Food

Do those have big battles between men, and extreme thrilling action in every episode?

Not much actual fighting, but they're thrilling in their own right. Besides, Yakitate is arguably a piss-take on the shounen genre.

Shokugeki no Soma is top tier.

...

I remember watching a tv showcalled "Cooking War" or something like that as a kid and it was my favorite non-cartoon show.
Watching Sōma and hearing season 1 first OP for the first time awakened a strong nostalgia within me for some reason.

op btfo

This may be a bit of a blogpost, but I just can't bring myself to really like this series. It's amazingly well-researched and the writing is good, but it constantly self-sabotages itself with nauseating ecchi cheesecake. To use one of Erina's eccentric similes, it's like dining at a fine restaurant where the chefs are also strippers, and you have to endure endless lap-dances when all you want is to enjoy their food in peace.

There are other issues, such as the constant all-or-nothing tests that hamstring the drama (if every failure is fatal, how can the hero afford to really fail?), but none are as detrimental as the one mentioned above. Ironically, the series itself provides the perfect metaphor to describe it; it's a dish that's tasty in spite of, rather than because of, the ingredients in it and the clumsy efforts of the cook.

>ecchi cheesecake
Does this keep happening later in season 2/3?
I remember it happening early season 1 and every once in a while later that season but never so much that it would bother me.

That's because it literally was

Yeah, but less so in S3 so far.

I can't answer accurately in regards to the anime since I read the manga, but it really felt intolerable (for me at least) in the first couple of arcs and only somewhat bearable after that. And that's a damn shame, because the weird compulsions of the author sour what would otherwise be a grounded cooking shounen with sublime artwork. You know something's wrong when the characters are vying with the food they're cooking in beauty contests.

>such as the constant all-or-nothing tests that hamstring the drama
This, I hate this shit. I understand that the show needs some tension but this just does the opposite. It makes the show predictable when Soma is obviously going to succeed and pull off his asspull of the week when the stakes are that high.

Glad to hear I'm not alone on this. And at the risk of derailing this thread into a Shokugeki hate-fest, I find the 'expulsion' gimmick in general to be the equivalent of drama MSG that again clashes with the realistic elements. No real cooking school could operate like that and remain solvent.

It doesn't help either that they're doled on mooks for the sketchiest reasons, with especial mention going to the sap who got kicked out because 'lol citrus cologne'. This becomes even more galling when one recalls that Marco Pierre White smokes like a coal factory, yet that didn't stop him becoming the motherfucking godfather of celebrity cooking.

So we are in accord. Toriko is clearly the best cooking anime.

I found out about it via the one piece crossover episodes!

You ever heard of a lil show called Yakitate Japan, slick?

You win.

Nop

Then u dun kno a dayum thing about the best cooking anime of all time

Hmm... I'll have to look into it. But if it doesn't have big fights that's points off

It's like exclusively fights
I got turned off of it because the main character had nine thousand recipes already prepared and didn't have to get that creative

I'll give it a peep

No, it's mainly a food-themed battle shounen, though the gimmick's done so well that it's almost the best of both worlds. It's a damn shame it never broke out of the shadow of other shounens, because it was a genuinely unique concept with brilliant execution; the Ice Hell and Gourmet Casino arcs were GOAT-tier.

>mc in cooking contest that will determine whether he gets expelled or not
>mc and mc's opponent prepare their dishes
>mc does something strange and the audience instantly thinks its going to be shit
>mc's opponent presents his dish first
>judges love it say that they dont even need to try mc's dish
>mc presents his dish and they eat it reluctantly
>judges are about to vote for mc's opponent
>mc interrupts them and says now try my dish with this sauce
>judges orgasm and mc wins again
trash show

>To use one of Erina's eccentric similes, it's like dining at a fine restaurant where the chefs are also strippers, and you have to endure endless lap-dances when all you want is to enjoy their food in peace.

wtf this is a brilliant idea

I'm just fucking frustrated the way they ended it.

It looks like Naruto, JoJo, and Dragon Ball Z had a baby.

I still remember the theme song perfectly

Bambino is the best cooking manga.
No such thing as good anime.

I love Erina Nakiri.
She's probably my favorite anime.

Erina isn't even the best Nakiri.

She's cool as well.

The ecchi reduces as it goes on. A friend of mine could barely sit through the first three episodes with me, but she grew to like it more and more after that.

You're dead-on about the stakes being too high, though.

Absolute motherfucking shit taste.