Story: Picking up from the cliffhanger that the first season ended on, season two focuses on the end of the Autumn Elections competition arc and the Stagiare arc that comes right after the Autumn Elections are over. Complete with the normal shenanigans of the Shokugeki series and growth with some of the characters, why is the story that we get so faulty?
There's no questioning that J.C. staff has done a faithful adaptation, especially for the Autumn Elections arc. Much like the original manga series, the Autumn Elections take up a huge chunk of the series in order to complete, spending the majority of the season 2 runtime to finish up the remaining battles and rivalries that come later with rather great detail. It's the kind of adaptation that most series can only dream of since J.C. Staff rarely leaves out any of the details involving that arc. Everything including character development, side interactions, and pacing are kept in rather well and succeed in bringing a close to the second largest arc of the Shokugeki no Souma series. Then there's the Stagiare arc.
In order to compensate for the sheer amount of detail that Autumn Elections give us, J.C. had to pawn away time from the second arc that they were doing in order to bring that big one to a close. This unbalance left the proceeding story to rush through in three episodes and the end result was abysmal. The pacing was quickened through, development for characters got cut short, and overall left a bad taste in my mouth. Character development was there, but it wasn't left on the plate long enough for us to sit and take in, thus leaving what we saw to feel hollow and unnatural.
In the end, season 2's story was the dessert to end the main course we were introduced to in the first season; a little sweet treat with a slightly bitter aftertaste to end a decently satisfying meal. While I am personally disgruntled at the quality of the Stagiare arc, I can say for certain that the overall quality is still moderately well executed.
Overview:
+ Good detail to finish its cliffhanger
- Second arc severely lacked the same treatment
Characters: Quite honestly, characters are really not that big of a deal to talk about. Due to the nature of this sequel, the cast save for a few exceptions are the same as last season with those few exceptions being nothing more than other rivals or side characters that add to the particular arc that's being shown at the current moment of time.
Instead of going through the actual characters (since well they still the same people), first up is the meat of this entire season, growth. The entire season is more or less dedicated to the growth of its characters. Souma, Megumi, and many other members of the recurring cast get varying degrees of growth and/or character motivations that're sprinkled in episode after episode. Sometimes focusing entirely on a single character for the whole episode, sometimes only for a scene or two, the story puts them together surprisingly well to create some meaningful changes that evoke care from the audience. Some however are better treated than others, so not everything is perfect. (Poor Hisako)
As for the new additions to the cast, all of them are side characters that pertain to one arc or another. Quite a few of them are memorable side characters, so there's an upside I suppose. But don't expect to see much more of them or add them to the main set of characters since they're side characters and by the law of shonen, if you don't show up for more than 1 arc, you're time is up.
Overview:
+ Good character development
+/- Memorable side characters (That is a shame that on some cases we don't get more of them)
- Some character development was rickety and/or rushed through
Art: J.C. Staff's art quality only skyrockets or goes to a decent level when the company gives a sh*t about the series that they're adapting. In Shokugeki's case, they care very, very much.
Much like the first season, the overall quality of the series is bright, inviting, and has a lot of appeal with all of the imagery that the series uses in order to represent the current emotions or cooking style that every character uses. From anime references to demonization, and the ever classic "Shokugeki no Souma is a cooking series" hentai foodgasm scenes, the overall quality and look of the series really has nothing truly terrible about it. I will say that the foodgasm scenes have drastically reduced, or at least to the point where you don't see them every other episode, or something. They're still there, just not as frequent.
But the true testament to how good the series looks is the food. Food is by far the most focused part of the art as the glistening and shimmering sauces on the turtle or duck that they characters prepare show just how good food in anime can actually look. Every dish was animated with such care to the point you might want to lick your screen trying to get a taste of whatever these high school students prepared.
Overview:
+ Quality food animation
+ Good animation all around
Sound: The soundtrack for the series is admittedly not really the best. Personally, I prefer the tracks to season one since what they showcased and used here really didn't sound or feel all that memorable. Good tracks, but not anything I'd listen to over and over again like other OPs that I know of.
Personal Enjoyment: I'm still pissed about the Stagiare arc. It's probably my favorite arc considering how non-competition focused it is and how the show focused in a wacky shonen-like way what it's like to be cooking outside of Tootsuki. It was such a different dynamic from the rest of the series that I grew attached to it and actually saw some kind of learning experience from the series since up till this point it's been nonstop cooking competitions with little to no actual learning shown. (I know it's a battle manga, but this is a school. At least show us them learning something sometime.)
Did I like this show?
I did. Admittedly, I'm not the biggest Shokugeki fan, but it's definitely a series I roll with and have a lot of fun both watching and reading. This season tied up loose ends and did well to adapt the source material despite its flaws, so it's good in my book.
What didn't I like about this show?
If my rant wasn't clear enough, the last three episodes focusing on the Stagiare arc. Rushed through that faster than someone cowering from Souma's experiments.
Would I recommend this show?
If you watched season 1 and you want a conclusion, you can watch this. Aside from that, don't. Due to the nature of the adaptation, watching season 2 will get you sorely lost and would lead me to question why you even tried to watch the sequel before the original.
