The Anime Perfect For Fans That Can’t Get Enough Of Cooking Competitions
Food Wars follows the story of Soma Yukihira, a young chef who attends an elite cooking institute to surpass his father’s skills. However, in a school where only 10 percent of the students pass, it takes more than raw talent to graduate. Though the show puts a little too heavy of an emphasis on fan service in some areas, the story and depiction of food flavors are an interesting and unique touch.
Food Wars
This isn’t any old slice-of-life anime. Describing how food tastes isn’t easy, especially in a manga. To combat this, the author decided to show how the food tasted in a more visual way in Food Wars.
The method that the author chooses to demonstrate the flavors was a little questionable. When something tastes delicious, the characters often lose their clothes and surround themselves with something that represents the flavor. For example, an eel-based dish will leave someone with no clothes on, surrounded by wriggling eels or the ocean to represent the fact that the dish tastes like the embodiment of the ocean.
The Manga
Food Wars started as a manga written by Yuto Tsukada, made up of 36 volumes. The story actually came from the illustrator, Shun Saeki, but they wanted someone else to do the storyline so they could work on the art. It was one of the best-selling manga series in 2020, with over 20 million copies in circulation, even with questionable adult scenes.
The Anime’s Creators
The anime was directed by Yoshitomo Yonetani (Tiger and Bunny, GaoGaiGar) at J.C. Staff Studio. Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, Demon Slayer) plays Soma, while Minami Takahashi (Noragami, Arifureta) and Risa Taneda (High School DxD Hero, Is the Order a Rabbit?) play the two other main characters, Megumi and Erina, respectively.
Food Wars, even with its excessive fan service, is a popular anime. Every season of the show rates somewhere between a 7.32 and an 8.14 on My Anime List.
A Good Start, But An Uneven Finish
Food Wars started strong, and I loved the first three seasons. The joke of clothes exploding when food was good was a bit much sometimes, but the actual cooking competitions and the passionate characters made the series fun to watch. It felt like a slightly more adult and fun version of cooking shows I love watching in my spare time.
However, Food Wars started to speed up the story, and the plot felt rushed in the last two seasons. Many of the epic cooking scenes and competitions were too fast to properly enjoy. I felt a lot of new people and storylines were introduced and felt unfinished, even in the final season.
It didn’t feel like a solid ending, and left a bitter taste in my mouth, despite enjoying the show as a whole. Yes, everything was wrapped up, but the journey to the end didn’t seem to matter much for the writers.
Streaming It Is Challenging
GFR SCORE
Unfortunately, if you want to watch Food Wars in its entirety, you’re going to have to jump through some hoops. The first season is available on Hulu and the third, fourth, and fifth seasons are on Crunchyroll. Or, if you want, you can save yourself the headache and buy all the seasons on AppleTV.
