Shokugeki no Souma: Gou no Sara

So 13 weeks in and now at the end of Gou no Sara, I never got to a point where I felt this season was as bad as people had hyped it up to be. I waited week after week for it to get awful and it just never came for me. I thoroughly enjoyed every single moment of this final season and saw it as a victory lap of sorts for the series. We saw everyone come full circle this season and show off their development. Of particular importance for me was the growth that Megumi, Erina and Aldini have had. For me, that ... was enough to really enjoy the final season. I understand that this is an unpopular opinion and that's fine, you can judge for yourself, but if you're a fan of SnS, you should definitely give this last season a try.

Production wise, you can definitely tell JC staff started to rely on the established name of SnS instead of actually putting a lot of effort into the show. The panning camera shots, off model characters and other quality control issues are not a huge deal to me, because I personally watch things for the story and how they make me feel rather than as an art critic, but they do exist and are noticeable. I also could feel that pacing was very rushed especially in the final half of the season. It felt like the Shokgeki's were on 2.5x speed and the detail and educational bits that we're accustomed to seeing were just not there anymore. It felt like they instead transitioned to relying on the girls getting naked as our sole source of entertainment during shokugeki's. I was able to overlook this because I'm easy to please, you may not be.

Overall, you can definitely see a dip in quality from SnS season 1 to season 5. It's gradual, it's painful and it's pretty sad because of how well done season 1-3 were. But, it is it the sad reality of ongoing shows. You either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become Food Wars Season 5. The anime original ending wasn't bad to me, but it wasn't great like how I felt at the end of Totsuki Train either. I was still left wanting more. Despite all the flaws, I still love the series and enjoyed this a lot even with its issues. Shokugeki no Soma Gou no Sara gets 7 foodgasms out of 10 from me.

After 4 relatively strong seasons Shokugeki is back with its final arc, many fans expected the previous season to be a good place to finish the series, between the manga ending and the overall satisfactory place the anime ended it seemed to be a great place to end the show. The fans were 100% right, this season blows and there isn’t a better or easier way to describe it, Shokugeki no Soma was never a series known for being particularly good, its essentially food porn the anime, with exaggerated over the top reactions and some great comedy. However, even with knowledge of the manga having ... a questionable turn in the story, it was hard to see this absolute disaster coming.

Story: 1

This is the first time I have ever given a 1 to a story, this season of food wars throws out literally everything the series built up and cherished. Soma and his dad’s rivalry being built up? Doesn’t matter since Soma’s father loses off screen to some edge lord teenage version of Nakiri’s dad, who happens to have the cooking equivalent of Sharingan. The competitions being legitimate measures of a student being able to run a restaurant? It’s all about game show theater now with chefs bringing in actual chainsaws, motorcycles and goddam explosives into the kitchen.

Noir as the antagonists pretty much made the entire season unbearable, the moment the black KKK robe wearing gang showed up I genuinely lost any ability to continue taking this show seriously, it was simply too comical, I don’t know how the mangaka actually thought that look was supposed to be cool or intimidating. I don’t care about them, I cant even try to understand their motivations, and the entire concept of criminal cooks seems like poorly written fanfiction. Elite chefs who work for Mafia and such, don’t cook with chainsaws, they cook the way a regular chef would using regular kitchen tools. The author who used to at least try to get his series grounded in reality threw out everything and completely destroyed any suspension of disbelief.

Art: 3

The art style is very basic, in fact it might be the peak JC staff Power Point, even the opening consists of cut out characters, colored manga panels, and recycled movement. Its actually jarring to compare the art in this season to that of the first season, the difference in animation, the gorgeous backgrounds and mental imagery, and the overall change for the worse in even the foodgasms. Absolutely every aspect of the art in this series has faced a decline, there are no redeeming factors, and if not for the fact that I have seen even worse declines this year like Deen taking over the third season of a certain shonen series, I would have given the art a 1 as well.

The sound: 5

Its passable, I would write more but realistically there isn’t much to write here. The sound is extremely forgettable, generic sound effects, generic dramatic background music, reuse of the old soundtrack many times, forgettable OP. Overall its just passable sound, its not bad enough to be remembered, and not good enough to be noteworthy.

Characters: 4

Jobbing is a common trope in any battle themed form of entertainment, be it pro wrestling or shonen manga, it occurs to hype up new threats. However there is a good way to job and a poor way to do it, having all the fan favorite characters completely annihilated by Noir with no redemption or come back arc is among the worst ways to go about it. Remember what an amazing chef Yukihira’s dad was? Well he gets beaten off screen even before Asahi managed to get more cooking skills with his food copy ability. Remember the previous seasons top rival chef Tsusaka? He gets unceremoniously beaten without even managing to beat a single noir chef. Tadakoro got some respect but was reduced to her usually damsel role after Asahi tears her apart with ease. Overall the complete ruination and downplay of all the characters built up through the series in the final competition by complete outsiders, have utterly destroyed any enjoyment of the characters I had. It also doesn’t help that the majority of the coolest characters, did not even show up for the competition but just as spectators, and that Erina had all her character progress thrown out the window. Overall, the fans of this series will be very disappointed by the jobbing, the out of character behavior, and the overall cutting out of fan favorite characters in this final season.

Enjoyment: 4
I did not enjoy this season, I don’t see fans of the series enjoying this season either. It feels like the prior season is where the series should have ended, and that this season was an unwanted arc written by a mangaka who genuinely wanted to torpedo their own story to end it.

Overall: 4

This wasn’t a particularly good show, in fact it was probably among the worst things I have seen this year, a 4 is the lowest score I give to anime. I only give a 4 to animes that I absolutely despise and think are hot trash, the only reason this even gets a generous 4 is because it had some decent cooking reaction scenes and because the show was watchable to the end.

Meet Souma, he is the son of the owner of a small eatery in Japan. For his age, Souma is a very talented person able to easily come up with new dishes; sometimes these dishes are some really weird combinations of the ingredients no one would use. After some time, the owner of the Souma's eatery, Souma's father, leaves the family business to work with his friend. Souma's restaurant is on the verge of closing. To improve his cooking skills and to save the restaurant, Souma begins studying in Engetsu Teahouse Culinary Academy, which is regarded as Japan's top culinary academy. The problem is that ... only a few are able to graduate from it, these few are world's best gourmet of culinary. Will Souma manage to graduate from the academy?

Many have been waiting to see the 5th season and the pandemic made this wait even more impossible to put up with. However, was it worth it? I do not know. It does not feel like Food Wars anymore. Just a season ago, Souma was not the member of the Elite Ten; things were different. The new season could have focused more on the life of the new members of the council; however, the only thing it does is jumping from one event to another, without giving the viewer enough time to enjoy the series, which makes this season somewhat rushed, to say the least.

What I mean is that the anime introduces a group of supposedly French underworld chefs called Noir, which is French for ‘black.’ They immediately become the main ‘villains’ of the 5th season. Do not get me wrong, I have nothing against Noir. The problem, however, is their leader, who is so far one of the worst characters of Food Wars, because it is simply beyond obvious who he is, what he tries to achieve and why. Anyways, I am sorry for destroying your hopes for seeing Yukihira Souma’s father as the last boss. He is no longer shown as one of the best, something that 4 seasons of Food Wars have been doing. Yukihira Jouichirou is not the only problem for me to mention, he, just like many of the supporting characters are quickly forgotten; the new season does not care about giving all the characters, including the supporting characters enough love and this is very easy to notice.

Needless to say, the new season suddenly changes many characters, without explaining anything for the viewer to understand these sudden changes that appear ‘out of nowhere.’ Take for example Erina Nakiri. She suffers the same fate as the father of Souma, she is not that amazing genius that could make a masterpiece out of nothing and a chef from a simple amateur anymore. Funny thing is that Erina is not the only example of this ‘sudden character change’ and there are other reasons for me to say that, but they will be for you to find out.

And there you have it, Food Wars! The Fifth Plate. The season, where everything is simply beyond obvious and it makes this season boring, somewhat lazy, careless and inattentive to the important details. Tsukasa Eishi is an excellent example of how characters should look like, it is visible the moment you see him that Tsukuda Yuuto did everything to make him look like a chef. His passion for cooking is very understandable, because all he can do in life is cooking. Now compare him to Saiba Asahi. It just feels as if Tsukasa Eishi’s character was written within a week and Saiba Asahi within a day.

On this positive note, it does not mean that you will not appreciate the 5th season. If you are a fan, do not listen to what other people have to say, including my review, of course. I am a fan of Food Wars, I loved and still love the first seasons, however, I failed to enjoy the 5th season, because of the fact that it is way too obvious from the very beginning: you know what it is going to be about, you know everything about the main villain of the season the moment you see him and this makes it boring; there is no mystery.

With that being said,
S1: 10/10;
S2: 9/10;
S3: 8/10;
S4: 8/10;
S5: 5/10.