Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma will be returning for its fifth season in just a few more weeks, and the more we see from The Fifth Plate the more questions begin to arise about whether or not this will be the last one. As fans were wondering how the anime would tackle the manga’s final arcs (with our suggestion being to avoid them altogether), the end of the fourth season seemed to answer this. The end of the fourth season has some narration suggesting we’re skipping right to the final arc of the original manga, so…will this be it?
The Season 4 finale of the anime ended the longest arc in the series to date as Soma and the other rebels were able to defeat the final Central chefs and return Totsuki to its former glory. This came with a major status quo shift that named Soma and the others as members of a new Elite Ten, and while this would have been a fitting end, there was a time skip soon after.
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This time skip moved the series ahead into the students’ second year, and while this happens in Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki’s original manga, the anime goes one step further and speeds beyond the Hot Spring Investigation arc and sees Erina meeting a mysterious new character. This character, Asahi, serves as the final antagonist of the series and is the focus of the controversial BLUE arc. This arc also serves as the primary promotional material seen in the first real poster for the new season.
The BLUE arc is not as long as the Central arc and could feasibly be adapted into a single season. What will make or break things, however, is episode length. If Season 5 of the series gets a 20 plus episode order like the first two seasons then it is possible to adapt both the Beach Exam arc (which will take an episode or two at most) and the BLUE arc in one final push.
But if it’s like the third and fourth season, there’s a chance it will be broken up into parts and spread out. There may be an air of finality around this next season, but there’s surprisingly still a good chunk of the series to go. It’s why fans argue about the final three arcs of the series so much to be completely honest.
And even after all of this is wrapped, there’s still an official epilogue that could either serve as the final episodes of a season or a set of OVA specials. Given the pacing of the anime series (which has been yet another source of debate among fans), this could really be a toss up. But what do you think?
Will the next season of Food Wars be the last? Do you want it to be? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!
