The Queen Is Dead

Ayako Miyake abdicates her Ninja Warrior Throne


Ready for anything...except failure!

Saturday, March 8, 2008: International Women's Day

What better way for the guy-centric G4 cable TV network to celebrate International Women's Day in the Women's History Month of March then airing the first four episodes of the new (seventh) season of Women of Ninja Warrior (known in Japan as Kunoichi, from the Japanese term for a female ninja or practitioner of ninpo/ninjutsu) during a Saturday night programming marathon. Only one woman had ever won the sports challenge competition in its first six years, but that woman, Ayako Miyake, had won the last three years in a row and was poised for her fourth crown this evening.

But she failed.

Unexpectedly, inexplicably, inconceivably.

And for the first time ever the reigning Queen of Ninja Warriors fell into the drink, plunging into the icy waters of Mount Midoriyama in the second stage. From the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat...Miyake, the acrobatic star of Tokyo's G-Rockets dance troupe and popular Muscle Musical revue (known in the West as Matsuri, which is now playing at the Sahara in Las Vegas), seemed dazed as her mascara ran down her face, merging with her tears.

The crowd couldn't believe their eyes as a huge collective groan followed the splashdown. Their agonized faces belayed their shock, like post-War survivors being told Emperor Hirohito wasn't a god.

All a dazed Miyake could do was mumble, "I failed..." and, addressing the crowd, "I am...so sorry."

Besides Miyake, another acrobatic star of Japan's Muscle Musical had previously plunged into the water, and she too burst into tears and bore a grimaced expression. These two women took the competition very seriously and acted as if they had disgraced their entire nation. I worried for a moment that perhaps these despondent damsels might commit hari-kari to abet their shame. Even everyone's Kunoichi heir apparent, intense celebrity athlete Yuko Mizuno (pictured at right - without her constricting sports bra) wasn't that shattered when she was eliminated.

Last year's runner-up, Maho Tanaka, the beautiful and leggy snow and wake boarder, also failed and was clearly disappointed (me too - I thought she was the most serious contender for Miyake's crown this season), but she showed exceptional poise under pressure, seemingly resigning herself to the fickleness of fate and the vanquishing vicissitudes of athletic competition. She'll be back next year for sure.

To say I'm heart-broken is the understatement of the world. I haven't been this sad since Pee-Wee Herman got busted at the movies. Alas, a hero ain't nothing but a sandwich in today's topsy-turvy world.

Here's the video showing Misake's - and her closest rivals - undoing on the Season 7 premiere of Women of Ninja Warrior. For me, watching it is like seeing the Zapruder footage of Kennedy's assasination. Unbelievable but irrefutable. And still shocking.


The Agony of Defeat, Lady Ninja-style

That's OK, Ayako. I still love you. And will be rooting for you next year!

So take heart from Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" and "come back even stronger." Repeat after me (and Helen): I am woman. I am [almost] invincible. I am strong.

Related Links:
Japan Probe's Kunoichi Season 7 Videos
Women of Ninja Warrior (previous AD post)

Women of Ninja Warrior

100 Women Enter, 1 Woman Leaves

I am totally obsessed with the Japanese reality TV show Kuniochi, which has been rebranded in the U.S. as Women of Ninja Warrior and is screened exclusively on cable TV's G4 channel. I came across this athletic competition - in which female contestants try to survive a challenging obstacle course so they can be crowned Queen of Ninja Warrior - totally by accident last week during a four-hour weekend marathon, and now I can't get enough of each weekday's one-hour broadcast between 8:30 and 9:30 EST.

The show is filmed at "Mount Midoriyama," a large outdoor field that is part of TBS-TV's "Midoriyama Studio (city)" in Aoba-ku, Yokohama, Japan, where only family and friends of the contestants are allowed to be spectators. The contest is made up of three preliminary stages and a final stage (added in the third season) that involves climbing a steel tower in roughly half a minute. Along the way are increasingly difficult obstacles with such colorful names as Dancing Stones, Barrel Roll, Falling Pole, Windmill Cross, Domino Hill, Pendulum Bridge, Angle Run, Hop Rocket, Swinging Beams, Flying Pillar, Spinning Logs, Tornado Run, Super Jump, Spinning Slopes, Slippery Slide, Escape Ladder, and the sinister-sounding Unforgiving Wall.


The Domino Hill obstacle from WOMEN OF NINJA WARRIOR

Kunoichi/Women of Ninja Warrior is an offshoot of the popular Sasuke/Ninja Warrior show, which features male athletes competing in a similar obstacle course challenge. Call me sexist, but I can't dig watching the guys compete, American Gladiators style. There are too many of those type shows on American reality TV anyway and it just feels a little, oh homo-erotic to me, like watching Yukio Mishima do squats. No, I prefer watching the predominantly petite Japanese women competing. Some are as young as 13, some as "old" as 44. Some are as light as a feather while others (like the popular sumo wrestler who never makes it past the first obstacle course) clearly tip the scales at over 200 pounds. Many wear colorful-bordering-on-wacky costumes, from a surfer who totes along her surfboard to a female clown in full regalia.

The following clip, for example, shows a golfer and a skateboarder competing in their work clothes:



The most eye-catching for me, though is Blue Bikini Girl, who sports a thong bikini with knee-high boots ensemble, but always crashes in the first or second phase of the course - lucky for her she's dressed appropriately for her splash in the waters below her. Yes, failure means getting wet, as the point is to stay high and dry.


Splash-down, NINJA WARRIOR style

It's a tough contest, proven by the fact that only one woman has ever won it - and she made it a three-peat at that. That would be phenomenal pink-haired pixie Ayako Miyake, all of 5 foot 2 and 90 pounds, who won the tournament three times in a row, despite adjustments made after each tournament to up the difficulty factor.


Ayako Miyake is ichiban!

You can watch her first triumph here: Ayako Miyake Becomes First Ninja Warrior Winner

And you can watch her third triumph (achieved at the ripe old age of 30) here: Ayako Miyake Threepeat

G-Whiz!

Her day-job with Japan's G-Rockets - an acrobatic dance company formed in 1995 and comprised of gymnasts who express traditional Japanese customs of the Edo era in their own original style - certainly helped her get through Kunoichi's demanding obstacles.


G-Rockets Acrobat Dance Company

But Ayako-chan really stands out because this tiny Tinkerbell dancer achieves so much with such a frail frame. In the words of one chat room fan, "She's like a video game super heroine come to life." Of course, she also stands out thanks to her day-glo locks. She's given each title run a different hair coloring - she was blonde for her first title, pink for her second, and pink-with-blonde highlights for her third-time's-the-charm threepeat.

In a word, she's friggin' hot - and, yes, I think I love her.


No time for losers, for she are the champions of the world!


Ayako does her Justin Timberlake impression


The 3-time champ's on a roll


Ichiban Redux


The Queen of Ninja Warrior


Ayako charms even the wild beasts


Resting on her laurels?

A Star Is Born

Her athletic/dancing achievements have made her somewhat of a celebrity in Japan, where she has her own blog now: www.ranahouse.com/miyake

The site is in Japanese (natch!), but thanks to the wonderful blog YODC (Your Opinion Doesn't Count), here's a rare English post from Ayako:

Thank you for many messages from America!
I appear in Japanese Shibuya for the show of "Muscle Musical", now.
Come to see it for an opportunity to come to Japan if to be!
It is looking forward to meeting everyone.
Then, I do the show of the musical MATSURI which is the same as Japan in Las Vegas in Sahara.
Come by all means to see it,too. I do my best in the vigor fullness today, too!

What you said, Ayako-san!

Keeping it Real (Polite)

It's kind of a misnomer to call Women of Ninja Warrior a "reality TV" show, because there's hardly any backstory or analysis of the contestants' personalities. Instead, an announcer asks a quick question after each failure or triumph and the Japanese women answer with a bland politeness that would be irritating if it wasn't so ingrained as a cultural characteristic. There's no boasting or emotional loss of face on display here, as the Japanese are so excruciatingly polite they could all work for the diplomatic corps.

And, unlike American TV shows where it's always about the Benjamins, no one ever mentions what the winner wins in terms of monetary compensation. I guess it's considered too vulgar to tarnish the honor of athletic achievement by associating it with filthy lucre. I had to surf the Net to find out that besides being named "Queen of Ninja Warrior," Ayako Miyake won two million yen (about $20,000) for each of her titles.

Related Links:
Kunoichi TV series (Wikipedia)
Women of Ninja Warrior: Obstacles and Awesomeness (AfterEllen.com)
Women of Ninja Warrior (Girls with Guns.com)
The Queen of Ninja Warrior (YODC: "Your Opinion Doesn't Count" blog)
G-Rockets Website (www.g-rockets.jp/index.html)