Japanese Title: Shokugeki no Souma

 

Related: Food Wars Season 2

Similar: Freshly Baked!! Japan

Yume-iro Pâtissière

 

Watched in: Japanese

Genre: Ecchi Cooking Battle

Length: 24 episodes (season one), 2 OVA

 

Positives:

• Good use of ecchi in battles.
• Food makes the mouth water.

Negatives:

• Unbelievably repetitive.
• No losing.
• Antagonists provide no challenge.
• The story never takes its foot off the ground.

In the tradition of turning everything into a battle anime, Food Wars takes the culinary arts and bastes it in honey and butter over a slow roasting fire, juices dripping off the crackling and meat ready to fall off the bone, until the opponent orgasms in ecstasy and defeat. It’s Iron Chef meets Playboy in the cooking arena.

After losing 500 cook-offs to his father, Soma enrols in an elite cooking school to improve his skills. This crazy school stuffed with pretentious kids only has a 10% graduation rate (that would mean the school is rubbish in reality, but let’s ignore that).

Though just cooking, Food Wars treats a cook-off like some grand battle, rabid audience included, with secret recipes and techniques for battle strategies. But where Food Wars’ genius truly lies is in the tasting phase. The battles produce food so tasty, so succulent, so orgasmic, it blows one’s clothes right off. The moment that jus touches the lips, every nerve in the body, from scalp to the ticklish part of the feet, lights up with a burning passion to devour the dish until one is left a twitching mess in a pool of their own juices. Eating bad food is to be molested.

This is how you do ecchi – funny, has a purpose, enhances scenes, is ridiculous and knows it. Hell, one guy walks around naked all the time. Male or female stand no chance under the influence of great taste.

Food Wars is a great anime… Well, it would have been if not for one glaring problem. It is so repetitive. Repetitive beyond measure and worse yet, the repetition is predictable, void of any surprises or development. Once you’ve seen one food battle, you’ve seen them all. They go a little something like this: judge/opponent underestimates the young challenger, they talk about the dish probably being awful, they taste it, explode in orgasm, can’t stop masturbating eating, and praise the dish endlessly. Repeat, every single time.

Furthermore, there is too much winning. When someone loses, it’s not because they made a terrible dish, just that the opponent was better. If you’ve seen a cooking show, you know the failures are the best parts – when someone is overconfident, forgets to turn the oven on, or uses salt instead of sugar. In Food Wars, everything is perfect (Soma has a minor slip-up once, but recovers better than Heston Blumenthal). The judging is a farce. In fact, why do these kids attend this school? There are no lessons, it doesn’t teach them anything, they brought all skills with them, and they are already pros. What’s the point?

Outside of battles, it’s not interesting either. Attempts at serious interaction fall flat, for there is no substance or material worthy of engagement.

Food Wars needs better antagonists that can challenge the heroes. Why isn’t a contestant using every trick to undermine Soma? Where is Gordon Ramsay telling them it’s RAW?! The best they have is a girl called Erina said to have the Golden Palate, whose first words while sucking on her mother’s tit were, “Not enough depth of flavour.” And while Soma’s dismissal of her haughty superiority is humorous, she doesn’t do much in the end (see above for how their encounter proceeds).

For several episodes, Food Wars is good fun. The clever use of ecchi and delicious food are a feast for a wide range of tastes. Once you figure the battle pattern, however, the food loses much of its flavour, rice turning to ash in the mouth.

Art – Medium

The art is good, albeit generic, but the food, which is what counts, looks amazing. Makes me so hungry. Creepy as hell ED sequence – surprised it was legal for broadcast!

Sound – Medium

Cheesy as hell dialogue delivered with absolute seriousness is good, and the music delivers full hype and energy. It’s a shame the OP and ED don’t match this whatsoever. They actually used a foreign Japanese accent for foreigners! Are the voice actors finally evolving?

Story – Low

People cook, others taste, and everyone loses their clothes. Sadly, Food Wars has little story and development to make up for its repetitive battles.

Overall Quality – Medium

Recommendation: Try it. Food Wars is worth a few episodes, minimum, and despite its major flaws, is an easy viewing experience good for the background while occupied with another task, such as googling yourself.

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Awards: (hover mouse over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: None

Negative: