Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma is a long-running shonen manga series that's all about cuisine and flavor rather than punches or swords, freshening up the classic shonen formula. The story features all the shonen staples, such as an inspiring male lead and the virtues of courage and confidence, but it also has a few surprises up its sleeve.
The original Food Wars! manga inspired an anime adaptation of the same name that ran for five seasons. Although many fans agree the show ran out of steam in its final season, Food Wars! is still a rich banquet for any anime fan. Luckily, it's very easy for newcomers to dive into this franchise in manga and/or anime form.
The Plot Of Food Wars!
Food Wars! begins at the Yukihira Diner, where a father-son team works together to serve the highest quality dishes to their customers while also refining their craft. The son, Soma Yukihira, soon finds himself enrolled at the elite Totsuki Culinary Academy as a transfer student. Soma makes many new friends, rivals and enemies at this world-class cooking school, and his hands-on experience working at a family diner quickly pays off. He stuns everyone with his flexible and resourceful cooking style, refusing to be pigeonholed as a chef or as a person. Along the way, Soma inspires friends such as Megumi Tadokoro and Takumi Aldini to reach new heights in cuisine and express themselves more confidently with their own dishes.
Soma has his share of adversaries as well, such as the cunning Azami Nakiri who schemes to rule the entire culinary world and force his own ideas of perfect cuisine on everyone else. As a true shonen protagonist, Soma fights back with his friends and allies by his side, including Erina Nakiri, as the future of freedom through cooking is at stake. Later in Food Wars!, Soma also teaches everyone that the ultimate ingredient is love itself, a great lesson for anyone to learn.
Where To Read the Food Wars! Manga
The original Food Wars! manga is complete, though fans may need to find some space on their bookshelves for all 36 volumes. Barnes & Noble has every single volume, available either in print or as a NOOK e-book. Rightstufanime.com also stocks all 36 volumes of Food Wars!, while Amazon has the manga is available as Kindle or comiXology digital editions.
As of this writing, there are no omnibus editions of Food Wars! manga volumes, nor are there any hardcover special edition volumes.
Where to Watch The Food Wars! Anime
The Food Wars! anime adaptation ran for five seasons, or "plates," and covers the full story from the manga. Fans can stream the entire Food Wars! anime at Crunchyroll, in Japanese with English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German and Arabic subtitles. It is also available to stream on Hulu, with the show's 74 episodes divided into two seasons.
If you're unable to stream the series or simply don't wish to, anime fans can also snag physical copies of Food Wars! on Blu-ray. Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Rightstufanime all stock Blu-ray sets for the first four seasons, with the concluding Season 5 hopefully coming to home video somewhere down the line.
