STORY
The plot of Shokugeki is a old one but its a classic setting in a community that cant seem to have anything new in terms of story.
Soma Yukihara works in a local diner with his father and plans to work there for aslong as he can imagine, however after graduating from middle school his father decides to close down the diner and go on a journey cooking all around the world.
This leaves Soma with nowhere to live so he is almost forced to take a test to transfer into the prestigious Totsuki acadamy.
This academy has a very infamous reputation for being difficult becauser only 10% of its student body graduates.
after successfully transfering into the school he makes his mark on the school during the opening ceremony by walking on stage and basicly telling the entire school that he will be the #1 chef and that nobody that has never working in a resturaunt before can hope to beat him.
Naturally this almost the entire school to instantly hate him.
Now im not going to go too much more into the actual story to avoid spoilers but its your typical sports style anime plot to say the least.
Main character joins a school and has many challenges thrown at them, not much else to say.
as for the pacing i will admit this show gets its pacing almost perfect.
the arcs arnt too long and they arnt too short they are all the perfect length to get you invested but not drag on.
The reason i say its almost perfect is because a few filler episodes could have been condensed into 1 episode easily and not last for 2-3 episodes but they were still enjoyable.
ART
The art style for this show is hard to judge because while the general style is average at best some things like the foodgasm animations and the general art direction is just gorgeous.
So its hard to fully judge the art style and still feeling confident with the score .
The art style for this series as i already said is just beautiful whether its the natural looking scenery to the school building or the very creative scenes made to represent how the characters relate to certain dishes.
Speaking of these scenes i cant talk about them without mentioning the needless fanservice depicted in them.
I understand the concept and why they exist i just think they should have been more subtle because while funny at first by the time you reach episode 5 they get tedious and almost insulting at times.
Luckily not all these scenes are full of fanservice but a good bit are whether its a character losing their clothes or being bukaked with honey or even being attacked by peanut butter cover squid tentacles it ends up just feeling too over the top at times.
SOUND
The sound for this show is another thing that is hard to judge because while the BGM is sub-par at best the openings and endings are very good.
The first opening being easily the best one and really captures the feel for the show with its light guitar riffs and catchy chorus.
CHARACTERS
The characters are where this show really shines because every single character whether they are a protagonist or antagonist they are all relateable and you end up caring what happens to all of them.
All the backstories are perfectly fleshed out and feel relatively realistic also due to the pacing of the show it spreads introductions and character building moments perfectly across the shows progression without ever overloading the viewer with information.
