Shokugeki no Souma: Gou no Sara

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a massive Food Wars Fan, to the point that I do consider myself a Food Wars connoisseur in some respects (as stupid as that sounds). With that in mind, I am having an extremely difficult time getting behind this adaptation and am finding myself really forcing myself to watch each new episode. As a fan, this hurts and is quite disheartening, but unfortunately I knew this was coming.

To start, lets address the little elephant in the room, BLUE arc absolutely sucked in comparison to the rest of the fantastic (imho) manga. Everyone is aware of this. ... With the knowledge that BLUE arc is widely considered as terrible it was going to be an uphill battle for J.C. Staff to adapt it. But who knows, there is always the potential that J.C. Staff could actually make it somewhat entertaining and stomachable (is that even a word….?), making it into a worthwhile anime to consume in the later episodes, and I would gladly change my review in the future if that is the case. Unfortunately, with a saddened heart, that appears to be not the case as of now.

Of course, with Covid-19 greatly affecting the lives of everyone globally, some leeway can be easily given to those in the anime industry as it makes their jobs just that much more difficult (not even going to begin to pretend that I know the exact ways they’re affected so I’ll leave it at that). There is no doubt that the quality of the anime is going to be affected in a negative manner, and this review takes that into account.

Story: 4/10

As stated earlier, BLUE arc is by far the worst arc in this wonderful series. With that in mind, it would be very difficult to turn it into a good story unless J.C. turned it into an anime original season or conclude with an anime original ending (which I still deeply hope happens).

The entire arc gives hardly any sense of danger to Soma, nor really builds upon any previous character relationships to make a memorable finale, which is a huge disappointment. For anime only fans, I’ll stop there and let you form your own opinions, as the experience may be completely different from your point of view, and hope you aren’t as soured as myself and other fans. However, my biggest gripe is that the main “villain” Asahi Saiba also is just thrown into the story as the next villain that Soma must defeat in order to fully understand what it means to master his cooking through finding someone who he wants to cook for. As of now in the anime, Asahi is nothing but a shallow character who lacks any form of depth, and J.C. Staff has done nothing to change that in the adaptation. He gets an extremely rushed introduction with no real motive but to take Erina as his bride. Another major turn off is that majority of the side characters who lots of us have grown to love over the last four seasons have been neutered to become even less important in the story (minus Erina, Megumin, and Takumi of course). I’ve got nothing against those three, on the contrary they’re my favorite three characters other than Soma, but the entire cast of characters were important in helping this show become what it is.

The cooking battles are still entertaining in their own right, but the story itself is just so rushed and lackluster in terms of why the BLUE tournament is now of this format instead of the traditional tournament and the motives behind Asahi Saiba that it is much more difficult to get behind and enjoy the story. I will say that the whole idea of underground chef's is cool in theory, but in practice here, it is really not doing it for me as it is not done very well nor are they really fleshed out as a whole. Instead, they are almost portrayed as a cult of chefs who blindly follow their leader, Asahi.

I won’t even begin on the drastic change in tone from moving from spending more time on the epicness (again not a word lol) related to the actual cooking of the dishes to spending most of the screen time illustrating the foodgasms. I mean, who doesn’t like a good foodgasm from time to time, as that’s a reason why we are degenerate enough to watch and enjoy this show, but a lot of the allure was in the actual cooking of the dishes (or I can just be the only one who thinks this, that’s cool too). Simply, I just don’t like this shift in style, as it takes the show in the wrong direction.

Art/Animation: 7/10

I will be honest right of the bat, getting a partial bias out of the way. As of the last few years, I think that J.C. Staff has begun to rank as one of the worst companies in the industry in terms of animation quality (you can rake my feet over coal or agree if you would like). This unfortunately is quite evident in the last two seasons of Food Wars as they were glorified power point presentations with a moving background and music (damn awesome music I might add). However, even with the global dumpster fire hampering the ability of these fantastic professionals to bring us our anime fix, the animation quality this season is definitely better than the two previous seasons. I was presently surprised to see the quality increase and am quite pleased. The art also looks sharp and crisp, nothing special, but is more than passable.

Character: 7/10

As really stated in the story portion of this review, Asahi Saiba is honestly just a one-toned “villain” who lacks any depth, and feels nothing short of a forced villain for the sake of providing a villain. Other than that, the character dynamics are essentially the same as the previous seasons, except for Erina, who finally is becoming more accepting and open to those around her, including Soma. This is nice to see happen, but unfortunately it is really the only sort of character development we've seen.

Sound: 8/10

The opening is cute, and catchy, but nowhere near as good as previous seasons. Again, however, is that in the sound department nothing has really changed from previous seasons. Lots of the same soundtracks are used, which are mainly pretty damn epic, and the voice acting is quite well done as well. Nothing really to say here so I’ll leave it at that as it is the same old Food Wars awesomeness.

Enjoyment: 7/10

Even though I have just spent a stupid amount of words regrettably bashing one of my favorite animes of all time, I still somewhat enjoy the episodes when I do finally bring myself to watch them as it is always nice to see a favorite manga adapted into an anime.

Overall: 6/10

As a fan who was soured because of this arc, I cannot give this season a high recommendation, but still give it slight seal of approval. However, with this is mind, if you have stuck with the anime all this time (as obviously everyone reading this review has) it is still worth a watch, and don’t let my idiotic ramblings deter you from watching this, especially if you are enjoying the season yourself.

To end: Let’s all stay safe, and enjoy the foodgasms while we can :)

Top 5 Fastest Runners:

#5 — Asafa Powell

#4 — Yohan Blake

#3 — Tyson Gay

#2 — Usain Bolt

... #1 — Shokugeki no Souma: Gou no Sara

It is it, congratulations.

The fifth season is very, VERY rushed, differently from the others season, on this one you don't even see they making foods, it looks like as the food magically appears on the table, understanding what and why they are doing is the essential part of a food anime, imagine MasterChef without the making of, just the results, it is a bad idea, isn't it? But it is basically what is happening here.
Another very bad stuff that happened here was "superpower", or something like this, I don't even know what it is, it's like "The hidden power from the clan X, it has been passed down this clan for generations, using an axe instead of a knife", if the anime had introduced it since the beginning, there would be no problem, but the anime isn't about it, the author just created a new ability with no context. Imagine an anime like Monogatari, that at some point Araragi can now make Jutsu, it is bizarre, isn't it?
Now many of yours could disagree with me, but there's something very annoying in my opinion, Foodgasm, and on this season it got worse, what is the point of this? In the beginning, it was okay, the people liked the food so much, that it was like an orgasm, but at this season, everyone around getting semi-naked... It looks like that the manga was getting less popular, so he put more fanservice, to make the buyers don't leave the manga.
Now about the ending of the anime, if you don't want to get spoilers, skip this part

[SPOILER]

Comparing the final of the anime with the manga one, this one is a little bit better, just a tiny. Yukihira, after travelling around the world returned to Japan, meets Erina, and he makes a disgusting food to her, as always, after this disgusting food he says he'll make the best food in the entire world to her, and... it ends. It was good, bad? No one knows because it ended at this point. No romance, Erina never said she like his food, nothing happened! I'm not Open-End Hater, but this ending was awful.

[END OF SPOILERS]

This arc is horrible, the previous arc was really good, and the author just ruined it, very rushed, nonsense superpower, exaggerated fanservice and a terrible ending. But there's still something good about this anime, the characters are still wonderful, I like this art, but it is probably the unique good part of this anime.

Shokugeki no Souma: Gou no Sara is the fifth and final season of Shokugeki no souma, a quite well-known show among the anime community. As you can see already it has its fifth season whereas many shows can't even get their second, this makes it clear that Shokugeki no souma is one of the popular shows which has seen great success with its previous seasons. Then what about its fifth plate?

Being a fan of the show myself I expected the show to end on a good note but this season was a bit disappointing. The first problem was with the pacing. It was rushed as ... much as possible to adapt the remaining chapters and this made the experience half-assed and incomplete. Comparing to its previous seasons this season's story itself was a problem. The story was not as engaging as it's supposed to be and had a lot of unnecessary additions which made the show go into a different path from being a cooking show. Its previous seasons relied on the characters, their cooking skills, information, and knowledge about ingredients, dishes, and cooking techniques rather than introducing unrealistic and superficial types of cooking techniques that pulled the show into a never-ending abyss. This show completely changed its course from being a cooking that had competitions and a sense of rivalry that made the show interesting. The characters got lost and had no roles to perform and obviously the term called "character development" does not exist here. The Shokugeki no souma I liked dealt with stakes very well and gave a sense of tension whereas this season's stakes are very silly tbh.

The animation and art style was average at best and never showed us the best side of cooking that I wanted to see. The soundtracks were not used to its full potential. This season did not feel like the Shogeki no souma that I liked.
Even with all these flaws, I cannot forget the previous seasons that brought me to this final last season of Shogeki no souma. I enjoyed the journey and it was such a good ride anyway.

Like everything that starts always ends, this show ends with an average season and yet makes me feel nostalgic about the time I started watching it, and that brings a great feel of closure(for me at least). Thank you for reading.

Glad You Liked it!
- souma

It's rare I feel strongly enough to actually write out a review, but since my opinion of this show is so fresh and the series as a whole means a lot to me, I felt it important to leave my opinion.

The story was certainly the least fulfilling of the series, and it shows. A ton of the more important aspects of the show have shifted from the cooking to outside of it. Suspension of disbelief is very important in shows like these, but that can't make you ignore a villain that was not only shoehorned in, but also provided no real payoff after building up ... his character in a very short span, albeit not fully enough to satisfy a conclusion to his personal story. An underworld gang of chefs cooking for crime seems silly outside of this show, but the thought is never considered. The only shortcoming of the antagonists is the lack of true build-up beyond "they are bad but we are good, so we must win." The cooking itself still delivered, though in a much faster pace that rushed through the better parts that made earlier seasons truly shine. Many events take place off screen, including the fundamental part of the show; the actual process of cooking. The final product still provided a fulfilling description of the finished dish, but the cooking that led up to it was scarce at best. This wasn't the only thing glossed over during this show. The results and events of many IMPORTANT cooking battles were completely skipped over and mentioned in passing later on. The story drags the season down significantly compared to the earlier seasons, especially considering this is meant to end the series. The ending in particular left a lot to be desired, but my full opinion is full of spoilers and thus will only be posted at the very end of this review (you've been warned). 4/10

The art (excluding the extremely mediocre opening), while some argue dropped in quality, was overall the same. The backdrops may have lost some quality, many accurately comparing them to a PowerPoint presentation (I'm looking at you, opening), but the bread and butter of the show, the animation of the food and characters, didn't noticeably diminish much if at all. It's still the same detailed, satisfying and attractive style I've come to expect from the show. 9/10

The sound doesn't require much discussion. Most is somewhat recycled, which isn't terrible, since it was good to begin with. The OP and ED are forgettable, and the rest of the music remains at the same quality that is near and dear to me and the hearts of many other fans. 7/10

The characters are a mixed bag. Much of the main cast takes quite a backseat for the majority of the season, leaving only Souma, Erina, Megumi, and Takumi being the only ones to receive their share of growth. This growth was unevenly distributed and seemed to vary between situations. This, however, is not very noticeable, as the cast is as endearing as ever, and most if not all fan favorites received their deserved time in the spotlight. before the show wraps up. 6/10

Despite my harsh opinion of the story, I enjoyed the ride up until the end (friendly spoiler reminder that the paragraph following will discuss it with spoilers). The battles were still climactic and I was always eager to load up the next episode. I enjoyed following the characters, laughed and guffawed at the boisterous, quirky, and oddball chefs and styles. Not once until the final episode of the show did I even consider disliking what I was watching. I still highly recommend this show to any fan of Food Wars! despite any shortcomings and will forever consider the series as a whole a personal favorite. 7/10









WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD :WARNING


My initial reaction personal opinion of the final episode is as follows:

So is that it? I mean up until halfway through I was hyped for the epic finale, but man, I should've just quit when she tasted Souma's dish. I mean, Erina wins OFFSCREEN, which is some sort of recurring theme in this season, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Everything after Asahi losing feels extremely rushed, like I'm skimming the pages of a book or reading the Sparknotes synopsis right before a test. Nothing really feels resolved. Souma lost to Erina after making a big deal of the fact that his dish actually made history, and they didn't have the decency to say why. Then another time skip for what I can only assume was the epilogue in the manga, but just ended up being a half-hearted wrap-up for a 5 season anime. It's like ending a multi-page essay with "and that's the end." it felt about as abrupt as the end of my little rant.

I honestly believe that this season should not have even been released. I am someone that firmly believes extra seasons or sequels are not always necessary. Often times , it ruins and/or dilutes the originals. This season just felt so watered down and repetitive. Every episode , had no excitement or meaning to me, you almost know what is going to happen so much so that I saw this season on (2x speed), something I often do to anime series that are boring to me.

Every episode , you got Souma being cheeky all smiling , all the people/judges' clothes getting ripped off , ... moaning, non stop every episode. If that happens every now and then , it is funny or so but if it happens almost every 5 minutes in every episode, then it just becomes super annoying.

The new addition of the antagonists , really didn't spark excitement either, seemed generic to me. The artwork is stellar as usual , but again , I do not believe this season needed to be released, but I watched it any way because I have watched all the previous seasons. Nothing to rave about here.

This review is for Food Wars! as a whole.

There’s a common saying that goes something like “Gimme the food, stop explaining it to me.”

I’ll admit, the first two seasons of this show was actually thrilling and fun. When I’m still new to this concept, the amazing animation of the food as well as the creativity behind the reactions were refreshing to watch.

However, during the first season I have noticed how quickly I found the constant explanation of the way the character made the food to be extremely irrelevant and boring. I’m no food aficionado, so most of these talking made no sense to me. ... I tolerated this for a while, but starting from the 3rd season I found myself spamming my forward key to skip over the explanations. It’s sad that I’m aware of the amount of research that the creators put into this show, but I just can’t help not giving a dime. At season 4 I pretty much only watch for the plot, and the food didn’t look that appealing anymore.

Even worse, the story was a textbook shounen, which made the outcomes of 90% of the shokugeki predictable. Like for season 4 I pretty much predicted the outcome of every single match. I did find Soma to be fun and interesting, but he, like other characters in the show, weren’t that special.

And then season 5 had some attempts to spice up the predictability of the show, but in the end it ended up being even worse than the previous seasons due to wasting its potential with a bland villain that’s bo different from other previous villains.

Overall, people seem to like this show, but honestly I’m so glad that this repeated food stuff finally ended.

1st plate: 7/10
2nd plate: 7.5/10
3rd plate part 1: 6/10 part 2: 6.5/10
4th plate: 6.5/10
5th plate: 4.5/10
Overall: 6/10

First of all, I am not going to write an interview as long as the bible, I just wanted to say some things about this anime so here we go:

First things first, the reason someone should watch this anime is pure for enjoyment. If you are looking for an anime with a great plot, character development or a stunning romance this isn't it, but if you just want to watch a fun food porn anime you're at the right address.

there are going to be some spoilers so be aware:



first of all, I don't agree with everyone on how 'shit' this anime was. Let me firstly ... clear one thing up. I'm not saying I liked Noir being added tot the anime, in fact the anime would've been so much better off if they just would've added something else then Noir, it was just plain shit. They didn't have a good motive, characters were garbage, and overall just garbage No underworld chef even cooks with a chainsaw or with exploding ovens it just was so dumb to even look at. And I believe 99% of people who saw this season will agree with me on that. The story also didn't make sense. After BLUE they suddenly tell stories about the illegaal goods, like i didn't even care anymore don't waste time on the last episode on these bullshit stories and just make a good ending how hard is it.

Second of all, I don't know if people will agree with me on this one and I don't know if anyone's even gonna read this review, but here's one thing that really bothers me (with more anime btw). I really would've loved to see a future soma and Nakiri together, or even just a kiss. It would've made the ending so much better. Just a little more emotion, maybe a secret love rivalry between Nikumi, Nakiri and Megumi. Not in a harem way of course but to twist it up a little. I understand that this isn't the kind of anime you need to watch if you want such a story, but I believe there was a lot of potential there. Also, they could've made something way better out of the whole Asahi Saiba is the son of Azami thing. Like a kind of small drama thing. But again, this isn't the anime for that. But if they would've let the Noir bullshit thing go there'd be a lot of screen time left for other thing such as one of the ideas I just mentioned. but yeah overall I liked the anime as it brought me joy, but for me I would've liked more romance between soma and Nakiri, and less bullshit like Noir.

A few months have passed since I've finished Shokugeki no Souma: Gou no Sara. Back then I didn't do a review, but decided once and for all to put my thoughts on paper. While this review, and the score I've given, is for the last season, being the finale of the series means that I'll be talking about the series as a whole in this review and my experience with it.

It all started many years ago, in 2017. I’m not sure how, but I’ve heard about this Shonen about cooking competitions. Back then I wasn’t that much into cooking, since then I’ve watched some Masterchef ... seasons, but nothing more than that. Yet, when I watched Shokugeki no Souma I was pleasantly surprised. The show made every cooking competition an epic battle full of action and it was a lot of fun to watch.

The characters, while nothing too special, are a fun cast to follow through the seasons as they progress in their studies and hone their abilities, each and every one of them with different styles, techniques and personalities. As far as story goes, it has always been over the top. A gastronomy school where you can bet anything, including expelling, on a cooking contest? That’s nuts. But I don’t think anyone here would disagree that we can, and have, accepted weirder for the sake of entertainment.

One of the main problems with Shokugeki no Souma is the lack of stakes. When you can put averything on the line, it becomes obvious that the protagonist won’t lose. That’s not a problem that’s exclusive for Shokugeki no Souma, tho, after all, do you really think Naruto would ever die in the middle of the series? He can’t die, without Naruto there’s no, well, NARUTO. The way to avoid this problem is to put side characters into danger and make the viewer fear for them, not for the protagonist. To be fair tho, Shokugeki no Souma managed to avoid this issue by having way more grounded situations, where the bets weren’t that big and the win far from guaranteed.

The focus of the show has to be on the cooking. While not always realistic, the way they explain the ingredients, techniques, preparations and how everything comes together to make something bigger than the sum of its parts makes you believe that you could potentially try to replicate those recipes yourself. Even if the result is predictable, the curiosity to see what they will cook next is enough to make you keep watching.

So, with all of that said, what happened? I adored this show, with Stagiare, at the end of Ni no Sara (Season 2), being, in my opinion, the high point of the series. From there, it only went downhill. As the series progressed, stakes got higher and, as such, the story got predictable. If the protagonist can’t lose, then the protagonist won’t lose.

That leads me to the second problem, what a like to call the “Naruto effect”. As the series goes on, Souma becomes more and more the spotlight of the series, being the one to save everyone when things get rough, and when you finally think a side character will have its time to shine, it doesn’t come through. I really wanted to see more of some characters.

The story as a whole became just too surreal. Like I said, it has always been over the top, but it becomes more and more ridiculous as time goes on, to the point where is hard to take anything serious.

Finally, the cooking fights became rushed and dumbed down. We no longer had detailed explanations of ingredients, techniques and such, instead the characters cooked and the side-characters spend a whole bunch of time repeating the same lines over and over to show how good the dish was. With that, the fights became boring and uninteresting. I no longer wanted to see the next dish they would come up with.

All of that is reflected on the score each season received. As of the moment of writing the user scores went, chronologically, 8.28, 8.19, 8.12, 8.06, 7.76 and 7.34, with a noticeable drop at Shin no Sara (Season 4) and Gou no Sara (Season 5). Season 5 in particular highlights everything that went wrong with the series. Character making ridiculous bets, minutes from each episode focused on repetitive character reactions and ecchi scenes, and a story that’s predictable from beginning to end.

Overall, Shokugeki no Souma is a series I will always remember as a series that I loved, with 2 incredibly good seasons at the beginning, but also as the series that disappointed me with its final ones. It’s hard for me to recommend Shokugeki no Souma to new viewers knowing how it ended up, even if I know the first 2 seasons are amazing. With that said, Gou na Sara is a disappointment in so many ways and a horrible ending to what could have been a great series otherwise.

As someone on Crunchyroll commented, "This whole season is the embodiment of why". It's not that its horrible or unwatchable, it's just incredibly outlandish yet extremely bland at the same time. This season reeks of generic OP villains and almost every shokugeki can be predicted in the first two minutes. It's a disappointing departure from what was the fun, dorm-life, tournament-filled first and second seasons. This season focuses on Megumi, Takumi, and Yukihira which is a good trio but it's sad to see the other Polar Star students get cast aside for more than half the season so far.

Shokugeki no Soma: The Fifth Plate ... isn't inherently bad, it's just not what I was expecting from the fifth and final season of what used to be a great anime.

if you want a satisfying good ending then just finish the anime on Season 4 and skip the Season 5, but if you want a good ending with absurd and boring storyline, antagonist with an advanced version of Mimasaka, and cooking with a weapon and clown outfit then just watch Season 5

And also on this season, i feel they better change the title to Shokugeki no Nakiri instead Shokugeki no Souma.

But even though I don't really like this season, the last song in last episode was a good though (Its Season 1 OP but with Piano Ver.) i would like to add those song ... to my Spotify playlist.

WOW what a ride as I've followed this series each arc was was pretty good and interesting watching the characters thrive. This arc has not been the greatest and here are the reasons

Why I liked it

I loved the art, I've always really liked the animation style. reason 2 is the original character i still really like how the original characters were portrayed.

what i didn't like about it
it was boring the blue arc is so boring that i struggled to watch every episode the people who the main characters are fighting were boring they nearly had zero personality id didn't care for them.

like ... I said at the beginning this was a boring arc and wasn't excited to see the main characters cook against the others it just felt meh for didn't really care

in the end its your choice if you want to watch this everyone has different ideas about a good show so try it out

I remembered watching and binging Food Wars S1-4 last April so I could actually catch up with this season. I remembered when I watched those first 4 seasons, it always made me laugh and smile and the food always made me hungry and curious to try, and I remembered every time Yukihira was finished cooking I would always smile when he says "Osomatsu" or something like that. I remembered when the show was good and was equally about the food and about the characters.

Unfortunately, this season was NOT like that.

**SEMI-SPOILERS BELOW**

From the very first episode, we were greeted with a new guy named ... "Suzuki" and it was obvious that he has something planned up on his sleeve, we would later find out that this guy is Saiba Asahi. A leader of the Noir. Now, I actually find the Noir to be an interesting bunch, especially the trio of Asahi, Sarge, and Don Kalma, HOWEVER; I can't say I was completely attached to them simply because they were not given ENOUGH screen time. At most Sarge was only given 2-3 episodes to shine, and Don Kalma was only given one episode to show what he was capable of. Asahi was given more screen time than the two but not enough to actually make me attach to him. Now let me also talk about Erina-sama. I actually liked Erina during the first four seasons, ESPECIALLY during seasons 3 and 4 where I found her to have a great character development. Unfortunately, this season threw all the development out the window. The Erina we see here is a heartless and whiny girl and it honestly made watching her unbearable for me. The introduction of her mother SHOULD have also been good but really we don't even get to know a lot about her sans the last 2 episodes. And can we also talk about Takumi Aldini? This show honestly continues to do him dirty. I want to root for the guy but he always gets treated as a side character and I feel like he never actually grows from his position. I also wanna say with all my heart that Yukihira had great character development this season, but nah. I don't think he developed that much either.

Regardless, what I disliked the most about this season was really the story. I felt like the story's pacing was COMPLETELY OFF. I think the fact that this season only had 13 episodes DID NOT HELP AT ALL. There were episodes were I felt like everything was rushed and honestly there were a bunch of episodes that I thought only took up space. The story also lacked what I loved about the first four seasons which were about the food. I mean the show IS called Food Wars. I felt like this season focused heavily on the drama surrounding Asahi and I am completely sorry to say that they were not able to pull it off. By the time this show ended, I felt nothing. Maybe a sense of nostalgia but I felt like none of the characters developed at all.

Honestly, if I were to say it, the season 4 finale would have been a better series finale. Nonetheless, Osomatsu!

you know there's a reason why this show was one of the best ones i've seen it was for 2 reason 1 expect the unexpected and 2 a steady characters development but after season 3 i think this show lost its touch it became very predictable and everything else got pushed back and only focused on 1 subject " cooking " .

this weren't a bad thing if those matches were good no i'm not talking about all those exciting matches that we used to get in the first 3 seasons but more like very predictable boring matches to the point i started giving the end ... results before the end of them and this started to telling me one thing .

this author ran out of ideas and started repeating himself with every Arc ( thats not a good thing ) i started to feel bored and started to skip a bit between matches to the end results because they were very clear very predictable and then this season came and not only kept this tone but brought the one thing i hate the most with it .

using the main heroine to push the plot further is the most thing i hate in those kind of Animes because that's a clear hint about the author saying " i have no clue where i have to go from this point so let me use this cliché tactic " i felt like i'm sitting and watching a Shoujo Anime good luck going through all that in a whole season .

like dude what are you doing ?! your manga isn't Shoujo - isn't romance and for sure isn't about teenagers drama your manga is clear and simple it's about cooking focus on that if i want to see an Anime or read a manga about that crap i would go there and not come here .. sigh .

overall this season was about unwanted drama - very predictable and boring matches and overall lost its main Theme completely after this im not even sure if i even want another season just end this already with just a movie to wrap things up and be done with it so a 5/10 is very generous in my opinion .

story 2/10
was really really awful, i cant even describe it anymore, well beside i'm not a manga reader, and i don't know how it goes, but until the 5th season they give us a real cooking technique, but this season is full of fantasy, not a single technique was real, and it can't be any worse than this season, this season is only survive because the flashback and romance development between erina and souma. that's all, anything else was trash.

art 7/10
they still mantain their level

sound 7/10

character 7/10

... enjoyment 4/10
i can't just the intro and outro was good, main story is just full of disappointment

overall 6/10
i just curious about how it will ended, and the way anime ended was helping this season to at least be a decent season

This season had a serious issue with pacing. The first half felt extremely fast, a pace that made it hard to enjoy. The second half felt properly paced... until the last episode. Otherwise it was just about the same as the rest of the series: Fancy foods, flashy scenes, clothes optional. I've seen that this is the final season and it feels like there's nowhere else to go besides another contrived conflict within the Food Wars Cinematic Universe, so the ending has left me disappointed. If this truly is the end I wanted much more than I was given, I wanted something else. I would ... go into detail, but that would be very spoiler heavy, but if I was the creative drive behind the events of this season I would have definitely changed the brackets for the BLUE's finale. This one is the weakest of the seasons IMO, it is practically the same stuff with different people and dishes so I don;t have any complaints about the general content of the season, it is what it is even though it isn't very different from previous seasons. The pacing issues and ending really did a number on it for me though.

The perfect way to throw away an anime
Fights, characters and plot in general developed very quickly. It was even absurd to see it
It started with the first seasons in a very good way and then the quality of the plot went down
The animation in general was good; this last season it was too fast.

The nerfed of some of the most important characters was incredible.
The other characters that at one time were the best we're simply forgotten

Supporting character fights were continually sped up
The inclusion of new enemies did not serve to give depth to the story, but simply to make it more absurd.
I think the only ... reason I saw this anime was because of the love and expectations (although not very high) of the previous seasons

This is the fifth and final season of the SnS series. There had been delays in airing due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it got finished eventually.

STORY:
This is the BLUE arc. And personally, I dislike it. The story turns from growing as chefs in the Academy into an episodic good guy vs bad guy plot. That alone feels like the story is just being dragged on just to make more sales. The anime didn't make it any better. All the episodes are rushed to the point that there's more screen time of people getting foodgasm, along with all the nude bodies, than actual cooking and ... competitions. And the battles of other characters (Megumi and Takumi) are downright skipped. It's like you pressed 'Auto fight' on a video game. The ending is also unfulfilling. (It followed the manga, and here I was hoping the author decided to do the other ending he wanted.)

ART:
The art is good just like the previous seasons, hence I felt the characters introduced felt like wasted resources. The food are really appetizing and made me hungry a few times.

SOUND:
Other than the fact that I can recognize that nano.RIPE sang the OP, it's nothing special.

CHARACTER:
Many characters were introduced but there weren't enough interactions that they become generic and simply used as placeholders to progress the story. And the main antagonist is just unreasonable and somehow petty (probably due to his past, but Idc). The whole story revolved on his petty ambitions, revenge or whatever that I didn't bother understanding.

ENJOYMENT:
It's just a means to an end for me, since I watched the previous season and that it covered until the manga's ending. As I said above though, it's unfulfilling.

OVERALL:
If you watched the previous seasons, might as well just do it. And you probably won't reach this season if you didn't like the previous ones. I'm just glad it ended.

The fifth and final season of Shokugeki no Souma is arguably the worst season. Even though it has some positives, it has plenty more negatives. The main thing this season has going for it is that it's the final one and that is has a good ending.

The story is one where the cast is now in their second year. It starts off with some standard cooking battles/contests that are reasonably enjoyable. However the anime introduces a new antagonist who wants to marry Erina for no discernible reason. I want to stress this point, no reason is given for his obsession with Erina. However from ... this point on the entire anime revolves around this guy wanting to marry erina. The other characters accept stupid shokugekis that create problems for themselves they could have avoided by simply y'know not accepting them. This creates a false tension created by stupid decisions which is annoying.
Most of the anime revolves around the cooking contest BLUE and the underground cooking organisation Noir. The problem is that the cooking battles are very rushed making it feel like the staff just wanted to cram the final season into as few episodes as possible. After BLUE has finished, there is a nice ending that gives some extra information on the characters and why they acted the way they did in previous seasons which does make it nice to watch.

The characters are somewhat similar as the previous season with the addition of the new antagonist, members of Noir and a new judge. The cooking styles of Noir seem over the top as in seasoning meat with a chainsaw over the top. It all pales in comparison to the new antagonist though who has Subaru's mimicking power without the effort which feels very scuffed.

The animation, voice acting and music are all similar or the same as the previous season.

Overall this isn't a great season. The new characters aren't good, the urgency is fake and created by stupid decisions made by the characters themselves, the cooking battles are too rushed and the cooking methods of the new characters are ridiculous even by this series' standards. On the positive side there is some character development/context and the ending is definitely good.