So finally after 4 super strong seasons Shokugeki no Souma is back for it's final arc. As a fan who's been following the series since all the way back in 2015 I will say I was surprised that a fifth season was even announced as many fans (myself included) expected season four to be the final season as the manga ending and the fourthth season being quite well recieved seemed to be a perfect place to end the show, and the fans werent too wrong. This season had its fair share of troubles and moments that just made me frown. Now SnS was never a series known for it's excellent storytelling or its beautiful animation or it's exquisite sound, it was known for being food porn the anime, a comedic show wiith come hilarious over the top reactions and really funny moment and some mouthwateringly good looking food. Though i knew this i was still dissapointed to say the least with the final season.

Now where to begin... lets start with what i did like shall we.
The soundtrack was actually pretty decent, nothing too amazing but not bad either, i personally didn't love the op but it wasn't horrid, in true SnS fashion the erotic moans are still as good as they were in season 1 and the voice acting and mixing were done pretty well. There's really not much else i can say as quite a lot of the soundtrack was reused so it wasn't amazing but wasn't Horrid either. Finally, the food closeups looked as delicious as ever so no complaints here on that end!

Now if youve read the manga (or even if you havent), the general consensus is that the BLUE arc is by far the weakest and worst of all the arcs.
Having watched every season and read the manga, i can confidently say i was thoroughly dissapointed. The entire arc lacks any sense of the old SnS that we all love. It provides very little if any sense of conflict for Yukihira, neither does it at all build upon any of the previous character's relationships to make the ending a good and memorable one. We are instead left with Yukihira's next main antagonist after azami, and the main "villain" for this season Asahi Saiba. I use the term villain losely as firstly he is merely just flung into the final season just fo that there's someone Yukihira has to defeat in order to truly understand and master his own cooking. To me he feels more like a roadblock than a villain on Yukihira's journey Asahi in the show feels like a place holder at best, almost as if J.C. staff threw him in there just while they worked to create another villain but then in the end forgot to swap the two... Saiba lacks any and all forms character depth, motivation and backstory ultimately leaving him as this empty shell of a "villain" who wants to win because... he wants to marry his (half) sister Erina?

Moving on to most probably my biggest issue with this season (and quite frankly the past 2 seasons too). The vast majority of the side cast of whom many of us have grown to love and wanted to see more of, for instance Alice Nakiri, Kurikiba Ryo, Satoshi Isshiki etc.) were completely ignored and to an extent they feel almost forgotten, with the exceptions of Erina Megumin and Takumi of course seeing as they were the only ones of the gang other than Yukihira to make it to the BLUE. It really is upsetting because the enitre cast of characters is what made the show what it is, it was this vast and wide variety of characters each with their own cooking styles that made up a huge part of the charm (for me at least) of this show in the first two/three seasons, and now i dont even remember half the polar star dormitory member's names because it's been actual ages since anyone's said them out loud in the show.

The plot as a whole was just so rushed and lacked that earlier season's charms and in many places just simply lacked attention to details. For example, why does the BLUE use a torunament format different to the traditional format they had us observe for the past four seasons in a row, Saiba's motives and then the whole concept of the NOIR group. These are all interesting ideas if fleshed out correctly but they werent so we were left with a sad emo boy who had the character depth of a cardboard cutout who felt like a cult leader leading a bunch of cultist chefs who blindly followed him and did his bidding so he could again very weirdly... achieve his goal of... marrying his half sister.

Moving on to the characters. you may or may not have heard of a term called "jobbing". Jobbing is a concept most communly found in wrestling and in shounen anime/manga, jobbing is the act of purpesfully throwing a match, in shounen media it's used as a way to hype up new villains and or rivals for our mc. However, there are ways to job successfully and unsuccessfully, (if you want to see jobbing done correctly you might want to check out TGOHS ) . SnS season 5 shows you how NOT to do it. Having characters loved by the audience such as Megumi and Tsukasa completely annihilated by NOIR with no way to comeback or redeem themselves is how you don't do it, because you seriously expect me to believe Tsukasa Eishii a man Yukihira himself was never able to beat lost to the same villain that Yukihira then beat in the episode after that? you remember Megumi WON and beat out both Yukihira and Takumi at the BLUE preliminaries? well we get to see 0 of the skill she has gained from training and winning the prelims. Super unsatisfying to see as a veiwer no?

As i mentioned if you like any of the side characters DO NOT expect any thing from them up until the last few episodes and even then don't get your hopes up. J.C in the end felt it was the right choice to downplay and ignore all of the characters we watched grow and become stronger and better chefs through the series for a entierly new cast of unknown characters who are either extremely boring or not fleshed out enough to even be remotely interesting. Which sure fine makes sense that not all our favourite characters would make it to the presitgious BLUE competition, but at the very least you'd expect them to show up to spectate the comptetion no? well boy would you be wrong most of the side characters dont even show up unti lthe last like 2 episodes by which point it is way too late.

Overall this season was very lukewarm with only very few moments spread out here and there that made me feel like i was watching a SnS season, despite this being a season based on an unwanted arc written by the mangaka who literally wrote it so that they could end the story, it was watchable all the way through, it had funny reacton cooking scenes and the food look pretty good so was I inlove with this like i was with the first season? No. Was it absolutely dogshit and i think you shouldn't watch it? Also no. I simply believe that if you do watch it you go in with very few expectations and think of it as nothing more than maybe a side plot to SnS.