The Shanghai Daily reports that Miyuki Iwata (岩田ミユキ) , runner up in last month’s “Gluttonous Queen” contest, won the Asia Eating Contest held at the Shanghai Jiuguang Department Store. Iwata’s non-contest meals are at least as impressive as her contest performance. A typical meal for her weighs 6kg (13.2 lb, more than Denny’s 96er burger) She claims to spend most of her salary on food and once spent $3,548 on food one month. This is Iwata’s second Chinese contest in 2006; she won a Hong Kong contest in January.

Updated 10:52 PM: China Daily has a photo gallery of the contest

Updated May 29 12:55 AM: Shanghaist has a blog entry about the contest.

Updated May 30 12:48 AM: People’s Daily has a photo gallery

A Chinese language report and preview are also available

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China Daily reports that the first round of an eating contest was held in Shanghai last Sunday. The 28 eaters who could finish 10 puff pastries the fastest advanced to a semifinal round this Saturday in which hot dogs will be eaten. Miyuki Iwata, runner up in the “Gluttonous Queen” competition, and Chang Wing-man, the “Glutton Lady” from Hong Kong will receive byes into the semifinal round.

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Video captures of Natsuko “Gal” Sone’s strawberry contest against Nobuyuki “Giant” Shirota are available after the jump. Shirota won 330 strawberries to 283. The contest has a lot of commentators for a small scale event.

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(Thanks Loren Yarbrough) A Japanese competitive eating website has been set up at http://www.d2.dion.ne.jp/~193cm/ which has galleries of Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota at the 2004 Nathan’s finals and Tokyo qualifier.

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The Northeast (China) Network reports that a noodle contest was held at a Beijing restaurant. The winner received a cash award after eating .5 kg (1.1 lb.) of fried noodles in 12 (?) seconds.

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You Tube has a 9 minute video of the final contest of the “Gluttonous Queen” program broadcast last month at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAm8AJ-RMfk
Natsuko “The Gal” Sone claimed the crown by eating more bowls of spicy noodles than the other two finalists: Iwata and “The Nurse.”

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The Japanese TV show, “TV Champion”, had an eating contest that was won by someone who does not fit the stereotype of the East Asian champion eater.

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Nobuyuki Shirota has some pictures of last Saturday’s hamburger contest in Tokyo on his blog. Shirota won the men’s contest and Natsuko “The Gal” Sone won the women’s contest. The hamburgers were from McDonald’s and “picnic style” rules were apparently in effect.

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Surprisingly, the first English article about the new princess of Japanese competitive eating has appeared in a South African publication. iol.co.za reports that Natsuko Sone (aka “The Gal”) won a gourmet Japanese seafood eating contest on the northern island of Hokkaido. The article does not mention any other contest entrant.

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The Izushi noodle contest was held Saturday. The Nurse (嘉数千恵) (Google can’t translate her name), 3rd place finisher in the “gluttonous queen” contest, won the overall contest with 95 small plates of noodles (no other famous eaters competed). There were 270 participants including children and 11000 plates of noodles were prepared. It is surprising that the minimum age for all contests was not raised to 18 after the controversy after the death of the schoolboy who was imitating a competitive eating stunt in 2002.

The following blog entries and articles about the Izushi provide an overview of a typical Japanese contest that is not a made-for-TV event: Sea Bass blog, Much & Fast (written by the contest runner up), KTV and MBS.

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This translated blog entry says that the “Gluttonous Queen” contest broadcast on TV Tokyo April 2 received good television ratings. Hopefully this will result in more eating contests broadcast on Japanese television, including contests in which Americans compete.

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Aside from last fall’s “gluttonous monarch” contest, the only other events that “The Gal” has participated in documented on the internet is a series of television appearances from from February and March. Each Wednesday afternoon Nippon TV broadcasted an eating challenge from a different restaurant in which “The Gal” usually competed against Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota. Shirota won all of these contests except one, where “The Gal” outate him by 182 items to 173. “The Gal” was generally close in the challenges she lost. If “The Gal” can match the 80%-105% of Shirota’s amounts she obtained in the challenges in Nathan’s, she should be able to eat 30-40 hot dogs (Shirota ate 38 hot dogs in 2004)

The Gal’s TV challenges

Feb 1 13 ft. 11 lb. sushi roll: Shirota 42:50, The Gal 52:45
Feb 8 Yamada 13 bowls, The Gal 12 bowls in 30 minutes- ties Shirota’s previous record
Feb 15 Yamada 190 sushi pieces, The Gal 183 pieces in 30 minutes, both break Shirota’s previous record of 176
Feb 22 The Gal 182 items, Shirota 173 items – items look like hot dog buns but are not disclosed
Mar 1 Shirota 330 strawberries, The Gal 283 strawberries in 30 minutes
Mar 22 Shirota 13 beef bowls, The Gal 11 beef bowls in 30 minutes

(Google translates Shirota as white rice field)

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“The Gal” has been crowned the new queen of Japanese competitive eating.

Here are the results of the final rounds of the “Gluttonous Queen of Japan” contest televised on TV Tokyo yesterday obtained from Everyday of the R sea bass gluttony Part 1 (Google Translation) Part 2 (Google Translation) and Much & Fast (Google Translation)

Round 6->5 Sausage 30 minutes

1 35 “The Gal” (曽根奈津子)
2 25 Iwata (岩田ミユキ)
3 24 “The Nurse” (嘉数千恵)
3 24 Tomoko Mikaye (三宅智子)
5 16 Saito (斉藤千恵)
6 15 Ro (若園真由香) eliminated

“The Gal’s” total of 35 sausages matches what Sonya Thomas did in the Sheboygan Bratwurst contest, but Sonya had only 1/3 of the time.

Round 5->4 Rice 30 minutes

1 27 cups “The Gal” (曽根奈津子)
2 26 Iwata (岩田ミユキ)
3 20 Tomoko Mikaye (三宅智子)
3 20 “The Nurse” (嘉数千恵)
5 13 Saito (斉藤千恵)

At the 20 minute mark, Iwata was ahead of “The Gal” by 2 cups, but “The Gal” comes from behind to win this round.

Round 4->3 Shrimp 45 minutes

1 116 shrimp “The Gal” (曽根奈津子)
2 104 “The Nurse” (嘉数千恵)
2t 104 Iwata (岩田ミユキ)
4 90 Tomoko Mikaye (三宅智子)

Iwata and Tomoko Mikaye were neck and neck for the third place spot with Iwata finally avoiding elimination. The Nurse’s strong performance is a considerable surprise of this tournament and marks her as another Japanese female competive eater to pay attention to.

Final Round Chinese noodles 1 hour

Surprisingly there is not a 3->2 round; the winner of the three-woman contest is the overall champion. The results of this round are:

1 22 cups “The Gal” (曽根奈津子)
2 18 Iwata (岩田ミユキ)
3 15 “The Nurse” (嘉数千恵)

“The Gal” wins this round easily and basically coasts from the 45 minute mark, when she had 20 bowls. She spends some of the final 15 minutes fixing her makeup, which Iwata apparently views as taunting. During the post contest handshake, Iwata attacks “The Gal” according to this blog entry (Google translation)

The popularity of “The Gal” has held spur a resurgence in Japanese competitive eating according to this blog entry (Google translation) but it probably has a considerable distance to go to reach the level of popularity it had around the turn of the century. Another “Gluttonous Monarch of Japan” contest open to both genders will apparently be held this fall.

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Hauler has the first report (Google translation) on today’s broadcast of the second elimination round of “The Gluttonous Queen of Japan” Hauler says “The Gal” won, but no other results are listed so it is impossible to tell who was eliminated.

Daybreakforce, a Tomoko Miyake fan, has a preview (Google translation) of today’s contest.

I will post full results here when they are available.

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I have been able to track down information about the Japanese television series about female competitive eaters I wrote about earlier this week. The show, Oogui 2006, is broadcast on TV Tokyo and the second episode will be televised Sunday night. (The program debuted on Tuesday.) The program’s home page is http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/oogui2006/ (Google translation) If Japanese competitive eating can command 2 hours of broadcast television in prime time Sunday night, it cannot be doing that badly.

In the contest, seven competitors are chosen from two qualifiers and then a series of contests are held which eliminate the last place finisher until only the champion remains. A similar event open to both genders was held last fall. Three qualifiers in the women’s contest also qualified for the open contest: Miyuki Iwata, Tomoko Mikaye, and Natsuko “The Gal” Sone. I am assuming that no slots in the open contest were reserved for women. Those three are the favorites for the women’s contest. Iwata is generally considered the top Japanese female competitive eater after Takako Akasaka (she lost the 2005 Tokyo Nathan’s qualifier by just one hot dog), but “The Gal” has more “upside” because she is only 19 while Iwata is 32. (I hope to write individual posts about the above three competitors later this week.)

Japanese Blog entries about the contest can be found at: Everyday of the R sea bass gluttony (Google translation) and Much & Fast (Google translation)

Click below for screen captures from the contest and additional information

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Despite the fall in popularity of Japanese competitive eating, it still apparently commands a prime time audience on broadcast television. In her myspace blog, Jen describes a currently running Japanese television series starring female competitive eaters. An eating contest is held in a different town each week and the food changes with each episode. This week’s contest involved seaweed in Okinawa. The show is like American Idol in that the worst performing competitor gets booted off the show. It would be interesting to see how the winning total in next week’s sausage contest compares to Sonya’s 35 bratwurst in 10 minutes.

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A fried chicken eating contest will be held in Kozhikode, India on Thursday in an attempt to allay fears about bird flu. The contest will last 3 minutes and has an entry fee of 25 rupees. The entry fee was imposed to limit the number of entrants. Violence broke out at a free chicken biriyani and fried chicken mela contest last week when contest organizers were unable to handle the surge of participants.

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Rona Conti, the mother of Crazy Legs, has just returned from Japan and submitted a comment on the Japanese competitive eating scene (or lack thereof). I have converted that comment into this post to make sure it receives the attention it deserves. Her comment follows:

While I know a great deal more about Japanese calligraphy than the Japanese Competitive Eating scene, having just returned from three months in Japan, I have some current information. The wanko soba noodle contest is, I believe, unrelated to “contemporary” competitive eating. If you Google “wanko soba” you will find that it relates to a part of the Japanese “food culture” in a specific region. I believe that one of the many many contests in the past in which Kobayashi and the “Food Fighters” participated was indeed wanko soba, but that is the extent of its’ significance. It is comparable to pie eating contests at “local” fairs. I am, of course, always very happy to be corrected.

As far as the competitive eating scene in Japan, it is, for the most part, moribund. Several years ago a middle school student who was imitating the “Food Fighters”, choked, went into a coma for several months, and died. At that time all of the extremely popular television programs and accompanying tours, magazine articles etc. ended. Thus it was that Kobayashi-san, Arai-san, Akasaka-san and the other competitors suddenly did not have the sponsorship of Tokyo television. While the Food Fighters tried on their own to continue, the FFA is now also, I believe, defunct.

Very recently there aired a new weekly television program in Japan. The “host” was Shirota-san for a few programs followed recently by a young woman. A friend will be sending to me the tapes of the programs so more information, if you wish, will follow.

However, it is my opinion that the history of competitive eating will follow the history of art. The center of the art world was Paris until the Abstract Expressionists, those brash Americans, exploded on the art scene after World War II. Suddenly the center became New York and remains so today. So it will be with competitive eating.

For many many reasons, I do not believe that the popularity and accompanying competitive eating contests in Japan will be repeated; nor will sponsorship come from Japan to the United States. Thus, past programs and performances by Japanese are all the more important to study. The Zen method may not be the whole story, but its’ American equivalent is Hungry and Focused. Eat All You Can.

Crazy Legs Mom

many many reasons I do not believe there will be a “repeat” of the Japanese competitive eating scene.

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Masahiro Kato from Shiroishi, Iwate Prefecture won a wanko soba noodle contest in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture on Saturday by eating 241 small bowls, equivalent to 24 regular sized bowls. 120 competitors entered the contest, which undermines the claim that the Japanese competitive eating scene is moribund.

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