First Stage ~ Sasuke Ninja Warrior

One hundred participants are given the opportunity to attempt the First Stage, a course which primarily tests one's speed. The object is to hit the buzzer at the end of the course before the allotted time expires. If a competitor goes out of bounds or comes into contact with the water in any of the pits below the course, he is disqualified.

Typically, 85 to 90 of the 100 original entrants are eliminated in this stage. However, in the 4th competition, a record 37 of the original 100 competitors made it past the first stage. After the 4th, and again after the 17th competition, the first stage was thoroughly redesigned to be much more difficult and prevent large numbers of people from moving on. In fact, a G4 special inside the making of the 18th SASUKE competition revealed that the redesign of the first stage for that competition was done with the intention of seeing all 100 challengers fail it. This did not happen, however, and that has only spurred the production team on to make this and all stages to follow even harder. That goal was almost met in the 19th competition, where much to everyone's surprise, only two competitors cleared the first stage (neither of the two being SASUKE All-Stars), the least in SASUKE history.