C&C - Food Wars! - Season 1 Talkback

[Light Lucario]

So....is the food on this show one giant metaphor for sex? I think the obvious answer is "yes," but my bigger question is "why?"

I'm sorry, this was just plain bad.

I'm still leading towards the idea that they didn't have enough faith in a cooking base series without relying on sex appeal.

I thought that sex was a metaphor for eating good food. It's obvious that this show is for horndogs. I know this show probably turns off a lot of people outside that demographic. I wonder if there is enough demographic overlap between battle shonen fans and ecchi fans to sustain this show. No surprise that this show is the most divisive since Pop Team Epic. Really all the non action shows recently have been divisive and have had significantly lower ratings than the traditional Toonami battle shonen. Promised Neverland seemed to have the least backlash out of the three, seeming to indicate that dramatic non battle shonen do better than comedic. We know that Pop Team Epic was still considered a hit by Toonami, so this backlash doesn't necessarily mean it will be a ratings failure

I sadly wouldn't be surprised if this does well enough ratings wise. If this first episode was any indication, the show will basically have tons of fanservice and showing female characters having sexual reactions to eating food. I don't recall The Promised Neverland having any backlash, at least here. It seemed generally well received. Pop Team Epic was heavily mixed, but still had some big fans even after it aired on the block. I don't know about this series when it looks like it will be an ecchi series with a dash of shonen flare instead of the other way around.

 

[PicardMan]

I don't recall The Promised Neverland having any backlash, at least here.

That was the 4chan fanbase which nicknamed the show "children talking, the anime." Really, it seems like the Toonami fanbase has always been extremely hard to please with all the different factions. It seems like the Toonami fandom has been even more angry and embittered in 2019. Really, the fact that Food Wars is obviously divisive and has such a diversity of opinion yet nobody is personally attacking each other seems to say a lot about how gentler this forum is from the other Toonami forums (with the exceptions of JoJo or Black Clover talkback threads, those fanbases here seem kinda nasty).

 

[Light Lucario]

That was the 4chan fanbase which nicknamed the show "children talking, the anime." Really, it seems like the Toonami fanbase has always been extremely hard to please with all the different factions. It seems like the Toonami fandom has been even more angry and embittered in 2019. Really, the fact that Food Wars is obviously divisive and has such a diversity of opinion yet nobody is personally attacking each other seems to say a lot about how gentler this forum is from the other Toonami forums (with the exceptions of JoJo or Black Clover talkback threads, those fanbases here seem kinda nasty).

Ah, I don't visit 4chan, so I wouldn't know anything about their opinions on the show. Admittedly, that nickname is pretty accurate given how dialogue heavy The Promised Neverland is. I just thought it never got boring or dragged on like other dialogue heavy show since the premise was pretty interesting and most of the characters were likable. Fortunately, I don't think that we get a lot of heated arguments over most shows on the lineup here, aside from Jojo and Black Clover at times. I haven't had the best experiences talking about those shows either and that was part of the reason why I stopped watching them. It wasn't a huge reason, but it was a factor. I don't think that there would be a lot of defenses for Food Wars compared to those series.

 

[Hypeathon]

Really, the fact that Food Wars is obviously divisive and has such a diversity of opinion yet nobody is personally attacking each other seems to say a lot about how gentler this forum is from the other Toonami forums.

If I'm going to disagree with someone on something, it's not coming from a place of wanting to attack someone so much as it is coming from wanting to defend my stance on something, specifically if it gets dismissed, criticized or ridiculed.

The problem is that I just don't see the benefit in doing so regarding a show I like. If I'm being frank, there is a lot of "sticking one's head in the sand" when it comes to having a first impression on a given show in these talkback threads. So rather than debate with anyone about it (which is not how I like to spend my Saturday nights anyway), I just mostly ignore other commentary, post whatever I want to post and then move on.

 

[Dudley]

I don’t think Cooking Master Boy / Chūka Ichiban ever made it to the US, so it’s nice to see a cooking themed anime make it on the air here.
That’s all I can really say since I never fully watched an episode of this show outside of the fan service scene and a cooking competition scene in a future episode, but dang does that food look good!


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[Neo Ultra Mike]

If the author and artist wanted to just draw sexy women having organisms, they could just do that instead of trying to write a story around it. There's obviously a market for that.

Well the thing is was actually something they did before the series. At the very least, Shun Saeki was actually though not the most famous ecchi/hentai artist out there one of the bigger names in those particular fields but didn't really have a large series or title you would remember him by. However he obviously made an impression on the writer/creator of Food Wars Yuto Tsukuda, thus why the two collaborated. And though yeah you can make a living off just doing general ecchi it's not nearly as much as a mainstream style and honestly both have admitted to being huge fans of cooking and of various dishes so it would make sense why they would spend so much time doing a cooking manga as especially Yuto Tsukuda has a lot of knowledge of cooking and how to make specific dishes as they somewhat at least try to realistically explain how each dish is made in this series albeit some of the explanations and concoctions can get pretty out there.

I admit I'm not that big a fan of the anime but I have actually read over 2/3rds of the manga which yeah just finished up last month. I'm not going to spoil anything about the series but to talk about it generally, it's honestly much more of a shonen series then say The Promised Neverland is. Yeah it's always about cooking but you do have arcs about characters training and progressing and learning more about their specality and various rivals and villains to "fight" and groups of various individuals with quirky personalities to compete against and about the strength of determination and... yeah it is ridiculous and silly (seriously you think the stripping and fan service here is anything? Oh you have no idea to the lengths this show will go to with it's imagery) but if you can get past that there is a fun to it. And I will say once it finally gets really focused on the actual arc of Erina and her relationship with Soma and how that ends in the series is actually really cool and unique and seeing what the two go through and more of their pasts do have some good reveals. It is one of those series you can kind of tell was cancelled early due to low sales numbers (as after arguably the best arc in the series, the last arc had really terrible numbers in Japan and started massively bombing. Probably not as bad as Bleach but up there) but does wrap things up well that honestly I find satisfying.


That's not to say I'm recommending this series at all and saying "no if you're squicked out or annoyed with what they did here it gets better." Because there are good emotion and character moments but there is also a lot of stupdiity and twists and absurdity and yeah oodles of fanservice that if you do not like in this first outing you will NOT want to read or watch anymore. This first episode is a good example of what the show is like so if that's a turn off for you then there's no point in going on. Still if you're willing to stomach the out there stuff Shokugeki No Soma pulls there is good stuff worth checking out. We'll see if this is something general audiences appreciate but as teasers go this represented the series well but... if you don't consider what happened here enjoyable at all do not bother watching anything else from it.

 

[PicardMan]

I'm baffled by how the artist was allowed to draw for a children's magazine (Shonen Jump). Shows the cultural differences between America and Japan. Hardly anything from Shonen Jump seems allowable on Disney XD here in America because of blood or sexy stuff or something and they are all quarantined to Adult Swim.

 

[Hypeathon]

I'm baffled by how the artist was allowed to draw for a children's magazine (Shonen Jump).

Coro Coro, the magazine that serializes various Pokemon and Bayblade manga, aims at children. Weekly Shonen Jump, despite targeting a primarily male demographic, has a wider age range that that. Many readers are under of preteen and teen age and some adults may find themselves reading it too. I mean, Shueisha, the publisher of WSJ, runs its own convention every December that I can only imagine many adults and young adults attend.

Shows the cultural differences between America and Japan. Hardly anything from Shonen Jump seems allowable on Disney XD here in America because of blood or sexy stuff or something and they are all quarantined to Adult Swim.

This is the same culture that has a variety of love hotels with premium, hourly-rate services and buildings in towns dedicated to social bathing. It wasn't until Comodore Perry in 1853 apparently took issue with the nature of mixed-sex bathing being so commonplace that it became prohibited.



Also, side-note (also, in the above video): The prevalence of 'moe' owed itself to boys taking an interest in Shoujo manga as far back as the 1960s. Japan kind of embraced that cross-gender demographic appeal a lot sooner than we did.

Having said that, Food Wars is intentionally being sexual about things. But it's due to how there's more of an acceptance within the culture (video slightly NSFW), at least within the context of the manga's primary target demographic.

 

[PicardMan]

Weekly Shonen Jump, despite targeting a primarily male demographic, has a wider age range that that. Many readers are under of preteen and teen age and some adults may find themselves reading it too. I mean, Shueisha, the publisher of WSJ, runs its own convention every December that I can only imagine many adults and young adults attend.

I know that shonen is supposed to be the teen demographic, but many series, such as Dragonball and Naruto, are explicitly aimed at the elementary school crowd. I'm know for a fact that many older people read shonen, but I think they are the periphery demographic rather than the main one. It is still odd that Japan doesn't seem to segregate media for smaller children and teens like here. We don't have Spongebob and Buffy on the same channel here in the US and media meant for preteen children and teen children are strictly segregated. I'm pretty sure that Food Wars is a teen shonen rather than a preteen shonen, but from what I've read of the Fairy Tail manga, his notes to the reader read like they were meant for an elementary or middle school audience, I guess a really horny audience of that age group considering how extreme his fanservice gets. Of course, Fairy Tail is pretty mild in comparison to this but it appears that sexualized fanservice in children's series is okay up to a point. It's just a surprise that this is allowed in the same magazine as Yu-Gi-Oh.

 

[Gold Guy]

Episode: God Tongue

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NOTE: Since no one seemed interested in doing talkbacks for this show (!), it'll instead be getting one talkback for the first season. Anyway, the usual "no spoilers" rules still apply.

It's just a surprise that this is allowed in the same magazine as Yu-Gi-Oh.

To be fair, the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga could be pretty racy. I remember there was this literal baby that would try to fondle Anzu's breasts (which is kinda messed up the more you think about it...)

But yeah, Food Wars is on the extreme end.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Last time: Fake meat with dumplings.

Not since JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders have I been disgusted with a primate.

 

[Nobodyman]

Previously on Food Wars: Food and sex go together like......food and sex.

So now we're just doing a season talkback thread, eh?

This university is like, "Be perfect or GTFO". And...yeah, that's pretty accurate.

Are we sure this guy isn't putting, like, narcotics in his food or something?

 

[Grenzer]

This show isn't that bad. At least it's not hiding what its supposed to be like SAO does.

 

[animePWNS]

Man, imagine if this kind of food existed in Ghandi's time.

 

[Space Cadet]

Wow, even Buddhist monks can't resist his cooking, nudity too.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Is there going to be a class thing?

By the way, I sold all of our personal belongings and moved to a new country. Probably should have led with that.

"Hey, Joe! Where you going with that gun with your hand?!"

So find him a wife who can teach you to cook, then?

Ahh, and THERE'S the class thing.

 

[Nobodyman]

Oh boy, the cliche privileged preppy kid.

 

[Space Cadet]

Yup, this is going to be a class thing after all.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

You are this show's tsundere, I presume?

The first mother in the world whose breast milk got a bad Yelp review.

Care to taste some sparkly roses and soft focus?

And you would be the psychotic lesbian?

No...don't taste it...I suspect fan service...

 

[Nobodyman]

"He-WAAAAAAAAAA?!!! He DARES to try to contend with me and rise above his lowly station?!"

Godly tongue. Gee, I wonder how she got that name.