Anime: Shokugeki no Souma

Food Wars!, or Shokugeki no Soma is a Japanese shounen manga series, which was written by Yuuto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki. Due to big success, the manga received an anime adaptation by J.C.Staff, which aired between April 3, 2015 and September 25, 2015 and a second season, which began airing on July 2, 2016. The anime tells the story of a boy named Souma Yukihira, who has a dream to become an owner of his father's restaurant and to surpass his father as a chef. However, when Souma graduates from middle school, his father, Jouichirou Yukihira, gets a new job abroad and closes his and Souma’s restaurant. Souma cannot accept the fact that his father chooses a new work and tries to persuade his father to stay. But Souma’s father has a task for his son: Souma should become a student of Toutsuki Saryou Ryouri Gakuen and to learn to be a top-class chef. Everything seems to be easy, but after some time Souma finds out that Toutsuki is one of the most prestigious educational establishment in Japan, where only 10% of the students manage to graduate. Strange as it may seem, Souma is not afraid of his father’s challenge and he immediately decides to become a top student it Toutsuki. Will Souma surpass his father and become a pro in cookery? Find out the answer now!

While the plot of this series sounds average, I want to assure you that this anime has many things to offer. Souma is just a normal young man, who does not have “money to buy everything he wants.” But his father makes him join an educational establishment that was built by the rich for the rich: almost every student of Toutsuki has a bodyguard and enough influence to do whatever they want. Funny thing is that in Toutsuki your background does not mean anything, you can be rich, you can be poor, it does not matter. You must, however, be a splendid chef. And Souma will have to fight against these monsters with millions, or even billions of dollars on their bank accounts to prove that he is better. And the most important thing about that is that Souma does not only win, sometimes he is defeated; however, his desire to become better, his desire to fight, makes the story-line truly interesting.

The animation and sounds are also on the level. Not only character designs, but also the food makes you want to cook something delicious. The creators of Food Wars! spend enough time and money on the animation, making cooking look more like a fistfight than anything else. The sounds and the voice acting; however, deserve a special mention. The OST is so awesome that it helps you to dive into the atmosphere of this series and to be more prepared for what is about to happen. Truth be told, I have never called a shounen “epic”, but thanks to the OST of Food Wars! I can say that this anime is truly epic sometimes. But the OST is not the only thing that I should mention, the voice acting is also amazing: all characters seem to be real, their emotions, their deeds; the Japanese cast did one hell of a job voicing their characters.

I cannot say that the characters of Food Wars! are absolutely flawless and I cannot say that Souma, the main protagonist of the series, is just an imitation of his ancestors from other shounen series. Souma is not perfect, sometimes you just do not want him to repeat all these cliché of his ancestors. (Not noticing that some girls love him, for example). But, at the same time, Souma is different because he is the true warrior, he is the true man. His aim to become the top, his aim to become the best. His is not a prodigy, he is not a billionaire, he is just a normal young man with his own dreams. Sometimes he is defeated, sometimes he does not know what to do, but he works hard and achieves what he wants. And I must say that his charisma is truly contagious. However, the main problem of this anime is supporting characters. They are so dull and boring that sometimes you just want to skip their scenes. Of course, I am not going to say that they all are bad, some of them are very interesting to follow. But I guess that more attention should have been spent on the supporting characters.

I am glad that I discovered Food Wars! I could have never imagined that Souma would be that good. There will surely be some moments, when you are unsure if you should watch it, or not. Take for example “these foodgasms.” But, come on, it should not be the reason for you to not watch this series. In my opinion, the way they portrayed the way characters enjoy food is not that bad. I mean, delicious food is able to drive you to orgasm and if you do not agree with me, I am sorry to say that, but you have never tasted something truly delicious.

All in all, Food Wars! is an anime I would surely recommend to all my friends and if I were you, I would do the same. Souma’s desire to become the best and his character are truly fascinating. He is not afraid to practice, he is not afraid to be wrong, he spends a ton of time to surprise everyone. And he is able to amaze not only his friends and enemies, but also the viewer. Anyways, to make long story short, I would recommend you to give this anime a try. But please, if you want to drop this series, watch what will happen in the summer camp; it will become much more interesting from this point. But if it is still not enough for you, you can drop this anime after Souma’s summer camp.

Anyways, I hope that you will enjoy Food Wars!

The japanese animation industry is a confusing beast. It picks up some weird culture elements from contemporary Japan and throw them with random purposes each different season. Sometimes it seems they leave authors to do what they wish to do, at other it seems there is a quota to be met in every genre, during rare moments there is even a feeling that you can never extract anything "normal" from it anymore. We were given bizarre spaceships, clumsy mechas, magical mechas, humanoid mechas, catgirls, gothic lolitas, tsunderes, genki girls, ridiculous protagonists, immortal lolis, klutz girls... damn, these recent years we've seen a huge focus on the various types of girls, pressing against our face (western viewers) some cultural elements that look completely insane to say the least.

But no matter how much these shows annoy me, I keep watching them. I love this industry. It is part of what I am by now, it has part in many of my choices, my views, even my behavior. Since my amazing time with Saint Seiya it has been a real rollercoaster. Now, why the hell I am saying all this in this retarted review? You may ask. Damn, it is because Shokugeki no Soma (Food Wars) made me reflect about why the hell I'm still watching anime and sometimes reading mangas for these last 20 years or so.

You see, I've been looking for a short way to describe Food Wars and the best thing I came up with was "A show about cooks capable of making food that give people multiple orgarsms". Yup. That's the best description I can get. Insane right? Ridiculous. But damn... it's disturbingly interesting. From all the perverty of this industry and all the annoying protagonists and sexual lolis around, something stupid like Food Wars manage to be born. A show about cooking, about teenagers fighting on a kitchen, about people savoring dishes and having ridiculous reactions, how can this be someting interesting? I don't know. It simply is.

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Art & Animation
It starts with the visual appealing, a job done by J.C.Staff, a veteran studio that has long worked on ecchi shows. They once again do a decent job for a show that require sexual appeal from the female part of the cast. Sometimes it feels as generic as ever, yes, but once in a while, especially with the close ups and the interesting details on the character's eyes, it can grow to be something more. They excelled themselves, however, when it comes to food. Meat, spices, vegetables, fish, rice, everything seems god damn tasty and absurdly detailed. Considering this is a show about food, well yeah, that's a great job. Animation-wise it feels just about right, but nothing the studio haven't done before multiple times.

Sound
Oh right, sound direction with a cast full a girls. You know where that goes, right? Many of the female characters have those annoying idol-act voices to feel cute or childish, such as Mayu, Yuki, and Megumi. However, in the large picture things are far better. The cast is huge, and fortunately it is varied enough to never annoy you with much of the same character speaking, screaming, or whatever. The background music kicks in at the right points and the opening and ending deliver the product as it is. A fitting work for a show that doesn't require much in this department.

Story
Yukihira Soma is a genius young cook who dreams of succeeding his father and leading his family's modest restaurant. The road he must take, however, completely changes when he is sent to a school specialized in forming the very best of the culinary scene of Japan, a place where only a selected few manage to graduate.

1. 
   Well.. this is about sex food... or.. food, with sex? Or sexual food? Ergh...
   Yeah. The very first episode gives you a glimpse about what Food Wars truly is. Cook A makes a dish, someone takes a spoon of it and have the most varied and insane reactions to the food, which mostly consists of thinking as if she was naked somewhere, feeling sexual excitment, or downright having orgarms right there on the food table. Then Cook B makes a dish and that same tester is surprised by even more orgarsms and bizarre reactions.
   
   However...
   Food Wars does manage to deliver reactions that are so downright insane it can constantly surprise you with all its absurdity. You think you will only see cute young girls being tentacle raped by their tasting of food, but it also deliver comical reactions from old guys and male students. It even manage to make some sexual jokes interesting as well, a rare feat by these days.
   
   And it's a great shounen experience
   If you change food for some weapon or martial art, what you have here is basically the tournament-type of shounen, much like in Yu Yu Hakusho. Soma will constantly challenge other cooks to battles where they must prepare the best dish possible, and these "fights" turn out to be surprisingly exciting. There is tension, there are your typical shounen power-ups, and everything else you may think about a shounen super-power... but everything with... food!
   
   And it's an ok ecchi
   Beyond the shounen about food, however, lies a typical ecchi show. Busty girls, tsundere girls, clumsy girls. You have all of them here. You also have a naked dude, delinquents, and everything else from your average ecchi show based on a highschool. Normally this would be a turn down if you only want some shounen action, but Food Wars manages to be a bit above the average in this regard, especially because it's sharp in the art quality and the protagonist is never worried about dating the girls. In fact, Soma is more akin to Luffy than to ecchi protagonists, and there perhaps lies to saving factor that turns the show sexual approach into something more fun.
   
   It's just a first season
   Food Wars is exquisite. It's approach on cooking mixed with shounen and with insane tasting reactions turns it into some of the jewels that come from all the perverted crap the industry produces. However, it's a formula that's short on its lifespan. After the first half, more exactly during the last arc of "battles", the show starts to become a bit of a drag, the tasting reactions lose their impact, and perhaps it would be better if it ended before it starts getting boring or exhaustive. Food Wars, however, seems far from over.
   

Character
If there is something else Food Wars manage to pick from fighting shounens it is the charisma of its cast. The protagonist is far more likeable than your typical guy from ecchi shows, the other cooks all have some minimum background to build their "powers", which translates into cooking styles and favored ingredients, and from time to time you even have a few advances in their personalities or a decent screen time to make you know them a bit better.

1. 
   The character templates, however...
   As I said, the girls are there, and they are based on your most typical and annoying templates possible. Even the female teachers feel as typical highschool girls from your standard ecchi show. Sometimes they manage to provide a bit of comical sitatution, but this is very very rare. You will mostly laugh from what the guys do here, from the half-naked senpai to the nerdy guy who constantly colapses from exhaustion, they will be the ones to boost the show above mediocricy. A shame, because in terms of art the girls are all sharp and solid.
   

Value
Food Wars is a soup of everything that can annoy us in the industry these days. Typical templates, ecchiness in abundance, "fights" with plenty of shounen dialogue to see who is better, and so on. Food Wars, however, manages to do something more when it embraces the insanity of the tasting reactions and when managing to keep a protagonist that is basically immune to all the ecchiness around him and is more focused on cooking and fighting to the top like a shounen protagonist should. This turns Food Wars a rare piece of work these days even with the trash it has.

Enjoyment
You want a shounen show? You want an ecchi show? You want an insane show? Damn. Food Wars is for you my friend. A show about cooking that manages to be more exciting than nearly all super-power shounens around and more fun than the vast majority of ecchi comedies. If, however, you come to watch Food Wars expecting a show about true cooks, perhaps you will want to back out.

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Comments
Well... I don't truly understand a thing about cooking. Food Wars can be filling the dialogues about the dishes with any amount of crap they want, but what matters here is the result. This is the Prince of Tennis of food, the Dragon Ball Z where sayajins are cooks, or the Love Hina with a shounen purpose. It caught me totally by surprise.

Anyway, don't expect a masterpiece though. Despite being surprising, Food Wars is still shackled to tropes we are all tired of watching. Its mixture gives new life to some old tricks, but they are there still, and there will certainly be moments when Food Wars will feel as any other generic shounen or ecchi comedy. However... you can certainly give it a try if you are on the mood.