ART - 10
SOUND - 8
CHARACTER - 9
ENJOYMENT - 8
The Second Plate picked up from the first season, coming in strong with all the greatness of foods and characters that we got previously. With that, this season took a slightly different path away from comedic enjoyment towards a much more heated atmosphere in the kitchen.
The main highlight that took the spotlight is the extra competitive nature that enshrouded many of the characters. From here, we have many cooking ideals that faced off against each other, striving to reach the top in their own ways. These battles to cook the best foods introduced character developments that we didn't get in detail from the season before, a very nice addition that was needed. However, all these great ideas were moderately ruined by how the story was presented. With only thirteen episodes, there were minimal build up as they went right into the mix when the episode started. It's a problem especially with the faster pacing. Absorbing all the information only to get into the next part can be kind of overwhelming, which is why some importance or significance were lost during several scenes. That aside, the humorous aspect that can be experienced a lot in the first season were toned down quite a bit, along with the fanservice. Like I said, it focused a lot of time on expanding the characters, so whether or not you missed the lightheartedness are up to each person's taste. Personally, I wanted more of it between a couple of parts due to the issues I've mentioned. Nonetheless, you will be treated with awesome new information of foods and characters' history, along with bits of hype or comedy seasonings sprinkled here and there.
Visually, the bright colors does stood out a bit more noticeably compared to Season 1. It definitely felt refined, and the animation is still as fluid as before. Capturing the cuisine of each dish with extreme details caused more drooling to occur. With the fanservice, not only is there less of it, the exaggeration were decreased too so you can focus more on the presentation of the dishes itself rather than their reactions. That did helped during the rushed parts but honestly, sometimes I yearned more for it. The faster pacing also affected the sound aspect. There were times where the words coming out of the mouth felt like gibberish to my ears, mostly because they spoke fast with minimal pauses. With the OSTs, it was for a different reason. They were masked by the huge amount of dialogues going on, drawing my attention to the voice-actors rather than the soundtracks. This can be fixed with more careful pacing to give a balanced audio experience. Still managed to portray the distinct cultural side of this anime but the potential for better experiences is there.
Though The Second Plate was lower than what I was expecting, the story revealed more of what we should expect as the characters journeyed deeper through the professional world of cooking. My main gripe was the pacing issue and unfortunately, it affected a couple of factors. However, that alone didn't stopped Season 2 of Shokugeki no Souma to be an entertaining anime that will bring enjoyment to your table.
