ROUND #2 TEAMS
The Miyamoto Sakamoto Masayuki & Miyake Ken	Nagahara-ken Nagano Hiroshi & Inohara Yoshihiko	Denden Maru Morita Go & Okada Jun'ichi

Curry Battle Curry: Stew originating in India. This was both the best and worst Junk Battle for the guys: they got to sell their curry in an all girls university cafeteria, but were stuck manning their curry an elevator ride away from the kitchen. Aw, so close...
The Miyamoto Colored Curry Ken thought that to make the curry more interesting, they could try to make it different colors. The only problem: Japanese curry is normally brown, making it extremely hard to color. They were able to create a black squid curry using squid ink to dye the curry base. But they were having trouble creatig other colors until Ken discovered curry leaves. Much like tea leaves, they were able to use them to create a white cream curry sauce. Yum! Their curry went over better than their partnership: while working out their ideas, Ken made a frownie puppy face and said that Sakamoto-kun was mean to him, and that he wished he were back with Go. Sakamoto shot back that Ken was a little brat. Can you feel the love? ^_^	Nagahara-ken Sweet Dessert Curry Since they were catering to college girls, Inocchi and Nagano thought it would be a great idea to make a sweet, dessert-ish curry. First, they took a bowl and divided it in half with a big waffle cone wedge. In one half, they poured azuki (sweet red beans) and in the other half curry, all over a sweet base. I think it's a great example of a fairly good idea gone horribly wrong. Seriously, it looked disgusting. It's CURRY guys! The girls who ate it said that it tasted pretty good: just as long as you never ever mixed the two halves.
Winner: THE MIYAMOTO

Hot Drink Battle Taking place on a ski slope, the theme of this battle was less specific, being simply any hot drink to warm you on a day of skiing.
Nagahara-ken Lovers' Mixed Drink Inocchi should be very very proud. This is by far the most creative idea I've seen in a Junk Battle yet. Inocchi took the theme of selling hot drinks to couples on the slopes. He decided that they should create two different drinks, a man's drink, and a woman's drink, that both taste good alone, BUT you could also pour both drinks into a large mug and create a delicious mixed drink as well. They had an awful time at first creating a mix that went well (banana and tomato? what were they thinking?) but eventually settled for chocolate for the guys and strawberry for the ladies. The base of the drink was amazake (a sweet, non-alcoholic form of unstrained sake usually served at festivals). Not only did it look incredibly good, but it was extremely clever, too! Now if they could only explain how Inocchi managed to set fire to his frying pan during the five minutes when Nagano left him alone... (To his credit, Inocchi wasn't alarmed, or even vaguely concerned in the least. And to his credit, Nagano put it out.)	Denden Maru Tonjiru au Lait I thought this sounded like the worst Junk Battle idea ever, so I was very VERY shocked when this recipe later won the Junk Battle Grand Prix prize. Anyway, tonjiru is a hot pork soup with large hunks of veggies in it. Not exactly what I would consider a "hot drink" either, I know, but the guys thought that it was perfect for a cold, winter day. To make it a little different, they made it "au lait", which basically meant putting a dash of steamed milk on top of the soup. This Junk Battle was also full of some of the strangest sights ever: 1) Go carrying a pan full of tonjiru into a Tokyo Starbucks to ask for some steamed milk. He was rather embarrassed, which was extremely cute, even though quite understandable. 2) Denden Maru's "undercover" costumes as the "gay ski bunnies", looking cuter than necessary while cross-dressing badly. 3) An old man dragging a frozen boar corpse to their stall on the mountain side. Seriously. Their "secret weapon" ended up being adding boar soup to their menu. It was so fresh, that it was dragged up the mountain and carved in front of them. Too weird...
Winner: NAGAHARA-KEN

Valentine Chocolate Battle It's traditional in Japan for women to make/buy men chocolates for Valentine's Day. Men buy women gifts on White Day, March 14.
The Miyamoto Chocolate Tofu As Sakamoto-kun hates sweets, I was a bit worried about this battle. But the two actually used this to their advantage. Since they figured that there were lots of guys like them who disliked sweet things, they would create a less sweet, Japanese-ish chocolate for Valentine's Day. After experimenting with some combinations that looked really gross (chocolate and natto? ewwwww...), they ended up with chocolate tofu. (After all, tofu tastes like nothing...) They actually got themselves a book on tofu making and ended up making their very own tofu with chocolate mixed in. Their biggest problem came when selling things: as usual, Sakamoto-kun declared Ken as the stall manager, leaving Sakamoto to cut the tofu himself. That involved very careful work submerged in extremely cold water. And if that wasn't enough, when Sakamoto-kun left his cut tofu to help Ken, the bucket turned over. All of the cut tofu was submerged in the water and completely broke apart. Oh no~! Poor guys...	Denden Maru Chocolate Eggs Go and Okada had a really tough time at the beginning of this battle. They couldn't come up with any ideas, and eventually settled for using different foods to make chocolate molds. After several failed ideas (the banana ended up the best, although they quickly discovered that a giant brown banana is perhaps not the most appetizing of all sights...), they ended up with eggs. First, they took a hard-boiled egg yolk, then surrounded it by chocolate, then surrounded it by white chocolate to make a perfect white egg. But their secret weapon was the key to their win: chocolate ostrich eggs. I have no idea where Okada found ostrich eggs, but as he himself put it, he apparently has a thing for size. They were able to sell all 10 of their creations for an absurd amount of money, giving them a huge edge. Best part of the Junk Battle: When Denden Maru in their "gay store girls" disguises ended up serving two beautiful cross-dressers. As one of the customers put it (after Go called him "pretty"), "Oh, it's THAT kind of store..."
Winner: DENDEN MARU

Sushi Battle: Preliminary Round Sushi: basically just something that involves sushi rice and fish. In this round, all three teams competed for two spots in a special Junk Battle in Seoul, Korea. The theme was sushi, for a Korean audience. The judge was a Japanese singer of Korean heritage, Sonin.
The Miyamoto Kurenai-zushi Meaning "crimson sushi", The Miyamoto took what they considered the most Japanese of all sushi, nigiri sushi, and made it with a Korean flair. Nigiri sushi is when you have a pad of rice and a slice of raw fish laid on top. They called up a sushi chef to teach them how to both make beautiful sushi. (Sakamoto-kun got it near perfect on the first try, proving that leader is the master of all things "Japanese".) To make it Korean, they mixed finely chopped kimchi into the rice and used slices of red fish (such as tuna) on top. Mmmmm...	Nagahara-ken Tempura Futomaki Futomaki refers to sushi rolls. Nagano and Inocchi decided to make normal futomaki, only using Korean ingrediants. They used Korean vegetables, Korean yakiniku beef, and Korean seaweed. Then, to make the rolls even more of a Japanese-Korean style, they cut the roll into pieces, made tempura out of them, and then ate them by wrapping each slice in more Korean seaweed. Mm~! It was even a learning adventure, as Inocchi has absolutely no idea how to roll sushi. Ganbare, Inocchi~!	Denden Maru Ishiyaki Chirashi-zushi Go and Okada literally had no ideas. None. So, after spying on the other two groups, they decided to go with the last major type of sushi: chirashi-zushi. It's basically just fish and stuff laid on top of sushi rice. To make it special, they went for the "super expensive" route and used the top quality ingrediants that they could find. Then, to make it Korean, they cooked it in a stone bowl, thus adding the "ishiyaki" part of the "chirashi-zushi."
Winners: THE MIYAMOTO & NAGAHARA-KEN

Sushi Battle: Final Round The Final Round of the Sushi Battle in Seoul, Korea, in honor of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. (Read: no one speaks Japanese.)
The Miyamoto Kurenai-zushi Once again, Ken was given the reigns to head up the booth, which was good as he seemed really excited to try and communicate with his cheat sheet of Korean phrases. Sakamoto always looked lost even when reading the sheet, and ended up trying to communicate in English. Um, close enough... Although I didn't see the final episode, the Super Junk Food Book says that The Miyamoto entertained the Korean crowd with an "octopus performance." I have no idea what that means, but from looking at the picture, Sakamoto appears to making the octopus wiggle and dance dramatically. Well, that's one way to communicate without words... who doesn't understand the international message of a dancing octopus?	Nagahara-ken Tempura Futomaki I didn't actually see this episode, so I'm not quite sure how their actual sales went. But I'll never forget what happened the night before, in their hotel room. At 2a.m. Nagano, who apparently doesn't need sleep, was still up with all of the lights on. He was hard at work, writing up a sign in Korean and attempting to decide how many won to sell their sushi for. He asked "Yoshi-kun" for his opinion. Inocchi, however, was curled up in bed, attempting to sleep. Finally, Inocchi chucked his pillow at Nagano's head. He sleepily apologized to Nagano, who scolded Inocchi for being such a grump. Boys boys boys...
Winner: Nagahara-ken

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