It all started here. If you’ve never seen The Original, you owe it yourself to watch.
Iron Chef Japanese, Chinese, and French, foshizzle. Look at Morimoto and how young he is!
Notice the differences:
Japanese is more campy, American more educational.
Japanese emphasize the honor of the cooks and their cooking schools, American omits any hint of the history behind the chefs.
Japanese use mostly Asian influences, American doesn’t have a major overall culinary theme at all.
Japanese have Dr. Hitori, American have Alton Brown.
There’s only one Iron Chef. Iron Chef: America has nothing on the original…they don’t even stick to the concept of the show as the theme ingredient is often minimized in the American version, and the personalities/antics are much less interesting.
Just my opinion of course. I was sad when they took the Japanese version off the air.
Iron Chef was a great watch. I’d stay up late just to catch back to back episode runs before Food Network decided to start running infomercials in the “dead time”.
Although I have to say AB > Hitori-sensei. But that’s just because AB is an attempt to make up for some of the fun lost on the floor.
This site has all the Original Iron Chef’s available for Download!
http://ironcheffans.info/wordpress/
Even some of the untranslated ones never shown in the US.
Wife and I pretty much watched them all. One of the few “adult” shows we watch in front of our two year old. He even does a pretty good Chairman Kaga impersonation. “A La Cuisine!” haha
I love the original Iron Chef and never really warmed to the American one. Funny I thought the US one was much more campy then the original. I also felt the commentators we’re more serious and better informed then there US counterparts. However I haven’t watched any where near as much US as I did Japanese, so I could be mistaken. The only complaint I could make about the Japanese version is that the judges being mostly all native ended up slanting there judging toward chefs that could cater to the Japanese palette which is very different from western tastes. Sadly some top notch western Chefs seemed to lose only for that reason. However it’s a Japanese show that wasn’t originally intended to go international. So what do you expect?
My Favorite Iron Chefs would have to be Chen Kinichi and Hiroyuki Sakai. Sakai specifically is like some kind of crazy savant chef. Especially when he’s working with an ingredient he’s unfamiliar with. He pulls off the most incredible dishes that just leave the judges stunned. Funny enough one of his dishes actually made the top 5 list for worst dishes of all time on the show. He made an Ice Cream from Fish eggs! haha Epic Fail!
Peace!
I give Food Network credit: when they started with Iron Chef America they really didn’t ‘get’ the show. They treated it like one of their other food competition shows. But ever since they let Alton start adding his sense of what the show’s core appeal was, it’s been MUCH better.
The folks at Scripps are famous for being CHEAP. The idea of flying over to Japan to film The Next Iron Chef so they could connect with Hitori, or bring the campiness of the chairman (complete with the kung-fu shwoosh sound effects as he turns his head) costs money to do (even with promo swap outs).
BTW: If you were wondering why the Chairman wasn’t on the Super Battle Obama – it was taped when he was doing Dancing With the Stars – around when The Next Iron Chef was filmed, in fact.
Ok, Alton Brown is the only thing america has over the original, but the original is the better one.
Morimoto is cool and all, but Rokusaburo Michiba was the man.
I loved the original and was so pissed when they took it off the air. Granted i got more sleep before work after but i still think it was a bad trade. Sakai was the greatest of all time.
My biggest issue with Iron Chef America is that all the “Secret” ingredients tend to be every day items (Chocolate,corn,scallops) on the Japanese one it was always something crazy (Live Fish, goat eyes ect ect..)
I can’t stand sushi.. and yet for some reason I watched every one of the videos you had posted. No matter how grossed out I was. The Japanese culture as a whole is so much different from the American culture. Why would you expect a food show to be any different?
I don’t think the Japenese version is more campy. How can you be more campy than Mark whatshisname and Bobby “I’ve fooled you to think I can cook” Flay. Not to mention Michael Simon and Cat Cora.
On top of that, I often learned more from the original show. Alton is a better host, but Kevin is terrible and lets just say, I don’t think that beyond Mario and Morimoto, America’s Iron Chefs are much to speak of. The food they cook is so hyper-regionalized as to be senseless to much of the rest of the country.
I use to love the original iron chef. It was hmmm would I try that.. No wait the plate is still moving SCREW THAT… Iron Chef America is a water down imitation of the original. Heck even morimoto doesn’t do as much Japanese style cooking in battles anymore. No off the wall sushi’s, or spicy dishes that would peal the paint from a 57 Chevy. Mostly it was amazement of wow people actually eat that…
I LOVED the original Iron Chef. I love the Iron Chef: America (though I did not enjoy it in its first incarnation, with Shatner as the Chairman). I think of the show like I think of Japanese food: the American version is similiar but adapted to American tastes.
However, I do think I like the judges better on the American version (however, my husband and I will still cover our faces and say “it’s so pretty” like every actress did on the Japanese version).
I liked the judges on the original version, myself. Or perhaps I like the camaraderie and byplay between Hitori and the judges. Everyone here can agree though, Alton Brown makes IC:America what it is.
I think there’s also a cultural difference that needs to be broken. In the original, there was real honor involved and the competition meant something. The food meant something, too. Take the episode Daniel embedded above: the challenger said specifically that it wasn’t his intention to win, it was his intention to educate on the classical style of the edo-mai-zushi (I spell that correctly?).
We used to watch the untranslated Japanese version round about 10 years ago and it was awesome! It was so much fun making up our own dialogue to go with the exotic cuisine they showed. Thank god our local public station had Japanese programming. I <3 NYC!
Luna: It’s actually a heavily Japanese-accented “Allez Cuisine!” or, “Go, cook!”
And yes, it was indeed tragic that they had to pull it off the air, but they say it was because it was *really* expensive to keep dressing Kaga like Liberace and maintaining the massive stock of ingredients, sometimes incredibly expensive ingredients. I vaguely remember an episode where one chef bragged that he had used $10,000 worth of truffles just to flavor his broth, or something like that?
I do so miss the original. In fact the America version has me turned off of it most of the time…
aaah Daniel san….
Thanks so much for posting this!
I had completely forgotten that I loved Iron Chef. Used to be on late at night in Australia when I got home from work..
Also forgot how deliciously camp it is… that Chairman with his yellow pepper eating antics in the intro *giggles*
My favourite episode is still the one with the live octopus..
still makes me laugh…
going to see if it is on youtube
/waves
Just want to mention, that if you get the Fine Living Network, You can still see the original version here in the States.
Absolute TV Genius