Common Name: Shokugeki no Soma
Alternative Names: Food Wars
Score: 8/10, 5/5
Length: 1 Season of 24 Episodes, 1 Season of 13 Episodes, 1 Season of 12 Episodes, 1 OVA
Genre: Drama, Shounen, Foodie, Ecchi
WARNING: This show is basically hentai.
Summary: Trained for years in his family dinner, Yukihira Soma has become a fairly successful chef with a mastery in creating improvised dishes that are nearly on par with their gourmet counterparts. Noting that he lacks proper training and experience outside of his natural style, Soma's father decides to close shop, giving Soma the chance to hone his craft at, Totsuki Culinary Academy, the best cooking school in the nation. It is made clear early on that Soma's years of training and specialty aren't enough to make him stand out in this place though. If anything, those are just this academy's idealized norm. With countless numbers of chefs gunning for the top, just like Soma, he'll need to stay on his feet and adapt just to ensure his survival in this place.
Review: It's that time once again, boys and girls...or rather men and women considering this show is DEFINITELY not for children! While I'm sure most people are aware of Shokugeki no Soma at this point, it's finally time for me to take a stab at this newer entry into the absurdist foodie subgenre in the world of anime. So, much like with my Boku no Hero Academia review, I'm just going to get right into it and pick it apart along the way.
Let me just say right out the gate that I really dislike the main draw of this show, and
since I've said my peace a few times over now I'll just avoid it in this review.
If Season 4 doubles down on it, though, you might just get the full rant.
Focused primarily on the titular main character of the show, Yukihira Soma, this show offers something of a spin on the standard offerings of the shounen battle school genre. For starters, there's no actual fighting outside of a few scenes that merely represent the clashing of two great chefs. Just because this show lacks physical violence, doesn't mean it's any weaker as a shounen story. Quite the opposite, in fact. Throughout Yukihira's journey to become THE #1 CHEF OF THE BATTLE COOKING SCHOOL (though it isn't expressed in those words exactly), we see time and again as Soma is pitted against opponents that are, more often than not, infinitely more skilled than him. While there's hardly any worry that he'll lose the battles that matter, since his story would just end the moment he is expelled from Totsuki, the show always finds a way to keep the battle hyped for the audience. Whether it's scumbag opponents, bribed judges, or maybe some fault on Soma's end there's always something that makes this show both fun and engaging to watch. What's even better, though, is the understanding that Soma is not some unkillable god chef who has the baddies calling bullshit on his powers. In fact, there are quite a few moments where Soma outright loses--if not according to the score than at least by his own standards--but he always finds a way to get back on his feet and learn from everything that went right and went wrong alike. So, once Soma's skill is established and recognized throughout the school, the show's tension evolves into a game of trying to outwit and outplay whatever Soma has planned for the next sanctioned food battle since they know he's analyzing them the same way.
No matter the result, though, we're always rewarded by some culinary eye candy...
and a few dozen fan-made recipes to bring those dishes to our mouths.
What really drew me into this show wasn't actually Soma, himself. While he is a solid main character and shounen protagonist, he's also far too arrogant, self-centered, and forceful for my personal tastes. While I love and respect the love he shows his craft, he doesn't show much care or concern for much else. There's just something about his flippant attitude, typically played off as comedy in the same manner as Saitama's "Ok" response, and half-hearted care for others that just puts me off liking him as a person. To be fair, it's not like he's heartless or anything--just driven toward a single goal--to become the best chef in the world. A good way to think about it is that Soma's character is similar to that of Goku from DBZ. Goku might have a large group of friends that he enjoys spending time with but you can be confident that he'd rather be out training or fighting something. That is his sole purpose and drive as a character. Just like Goku, once Soma has labeled someone as a friend or fellow enthusiast, he'll fight for and with those friends to the death. When all is said and done, though, cooking is all that ever really matters to Soma.
Of course, that kind of cool, distant attitude makes him a prime candidate for
the harem-owning society of anime protagonists, not that he'll ever realize it.
What really drew me to this show was the large and varied cast of characters apart from Soma. While the show doesn't draw too much attention to them until they come to blows with/alongside Soma, I can't help finding some worth and love for these characters. From the Aldini brothers and the Nakaris to Megumi and Mimasaka, all the characters that this show features when Soma's sitting on the sidelines make this show legitimately enjoyable for me. On top of their wacky personalities, they all have something that drives them to become a chef that takes a different shade than Soma's pure and simple drive to be the best. Where that difference comes into play depends on what cooking means to them though. For the Aldinis, it's a desire to meet or even surpass their father's expectations, and while that might be part of Yukihira's drive as well, it is made all the more personal and engaging because of the interplay between the two brothers. Similarly, Megumi's cooking is wholly meant to pay homage and show dedication to her warn and loving roots as a country girl. For Naikiri Erina, it's more of mastery over herself and others due to reasons that aren't wholly revealed until the third season. While many of these kinds of motivations and struggles aren't revealed for every character, the vast majority have something to offer this world of cooking through their own desires, their support of Soma's dreams, and the specialty that got them a place in this school in the first place.
If anyone dares to argue Megumi isn't best girl in this show though, I will fight you.
Mentioning those specialties then brings us to the show's third and most recent season; the main push of which is the destruction of personal, specialized types of cooking. While the third season is easily the worst thus far, in my opinion, due to a slower pace, fewer food battles, and a main point that isn't fully fleshed out by the end of the season, it is still an interesting and necessary addition to the story. The first half of the season is dedicated to Soma finally going head-to-head with the Elite 10, the equivalent of a student council at Totsuki Academy, and earned himself something of a minor victory that means very little in the long run. It is what follows this arc that brings some tension and concern back into the standard shokugeki formula. While the ideology behind this second, big arc isn't fully fleshed out in the remaining episodes of the season, it does express the idea that the Academy has been flipped on its head. Where the school previously favored skill, tenacity, and creativity as a means of rooting out weakness in the student body, a new administration turns the academy toward a more refined and infinitely more limited application of all the cooking skills the student body has learned thus far. Were I to summarize this ideology, it seems to hinge upon the idea that the encouragement of individuality has led to a weakening of the nation's actual cooking skill. So, rather than running Totsuki like it was Top Chef Academy, the students are asked to master pre-established recipes, thus elevating the students' skills in a specific way as well as the quality of food and food standards throughout the nation. Since the great push for this new administration is still lacking, there's still a lot of vagaries to be sussed out, but it's clear where Soma stands in this new administration given his love of inventing and adapting recipes to suit individuals, rather than people.
Oh, it's probably worth mentioning this season is meant to be the build-up for Erina's part of the story.
Since she was mostly a nonentity this season, though, it's kinda hard to care.
Overall, I can't say I'm not a fan of this show. Even with all the ecchi and fanservice sprinkled throughout, I adore what this show has to offer. While the concept of a cooking shounen isn't exactly new (lookin' at you Yakitate!! Japan), Shokugeki no Soma perfects that formula in a way that gives it the power to fight and hold its place against season after season of generic shounen bullshit. The characters are fun and lovable. The plot, while a little slow at times, keeps things tense and interesting. The art and animation are great too and never ceases to amaze whenever it needs to step up. I can't say I paid too much attention to the music in this show, but I know it did a great job reinforcing the show, making some great scenes all the more epic. So, in the end, I'd say this show is worth watching. I might not be a fan of its dependence on ecchi and shock to draw a crowd, but I can also say that it could have been a lot worse. If you can stand that kind tentative endorsement and aren't worried about someone walking in on you while you watch it, I see no reason not to give this show a shot.