Iron Chef

Iron Chef is a Japanese television program made by FujiTV. The original Japanese title is Ryōri no tetsujin (料理の鉄人, "Ironmen of Cooking"). It began airing in 1993 as a half-hour show, and after 23 episodes was expanded to a one-hour format. Aired as a prime-time TV show, the series lasted for six years and more than 300 episodes. The final regular season episode was broadcast in September 1999, with specials continuing to 2002.

Notable judges

Diehard fans note that a given show will be greatly influenced by the lineup of judges, which changes from show to show. A list of some of the more memorable judges includes:

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(Please note that these names are not in the traditional Japanese style but have been written in standard European style .)

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• Akebono, yokozuna
• Jackie Chan, actor, director, martial artist
• Asako Kishi, aka the "East German Judge", a food critic and nutritionist
• Shinichiro Kurimoto, politician (lower house member)
• Tenmei Kanoh, photographer
• Chua Lam, VP of Golden Harvest
• Kazuko Hosoki, popular fortune teller and holder of the World Record for Most Best-selling Books (81 books)
• Korn, a rap artist
• Tamio Kageyama, novelist (deceased)
• Yasushi Akimoto, lyricist
• Kazuhiro Sasaki, baseball player (then with Yokohama BayStars, later with Seattle Mariners, still later returned to BayStars)
• Nagisa Oshima, film director
• Mayuko Takata, Actress, wife of Taro Hakase, a Violinist
• Julie Dreyfus, French actress, also fluent in Japanese and English.