When I first heard about Food Wars!, all I knew about it was an anime that was all about cooking and having battles at a culinary school. Though every time I mentioned wanting to check it out to friends, I was met with groans and a few eye rolls. Before I get into why this kept happening, let me tell you a little bit about this anime. The series follows Soma, a young aspiring chef who works at his family diner with his dad (an insanely amazing cook), who then closes up shop to do a world tour of cooking. He sends Soma away to the most exclusive culinary school (that he too once went to) to hone his skills so that one day he could join the top ten of the school and beat him one day.
Now onto why I was met with such opposition from friends, the anime is good and so is the animation. But, you can very obviously tell that the author of the series is a man. Every female in the series (as far as I’ve seen) is accentuated in certain areas, it also doesn’t help that whenever anyone (man or female) eats something out of this world that is just too delicious their clothes are ripped off. I wish I could say I was kidding, but in the character’s mind when they are eating great food, their clothes are ripped off (or explode off) as we follow them on their taste journey. Other than this part of the anime, which happens a few times every episode, the show is a whole bunch of fun to watch. Soma basically makes enemies of everyone he meets, but then goes on to making friends out of every single one of them too. All of which causes a great deal of fun times to be had, and no shortage of laughs on the viewers end.
The food wars themselves that we get to see each of the students use to challenge others and those in the top ranking group of ten (who rule the school) can be pretty funny, the students use these battles for just about anything. Though they are very serious with the details and lengths the show goes to, in explaining how they went about cooking their dishes (the step by step, seasoning, and technique), which is extremely fascinating. Seeing the food itself at all the stages is pretty cool and makes you think you might be able to make it on your own from the information provided by the characters. Aside from thinking of yourself as a possible chef, you will be drooling over the anime food and how good it looks (so make sure you have some snacks when you watch!).
My overall thoughts on this first season of Food Wars is that I’m going to still watch it because it’s too much fun to stop, even if I do have a few slight problems with the depictions of anime girls and the whole orgasmic blowing off clothes taste tests. I’ve also passed the point of no return because I’m invested in certain characters, if not all at this point, to make their dreams come true with their cooking. You can find the first season (24 episodes) of Food Wars! on Hulu, Crunchyroll, and VRV.
Are you going watch the series? Have you already? Feel free to leave a comment below or chat with me on Twitter!
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