Iron Chef America!

[seawasp]

They get it RIGHT this time.

Apparently -- miracle of miracles -- an American broadcasting company LISTENED to its audience, LEARNED from its mistakes, and FIXED them. THIS version of Iron Chef is worthy of its predecessor -- slightly less flamboyant, no less serious, and just as mouthwatering. They keep the mythology alive, with the new "Chairman" being explained as the nephew of Chairman Kaga, establishing his own stadium here in America. Alton Brown is the PERFECT choice for narrator, and did the job well indeed.

And dear GOD I want some of ALL those dishes.

Comments

[fallenpegasus]

Added to my PVR...

[eacole72.livejournal.com]

Good to know!

I have it TiVo'ed, so I can watch it some time this week.

[shana.livejournal.com]

The chairman really is Kaga's nephew, too. (His mother must be quite a bit older than Kaga, because there isn't that much difference in the age of the two chairmen.)

I wonder if they're going to have a studio audience. I understand they're filming it in NYC...

Of course it might be even more frustrating to SMELL the dishes and not be able to taste them...

[corvidophile.livejournal.com]

after watching the travesty of the first one and Bobby's abominable behaviour at the end i didn't want to see the second one. so when flicking by the food channel when i saw it i unfortunately passed it by. i'll have to watch the foreseeable rerun now hehe. specially if they got Alton, i love his show!

though nothing can beat the original Iron Chef where things 'dance in your mouth!' and 'cause my tongue to laugh in joy!' ;D

~ corvidophile (:>)=

Really!?

[seawasp]

I wish I could agree, but as his name on the Food Network site is "Mark Decascos" and it gives a fairly clear outline of his career, I'm afraid that the relationship between the two is just as real as the actuality of the reclusive billionaire gourmet Kaga.

You are conflating

[seawasp]

... the Iron Chef Battle USA (which was an actual Iron Chef episode, featuring Kaga himself, with Flay VS Morimoto) and the travesty featuring William Shatner.

Flay did leap on the cutting board, offending the Japanese, at the end of his first battle against Morimoto. He had a second battle, a rematch, in Japan, against Morimoto. He won the second one, and he and Morimoto are friends now.

Food Network then attempted to start their own Iron Chef, but hired William Shatner to be the host and the thing turned into a circus.

Surprisingly, they listened to the criticism, and came back and this time got it right.

Re: You are conflating

[corvidophile.livejournal.com]

But. For. How Long! Scottie. The Food. Dances!

LMAO Shatner as host. whoever thought that would be a good idea? and this coming from a trek fan.

Re: You are conflating

[corvidophile.livejournal.com]

and maybe i'm biased as i don't like flay to begin with. i just think the original Iron Chef is...hmmm... not authentic feeling cuz between those crazy outfits and the comments i'm crackin' up half the show... maybe thats what makes it though? hard to explain. the only thing that i like with a North American based show is that the chefs actually know what to do with, for example, a potato. when you watch the original Iron Chef you get comments like:

"oooh he is slicing it! and frying it! what a unique combination. will they be adding bean curd to that?"
"ah yes, potato wrapped in seaweed deep fried with soya, squid juice, and miso paste. it makes my tongue giggle!"

Re: You are conflating

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

"I just think the original Iron Chef is...not authentic feeling..."

But that's exactly why I so enjoyed the original Iron Chef series. It seemed so quintessentially Japanese to me. Who else would you expect take something like _cooking_ and turn it into a glorious, life or death battle in front of cheering fans for absolute victory or humiliating defeat? All that was missing was a requirement that the losing chef commit seppuku to restore his lost honor....

Re: You are conflating

[corvidophile.livejournal.com]

LMAO exactly! i always half jokingly wondered if the loosing Challenger went in the back afterwards and used one of his hatchet knives to do the chef version hehe. but at least half of those shows have to be rigged, as when the tasters try the dishes they are all "oh this is WOOOOnderful!" and then they get crappy marks. my fav is that cranky fortune teller lady. i think she hates all challenger dishes hehe.

Re: You are conflating

[seawasp]

None were rigged. That would be highly dishonorable. The chefs took this very seriously (you should hear some of the interviews with Morimoto and Sakai). While the "frame" story was fiction (i.e., Kaga as the billionaire did not exist, etc.), the competitions were deadly serious.

Remember that the commentary is EDITED. You don't get to hear all the comments, so someone editing the show is going to decide what comes through on your end; it's of course quite possible that THERE they make a choice to bias the selection to confuse the outcome.

[xyzzysqrl]

This is... TOTALLY unrelated, and I'm sorry (actually, just to put this remotely on topic, I loved Iron Chef America too and you're right, they finally treated it with respect)...
DBZ Budokai 3. A while ago you mentioned you'd yoinked it for Christmas. What'd you think? (I'm mostly curious as to if my reviewing chops are coming off okay.)

Budokai 3...

[seawasp]

You know, I thought I'd posted something on that, but I can't find it.

Overally, it really is a far superior DBZ came to the prior ones. They've brought back one of the biggest "cool" pieces from the earlier SNES games, and even improved on it -- the power battles. There's now several ways in which a power battle may be resolved, depending on the particular attack being used. They've got teleports, power blocks, and so on. Your review was pretty good. The story mode is definitely a major improvement over prior attempts.

It's far from perfect -- I'd like to actually have a DBZ fighting game OR even better RPG that allowed you to develop your own character in that world, exploring it and maybe learning from some of the main characters as you encountered them. Such a game could be designed quite easily now.

Insofar as a fighting game, I'd still like to see at least an option to use the old Street Fighter/Toshinden method for fighting (control moves instead of button combos), and free-flight options.

Visually, it'd be nice if we can do real permanent damage to the landscape during a battle, and fight across large sections of the world.