-dio-
-cre.
The syllables I can describe Shokugeki no Soma with. It's good, but not amazing, neither is it horrid. It's not a transforming rice seasoning dish, neither is it some weird grilled peanut butter level type thing.
Food+boobs+The Good Shounen Archetypes=This thing.
Shokugeki was without a doubt, a very enjoyable anime. Humour was great, and to be honest it was what kept me going to watch it. But everything else other than my enjoyment, was a weakpoint, slowly kicking at the table legs while we wait for the Table to just completely fall off, bringing all the food to the ground and plates crashing.
Okay let's get to the actual review rather than having to go through my horrible food references.
Art/Sound-7
I'll tackle the mediocre parts first. The soundtrack was fine. It was okay. The songs were funny when they needed to be, I guess. It's not a "God only Knows" level soundtrack, but at least the OP is good exercise music. The art was fine, the character design was one of the things that impressed me with this show. In terms of production value, the show knew where to put its priorities...the food. Duh.
Story-6
The best way I can describe this show is "a Sports anime, without the sport." And if there's anything that I hate more than Sword Art Online, it's sports Anime. Shokugeki is the closest thing I've watched to a Sports anime. Now let me describe why I hate animes of this type of genre. They usually take something, and drag it out. And I mean REALLY drag it out. It takes a whole four episodes to get through the Climax. FOUR. EPISODES. The story was nothing special, we can all agree on that,I don't expect any social commentary from a food anime, and neither do you. , but the fact that they know this, and do nothing to make the show even more slightly interesting other than shoving some reused gags in there as well as some Oppai...well I don't think you're trying hard enough. It just lacks that...spice! (Sorry not Sorry) And by that spice I mean a main goal. The story had no actual goal other than "I need to get better than Daddy Yukihira!" for our main character. And I don't only mean character goals, the show in itself had no goal in itself. I'll namedrop a few anime that I found more enjoyable than Shokugeki but was in a similar situation as this show. Kabaneri, it had a goal to give the viewer something cool to look at, and at the same time make us feel some sort of emotion. Angel Beats, it was mediocre...but the humour and characters kept us going, the romance and action was below lackluster, but despite the number of its cast, we were still attached to all of the characters. More into that in the next part of my review which is...
Character-5
Okay, Fanboys time to bring out your tissues. The weakest point of this whole show is its characters. Now, let's count all the characters. Right how many characters are there...one, two, three...HMM, I DON'T KNOW TWELVE?! And now, in contrast, let's see how many characters were actually Enjoyable...Soma, Erina, Megumi...Right. THREE! I think Aldini's character description in Episode 20 can describe every other main character who aren't those three. "Vaguely Uninteresting." Thank you for perfectly summing up your cast for me, writers!
I felt no certain attachment to any of the other characters, other than the Aldinis (and that's merely because of personal reasons) I was really happy to see the vast amount of cast, and they're certain differences despite some being clear copies of usual Shounen archetypes, I thought it was going to hit me in the emotions when they do something cool, like how I felt with the other characters in Angel Beats. But, no. I felt nothing. When...what's her name...smiley blonde chick did the thing with her curry and made everyone happy, did you care? Probably not. When purple haired boob girl did the thing with her curry, did you care? Probably not. When glasses guy did that thing with his curry, did you care? Probably not. I think you get the picture here.
Final Thoughts:
You see those tags up there? Comedy, Food, Ecchi. Expect nothing more. It is a mediocre anime, with mediocre story, mediocre characters and nice animation. However, that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the experience. I loved watching it, not because I sympathized for the characters, or was kept on the edge of my seat, but because it was fun. It was a fun anime to watch, and it was a fun experience. Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.
