Story: 8
The story is not yet clear to me and up to the point where the season ended it seems very straightforward and not entirely engaging as it is perhaps too linear and simple. But that is not exactly a critique, as the way it unfolds is fast enough to keep you hooked and binge watch it (at least that was what happened to me). I hate spoilers, so I will make no actual mention of anything on the plot other than this: it is not a multi-timeline, complex war, multiple character, filled with lies and deception story. When you watch some anime you might think the characters are playing chess and everything starts to become very complicated. Not the case here.
One thing that must be clarified: This show is mainly about cooking, so this should be clear. People describe it as harem, but they don't even understand what they themselves are talking about. If you like cooking, you will likely get a lot of what's going on and a few of the weird narrative choices that go on on the show.
If you cook and try to cook well, you know that cooking is about giving other people pleasure, so comparisons between tasty food and sex are in the heads of every good cook. This is why they say, when you cook well that you can already marry and the silly jokes about keeping your husband/wife happy. If you are still not convinced , watch Nigella lawson's cooking show and you will see what I mean.
Art: 10
The Aime is beautifully drawn. This is almost an objective measure. Everything is very well drawn and animated, but what stands out the most is the level of detail put into drawing the food. The food looks very good and at some points you can almost taste it. The descriptions are good and it follow a "Das Parfum" (it is a book) narrative style, although not as good, but still. This narrative and the visual metaphors of people in ecstasy are very good in passing the feeling of something very tasty. I often would need to stop the show to eat something while watching it.
Sound: 9
I have no strong opinions of the sound either way, but I really liked the song for the first opening (eps 1-12 I think) and the ending theme. On the second part I didn't find them so engaging. But I have almost nothing to say. I guess it didn't strike me as bad or good, it just fitted the show without standing out, which to me is a good thing.
Character: 6
Here the show is perhaps a bit lacking, but I don't know, perhaps there are surprises in the coming episodes, although I don't believe that to be the case. Either way, one should look at what is there objectively, assuming these is all the info I will ever get. In this sense, nothing is really clear. The motivations of the characters seem plainly unjustified and this actually reflects on the story, since they don't really seem to be frivolous people - there just appears to be something missing. Why devote so much effort into cooking? At no point we can see any character give an acceptable response to this question and all of them seem to be devoid of any internal mechanism driving their actions. The characters are so linear, they just seem almost incomprehensible. We cannot seem to find any effort of the writer of the show to actually mend this, so one must take this show as it is and accept the storyline and characters are seen as background to display and tell us of marvellous cooking.
Enjoyment: 10
Even with some setbacks, this show is still amazing. I liked every single bit of it and the only thing that prevented me to binge watching it all on the same day was that I wanted to save something for later. The story is light and well balanced and makes you feel good. It is not one of those shows that take your heart hostage and give you this end-of-life feeling after they end. This is just light, while being good.
Overall: 9
This is perhaps a bit too much, but it is a personal opinion. I really liked watching cooking shows as I was a kid and seeing this anime which is kind of a merge between two genres was very interesting to me. I think if you like being provoked, like cooking shows and thus cooking itself, if you can enjoy some harem/ecchi scenes without being overly critical of their likelihood, then you will probably really enjoy this show. But there are some pretty harsh reviews out there, so I assume this anime really isn't for everyone, so I suppose for most people it is best to set yourself with low expectations and try to enjoy the show for the good things it has to offer and not complain about "omg, there were no robots 0/10 wouldn't watch".
Sorry for being too vague on my description of the show, it is just that I didn't want to reveal any plot whatsoever.
Hope you found this review helpful.
