The pumpkin contest between teams from the United States and Japan was broadcast today and R Suzuki has a blog entry about the program

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The Kent County Times has an article about the pumpkin contest in Rhode Island between mixed gender pairs from the United States and Japan which describes the origin of the event:

Emi Umeda, who works with the production crew, said the name of the show translates to “Anything is possible,” and she said the point of the show is to take a topic, find who’s best in the world at it and challenge them to a contest against Japan.

One of the topics is a pumpkin-eating contest, she said, which will pit two professional American eaters against two professional Japanese eaters, making their way through five different pumpkin dishes.

In order to get started, the show wanted to find who held the record for growing the largest pumpkin in the world, which happened to be Coventry resident Ron Wallace, who owns a farm at 860 Plainfield Pike.

The American female made her competitive debut according to the article:

The Japanese contestants are Tomoko Miyake and Nobuyuki Shirota and the American contestants are “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti of Wallingford, Conn., and Elizabeth “Rubber Gut” Kennedy from Florida.

“This is my first time doing this,” Kennedy said. “I made some inquiries on the Internet just out of curiosity and interest and they gave me a call.”

The article verifies reports of a US victory:

Since it may be difficult for American viewers to tune into the show to see the results, St. Jean said the American team ended up easily outpacing the team from Japan.

update BigPumpkins.com has some pictures of the contest (bottom of page) One of the pictures is captioned:

At the Wallaces on August 21, 2007, Gentleman Joe, urges his teamate to down more Pumpkin Lobster and Pumpkin pizza. She ate an entire Large Pumpkin Pizza and 2 lb Pumpkin Lobster in 3 minutes. But that was just the appetizer.

update #2 The BigPumpkins.com message board has some threads about the contest: Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3

update #3 Dec 26, 2007 The quoted article spelled Elizabeth’s last name incorrectly. The correct spelling is Canady.

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From AICE news:

As predicted by Chairman Chowhound Chapman, Gentleman Joe Menchetti and Elizabeth “Rubber-Gut” Cassidy defeated the great Shirota and Miyake in decisive fashion at the Wallace Pumpkin Farm in Rhode Island. It seems that Gentleman Joe Menchetti who cannot be beaten by man or beast in the pumpkin disciplines and the unknown “Queen Guttress” (stay tuned America, you will be finding out more about this amazing female Eater in the near future) put down the proverbial hammer as they won four of the five contests.

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AICE news reports that a multiple round, tag team eating contest between two person mixed gender teams from the United States and Japan will take place at Ron Wallace’s pumpkin farm in Greene, Rhode Island on August 21. The food will be a variety of pumpkin based dishes. Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and Tomoko “Esute” Miyake will represent the Japanese, while the home team will consist of “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti and Elizabeth “Rubber Gut” Cassidy. Ms. Cassidy was predicted to come in fourth at May’s AICE rib contest in Kansas City, but no results for her from that event were listed and I have not been able to find any other competitive eating information about her on the internet.

In his blog, Shirota reports that he will be going abroad next week, but does not provide further details (automatically translated):

By the way next week, almost it is the foreign country.

There is no sight-seeing, is.

Today, because carrying which can be used even in the foreign country was rented, when perhaps it does

Perhaps, it renews [burogu] from the foreign country, perhaps, but it does not do.

AICE news also reports that Joel “the Cannon” Podelsky won the knish eating contest held on the Coney Island Cyclones Jewish Heritage Night.

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A 24 hour eating contest between teams of different sizes was recently held on a Japanese television program called “Food Camp”. The teams consisted of Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota as a single-person team, a two-woman team of Tomoko Miyake and her friend Kana, three wrestlers and six comedians. The comedians won by eating, 22.21 kg in total, but that was only .3 kg more than Shirota ate. Tomoko Miyake’s team was hurt by the medical disqualification of Kana.

Youtube videos: Part 1 Part 2
R Suzuki blog entry
Official program website

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Kobayashi and Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota recently faced off, but it was in a bowling alley and not an eating contest. Shirota reports that Kobayashi broke 200 in his blog entry about the competition.

In his blog entry, Kobayashi has a cartoon of Shirota and the Food Battle Club stars. Tomoko Miyake has a cartoon of herself suitable for placement on a button in her blog.

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A video of Gal Sone competing in a noodle eating contest against magician Cyril Takayama can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNyJzl680l4 Cyril makes Gal Sone’s lead in the contest almost completely disappear. Japan Probe and R Suzuki have recaps of the program.

The entire rookie women’s qualifier for this years “Gluttonous King” contest can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/euromach2

Gal Sone vs. Shirota

Gal Sone vs. relay team: Part 1, Part 2

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R Suzuki reports that a movie based on the “Gourmet Fighter” anime is in production. Natsuko “Gal” Sone and Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota are in the cast listing.

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(From R Suzuki) ntv.co.jp reports that Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota remains winless against girl groups after losing to Gyaruru (He lost to Morning Musume in their 2001 Christmas special) Shirota wore a wig and competed as “Jumbo Kurota”

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R Suzuki reports that Nobuyki “The Giant” Shirota competed against a lion in on “Dream Vision”. The competitors had to eat 5 kg of meat as quickly as possible. Hopefully clips from the contest will appear on youtube soon.

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japanprobe reports that the program “Dream Vision” did an episode about the science of competitive eaters. Gal Sone and Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota were given an MRI exam after eating over 100 sushi each. The body temperature after eating was also observed. Two clips from the program are available in the episode.

R Suzuki also has a blog entry about the program.

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The website for Japanese branch of Frito Lay has a page for the snack foods endorsed by Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota and Tomoko Miyake. The automatically translated page says that Shirota tried to reproduce “hormone pot taste” in his snack, whatever that is.

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A commercial for Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota and Tomoko Miyake’s snack foods can be found at Tomoko Miyake’s home page at http://miyaketomoko.com/ I am not sure if the commercial was televised or if it was on the web only.

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blog.gansotorokatsucurry.com reports that candy endorsed by Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota and Tomoko Miyake will go on sale on March 26.

In his blog, Shirota states his design goal for his candy:

‘Of the snack which is agreeable to the beer’ was thought in theme.

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ntv.com reports that Natsuko “Gal” Sone defeated Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota in bunless hamburgers, 22 plates to 20. This is Gal Sone’s first victory against Shirota in her weekly Wednesday morning contest since early 2006.

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A video clip of Natsuko “Gal” Sone and Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota doing different 4.5 kg (10 pounds) curry challenges at the Yokohama Curry Museum (it is apparently an actual museum) has been uploaded to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCCEVUjR1yo
A middle age blonde Japanese woman eats with them.

Yama3 also did the 4.5 kg curry museum challenge and won the above prizes.

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R Suzuki reports that team eating contests were held during a New Year’s Day television special. The West team had Gal Sone and Takuya Yamamoto while the East team had Nobuyuki Shirota and Tomoko Miyake. The teams also contained some other celebrities. Men’s, women’s and mixed gender contests were held. The mixed gender contest was a 30 minute sushi contest which was won by the Galsone (154 pieces) / Yamamoto (174 pieces) team.

Tomoko Miyake reports about competing in the event in her blog.

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In his blog, Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota reports that he got married on December 24. No other information about the wedding or bride is provided.

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If you would like to watch a competitive eating themed Christmas program, the Christmas special produced by the girl group Morning Musume which Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=13nin+Xmas+&search=Search The segment where Morning Musume faces a giant lizard shows that Kobayashi vs. the Bear was not the most bizarre appearance of a wild animal in television history.

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In a recent blog entry, Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota describes the current state of his stomach capacity:

It can make extremely simply to about 9kg, but

To fight with the people who are thought the rival, lowest we want 11kg.

As for ideal 12kg.

By the way, when most the stomach becomes large, 12.5kg.

At the time of gluttonous king decisive game of the other day there is 11.5kg, or isn’t?

To make Capa above 10kg, training (gluttony) it does

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A clip of the entire segment of the 3.5 kg noodle contest between Natsuko “Gal” Sone, Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and Takako Akasaka from the Japanese supersized meals show has been posted to http://youtube.com/watch?v=9n3zXU6yJxI

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The new poll asks where Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota should appear on a unified ranking containing IFOCE, AICE and Japanese eaters. Shirota defeated Kobayashi in 3 out of 4 Food Battle Clubs and ate 38 hot dogs in 2004 Nathan’s.

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Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota and Tomoko Miyake are endorsing a garment called the turbocell. The turbocell looks like bike shorts, but its manufacturer claims that it raises body temperature and makes weight loss easier.

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As far as I can tell, these are the most viewed competitive eating videos on youtube as of November 15

Gal Sone 40,000 calories, 319K views
Kobayashi – SNL TV Funhouse 122K views
Kobayashi vs. Bear, 99K views
Gal Sone vs. Shirota 6Kg curry, 85K views
End of 2004 Nathan’s finals 56K views
Kobayashi vs. Takako Akasaka Food Battle Club, 37K views
Kobayashi – Coffee Milk, Food Battle Club, 36K
Kobayashi at US Open, 28K views
Entirety of 2006 Nathan’s finals, 26K views
Gal Sone vs Shirota – 5kg udon, 23K views

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Some clips from last month’s Gluttonous King program are available at http://youtube.com/results?search_query=oogui&search=Search TV Tokyo will have the clips removed when they find out about it, so what it soon if you are interested.

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