Hopefully by now we’re all well familiar with “Ninja Warrior,” the import Japanese game show airing on upper-tier digital channel G4 (it’s actually called “Sasuke” in Japan and has nothing to do with ninjas, but I guess Americans see Japanese people doing athletic things and assume they must be ninjas) that makes “American Gladiators” look like “Make Me a Supermodel.” Recently, they’ve added another show from the land of the rising sun to their lineup - “Unbeatable Banzuke.” It may be even more awesome, something which seemed impossible just a few weeks ago.

Much like “Ninja Warrior,” this show is compelling because it looks so freaking difficult. I think only one or two people have ever completed the final stage of “Ninja Warrior” - that wouldn’t fly with American audiences, but seems to suit Japanese sensibilities. In “Unbeatable Banzuke,” contestants do a lot of the same type of stunts - jumping across platforms, navigating through narrow walkways - but on a BICYCLE, bring the degree of difficult and chance of injury up exponentially. According to Wikipedia, it ended in 2002 because someone got injured on air (the article doesn’t give much details, but you’d think it had to be pretty bad). Watch this show!

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