Shokugeki no Souma

Souma Yukihira has been cooking alongside his father Jouichirou for as long as he can . As a sous chef at his father's restaurant, he has spent years developing his culinary expertise and inventing new dishes to amaze their customers. He aspires to exceed his father's skill and take over the restaurant one day, but he is shocked to learn that Jouichirou is clo the shop to take a job in New York.

Rather than tagging along with his father, Souma finds himself enrolling at the prestigious Tootsuki Culinary Academy, where only 10 percent of its students end up graduating. The school is famous for its "Shokugeki"—intense cooking competitions between students often used to settle debates and arguments. Jouichirou tells Souma that to sur him and survive the next three years at Tootsuki and graduate there.

The academy's brutal curriculum and fiercely competitive student body await the young chef, who must learn to navigate the treacherous environment if he wants to stand a chance at realizing his dreams. But is skill alone enough to let him rise to the top?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yukihira, Souma Main

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Nakiri, Erina Main

Taneda, Risa Japanese

Tadokoro, Megumi Main

Takahashi, Minami Japanese

Nakiri, Alice ing

Akasaki, Chinatsu Japanese

Isshiki, Satoshi ing

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Kurokiba, Ryou ing

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Mito, Ikumi ing

Ishigami, Shizuka Japanese

Yukihira, Jouichirou ing

Koyama, Rikiya Japanese

Aldini, Takumi ing

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Hayama, Akira ing

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Hashimoto, Ryuu Producer

Reviews

May 23, 2025

Apeiron0

Recommended

Shokugeki no Souma (Food Wars), is one of the craziest anime's that I've seen in a long time. It's not only entertaining, but it knows how to quench your appetite, especially if you enjoy watching food anime's while eating, like moi. This has quickly evolved into one of my favorite anime of all time. Hands down, top ten easily. It follows a young inspired chef named; Souma Yukihira, who strives to be at the top of the food industry. He's enrolled in the top culinary school in Japan where the graduation rate is very dismal, and outcomes of the food battles, Shokugeki, reign supreme. ...

Pros: First off, is the animation. It is beautiful beyond comprehension. It takes every advantage that it gets, especially during the cooking scenes. The cooking scenes really give this show its own personality. It's like watching Hell's Kitchen or Masterchef as an animation. It really makes you feel like you are there in person watching these cooks and chefs perform and create these masterpieces of food. The food itself that's cooked in this show makes my mouth water and wanna dive into it, especially Souma's steak dishes. I also really like the dark tones that the animation takes from time to time. As it seems to give the anime a sense of dread in certain situations, but balance that out well with its hilarious scenes as well, especially during the times when it seems that the people are having an orgasm when they eat the food and end up stripping naked. Which is mainly due to the manga artist of Food Wars, who also was an artist for Hentai manga also.

The characters are great in this anime as well. They each have their own personality, and their own cooking methods. Souma is not only a quick study and is very competitive to the nth degree, but he's very experimental and prefers to cook on the fly. Then you have, Erina Nakiri, who possesses what's known as the, God Tongue, and has a strict belief that only those raised in the finniest cuisines have the potential to be at the top of the industry. Megumi Tadokoro, is a bumbling klutz, and a nervous wreck who becomes close friends with Souma, etc.

The story is alright for what it is in this first season. It's basically, just a bunch of talented young chefs attending the culinary school and constantly worked to the bone. Souma is constantly, fround upon because he's the only one who comes from a diner, while everyone else comes from high end restaurants. If you don't make the cut, you're not only expelled but can forget about trying to make it anywhere in the culinary industry.

Cons: In all honestly, there's really not that many cons to list in this anime, and that's pretty rare to say for a slice of life anime. I would probably say that it could have had some more drama to it. Although, it does have its fair share of drama, as well as intense moments.

For what it is though, Shokugek no Souma, is a very enjoyable anime and if you love seeing food in anime with some intense action, drama, and even heated moments. Then you're gonna love this anime. If you haven't seen it yet, then check it out.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Apeiron0 (3)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jan 13, 2024

OtherFritz

Mixed Feelings

Food Wars is an anime focusing on ambitious chefs-in-training as they vie for dominance at an elite culinary school, a premise that should surely appeal to culinary enthusiasts while also promising a high degree of competition, as is only appropriate for a shounen anime. The show's lead characters, Soma and Megumi, are likable and compelling enough, if somewhat basic, with goals that easy to understand and root for. The cast in general has enough quirk and personality to entertain, though the show does expect the audience to be invested in even the less developed characters with decidedly mixed results. The visual style of Food Wars ... is consistently pleasing, with appealing character designs and lovingly detailed close-ups of the food.

The meat of the anime, so to speak, is the cooking, which I suppose is to be expected. A typical episode follows one or both of the leads as they are placed in a scenario in which they must either outperform an opponent established to have exceptional skills in a particular field of cooking or meet the standards of a seemingly unpleasable judge, usually illustrated by a succession of nameless extras presenting their own unsatisfactory meals. Whenever a named character's dish is being eaten, the eater will, without fail, squeal and convulse in nigh-orgasmic delight, then describe the taste and cooking technique with purple prose so thick as to make Lovecraft blush, accompanied by some kind of illustrated simile. This style of presentation may appeal to the technically minded, but grows tiresome and repetitive over the course of the season's 24 episodes. It's hard to be impressed with the main characters' skills when just about every dish is treated like Manna from Heaven and one can expect to hear like "umami" and "depth of flavour" thrown around ad nauseum. For this reason, Food Wars works best when the leads are forced to come up with creative solutions, focusing shifting the focus away from sensory spectacle and more on to problem solving.

As a story, Food Wars walks a well-trodden path, focusing first and foremost on Soma's ambition to reach the highest echelons of Tōtsuki Academy and sur his father in of culinary skill. Despite the school setting, characters are rarely shown learning or training, instead preferring to throw its leads from one sink-or-swim challenge to another, trusting the audience to assume that they already have the necessary skills with maybe a flashback or post hoc explanation as to how the characters developed them. This isn't an invalid method of storytelling per se, but it's easy to see how some people could be turned off from the show because of it. Characters that play antagonistic roles will generally show some combination of smugness, elitism and outright corruption, to the point where one starts to wonder if Tōtsuki is even that good of a school. For example, in an early episode, the character Erina Nakiri oversees the school's entrance exam and refuses to it that she enjoys Soma's cooking, causing him to fail. In another, an instructor attempts to expel Megumi for altering a recipe, despite having only done so to compensate for the deliberately poor produce that she had been forced to use. As such, the show ends up fighting an uphill battle when it inevitably attempts to portray these characters in a more understandable ore even sympathetic light.

To conclude, much as I may gripe, Food Wars is generally an entertaining anime. While it struggles to stretch its premise out over a length of 24 episodes, its makes a valiant effort throw new obstacles at its lead characters and provide a range of competitive cooking scenarios for the audience to enjoy. Fans of all things culinary will likely get more enjoyment out of the series than most, but for a more conventional shounen-watching audience, there are certainly worse ways to make use of one's time. Those who prefer a more ambitious storyline to spectacle or have little patience for repetition, however, may wish to give Food Wars a miss.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by OtherFritz (6)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jan 7, 2021

Rixxrdo

Not Recommended

Funny

Look, Shokugeki no Souma is not for everyone and it certainly isn't for me. The basic storyline is a cooking school we follow soma as he gets better at cooking blah blah, this anime is just trying to appeal to the horny boys, like me at the time, but the truth is I don't want to be horny all the time I want to watch an anime that I can laugh at and enjoy but this is just not right, and I'm pretty sure food doesn't have an effect where it rips all your clothes off and makes you orgasm. To be honest, I haven't ... completed every season of this "anime" and maybe it gets better but I highly doubt they change the storyline much it's just going to be new opponents and new tasks that have to be completed in a certain way all the while everyone's on enjoying the food as if they are going to die afterward. Also, I found it very difficult to eat during this anime, seeing as the people in it were eating divine food with fragrant smells and textures and whatever, whereas I'm eating a bag of chips, just makes me feel depressed. I guess they did a good job seeing as it is a more popular anime and it could be difficult to think up new ideas seeing as every other anime these days is just an isekai with the exact same story but they definitely could've come up with a better idea than sexualizing the whole thing. I can't give any ideas on how to improve nor do I think you even care about this review but this is just my interpretation of this anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Rixxrdo (9)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Anime with non-Japanese Asian representation

by RobertBobert

26 Entries · 14 Restacks

Parody Anime

by RobertBobert

48 Entries · 107 Restacks

50 Anime Dubbed in French - Doublages VF

by Grahnolax

50 Entries · 1 Restacks

North American Anime & Manga Releases for September

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for September Week 1: September 5 - 11 Anime Releases Arslan Senki (TV): Fuujin Ranbu (incl. Kigyou Senshi Ars...read more

Sep 4, 2017 11:42 AM by Discuss (6 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for August

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for August Week 1: August 1 - 7 Anime Releases Fruits Basket Complete Collection Blu-ray Fruits Basket 16th An...read more

Jul 31, 2017 11:35 AM by Discuss (6 comments)

	Poll: Stark700 - Jun 5, 2015	336 replies	by »» May 30, 10:48 PM
	Poll: Stark700 - Sep 4, 2015	237 replies	by »» May 2, 12:05 PM
	Poll: Stark700 - May 15, 2015	255 replies	by »» May 1, 9:19 AM
	Poll: Stark700 - Apr 17, 2015	317 replies	by »» Apr 30, 5:59 PM
	Poll: Stark700 - Apr 10, 2015	430 replies	by »» Apr 30, 5:25 PM

Ramen in Anime: A Bowl of Nourishment and Symbolism

Come along on a ramen-infused anime journey presented to you by ZenPlus - the site unifying thousands of Japanese online shops in one shopping cart.

by MAL_editing_team

67,838 views

Advertorial

In Numbers: The Best Anime of the Decade

What's the #1 anime of the 2010s? Which year was the best? What studio had the most hits? We have the answers to all these questions and more!

by Shymander

662,382 views