One of the reasons we started this site was to find episodes we never had seen before. The first new episode contribution happened only two days after we went live with the addition of the Dried Scallop battle (502) from 1997. As many of you know, Food Network stopped buying/dubbing episodes before they reached any of the episodes from 1997. As a result, many non-Japanese fans have not seen more than the one episode (502) from that year. We are about to change that in a big way.
Today, we proudly announce the acquisition of 30 Ryouri no Tetsujin episodes from 1997. The Full Episode List has been updated to reflect these new additions. (Remember, blue episode numbers represent episodes that will be added to the database some time in the future.) You may also notice that all of the new 1997 episodes are noted with an “OA.” We use that designation to show that the episode is the original Japanese language broadcast. (Yes, they did come from the same source as the recently added specials. No, we have not been able to find subtitled or dubbed versions. Sorry.)
The final Episodes of the Week post each month will feature 1-3 of these ICC Exclusives. (We may try to come up with a way to vote on which episodes you want added, but I am not sure of the best way to do that yet.)
Some highlights from the newly acquired episodes:
- Cherry Blossom Viewing battle – There was no theme ingredient.
- Ostrich battle – Gillian Hearst vs. Nakamura – You see her entrance into Kitchen Stadium every time you watch the show. She is the lady walking in under the Australian flag. (Yes, we are where Mark at Nylon finally got his copy of this episode.)
- Kobe debut battle – The only time I have ever seen Kobe not running to the ingredient podium.
- Milk battle – Toyoshima vs. Sakai – They actually bring the cows into Kitchen Stadium to get the freshest possible theme ingredient.
- Iron Chef Tag Team match – Kobe/Sakai vs. Chen/Nakamura – Watermelon is the theme ingredient.
- And what I think is the crown jewel of our new additions: The Iron Chef 1997 World Cup. This special features the challenger from the Final Kitchen Stadium Battle at the end of the King of Iron Chefs tournament, Alain Passard vs. Komei Nakamura. We also see American chef Patrick Clark and Chinese cuisine specialist Liu Xikun.
We hope you enjoy watching these episodes as much as we enjoy having the opportunity to present them to you. (And if anyone with a fairly good knowledge of Japanese is interested in giving a brief summary of the challenger’s background and Kaga’s speech before announcing the theme ingredient, please
contact us.)
ATTENTION: There is now a poll on the sidebar to vote for the first set of episodes from this collection to be uploaded. You can find the poll below the blogroll on the left side of your screen.