The story we have here is quite straightforward, teenager protagonist transfers into a new highschool with the goal of becoming the best there ever was, while running into a cast of colorful while mostly onedimensional side characters along the way to achieving his goal.
Shokugeki's story is nothing to get excited about, one might even say it's downright formulaic. I imagine the story was never the point of the show to begin with though, Shokugeki doesn't set out to redefine storytelling or create believable characters but rather seems to follow the more humble goal of sharing its passion for the culinary arts.
Essentially all episodes boil down to somebody cooking a dish, usually in competition with another cook, as the title would suggest. Think of it as a "food of the week" kinda show if that makes any sense. This is where Shoukugeki shines the brightest as the cooking sessions are always enjoyable to watch even while the outcome is usually quite clear to anyone who has ever seen a shounen. I'm no cook myself, and while i do enjoy being on the receiving end of a well-made dish i don't by any means know enough about cooking to say if the food in Shokugeki would be possible to create in the same way as shown in the show in reality, though i imagine some creative freedom would have been taken.
The food in Shokugeki looks great, i do have to commend the animation team for making their food look as delicious as it does with visuals alone. Aside from that Shokugeki's visuals are pretty standard, nothing out of the ordinary. I did notice the show resorting to flashbacks more and more as it progressed which is a shame. I'm not against having flashbacks, but i'd like it in a way that's more than just obviously reusing old animation. One last thing i'd like to point out about the visuals but also the show in general is that it's weirdly sexual. Characters will almost always react to eating good food in an "orgasmic" (for lack of a better word) matter, which is humorous at the beginning, but gets old after reusing it over and over. That coupled with excessive amounts of fanservice feels like it shouldn't really be here.
Moving on to the sound, Shokugeki has quite the enjoyable soundtrack. From two extremely catchy opening songs to the rest of the OST, the music fits the scenes well in its simple but catchy nature. It is a shame that Shokugeki reuses that well-made soundtrack to the point of repetitiveness.
There's not much to be said about the characters, they're likeable while onedimensional for the most part. Again the term formulaic comes to mind.
It's worth pointing out however, that character interaction is handled well, mostly thanks to the shows strong sense of humor.
Overall, i really enjoyed my time with Shokugeki, while acknowledging that it's rather flawed. I imagine a sequel being at least in planning stages, as Shokugeki's ending is close to nonexistent. One might even say Shokugekis ending was as if Dragon Ball had ended with Goku just about to face King Piccolo.
