Kotaku: Bad ratings due to unappetizing food?

[okonomiyagi]

Interesting article on the new Iron Chef...

kotaku.com/5964819/the-new-iron-chefs-bad-ratings-blamed-on-unappetizing-food

For Miwa's benefit, the Japanese article that spawned the English one:
www.j-cast.com/2012/11/28155324.html

[tetsujin070561]

Thanks for posting. That is a rather old column. I would be curious to know if the ratings have improved at all since it was written.

[tuthead]

justhungry.com/it-looks-revival-iron-chef-japan-has-been-cancelled

Doesn't look like it unfortunately.

[Sanji Himura]

That link, Tut, seemed to have spawned from the Kotaku article. I don't really trust them as far as gaming news goes, and I don't trust them here.

Does that mean that Iron Chef not have low ratings? Probably not, but them [the press] going after the show for one particular reason seems fishy.

Also, I have been getting a pulse from the Iron Chef Facebook page, and a lot of Japanese that comment on the dishes have a positive outlook on the dishes, so using that as a reason why the show has low ratings is kind of a sore subject.

[miwaneisan]

Thanks, Okonomiyagi-san, for reminding of me I read that article by J-Cast in Nov. but didn't care ;D sorry.

Let me comment in 3 points about whatfs happening as far as I know.
Before that, sorry that l havenft told anything about it to everyone here but huge quantilies of information have been flying and I was mixed up by tabloid (@_@) (sorry for my bizarre English as usual. Hope everyone can understand 80% or more)

(1) Unappetizing food? (by KOTAKU & J-Cast)
No!! The original source came from Japanese 2 chan (channel 2) message board. It's a crap board, the lowest-class. (But sometimes I go there just to enjoy ridiculous & unique comments) When I found this comment @2ch, it seemed clearly from a young boy who watched TOO beautiful-shaped perfect dishes by advanced cheffs technique and also source or blood from fish/meat on the cutting board & pans on clear digital TV screen. (It's natural in cooking, right? I laughed and thought he'd never cooked nor even watched mother's cooking.) The pity ignorant young boy's comment was featured by J-Cast tabloid staff..."Wow. Hey, today's our feed!" I never find this kind of comment in any other source.

KOTAKU picked up this fishy article from J-Cast. J-Cast mainly picks up their article from BBS especially gch. 2h board (almost no direct interview by them), ch. 2's people have no purpose and just enjoy throwing critical comments against everything.

Socnow, our point is two. Low rating and cancellation!

(2) Low rating.
As a matter of fact, Fujifs been suffering from low rating about each of their show.
Not worst. Among 5 commercial TV stations, Fuji is the 3rd. But they used to be the 1st (King of Japanese TV) before(until 2011). Finally they decided revival of their former grandeur; Ryori-no-Tetsujin as their final trump card.
Fridayfs 8-9pm has a couple of existing high ratings shows but Fuji was confident to break down on it. The result of rating was: 1st 10.7%, 2nd 6.9%, after that, kept around 5%. 1/18 episode got over 6%. For Fuji, it seemed not good at all than they expected. Because they invested a dozen million yen to new kitchen stadium. (Former IC's reatings was 20% at the peak, HK special or something) Ryo Ohta, the C.O.O. of the show seems in pinch now.

On 12/31 (TV stations rating confront day in Japan), Fuji was against not only gKohaku Uta Gassenh (national station, NHK) 30-40% but also another commercial TV stations.
The winner of 5 commercial TV stations was gGaki no Tsukai ya Arahende(Gaki-tsuka)h(Japan TV) 16-17%.
gIron Chef Dream Matchh(FujiTV) was pt1 5.4%, pt2 4.5%, pt3 4.2%. This is 2nd or 3rd (you know the rating changes time to time in small range)

(3) Cancell?
Itfs not official information.
'cause, yup, Sanji-san, the press is going after something fishy.

Many of Japanese fans didnft care so much about low ratings though they knew it. They just put a lot of opinions to Fujifs official boards or Yahoo TV board. Official boards tend to display positive comments. On the other hand, Yahoofs are very severecmaybe sound like claims but I think everything comes from such a high concern and their love to the show ecause they think that Fuji should grow up the new show more and more just like the former show.

On 1/21(mon), I put my thread here to gather request & advice to Fuji. I was feeling like, gHey! Come on! Fuji! You used to be a king of TV, huh!?h

On 1/22 (tue) 4pm, a tabloid Daily Gendai published a sensational article: New IC cancellation in March decided.

gendai.net/articles/view/geino/140594

Many of fans in Japan were equivalent to stirring up a hornetfs nest!! Of course me, too!! But I told myself, "OK, calm down. They are tabloid. Gendai is always irresponsible." At that moment, I honestly felt the credibility, true or not, was fifty-fifty. The point it might be credible is that end of March is the month of change for many things in Japan. The point it might be not is that Gendai strech a story always.

During 1/22-24, I found such a many people talking about this topic on the internet. There were a lot of "pro & con" comments. I surely found some maniac fans deleted their past critical comments to Fuji from Yahoo TV's message board.

On 1/25 (fri), Yahoo Japan picked up this topic and reprinted Gendai's article at their site. Unexpected for me! The credibility raised unfortunatelycI guess? though itfs not official yet.

Overall, so far, my impression is that Fuji is contraction-minded too much by ratings & internet critical comment. I want to let everyone know once I get something new, but...if true ... Fuji's official announce may be in the air a week just before the last epi.(><) .

Pls let me know if anyone doesn't understand my bad English. I'll correct. Also please feel free to put your comment to Fuji in another thread (my thread). I'm happy to commit representing friends.

[Sanji Himura]

Let me ask you this, Miwa-san. Would you consider the Channel 2 boards as we English speaking folks consider 4Chan to be the lowest of the low?

[miwaneisan]

Ifm sorry I didn't know 4Chan. I just checked Wikipedia nowcummcit might be similar to Ch.2 partially. But I donft know.
2Ch. used to be not so awful before. There was a TV drama (& movie) gTrain Manh (Densha-Otoko) based on 2Chfs story. It was a fantastic story. (in my opinion) It was 10 years agoc?
Recently, many of 2Channelers often describe political topic by using a pejorative word and burst into flames. I was very sad when I found they had a bad word to say about ICJ. But itfs not all of them. Some are funny & unique and I enjoy. (itfs my impression. Ifm sorry if you know about 2Channel already and donft think that way.)

Miwa

[okonomiyagi]

So let me see if I understand this (your English is quite good, Miwa, but I just want to see if I understand most of what you're saying):

--The original source of the J-Cast article was a comment on these Channel 2 boards (the equivalent of our 4chan). Someone from J-Cast picked up on this comment and decided to write on the reason for Iron Chef's low ratings--without interviewing any primary sources, and only basing the information off that comment.

--As far as Japanese TV ratings go, Fuji used to be on top until about a year and a half before Iron Chef's return. So to try to turn that around, they decided to revive the show, thinking that it would give Fuji's ratings the boost that it needs to come back on top.

--When the new show debuted, the ratings started strong (10.7%), but has consistently hovered around 5% after the second episode. I don't know what's considered "good" ratings in Japan, but apparently that wasn't as good as Fuji was hoping.

--The Dream Match Special got a 5% rating which dropped off as the show went on. Against Gaki no Tsukai Arende, though, it got beat pretty badly.

--Then Gendai (a Japanese tabloid) also publishes a story about Iron Chef's "cancellation" that hasn't been verified by Fuji or anyone associated with the show. Yahoo Japan subsequently picks up the story, spawning a whole bunch of fan reactions. But as of right now the cancellation (or rumors thereof) have not been confirmed.

Does that sound about right?

[miwaneisan]

Thanks a lot for your aid.

--The original source...
--As far as...
--When the new show...
--The Dream Match...

Above 4 points are right butc

--Then Gendai....
This article says they heard it from a person relating to Fuji.
So Japanese fans are upset. Certainly we Japanese consider Gendai as a kind of tabloid. But they are a bit better than J-Cast as a press.
They often pick up the topics from another source just like J-Cast, but they also do interviews by their selves. But even though they have interviews, they often stretch and decorate a story and write it sensationally.

>And, right, as of right now the cancellation (or rumors thereof) have not been confirmed.
¨Right. Not confirmed yet. (except Gendai.) No comment from Fuji, even though their face book has started including fanfs comments gDonft cancel!h "I'll give you good ideas to up the ratings!", etc. One comment of face book says, "I feel it smells fishy that only Gendai published..." personally I agree

[persimmon]

To me the food looks ok. They need to create more drama for the show, the new "chairman" is nothing but an announcer, Chairman Kaga was a integral part of the Original Iron Chefs charm. Too bad they had to kill him off, or the actor didn't want to continue playing the Kaga role.

They need to introduce cooking school rivalries like the original Iron Chefs where winning and losing seemed like it really mattered. Like a martial arts showdown lol That to me was what made the original Iron Chefs interesting and unique.

The new Iron Chefs are too young (outside of Wakiya) and they all lack a playful attitude like Chen Kinichi. Without the drama and interesting characters, it's just a normal cooking competition show. I do hope they don't cancel the show too soon and let it grow and become more interesting.

[okonomiyagi]

^They all lack a playful attitude? They don't all need to be playful (I mean, compared to Chen, everyone else seemed to think the show was serious business). I like Suga's "trademark" toast of pink champagne at the end of each match, for example. That's what's setting him apart, at least to me.

And how many times did they drive home the fact that Kurogi lost his debut match?

I'll agree with you on Tamaki. But then, with every other version of the show since the original, the Chairman is pretty much nothing more than a figurehead now. Thailand, the US, Australia, and the UK all have (had) Chairmen who were just...there. Tamaki, too, now that they have that roving reporter open the show.

[tetsujin070561]

Jan 27, 2013 11:47:49 GMT -5 miwaneisan said:

Thanks a lot for your aid.

--The original source...
--As far as...
--When the new show...
--The Dream Match...

Above 4 points are right butc

--Then Gendai....
This article says they heard it from a person relating to Fuji.
So Japanese fans are upset. Certainly we Japanese consider Gendai as a kind of tabloid. But they are a bit better than J-Cast as a press.
They often pick up the topics from another source just like J-Cast, but they also do interviews by their selves. But even though they have interviews, they often stretch and decorate a story and write it sensationally.

>And, right, as of right now the cancellation (or rumors thereof) have not been confirmed.
¨Right. Not confirmed yet. (except Gendai.) No comment from Fuji, even though their face book has started including fanfs comments gDonft cancel!h "I'll give you good ideas to up the ratings!", etc. One comment of face book says, "I feel it smells fishy that only Gendai published..." personally I agree

Thank you, Miwa-san for keeping us updated.

[Sanji Himura]

Jan 27, 2013 16:43:55 GMT -5 persimmon said:

To me the food looks ok. They need to create more drama for the show, the new "chairman" is nothing but an announcer, Chairman Kaga was a integral part of the Original Iron Chefs charm. Too bad they had to kill him off, or the actor didn't want to continue playing the Kaga role.

They need to introduce cooking school rivalries like the original Iron Chefs where winning and losing seemed like it really mattered. Like a martial arts showdown lol That to me was what made the original Iron Chefs interesting and unique.

The new Iron Chefs are too young (outside of Wakiya) and they all lack a playful attitude like Chen Kinichi. Without the drama and interesting characters, it's just a normal cooking competition show. I do hope they don't cancel the show too soon and let it grow and become more interesting.

That is a bit unfair, especially considering the fact that the producers DID continue the storyline from the previous show. Also, and I think that Miwa-san can back me up on this, the only reason why the Chairman is nothing more than an announcer is because of simple logic of the tasting panel to be honest. When they had a four person panel in the old show, six overtime battles took place. Fuji did not want a repeat of that happening, AND they saw that odd person panels were working extremely well(particularly in the US version where three person panels are the norm), so they made it an even five. A fifth person would break any ties among the other members, and the chairman wouldn't have to sit through and taste the wasted vote. In other words, sir, it would have been better for them to have a fifth judge judging the dishes than for it to be used to make the Chairman look pretty.

[miwaneisan]

Thanks for following, Tetsu!
Persimmon, Sanji, I understand totally you both.
Kaga was an integral part of the Original Iron Chefs charm. His presence as a host was irresistibly attractive. He could even announce over-time battle and we were excited, gWow!h. (actually the producer decided though) The concept was Fight It Out!! That kind of craziness was Fujifs strong point in those days and a kind of stoic feeling of tense was Tetsujinfs charm. Maybe there were some excessive way (just rumors), I donft know, anyway Kaga left. (But, Persimmon, absolutely killing him was bad!)
Meanwhile, time has changed and Fujifs advance publicity for new IC was..., eRyori no Tetsujinf which is a big hit in 80 countries around the world is evolving and returning triumphantly as eIron Cheff... So, I agree with Sanji. Fuji might import American IC style reasonably about panelfs number & appointing system. Because they were not willing to have overtime battles or prepare extra ingredients. (due to budget?)

As for lack of character of iron chefs and Tamaki, there were some complaining comments in Japanese message boards, too. But it's getting better little by little. (recently camera often catches Tamaki's face during tasting) I like Suga's "trademark" champagne toasting, too. Each character began to take root in. I hope they don't cancel the show so soon. :'(Maybe we expected too much because original ICJ's golden age's impact is too strong.

[herringchoker]

Jan 29, 2013 11:11:14 GMT -5 miwaneisan said:

As for lack of character of iron chefs and Tamaki, there were some complaining comments in Japanese message boards, too. But it's getting better little by little. (recently camera often catches Tamaki's face during tasting) I like Suga's "trademark" champagne toasting, too. Each character began to take root in. I hope they don't cancel the show so soon. Maybe we expected too much because original ICJ's golden age's impact is too strong.

My husband and I were talking about the situation a few days ago, and we agreed it would be foolish for Fuji to cancel the show quickly. It takes time for any show to develop the characters and format. After a few seasons, go back and watch the first few episodes of any of your favorite shows and see how much it has changed for the better in many ways. As Miwa said, when you compare to the heyday of the original ICJ, of course the new show is going to be lacking...but the early episodes of the original (many of which never aired in the US) were not as polished as the later ones.