i love the iron chef intro with the three iron chefs rising up on platforms and then "oh yeah also iron chef italian" and he rises up on another random platform in a totally other place

i still can't believe Chairman Kaga isn't a real guy

in this one, the challenger, a cocky young italian chef with a hooting entourage of italian chefs cheering for him, made a rack of lamb with only 20 minutes to spare and then they didn't show it during the tasting section. my partner says there is no way it would have been cooked in time and now i'm wondering if they didn't show it so the chef could save face (he lost quite badly though)

an american style show like this would show the judges trying to eat the raw lamb with a dramatic music sting

okay i looked it up and it can take between 12 and 25 minutes to cook, depending on the temperature. but he had supposedly cooked it a traditional way with hot stones which seems like they would be much more variable and they might not have been hot enough. that's really pushing it

there was one where they hyped up the battle in the intro like a long held grudge between the challenger and iron chef but then the challenger picked a different iron chef by surprise during the actual thing

but it looks like if they want to battle the italian chef, they have to request him ahead of time

and his platform also has a little orchestra on it that appear

there was a tie and they had to make a second episode out of the overtime battle which was konnyaku. overtime really put the iron chef at a disadvantage because the judges were getting so full by the time they tried his overtime dishes (and konnyaku is known to be filling)

*platform of konnyaku rises from the floor, jiggling*