Shokugeki no Souma

Sorry everyone, I honestly don't know why this show is so highly ranked as it is.

Shokugeki no Souma is a train wreck. And when I say this I don't say it lightly - what started out glowing with great potential came crashing and burning once the show got a little over half-way into the season.

The biggest and most saddening part of Shokugeki is the very poor (or lack of) character development. By throwing way too many characters into the mix, there is simply not enough screen time for most of the main characters. The only person who I would argue went under the most significant ... change was Megumi, and even so, her development was incredibly forced - her development was not so much based on her own sheer free will but rather because she wanted to mimic other individuals.

The other disappointing factor about Shokugeki is the over-stretching (if this is even a word, lol) of the plot towards the latter half of the season. This is especially exemplified by the Autumn Elections. Most of the tournament events could have been condensed into two to four episodes, but since the judges kept talking and basically giving the same, predictable reviews and reactions ("oh this doesn't look good... but it's so yummy! *insert overly used ecchi animation*), this was easily dragged on and on when it didn't have to be.

What does Shokugeki get right? Arguably the humor. The humor is quick, witty, and light and never fails to disappoint. The artwork and sound is also decent, albeit the ecchi animations are way too overused.

tl;dr
Pros:
- Humorous
- Interesting characters, although some were clearly drawn from stereotypical personalities
Cons:
- Poor plot execution, especially towards the second half of the season
- Poor character development
- Predictable
- Overuse of ecchi scenes - as the saying goes, the same jokes get old fast...

Story: 3
Art: 5
Sound: 4
Character: 4
Enjoyment: 3
Overall: 3

Food Wars is as simple as this review is going to be. This anime had a lot of potential to be great. I went into it not knowing anything because I wanted to be surprised. I knew it was about food and I'd seen pictures on various social media of the food that comes from this series—it's beautiful! There hasn't been very many anime that centers around food so it piqued my interest.

While Food Wars is definitely surprising—shocking, even—I was extremely disappointed to find that it has no plot, no interesting characters, character development was nonexistent, and it's just an overwhelming amount of gross ecchi-ahegao ... man-service. Within the first 5 minutes of the pilot episode, the viewers had the misfortune of watching an underage child orgasm from eating food the red-haired kid (whose name escapes me; he's not interesting enough to remember) and suddenly get attacked and sexually violated by an octopus...all because the redhead made an octopus dish. I felt my brain liquefy from the stupendous amount of absurdity. I like my anime with a lot more meat on their bones and not just pretty animation of food.

I had watched the first episode of Shokugeki when it aired, but dropped it when I realised it would be nothing but Cooking with Gary Stu. When I learnt this anime would have a sequel, I finally decided to see if it was worth it. Perhaps it improves after the first episode and I was being too harsh, I thought with all my heart. After all, it is sitting at a solid 8.6. And so I watched it. Turns out my original hypothesis was correct: It's a load of shit. Well, now instead of wondering about it, I can at least objectively state Shokugeki no ... Soma is pathetic.


Story: 3

I will say the premise behind Shokugeki is not bad. It's about cooking and battling, comparing skills with chefs of higher skill (mainly those of the Elite Ten) to become a better chef. Unfortunately, the execution needs a bit of work.

Firstly, the first half of the show is boring. From the beginning our protagonist Soma is presented as nearly perfect. I'll go into more detail about him at the characters sections, but as far as the story goes, because Soma is so proficient at what he does, the plot instantly becomes predictable. Over 80% of this show is Soma facing off against someone who is meant to be higher in skill than him, whether they be part of the Elite Ten or not, but episode after episode he continues to dish out food so good it makes women (on rare occasion men) uncontrollably cream themselves. When the equation for every episode, especially in the beginning, follows as Soma + Ingredients + Cooking skills that surpass Gordon Ramsay = Food that can manipulate anyone to do anything, I already know what will happen in episodes five, six, so on... In the words of Edgeworth from 'Boot to the Head': "How predictably boring..."

Secondly, the ecchi. To put it bluntly, it was overused. I don't have an issue with it if it pops up to 'spice things up a bit.' A good example here is Code Geass. Every once in a while there was a boob/panty-shot to lighten the atmosphere of a rather serious anime. Good. This is how it should be used. But when those shots BECOME the plot, it ruins an anime. Since we're talking about cooking, imagine ecchi like a fine spice. Sprinkled in, it adds a bit of flavour to an already good dish. Poured on haphazardly like the cap fell off a saltshaker makes a meal absolutely disgusting and inedible. Probably the best formula I've found for this is: If you take out the ecchi of a story and you no longer have a plausible plot, you might as well call it hentai. At least Shokugeki admits what it is, but even so, I'm not watching this to masturbate, so the show becomes even more boring and predictable.

Thirdly, and I will admit this is a bit of a nitpicky one, but the story jumped around a bit too much. Usually a story has a stated goal which it follows. The story can branch off and create other short-term goals, but it doesn't usually sway from the long-term goal when that goal is the main focus. In this case, I thought the long-term goal would be Soma working toward and winning a seat in the Elite Ten, but this goal of Soma's seemed to die out the more time he spent at camp. This isn't necessarily bad as this added a bit of plot-specific filler content to the story, but Soma was so set on winning a place in the Elite Ten it was a let down to see that goal completely forgotten, as if it was mentioned mainly for introducing an interesting plot to keep watchers hooked. Of course, as I mentioned above, it would have been rather predictable given Soma's skill, but at least it was a goal the character had rather than just 24 episodes of cooking, beating someone supposedly more skilled, and moving onto the next person.

Finally, the pacing is a bit off. In the beginning it was done all right as characters head to an academy to hone their cooking skills, but the last half of the show involving the Autumn Elections are incredibly drawn out for no reason other than filler.


Art/Sound: 6

Not much to say here. The art of the food was done very well. However, it was so detailed compared to the characters and everything else it was nearly overdone.


Characters: 2

I'll make this fairly to-the-point. Let's begin with Soma.

Soma: As stated above, from the beginning he's shown as perfect. He's not presented with really any flaw nor backstory, and when he is, it's so much later on it doesn't matter. The purpose of the first few episodes should be exposition which is used in a story to sprinkle in bits and pieces of not only the premise and setting, but also who the characters are and a bit about where they wish to be in life. While Soma is presented a few times with the goal of becoming a better cook, it becomes a rather unnecessary goal when he's already surpassed other apparently brilliant chefs. Also, any flaws or backstory that do appear exist for mere moments. He's a lot like a cooking Naruto; hotheaded and determined. But at least Naruto's hotheadedness got the better of him from time to time and was something he could learn from. With Soma, it's a personality trait that all the tsunderes can't help but adore. So, really, he's more like a cooking Kirito. No flaws, really nothing to learn from besides one rival, his father, not much backstory, and all the ladies love him. Boring.

Erina: Not much to say here. She's the bitch with the boobs. Like Soma, she has a bit of backstory, but that's put on the back burner (see what I did there?) in order to show off how truly rich and elegant she is and how much she can't stand Soma. At least she has him as a rival of some sort, but again, there is much development from this rivalry.

Megumi: She probably had the most development out of anyone. She has a bit of backstory that helps her grow as a cook, but unfortunately she relies too heavily on Soma to make her truly develop rather than deciding for herself how and when to grow.

Last, Takumi: Arguably the best character in my opinion. He has a sibling, he has a personality, and he has a flaw, no passion to cook, but even so, he worked toward a goal of learning how to cook. They should have made him the protagonist...or at least kept him in the show. By about episode 10 he's no longer around. He does make a reappearance in the Autumn Elections, but only briefly, so one of the most interesting characters is used for a few moments of rivalry with Soma only to be forgotten.

Enjoyment: 3

Shokugeki is not the worst thing I've watched, but certainly not the best. Certainly not worthy of that 8.6 rank. It skips exposition, introducing characters early on only to introduce their backstories and flaws and goals twenty episodes later. It completely cuts out characters with potential. The beginning is well-paced, but boring while the ending is drawn out and also boring. Its protagonist is too perfect while everyone else with potential and personality are used as side characters or boner-producers. Once it does become interesting, it's only for a moment before reverting back to the same formula: Perfect character is unbeatable, who would have guessed. In conclusion, this anime had potential, but didn't expand on it as unfortunately boobs are more important than plot and interesting characters.

Summary of Shokugeki no Souma:

Pros:
+Realistic cooking challenge
+nice cooking sound effects

Cons:
-repetitive cooking
-shallow story development
-characters are not well described
...
I would say Shokugeki no Souma is a cooking show in an anime world,rather than other genre.

Story:(35%)(4/10)
Well,story is lacking of excitement due to the repetitive cooking challenges,feels bored for me.And for the protagonist Soma is a talented cook,the story development is pretty shallow due to repetitive cooking.Also,the reaction that characters had after eating soma's dishes feels annoyed to me and feel wasting time.

Character:(25%)(4/10)
Pretty shallow.All I know is that soma is a talented cook and had few problems when dealing some of the cooking challenges.

For other characters,frankly the anime did a poor job on describing other characters' speciality and individual due to most of the time is mainly describing soma's dishes,which is kind of disappointing.

Animation art:(10%)(7/10)
Pretty decent.when soma is cooking dishes,the animation is kind of stunning.

Sound:(10%)(8/10)
The sound effects is pretty great during the cooking challenges scenes,feel realistic.

Enjoyment:(20%)(4/10)
Overall,the show is pretty boring for people who don't enjoy cooking genre much.More efforts is needed for introducing each of the characters and adding some more plot twists into it.

Overall,I would recommend this anime to people who likes cooking a lot,but if you expect some thrilling storyline,I recommend you stay away from this anime.

Overall:4.7/10(E)(Acceptable)

[3.0/10] - DROPPED

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For anime that I've decided to drop and do have something to say about, I decided to write up some short thoughts on the subject matter. This isn't as structured or well put together as some of my other reviews, however, I figured to try my best and describe what exactly about this series didn't do it for me and determine why exactly it didn't work.

Shokugeki no Souma is a series that follows Yukihira Souma, a kid who just entered a prestigious cooking school that's treated like some kind of Olympics training camp in this world. In this special school, he meets ... all kinds of colorful characters and scenarios in which cooking determines the end result of everything. Want to go into your dorm room? Cook off! Want to decide what to do in class? Cook off! What time to go to bed? Cook off! If you've seen virtually any shounen action anime then chances are you've seen this kind of setting before.

It's No Game No Life, it's Hunter x Hunter, it's FMA, well, maybe not that close to the latter two. The point here is that the setting isn't unique, and the entire idea isn't much of a twist, either. When I rolled this show to watch, because I usually let fate decide the next series I will consume, I was fairly interested since I heard that it has a very unique and satirical take on Shounen action shows. However, to my unfortunate realization, Shokugeki isn't really a twist on anything. It's just a shounen action show but now it has food in it. That's not a twist. That's just an idea. It's a shounen action show but the idea here is they fight with food rather than fists. But is that idea enough to carry the series?

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Short answer : No, not in my opinion.

The biggest issue here is that I've seen this all before, and I haven't even watched that many anime. It goes to show how repetitive this medium has become when I could predict virtually every cliche chucked on screen carelessly. "Oh, is this girl taking a bath? I guess it's time for the protagonist to walk in on here!" The humor here is kind of awful. There's an over-reliance on wacky faces, which isn't necessarily unfunny, but when it's all just chibi reaction-images with a few "foodgasms" thrown in for good measure it all just blends together in this jambalaya of boring nonsense.

It is almost as if the creators are checking off a list of "Shounen must-do's" while creating this series and it all feels inconsequential. All of these characters have been done before. All of these interactions have been done before. And I don't need a massive catalog in anime watching to understand that, which is so disappointing for a pretty huge medium with hundreds of shows coming out every year. How come one shounen action series can speak for them all? Where's the subversion? Where's the "twist" that is talked about?

Another saddening downside is that to my knowledge this show might actually provide some engaging and subversive material but i'm in the camp of people that believes that a series needs to put its best foot forward. I don't have all the time in the world to sit through something I'm genuinely not enjoying just to hopefully get to something good. Don't confuse this mentality with slow series, or series that may start out with a poor example of their abilities.

There are plenty of shows out there with bad first episodes but end up providing some amazing entertainment. The problem here is that I always find something to attach myself to. For example, a live action series by the name of "Black Sails," delivered a pretty awful first season but quickly picked up within its second, third, and eventual fourth season and became a great product. The difference between shokugeki and Black Sails, though, is that there were elements which I enjoyed within the empty and stupid first season of Black Sails. While in Shokugeki I often found myself checking the time and yawning.

I'm sure for anyone who enjoys Shounen action tropes and generic anime fanservice and humor would enjoy this series. But for me, it really doesn't offer enough of anything, especially since I found its over-reliance on said tropes to be banal. There was nothing here other than this collecting of cliches that are accessibly translated into a food-related atmosphere. Of course everything else is textbook.

This leads me to the characters, which are all boring. Our protagonist, Soma, is near-unbearable with his monotonous characterization that speaks to this shows formulaic design. He's just the anime every-man. His flaws are non-existent within the first seven episodes I've seen and that's really not inspiring. His flawless nature and natural talent leave an empty husk. His mannerisms and actions are all the same stale bullshit you see within most other shounen protagonists.

Whether they give him more character or not in the future, the point is that this isn't worth sitting through. Perhaps they develop his flaws more, however, there needs to be a base of it all. There needs to be initial intrigue. Virtually every other character, regardless of their screentime, is the same level of lifelessness. We have Megumi who's the shy one, there's a few other no-name secondaries that serve no purpose other than to fill an anime girl/guy archetype, and then a few villains which are equally mundane and end up jerking off the main character at some point.

That's the point, though, a self-insert protagonist that plays towards a power fantasy. With a newer concept that is less punch-oriented and more food-centric. If you like well-drawn food that's absurdly sparkly then this show could be visually engaging, but to me, again, it just sang tediousness. The food didn't really look good, being a mesh of brown coloring that's significantly over-blown and sparkly with all kinds of juices leaking out. They portray it in a sensual light, but it's the kind of sexual nature that most anime has. By that I mean very childlike and lame.

There are plenty of "foodgasms" to be had here. So guys having decently funny slapstick mixed in with girls just having boring sequences where they are naked. I guess I'm expecting a bit more? Oh man, this guy had this crazy reaction to this food! And then the girl character tried it and she lost her clothes and moaned really loudly. That's... funny? Ha...ha?

I really don't see the creativity here. Every girl has two body types. There is the loli-esq student and the crazy-busty student. They all have unnatural proportions. The girls in this series are just a set of titties with colorful hair and some outfit accessories. Which is the same complaint I had towards the exploitative nature of No Game No Life. It's not as bad here, but that's because this show is just not as fanservice-heavy from what I can tell.

However, the fanservice here is very blatant and still constant enough for me to realize how laughably childish it all is. I know I sound like a grumpy old man here, but can't we actually have some adult sexuality for once? This is not funny. This is not creative. This is not anything. It's just a checklist of anime cliches that permeates throughout this inherently pulpy and childish medium and it is consistently making me more and more jaded.

"Oh man, the camera focused on her titties which make a sloshing sound akin to two wet rags smacking each other!"

"Oh man, another shot of her jugs! How creative!"

"Oh man, they're focusing on her two personality traits!"

You see what i'm getting at here? Sexuality isn't inherently bad. If a character dominates her own sexuality and wears it on her sleeve then I'm much less annoyed than I am when I see this completely unrealistic anime archetype with a "pure yet totally obscene and sexual girl". However, even when a character in this show definitely does own her sexuality, like Mito, it's quickly used to ridicule and dehumanize. Instead of having this be a character trait, she quickly becomes an object of embarrassment and it's just cringe-inducing.

The characters aren't inherently unattractive, either, they are just drawn in such amateur and childish ways that nothing about this successfully proves interesting. The constant lingering on their breasts or legs is repulsive enough, but nothing about these character's appearance is emphasized apart from these more sexually exploitative parts. It creates for walking sacks of meat rather than sexually interesting characters or even interesting characters at all. Whatever this series was going for, I never really felt like it succeeded.

The comedy here is really sub-par, as well. It lacks any flavor, no pun intended. There is nothing to it. Just a bunch of reaction images, wacky faces, chibis, and moaning with a heavy dollop of generic-as-all-hell fanservice.

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[Conclusion]


Unfortunately, Shokugeki failed to captivate me in just about any way. The presentation here isn't too bad. The animation is fine and occasionally lively, the direction is boring, but everything else falls totally flat. The story is just any generic shounen, the characters equally so, with the over-reliance on the creative idea to carry it. That being said, an idea rarely ever carries a series, especially since it requires more than a concept to really create a spectacular, believable world.

The biggest issue here is that it's not ridiculous enough to be considered satire, either. Shounen has a tendency to be over-the-top and extremely pulp-oriented, so what exactly is this show accomplishing? I mean, if you've seen any of the escalation in something like Attack on Titan or FMA then you'd know exactly what i'm referring to. Shounen action as a concept is already absurd, so associating it with food doesn't really point out anything bizarre or over-the-top. What i'm saying, is that this show isn't goofy enough. It isn't creative enough for this concept to really flourish within it's generic pool of archetypal characters.

Apologies for the abridged review, but I felt like I should address my issues with this series. The reason I try with all these kinds of genres in anime, even if they are naturally unappealing as an idea is due to the fact that I believe a genre has more to offer than one kind of story. So I try my best to give every kind of genre its deserved due diligence.

The saddening idea here is that this show doesn't capture that idea, and if it does in it's later episodes then I'm sure the people who pushed through this fairly horrendous initial showing are ecstatic. This show is just generic and that doesn't mean that it is mediocre. Our standards shouldn't be set that low. I found that every sub-par episode made my attitude towards this series consistently negative and that regrettably created for a lousy watching experience plagued with disappointment.

Is this anime about food or po*n?

Despite the criticism "ecchi" genre receives, it is really one of the hardest shows to achieve perfection. It is hard to find the right balance between storyline and lust. And Shokugeki no Souma is a perfect example of what not to do in this genre.

Join Yukihira Sora on his journey to become a master chef, in which every single judge is like Gordon Ramsey and doesn't give a god da*n about just eating food. You know... quite a lot of people live on ramen you know... And as long as it's cooked properly, it's edible god damn it. But ... ironically, when it comes to the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, all cooks become like me, just complimenting on any edible food.

TL DR; This show is utter garbage. There is not a compelling story unlike literature and the already barren plot is plagued with scenes that resemble hentai.

Story: 2/10
I totally don't get where the story is going. This is the one show where the fan service just totally destroys the storyline. There are just too many useless fan services and I really can't tell whether I am watching HENTAI or anime. Seriously, the VAs kinda make it sound like it is the former. The results of any food competition just seems BS and the story is just full of holes to make any outcome convenient to explain. This lacks all elements from Aristotle's Seven Golden Rules to storytelling.

The development of the characters are really poor - like Tadokoro for example - she just straight up goes from the worst cook in the school to the best. Zero explanations. Romantic developments are utter trash. And the story itself is just as boring as possible. And they just seem to add more overpowered cooks just to get the show going.

And why are there even fan services in an anime supposed to be about food? Why are there even "food orgasims" in the first place? Nobody does that in real life. This show already didn't have a plot and this just ruined it even more.

After some time, I just skipped all cooking scenes to the results.

The only reason I'm not giving this 1/10 is because it is not a propaganda.

This show is utter trash; I don't get why this is so popular.

Art: 9/10
Well, people like the fan service shots.

Sound: 4/10
I generally don't give any ratings below 7/10 on this, but the VAs makes this sound like po*n

Character: 2/10
Well, there are a bunch of fan service characters, bunch of side characters that are just thrown away and an MC with a boring past.
Well, works alright for pornography.

Enjoyment: 2/10
Seriously, just watch hentai instead or something if you are watching for the fan service shots. This show just sucked.

Overall: 3/10
This show is between 2/10 and 3/10. I reserve scores lower than this for the absolute worst. But this anime already is a disgrace to the storytelling medium. If you are really into food, just watch any Gordon Ramsey.

I finally finished watching this, and probably won't be watching another season of the title. I couldn't decide whether to give it 5/10 or 4/10, and decided on 4/10. Detailed breakdown is below.

Overall:
The anime is very good at wasting viewer's time.

In its structure it is a very typical shounen anime, except that instead of fighting we have dramatic cooking. I found the anime to be boring and yawn-inducing most of the time, however there were few episodes which sparked my interest a bit. The "food is so good that it makes people orgasm" joke gets old 3rd time you see it, which happens quickly. The ... anime shares all the problems of a typical shounen anime. Meaning you have characters talking (during a "fight") most of the episode while camera slowly pans around. You have gasping/shocked onlookers saying stuff like it "I can't believe he used ingredient X"(which is typically followed by 15 minute long explanation of ingridient X), which is followed by a "counter" from an opponent, more talking and more explanation.

The anime isn't ecchi, even though there are "ecchi" pictures of people tasting food. The problem is that those pictures aren't funny, aren't sexy, and aren't very interesting. So this joke just gets old fast.

The story sorta progresses, but it progresses slowly and doesn't exactly reach a conclusion. judging by the pacing I suspect that the creators want to milk the anime for at least 4 more seasons.

I also felt like the whole season could be made 2 times shorter (13 episodes) without losing anything.

Animation:
The anime uses every trick known to shounen anime in order to cut production costs. There are A LOT of scenes where you'll see something animated in 3 frames being slowly panned with sparkling sfx and LOOONG explanations, usually describing some sort of food. You'll spend a lot of time starting at this or that unanimated food ingredient being displayed on screen. When the series finally animate something properly, it looks good, but it doesn't happen very often. Despite that, I can say that the studio does fairly decent job hiding their "cost cutting tricks", but at some point you'll start to wonder why are there so many "camera panning slowly while somebody talks" scenes.

Art:
I loved designs of some of side characters, especially designs of their faces. Several of side characters (mostly girls) have a great design of faces, and their costumes are well drawn too. While the anime cuts animation costs at every opportunity it gets (with the annoying "let's pan something slowly while explaining something about current ingredient of the week"), I haven't noticed any "cheap" backgrounds, cheaply drawn characters or anything like that. It is mostly solid, with few side characters looking great (ikumi, erina, and one of the judges whose name I forgot).

Characters:
Ikumi is a highlight of the series, her reactions are somewhat interesting. The rest of the characters are pretty much either faceless or cliched/stereotypical. They follow typical shounen tropes, meaning there will be "opponents" acting in absolutely ridiculous fashion in order to display how "evil" they are, which is cringeworthy. and makes a lot of interactions cliched or non-believable. The protagonist is forgettable, he is a typical "shounen with spiky haircut" with cookie-cutter personality. Only Ikumi and maybe Erina has some semblance of a characters the rest are just walking cliches/shounen tropes.

Music:
The anime apparently has a good composer, but it feels like that composer is underutilized. in a few places of the anime there were few "scary" musical scores, and they were good/interesting. However, most of the time the anime keeps playing the same "battle" theme on the loop, and while this theme is okay, it is not great to keep listening to it that often.

Enjoyement:
Most of the time I was thinking "why am I watching this?". 1st episode was okay, few episodes in the middle were okay (there was a moment I thought it would get better), and the last episode was okay too. The rest was incredibly boring, artificially prolonged, very tedious and frankly just plain bad.

Bottom line:
I haven't read the manga, but I suspect it might be a better idea to check manga instead. Overall I have impression that anime problems are caused by it being a manga adaptation (and not a very good one). Those slow panning scenes with someone talking might work well in manga (because while you're reading a LOOONG explanation, you might have some cool art to look at), but they don't feel right in anime. There are 2 or 3 visually interesting side characters (as I said, art style is decent and some of the character desiigns are great) but they alone are hardly worth watching 24 episodes of this.

So, the best suggestion would be to skip, unless you really want to see those 3 girl characters with nice designs, or unless you really enjoy shounen shows.

The first episodes took me 3 tries to get fully through. I have now finished the whole 24 episodes.

In the first 3 minutes; a 15 yr old girl is violated by a squid the main character cooks for her. This is basically the whole story.

A cooking show with a super OP protagonist, where anyone that eats good food has an orgasm. (massive fan service)

This is a meh anime at best. If it wasn't all fan service and explaining the recipes for hours it might actually be alright.

I need to write a longer review to be able to post this review...Those are some good rules. I ... wonder what other people write to fill in this space when the anime is not a great one.

But you know what, I feel like watching the 2nd season just to see where the story goes. The timeline seems to go fast then slow.

Look, Shokugeki no Souma is not for everyone and it certainly isn't for me. The basic storyline is a cooking school we follow soma as he gets better at cooking blah blah, this anime is just trying to appeal to the horny boys, like me at the time, but the truth is I don't want to be horny all the time I want to watch an anime that I can laugh at and enjoy but this is just not right, and I'm pretty sure food doesn't have an effect where it rips all your clothes off and makes you orgasm. To be honest, I haven't ... completed every season of this "anime" and maybe it gets better but I highly doubt they change the storyline much it's just going to be new opponents and new tasks that have to be completed in a certain way all the while everyone's on enjoying the food as if they are going to die afterward. Also, I found it very difficult to eat during this anime, seeing as the people in it were eating divine food with fragrant smells and textures and whatever, whereas I'm eating a bag of chips, just makes me feel depressed. I guess they did a good job seeing as it is a more popular anime and it could be difficult to think up new ideas seeing as every other anime these days is just an isekai with the exact same story but they definitely could've come up with a better idea than sexualizing the whole thing. I can't give any ideas on how to improve nor do I think you even care about this review but this is just my interpretation of this anime.

Shows gets so many view but the "food" is so good which can make people orgasm even though is an expression. It is super weird and gets weird till the next season. with those clothes keep flying out of the people same goes as me dropping this review. Also the characters are weird af. Story might as well turn to the hentai direction due to all the characters all leaving their clothes. also the shows is trash itself. no offence. they should stop producing more episode due to all the sexuality's and obscene scenes going on. this is what i felt ...

The lesson of the day: Less is more, way more!

Plot: The main character never wins a cooking competition against his dad. It's understandable, since he's only in middle school. The kid gets tired of it and explores the world of cuisine to finally be able to beat his dad.

This is a great concept! It's not only a cooking show, but it's a cooking competition between parent and kid, and then they go on an adventure to learn different types of cuisine. This is a genius concept on its own.

Too bad they ruin it with disgusting fanservice. Having middle schoolers grown ... breasts and a bigger butt when they eat, have a foodgasm (see 'orgasm') when they eat, etc. Maybe they wanted to appeal to that 'audience' but they did so at a cost, alienating an audience of normal people. I'm going to say that they could've had a SpyxFamily success story, if they didn't add all that extra stuff. The story on it's own is good. The main character is good. Why ruin it to appeal to the body pillow crowd?

DISTASTEFUL I really don't understand why it has such high marks.

is this anime about cooking? is it something like shounen? or maybe ecchi? it's all rolled into one and it's terrible.

the combination of food and orgasm scenes is the worst combination I've ever seen.

I really tried to watch it somehow, but you really can't watch it without cringe.
I barely got through 1 episode and after 2 and 3 I had enough, I couldn't go on, it's too repulsive


... But if u dont mind dirty scenes with food u would like it cause story is „ok”.

And it started so well. Already at the beginning of the anime you can like characters, hum the opening and get hungry from the wonderful drawing and food animation. wonderful 5 minutes.

I physically CAN NOT finish this anime. It's absolutely HORRIBLE. It's literally a soft porn directed towards hormonal teenagers and there's far too many naked people for my taste. I feel like the creator of this anime was hungry, horny and high when this was being made. It's a shit storm of an anime, and I regret making it as far as I did. I really tried to push through it and finish this anime, but it's just too much. I cringed so many times while watching it, I can't continue. This is easily the worst anime I've ever watched.

Sorry but I don't get it. It's boring. Every episode of this show just feels like a really boring filler episode. I'm used to the over-the-top competition trope, but there needs to at least be a little substance to it. The animation is good, especially the food. The animation style and the videos I watched of people recreating the food drew me in. I could barely get through five minutes of the first episode before I got bored. Usually, the thing that saves the over-the-top animes from being, quite simply, bad, is that they cross over into the ironically good territory. This anime does not ... do that. Food wars is just predictable and drawn out. The manga would likely be more tolerable, because you can read through it faster. I don't think I could sit through seasons of this crap show unless I was watching it on 3x speed. I'd honestly rather do taxes. No shade if this is your jam, though. There are better things out there to watch.

Ecchi. This show starts off extremely sexual which was at first *fine* (though tentacles are involved) I don't hate cause a show has a bit of tiddy but 'orgasmic food' got old and uncomfortable fast with a dash of sexual assault for laughs.

Shonen for boys. The battles are with food instead of ninja fists. Okaaayyy- I'm not seeing anything super different here except no one is trying to win back honor for their clan or avenge a dead loved one. It's extremely over the top like Bungo Stray Dogs, but as much as they want me to get exited about food, I just see ... girls treating the main characters food like it's the best sex they've ever had and boy they really want you to know it's sex, with the ladies, men do not experience this phenomenon, and again, this got uncomfortable and old really fast.

I *really* like the music, the line work is clean, the character designs are super okay, and the food porn is great- they really put care into how the food looks, you know, so it's orgasmic for the ladies.

I've seen the show get a lotta love, and I can see someone getting into it if they're not already used to competition shonens and want something that at least *appears* to be extremely light hearted but heavy on the ecchi.

If you like ecchi and sexual assault jokes this ones for you.

Shokugeki no Souma is an anime that is good to look at but lacks in other areas. It is a very wierd mix of a harem hentai and a traditional anime. The characters are pretty shallow except for the mc. Most of them are forgettable and can only be kept in track with how they look. They lack any personality except for blushing or getting angry. Overall this is a mediocre anime at best and i would only recommend it if you wanted to shut your brain off and kill some time. This would be more suited to hentai because then at least some things ... would make sense like the girls getting naked after eating the MCs food.