Shokugeki no Soma is a cooking show. The guy cooks and once finished, gives it to the judges. Then, the judge goes all detailed and stuff about the food, the ingredients and techniques used to produce such dish accompanied with an often exaggerated reaction and if the judge is a woman(which was always the case), you get an awesome fanservice with all the "boing boing" and lecherous voice that you'll have to turn the volume down. Except with the fanservice though, this all had to be somehow familiar to you. Indeed, it was very much similar to Yakitate Japan(another great show) in that regard. And while it borrowed some ideas from the previous show stated, it had its own quirks which make for a show that offers something new and refreshing.
The first half of the show was, I must say, well done. In terms of soundtracks implemented and the progression of the story, they were all blended so well that a supposed-to-be moving scene was certainly, well, quite moving. The ending theme was also a heartwarming piece of music with how mellow and vibrant it was and at the same time, a gentle tinge of something undefinable was mixed within which made for a nice relaxing feel at the end of each episode. And one musn't forget that this is a cooking show. So what do you expect? They cook, cook and cook. Infinite cooking. And a show of this type can get pretty repetitive very early in the game. Fortunately, the imminent problem was circumvented by cutting the cooking segments into just enough screentime and giving some time to develop some of the casts. And in some cases where the cooking parts eat up an entire episode, what was presented was actually entertaining enough that it justifies the massive amount of time sacrificed into those.
The second half of the show, on the other hand, wasn't so organized compared to the first half. The just right pacing its first half did very well was brought into a staggering amount of endless cooking trivias and mind-buggering jargons and stuff that amounted to nothing but boredom. While the handling of character development went stronger than before, the majority of time spent dilly-dallying around of the judges before rating the food made the show repetitive as heck. The "shonen" genre has become much more apparent in this second half which could be a good or a bad thing, depends which side of the coin you are. The second opening theme was equally atrocious. It was just too rowdy that the relaxed feel the show had from the beginning was destroyed before your very eyes. It screams "THIS IS SHONEN,***!" and it was honestly infuriating rather than hype-inducing. The second ending theme though appealed to me a lot since I'm a fan of Yakushimaru Etsuko's weird singing(it's truly weird, yet charming in its own right).
Shokugeki no Soma's latter half dampered the mood the show made in the beginning and while it was a disappointment, it was still pretty entertaining until the end. The show was very educational and I learned a lot. It was also a lot more hilarious than I expected. Most of the characters were given just enough development that made you care for them and Tadakoro Megumi is a character that I've grown to like a lot in the course of the show's entire run. Its fanservice which some might abhor shouldn't deter you from watching the show though as that reason for refusing to view it would just be too silly. And last reminder before watching, the show could empty your wallet a lot faster than you would expect.
