Food Wars! OVA

食戟のソーマ (Shokugeki no Souma OVA)

7.3(65,914)

MAL Score

Ranked #3060

Popularity #2003

Ecchi
Gourmet
School

Episodes: 2
Duration: 25 min per ep
Aired: May 2, 2016 to Jul 4, 2016
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Two original episodes expand the world of *Food Wars!*. In “Takumi no Shitamachi Kassen,” brothers Takumi and Isami Aldini unwind after the grueling training camp with a holiday trip around Tokyo Tower. Their food-focused sightseeing turns into an impromptu meetup with Megumi Tadokoro, Ryouko Sakaki, and Yuuki Yoshino, and a shared lunch at a traditional Japanese restaurant soon sets the stage for an unexpected cooking showdown.

“Natsuyasumi no Erina” follows Tootsuki’s summer break as students test recipes for the upcoming Autumn Elections. Erina Nakiri, already finished with her preparations, finds herself with rare free time—until her cousin Alice invites her to the public pool. As Erina hesitantly steps into an unfamiliar kind of summer outing, the Polar Star Dormitory members enjoy their own getaway with a small lakeside party before the competition begins.

Otaku Consensus

Food Wars! OVA works as a compact fan-service addendum rather than disposable bonus material: J.C.Staff keeps the pacing brisk, while Yuuto Tsukuda’s original-story credit and Yuki Morisaki’s food-assistance presence help the comedy stay aligned with the series’ culinary logic. The strongest material is the character-focused downtime around Takumi, Isami, Erina, and Alice, where the show’s school-rivalry energy survives without needing a full tournament structure. The genuine limitation is also clear: the stakes are intentionally minor, and the franchise’s extreme ecchi food-reaction style remains a hard filter.

Why You Should Watch

Watch this if you want Food Wars in side-dish form: quick, character-forward, and heavy on the absurd sensory comedy, without committing to another competitive arc. It is especially rewarding for viewers who like the series’ supporting cast as much as Soma, since the credited main-character focus shifts toward the Aldini brothers and the Nakiri cousins. The OVA scratches the same itch as Yakitate!! Japan’s ridiculous food reactions and the school-club downtime episodes of sports anime like Haikyu!!, where personality friction matters more than scoreboard pressure. If you want gourmet detail, shounen banter, and shameless ecchi exaggeration in two finished episodes, this is one of the cleaner bonus entries to slot between larger Food Wars installments.

Key Characters

I
Isami Aldini(VA: Yuuki Ono)
Isami brings a calmer counterweight to the Aldini sibling dynamic, making his rapport with Takumi feel less like a side gag and more like a working culinary partnership.
T
Takumi Aldini(VA: Natsuki Hanae)
Takumi is at his most enjoyable when the series lets his pride, showmanship, and earnest rival energy play outside the usual formal competition setting.
A
Alice Nakiri(VA: Chinatsu Akasaki)
Alice functions as a chaos-friendly foil to Erina, pushing the Nakiri name into playful social territory rather than pure elite intimidation.
E
Erina Nakiri(VA: Risa Taneda)
Erina’s appeal here comes from seeing her precision and authority collide with situations that do not automatically bend to her refined comfort zone.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
The OVA is structurally built as two original episodes rather than a recap or clip-show extra, with Yuuto Tsukuda credited for the original story and Shun Saeki credited for the original character design.
2
J.C.Staff preserves the TV series’ signature escalation pattern: ordinary food preparation is treated with the intensity of battle direction, then punctuated by surreal reaction imagery that reviewers repeatedly identify as central to the franchise’s appeal.
3
Akane Hirota and Kyouta Washikita are both credited as Cooking Animation Directors on episodes 1 and 2, a production detail that explains why the dish-focused cuts receive dedicated attention even in a short OVA release.
4
The credited main-character lineup centers Isami, Takumi, Alice, and Erina, making this a rare franchise entry where the supporting ensemble carries the appeal instead of simply orbiting the usual protagonist focus.
5
The reception profile is strong for a bonus release: it holds a 7.32 MAL score from 65,872 votes and a 71/100 AniList score, indicating that viewers treat it as a worthwhile extension rather than throwaway filler.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: The two episodes did not air as a weekly mini-season; they were released two months apart, from May 2, 2016 to July 4, 2016.
Fun fact 2: Yuki Morisaki, credited for Original Work Assistance, is part of the production’s food-authenticity pipeline, which matches the franchise’s reputation for unusually detailed cooking logic inside a heightened shounen format.
Fun fact 3: Episode 1 has Ryousuke Tanigawa and Masakazu Yamazaki credited as Animation Directors, with Yamazaki also serving as Chief Animation Director for that episode.
Fun fact 4: Yukako Tsuzuki and Akane Hirota are credited as Animation Directors on both OVA episodes, giving the short release a more consistent production identity than many one-off anime extras.
Fun fact 5: Fan discussion around the OVAs often notes that certain scenes are referenced by the main storyline, which is why dedicated Food Wars viewers tend to treat them as more than optional swimsuit-and-side-character material.