Shokugeki no Souma: Shin no Sara

This fourth season is the Shokugeki no Souma equivalent of a tournament arc. The entire season consists of food battles between the rebels and the current elite 10 leading up to a climactic final battle that could've been the end of the series.

The story in the fourth season is just about the food battles between the elite 10 and the rebels. Some of the battles feel a bit rushed but this was probably necessary because of the large amount of battles and the fact that the anime tried to also fit some character development into this season. The character development/history that is revealed adds a ... lot to this season and makes sure that you aren't watching simple battles but are learning more about the characters along the way.

The characters are the same as in the previous season but in this season there's way more information about the elite 10 and what they represent which is pretty nice. Other than that there's some new judges but those are relatively minor characters.

The animation, voice acting and music are all similar or the same as in the previous season.

Overall this is a very fun season. Even though the battles sometimes feel rushed, the extra information about the characters makes up for it. The climax at the end is exciting and the season is definitely worth watching if you've watched the previous seasons.

I am sad. As nice as this anime used to be, it turned into something I can't even name properly. Characters have still their personalities, animation is always as amazing, music is... 8/10 compared to previous seasons. Regarding that, my review will contain some spoilers towards previous seasons, not this one.

When I started this anime, I was similar to a lot of watchers of this anime. I had tons of fighting and shounen anime behind me but I barely touched something that special not involving this aspect at all. But friends were telling me about this anime and since I really love cooking and have ... strong passion for it, I gave it a chance. Hell yea, first season was really surprise and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Second one even a bit more. But then it went down. Food sometimes started making no sense, those components did not fight well together in real life and it started being weird. Also the entire thing with trying to expel rebels was too much to bear. But hey, I thought "okay, there is a lot of going on now, maybe it will be fun". It isn't. Since the end of season 2 I never had the same feeling of happinnes from this anime as I had back then. And there are multiple reasons:

1) Music is going slowly down on quality but it's not that much noticeable alone
2) Plot is getting more and more holes with every episode
3) You can start with certainty predicting, who will win which food battle
4) Paradoxically to number 3 some background characters are getting more space than the main ones
5) Some decisions starting to be irrational
6) Food components and finished food sometimes doesn't make sense at all
7) Ecchi aspect is getting more annoying than enjoyable

And those all reasons are also the reasons, why this season is much worse than the previous ones. And again, this is not pure hate towards anime. I really liked it from the start, I still kinda like it even after this horrible season but I have to admit this is not ok. There are really big bad decisions in entire anime which bury this season.

From the negative side I said really a lot, so now for the positives. I think anime still keeps its ghost and will to continue and there are still enjoyable aspects. And at least from my perspective I can say, that if you aren't amateur or profesional cook, you will enjoy this show a little bit more. And if you won't care about plot with a lot of holes, yea, this anime can then reach at least for the average score of this season - 7, no doubt about it. But I couldn't really ignore those aspects and they were pain big enough to count them into rating.

Still, I think it's worth watching. I can't really say I would recommend it but if you watched all previous seasons and you liked them, it would be pitty to not continue. You just have to count with worse plot and cooking. But I think it's still kinda enjoyable after all.

I'm very disappointed in the direction the series went from mid-season 3 but while it still being decent, season 4 seems like a bad joke. There's no plot development at all, episodes are very monotonic and predictable. Supposed to be "plot twists" make no sense and there's no explanation to irrational decisions made by characters what only shows the lazy approach of creators responsible for season 4 and I don't really know if the outcome of this could be any worse, considering the fact that the final episode looks more like low quality fan-fiction than actual sequel of a great story from seasons 1-3.
My ... rating is 3/10 and while the graphics are still on a high level, season 4 of SNS didn't fulfill my expectations as a succesor of the great series leaving me with disappointment and no desire to even start season 5.