You had me at tentacle rape.
Food Wars! is everything both good and bad about Japan at the same time, and it is glorious. Shameless fan service, a silly shounen plot inside a competition anime, various mumbo jumbo about cooking which is sometimes kinda true and at times just wrong but feels right... this show is the Donald Trump of anime. It has everything you should absolutely loathe about Japanese animation, yet is just so funny and you can't be sure if the charisma is intentional or not.
This is a show that everyone who attempts to view as an adult should hate, but everyone loves. Because perhaps the greatest thing in Food Wars! is that it brings out a feeling of childish fun. The humor is juvenile, but it's fun. The plot is a thin at best, but it's fun. The drama is so artificial that it goes beyond ridiculous. But. It's. Fun.
Everything is over the top in the series. There is only one character that acts remotely normal, and he walks around naked. The fan service is blatant and hilarious. Anyone who knows cooking will laugh his ass off at the reactions (and at least some of the recipes; I'm sorry to break it to you believers, but a burger without meat will always suck compared to a burger with meat). But I cannot deny the effortless charm in the execution.
What can I say? There is a combination of earnestness and a wink to the audience that just makes Food Wars! irresistable. It is to school life shounen what Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is to mecha shounen. A genre I hate, made with charisma and over the top antics, aimed at both the people who love the genre and at people who like mocking it. This is a labor of love, and it shows.
Oh yeah, there's tentacle rape in the first episode. It's hilarious.
Writing (story and characters):
Raise your hands if you heard this before: a teen from a modest/poor background is somehow in a school with rich/talented/famous kids, and he must prove himself the best among them through hard work and determination. He makes a lot more enemies than friends at the start, but his passion and drive soon have him surrounded by a good bunch as he takes on seemingly impossible challenges, each time surpassing his limits. Of course, there are high stakes competitions, but he will work hard to be the best!
But, as a foil to our protagonist, there are his supporting cast. The Tsundere, the shy girl, his friendly rivals, his not friendly rivals looking to crush the commoner under their superiority, and of course, an ulikely group of friends with different styles. They're a practically a super-duper-generation-of-miracles!
So the plot and characters are a cliche. Food Wars! has the most stomped on cliches ever. What makes all this matter very little is that combined, they actualy work. Usually this stuff makes me scoff and deride a show, but here they combine into endless setups for gags, fan service, fan service gags, and just over the top ridiculousness.
This is definition of "so bad it's good". And you know what? I'm one hundred percent that the author aimed directly at that, and scored masterfully. It ticks all the boxes shounen, harem, ecchi, and parody. It also manages to do this in a way that's graceful and unforced.
Art (animation and sound):
Usually, I say that the art has the unenviable task of bringing the writing to life and kicking it up a notch. But really, when the writing is so over the top, all that's needed is to actually keep up. That isn't an easy task in any way, but the artwork manages to give a good showing and definitely does the job.
The animation is good. Well, not so much the animation, which is rather static at times, falls upon the "scroll through some still picture over a psychedelic background" cliche a lot, and doesn't involve very intense choreography of motion. But the still pictures are great, the character designs charming (if a bit towards ecchi cliches), and most of all it just matches up so well with the tone of the series.
I'd have liked to have hated the sound because of the veritable standard range of voice acting, standard soundtrack, and cliche opening and ending themes. But it actually fits so well. It matches the extremities of the writing, glues it to the visuals, and does everything it should. Food Wars! has executes well on the audio, there's no doubt about that.
But all this being said, the flaws are still there. It cannot be said that the animation and sound are top-tier. They fit magnificently, but you can see and hear where the budget constraints made this show less than it could be. But given all that, the artwork of Food Wars! is great at doing what needs to be done for the writing to really come to life.
Overall:
Really, I should hate this show. I don't. It's ridiculous and awesome, and it does it with a completely natural feel to it. Food Wars! is touted as great, and it kinda is. If you don't mind some blatant fan service, aren't expecting anything cerebral, but are just looking for something fun... this hits the spot.
Oh yeah, tentacle rape within the first five minutes. Prepare to laugh your ass off.