What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a shonen manga series proving that food porn can go to far.
Characters
Souma, our protagonist, is the son of the owner of a small eatery. While not as good as his father, he can still produce food delicious enough to make customers orgasm on the spot. (This is not an euphemism.) He also inherited a competitive streak, as well as the willingness to experiment with some very dubious new recipes. Well, you learn from your mistakes and all that.
Their restaurant is under attack from a group of very conspicuous real estate sharks, who want to get their hands on this price spot. This is the kind of show where they can seriously barge in and demand our kid hero to prepare a meal, just after making sure to spoil all the meat in stock. Cue a mwahahah or two. Souma of course takes them up on their challenge, and manages to still produce something incredibly delicious. Now get lost, and never come back !
This is the moment Dad chooses to come back from a trip and announce he’s closing shop anyway, and sending Souma off to a cooking high school for training. But not any cooking high school : an elite one where barely 10% of the students make it to graduation.
The OP & ED sequences show off a bunch of Souma’s future schoolmates… wait, why does one of the dudes wield a chainsaw ?
Production Values
The big selling point here is the intricate fantasy sequences whenever people eat food. They’re borderline pornographic ; you know what you’re in for when you’re hit barely a few minutes in by someone eating a terrible squid-peanut butter combination, and it turning into tentacle rape. (And of course there’s a brick joke with the girl actually enjoying the experience…)
You won’t be surprised by the fact that most of the fantasy screentime (or even the “real” food orgasms) is devoted to women. Because of course.
Overall Impression
/facepalm
I’ll give it to this show : it doesn’t commit halfway ; it takes the “food porn” moniker and goes to town with it. It’s got decent comedic timing, and the score knows how to emphasize the (well-animated) action.
But dear gods, that’s some creepily obnoxious fanservice indeed. Well-executed, but there’s no way I can recommend watching this, unless you’re really into that kind of thing. I knew from a few minutes in that I’m not, and won’t be bothering with another episode. One was hard enough to watch.
