Review of Food Wars! The Fourth Plate

Here's a problem with adapting a manga like Shokugeki no Soma into an anime: it drags out horrendously. Seriously! The manga goes by quickly, obviously, because it's a manga. But since this anime models its source material almost perfectly, a lot of time is wasted on things that take less time in the manga. In the manga, some food battles are 6 chapters long, but that's okay because it takes around 3-5 minutes to finish each chapter. Average that out to 4, 4 * 6 = 24. 24 minutes! That's the length of a single anime episode! However, this anime manages to stretch it outto 3 episodes at times. That's ridiculous!

In my honest opinion, if they had focused more on trying to adapt the story for the purpose of an anime rather than try to copy the source material so perfectly, they could've done better. Unfortunately, I felt my time was wasted. An anime adaptation should not just copy its source material--it should perfect it! An example of this, for me, would be Gintama. Gintama's anime humor is completely different than its manga humor because the writers for the anime know how the humor works and adapt it so that it works with the anime better, such as jokes about Sunrise and 6:00 television. This takes the ideas created by Sorachi-sensei and then perfects it for the purpose of an anime. That's how it should be!

Furthermore, they should cut back on the flashbacks for things that could've easily replaced the wasted time from extending the length of the food battles. It could've been better. I liked this part of the manga, I really did. But the pacing in the anime is awful. I hope they do a better job next season.

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Score: 6/10