Food Wars! The Second Plate OVA

食戟のソーマ弍ノ皿 (Shokugeki no Souma: Ni no Sara OVA)

7.4(89,867)

MAL Score

Ranked #2472

Popularity #1577

Ecchi
Gourmet
School

Episodes: 2
Duration: 25 min per ep
Aired: May 1, 2017 to Jul 4, 2017
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Fresh off their Stagiaire training, the Polar Star Dormitory residents and their friends take a break at a hot springs inn. The getaway doesn’t stay quiet for long: when the inn’s kitchen staff are sidelined by a string of accidents, the young chefs find themselves running the kitchen—only to discover they’re not preparing meals for typical guests.

Later, Souma Yukihira’s appetite for strong competition flares again when he, Megumi Tadokoro, and the other Autumn Election quarter-finalists are invited to the annual Autumn Leaves Viewing. The eight Tootsuki first-years are granted a rare chance to share tea with the Elite Ten Council, including Tenth Seat Erina Nakiri joining her fellow freshmen. Though presented as a cordial meet-and-greet between rising talents and established elites, Director Senzaemon Nakiri recognizes it as the opening move in a coming struggle between today’s rulers and tomorrow’s challengers.

Otaku Consensus

Food Wars! The Second Plate OVA lands as purposeful fan-service rather than disposable bonus material: J.C.Staff preserves the series' expressive reaction comedy and food close-ups, while the Autumn Leaves Viewing episode earns the most praise for sharpening the first-years' relationship to the Elite Ten. Fan response is comfortably positive, with a 7.44 MAL average and 73/100 AniList score, though the common caveat is that the hot-springs material leans on ecchi downtime and lacks the volatility of the strongest Autumn Election battles.

Why You Should Watch

If you like Food Wars most when it turns cooking into a social power game, this OVA is the rare bonus entry that pays continuity dividends instead of merely selling swimsuits. It is best for viewers who want a compact bridge between competitions: dorm comedy, ecchi absurdity, and the first-years measuring themselves against Tootsuki's ceiling without another full tournament bracket. The appeal is closer to a Haikyuu!! training-camp breather than a filler beach episode: lower stakes, but useful chemistry and hierarchy work. J.C.Staff keeps the exaggerated tasting language intact, and the canon status matters because fans note later material references OVA scenes. Watch it after The Second Plate if you want more Erina, Megumi, Souma, and Eishi Tsukasa context without the slower predictability some viewers criticized in season two's battles.

Key Characters

E
Erina Nakiri(VA: Hisako Kanemoto)
This OVA catches Erina at a useful social crossroads: still a Nakiri authority figure, but visibly forced into the same first-year frame as the rivals she once judged from above.
M
Megumi Tadokoro(VA: Minami Takahashi)
Megumi's appeal here is the contrast between gentle hospitality and Tootsuki-level competence, giving Minami Takahashi room to play warmth without turning her into a pushover.
E
Eishi Tsukasa(VA: Akira Ishida)
Eishi Tsukasa's presence gives the OVA its institutional weight, with Akira Ishida's controlled delivery making an Elite Ten member feel intimidating before he needs to grandstand.
S
Souma Yukihira(VA: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka)
Fans key in on Souma's refusal to treat elite status as untouchable, and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka plays him as cocky, curious, and allergic to ceremonial politeness.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
Unlike many comedy OVAs, these episodes are treated by fans as canon viewing rather than pure disc-extra padding; Reddit discussion specifically notes that later main-story material references OVA scenes.
2
J.C.Staff's visual continuity is reinforced by Atsushi Komori serving as chief animation director on both episodes, with episode 2 also listing Komori as animation director, helping the character art stay close to the TV season's look.
3
Episode 1 has a dedicated cooking animation director credit for Akane Hirota, a notable production detail for a series where food cuts and reaction timing carry as much weight as action choreography.
4
AniList tags the OVA with Table Tennis at 40%, which signals how openly it folds resort-comedy athletic bits into a gourmet/ecchi school series rather than limiting itself to kitchen procedures.
5
The two-episode structure splits its appeal cleanly: episode 1 emphasizes Polar Star ensemble comedy and service-work improvisation, while episode 2 functions as a formal showcase for the Autumn Election quarter-finalists and the Elite Ten.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: The OVA credits Yuuto Tsukuda with Original Story, Shun Saeki with Original Character Design, and Yuki Morisaki with Original Work Assistance, keeping the manga's core creative line represented in the anime extra.
Fun fact 2: Its release window was unusually spread out for only two episodes, airing from May 1, 2017 to July 4, 2017.
Fun fact 3: The short OVA still has a large audience footprint in the supplied database data: 89,768 MAL votes at a 7.44 average, MAL popularity rank #1574, and 372 AniList favourites.
Fun fact 4: Episode 1 has the heavier credited animation-director bench, listing Tsukasa Sakurai, Ayumi Ono, Shingo Nakamura, Noriaki Kobayashi, and cooking animation director Akane Hirota alongside chief animation director Atsushi Komori.
Fun fact 5: Online reactions single out the second episode as the bigger character-showcase draw, including fan attention on Erina and Alice's swimsuit appearance, while broader comments praise the OVA for keeping the series' art style consistent.