly competing on SASUKE. Funnily enough, this is fairly downplayed, as Yamada has competed on the course for promotional purposes, has trained his own group known as the Black Tigers, and even had the ban temporarily lifted for SASUKE 33.
• What Could Have Been
  • Given the surprising performance of the American Ninja Warrior 2 finalists, one must wonder how far Levi Meeuwenburg would've gone had he not broken his wrist.
  • According to Masato Inui on Twitter, the original theming of the course was meant to be Land, Sea, Sky, with the First Stage being Land, the Second Stage Sea, and the Third Stage was meant to be Sky. This did not come to pass at first with budgetary restrictions, though ever since the start of the RISING era, Inui has been somewhat successful at implementing the theme.
  • Shunsuke Nagasaki once posted a picture of him training on the Shin-Cliffhanger, hoping to compete in SASUKE 22. He was not invited for unknown reasons.
  • A Final Stage concept was created during promotion of SASUKE 18, depicting an enormous tower featuring a three-part rope climb where the competitors would have to transfer to each of the ropes. This was originally intended to be the Final Stage of the Shin-SASUKE era (18-24), but the producers were unable to get it to work, creating the Heavenly Ladder/G-Rope combination instead.
    • There have been several obstacles on the show that were never attempted due to the difficulty of other obstacles, and were removed in later competitions. Likewise, several obstacle prototypes have been tested out for different tournaments, but were never introduced into the show proper.