tv: Iron Chef

Iron Chef

I swear its one of the greatest shows ever, but they need to stop pushing Iron Chef America, it's just not worth watching if its not Japanese

^ They made an American version?

The main attraction of the show for me is the bad voice overs and the crazy ingredients used.

Love it...

I Love Iron Chef too! one of the only things me and my mom can watch together heh heh. i love when the judges are trying out the food and describing their tasting experiences and relieving childhood memories, etc. inspiring heh heh

i swear there used to be an older thread on this....

but anyway im just a bit obsessed with this show (jap. version)
it is like food porn for me

lostpunk5545 said:

The main attraction of the show for me is the bad voice overs and the crazy ingredients used.

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yeah, i watched the american version one time and it sucked nutz.. it's all about the campyness of the japanese version

Jesus, i can't say enough bad things about the american version.

The budget has obviously been reduced to nearly nothing, and alton brown has been reduced to doing the commentary bitch work instead of working on more good eats epsoides.

The joy of the japanesse version is the absurdist charman, combined with poor quality dubs, and delicious, unique cooking (Which is presented in a way where ideas can be taken). The american version has taken away the innocent joy of an undoubtly guilty pleasure...

wanderlust said:

i swear there used to be an older thread on this....

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It's mentioned in this thread about cooking shows.

I've been a huge fan of Iron Chef for several years, and the American version definitely pales in comparison. I do like Alton Brown, but he's much more enjoyable on his own show (Good Eats).

Iron Chef just isn't as fun without the voice actors from the Japanese show. Also, I dislike most of the judges on the American version ... I mean, where's the fortune teller? The lower house member? The endless stream of chicks who all seem to be the same ditzy, giggling actress (or 'bimbo de jour,' as Iron fans call her/them)?

What I really miss is when it wasn't horribly dubbed and was subtitled on KTSF.

I can't stand Bobby Flay. Arrogant fuck. This is one of the reasons why the american bastardized version of Iron Chef sucks. I wish the special ingredient could be Flay's head or just his mouth would be fine. Stuff that hole with foie gras please.

combined with poor quality dubs

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What do you mean, the indosyncratic dubs of the japaness presenters using those awesome translators is top notch....the sound is great and everything about it just ooozzess quality. This is not Monkey Magic quality.

Obviously any translator who does over 300 episodes worth of translating will be putting some spirit into it.

Being in Aus i haven't seen the american ver, hopefully will never have to....but with over 300 episodes in the Japaness series we're still only up to year 2-3 (i believe it started in 1993 and ended in 2000, with a few specials)...

Just watched the episode where they had the first double team challenge with a white dude, and his japaness apprentice challanging Morichaba and Chen-san, what a battle that was.

Our theory is however the Iron Chef's relay heavily on their assistants and when they don't have em they get beaten badly.

I'm kinda sad the old judge dude (the one that has these flowery descriptions) kinda stopped appearing in the latter episodes. He was great.

In australia they play it at 8:30 on saturday - The wife and I have stopped going on out saturday nights just to make sure we don't miss it.

One thing I have not been able to determine......


The entire concept, do the japaness view it as a joke, or do they take it very seriously?

The chairman apparently is an actor and isn't really the big honcho however that said his entire get up and the eating of the Capiscum (pepper) at the begining of each show is that consider to be a very serious momemt or was that just the creators just being crazily, trippy (seriously people watch this show once you dropped some acid !! It's like your there eating the food!), funny?

So that said is the show a serious cooking show and all the silliness is just something us westerners find funny but the japaness don't or do the Japaness find the show as big a hoot as we do?

^^ It's great that it is on at that time on a Saturday night. My friends and I usually watch it while we are having pre-drinks before going out. Fucking great start to the night.

In the same vein there is an awesome show on Friday nights in Aus. which is great to watch before heading out. I can't remember what it's called but it is like the New Zealand version of cops. Kiwi accents always crack me up and the sheer banality of some of the things they pull people up for is hilarious. They fined this girl a few hundred dollars for having a pink fluffy thing around her rear view mirror in one episode.

Oh and chugs I'm not sure whether this is supposed be serious or not but the Japanese are renowned for crazy tv shows. A good example of this is Takeshi's Castle.

chugs said:

What do you mean, the indosyncratic dubs of the japaness presenters using those awesome translators is top notch....the sound is great and everything about it just ooozzess quality.

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i agree, the dubbing is definitely well done.. it's just cheesy

There certainly is a level of seriousness for the chefs involved...and Iron Chef just does a really good job of overhyping it.

I live in Japan but used to watch it in Oz. The dubbing pissed me off so much I had to stop watching. It's a lot better with subtitles....rather than the false emotion the dubbers use.

The Japanese take it really seriously too...but alas the show was cancelled 2 years ago.

^^^ I find this is the biggest problem with asian media

Take Anime for example, i love Ninja scroll and Akira, especially with Japanese language and English subtitles. On the Japanese version you really get to appreciate the tonal quality of the emotion their trying to get across in their performances (which the crew who did the English / American voices completely failed to understand).

With Iron chef however I found the American dubs to be just top notch (I have yet to see better). They express a wide range of tonal and emotional qualities in their voices: they (to me) have really become the people who they're translating as opposed to simply reading a transcript.

(although ironically the reporter dude who gets the low down on what the chefs are doing does voice overs for Dragonball and all those silly anime cartoons. He even has a fan following).

Although it’s a great show even without listening to people talk I would believe a huge reason for its success is the animation and lifelike qualities the translators bring that most translations fail miserably to do. Sure people might consider it be cheesy but i truly think the specialness about this program was way the translation were able to show something about Japanese post modem culture, that majority of Japanese media products sold to the western world fail miserably to do (except for perhaps Monkey Magic but then again the guys doing the music for that show played a huge part in its success, those 70s rifts were fucking sweet, very retro, wouldn’t be surprised to see it a Tarantino film or something).

I would still love to meet a japanese person to find if the translators really got the mojo of the performers.

Pillsnapa although you saying the Japanese take this seriously I have to wonder about the Chairman. Apparently his a world-renowned theatre actor (played the first asian Jesus in broadway's Jesus/Superstar)...

The eating of capiscum on the opening credits? I believe the Doctor (the fat dude who does commentating is the real power behind the show. All the assistants come from his Cooking College, and his in with the Producers...

Iron chef is the best cooking show I have ever seen its even better than Emeril Live

The first time I ever saw Iron Chef I was tripping on mushrooms. Ever since, I have become obsessed with the show. I even got cable installed simply to watch Iron Chef!

Love the Iron Chef

Love the chessy dubbing

has anyone seen the episode where they move the Kitchen Stadium to a Castle in France!!

It's a two parter as well.......fricken awesome