Iron Chef 2012 – The Big Day Has Arrived

At least, it has arrived in Japan. It’s Friday, October 26th in Japan right now. (As I’m writing this, it’s still Thursday in the US.) In about 10 hours, we will see the first new Iron Chef episode in Japan in 13 years. I hope to have some audio/video/pictures from the special up on the site some time Friday night. If anyone else finds links to information about the special, please let me know and I’ll gladly post them here for everyone to share.

UPDATE: Show starts in 5 minutes. Getting excited. 🙂

UPDATE1: Iron Chef Japanese Kurogi Jun. Iron Chef Chinese Wakiya Yuji. Iron Chef French Suga Yuusuke. 4th Iron Chef is not there. They appear to be choosing one from the challengers. Now we know why they were called “nominees” instead of challengers. (I obviously didn’t understand about the 4th Iron Chef. Apparently it’s like before where Iron Chef Italian only shows up when he is doing battle.)

UPDATE 2: First battle is Miyanaga vs IC French Suga – Sake (Salmon) Battle. Weird hearing “Sano San. Sano San.” from the floor reporter.

UPDATE 3: The first battle is over. The winner is. . . Iron Chef French Suga 4-1. As expected, Iron Chef Chen nominates his son for the second battle.  The second battle is set. Chen Kentaro vs Iron Chef Wakiya Yuji. The theme ingredient is Agu Buta (some kind of pork. I will look it up.)

UPDATE 4: The second battle is OVAH. Tasting is in progress. The winner of the second battle is. . .IC Wakiya 5-0.

FINAL UPDATE: That was fun. It was worth getting up early. I’m curious to see if they do anything differently for the regular episodes. I’d like to see the challengers “choose” their opponent rather than the Chairman just announcing it. The new music wasn’t bad, and I did hear some music from Backdraft at least once during the show. I’ll try my best to get some pictures (and maybe even some video) up tonight.

HERE is a nice write-up about the episode written over on the Kitchen Stadium Message Board.

Iron Chef 2012 – First Preview Video

Here is the first preview video for the new show. It shows the construction of the new Kitchen Stadium. Enjoy.

IC2012 Preview 1

This is getting exciting.

Iron Chef Japan 2012 – First Challengers Revealed

Check out this little tidbit about Friday’s special:

“Fuji TV commentator Mizuki Sano will host the program, and the reporters will be Yurika Mita and Daisuke Miyagawa. Dr. Yukio Hattori will return from the original Iron Chef series to provide commentary.

According to Fuji Television, the first cooking battle in the new show will be between Iron Chef Rokusaburo Michiba and his student and former Kitchen Stadium challenger Kenichi Miyanaga. The second battle will pit Iron Chef Chen Kenichi against his son, Kentaro Chen.”

I got this from Wikipedia, and they don’t list a source. I have seen stories in Japanese that mention Kentaro Chen and Kenichi Miyanaga as the challengers, but have not seen the mentions of them battling Iron Chefs Chen and Michiba anywhere other than this entry. Perhaps I just haven’t found the right story yet. Anyway, if this is true, I can’t wait to see it.

UPDATE: It appears that Iron Chef Chen and Iron Chef Michiba will simply be presenting the challengers and not actively taking part in any battles. That makes a lot more sense than what wikipedia says.

You can also keep an eye on the Official Fuji TV Iron Chef Facebook page for updates.

New Official Iron Chef Site

http://www.fujitv.co.jp/ironchef/index.html

Fuji TV has put up a new official site for the return of Iron Chef.

New Logo

One of the links (yellow one) to the right of the page that is not active yet talks about recipes. Another (red one) is for Fuji on Demand. The show will also have its own Facebook page and Youtube channel.

Iron Chef 2 hour special in Japan

According to the Fuji TV website, the next installment of Iron Chef will be a 2 hour special airing on Friday, October 26th starting at 7:00 PM. I’ll keep my eyes open for any other news about the show. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about it as the date approaches. I’d love to get someone to record it for us. (Worst case scenario, I’m up at 5:00 AM that day and watching a small, pixellated window in KeyholeTV.)

http://www.fujitv.co.jp/b_hp/ironchef/index.html

UPDATE (10/15): Thanks to a comment below, we now know the new Chairman and announcers. The chairman will be actor Hiroshi Tamaki. (I know him mainly as Chiaki from Nodame Cantabile.) You can see more images of the new chairman HERE. The new announcers will be Mizuki Sano (You can see Sano in this Beyond Kitchen Stadium clip.) from Fuji TV and Yurika Mita. (She apparently sings, too. You can buy her single.) It looks like Ota is being replaced with comedian Daisuke Miyagawa.

Here are the links and stories from around the web and our comments section:

http://www.tokyohive.com/2012/10/tamaki-hiroshi-to-host-the-new-iron-chef-on-fuji-tv/

http://orendsrange.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/hiroshi-tamaki-is-iron-chefs-new.html#.UHvDnG9kQwA

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-10-14/new-iron-chef-chairman-is-nodame-cantabile-tamaki

http://www.sanspo.com/geino/news/20121015/oth12101505050010-n2.html (This story says they will not announce the Iron Chefs until the broadcast.)

VIDEO and VIDEO of Mita winning an arm wrestling matches against another female announcers.

VIDEO of Mita co-hosting Mitapanboo.