With its masterful mixture of action, food porn and an engaging story, Food Wars! has refreshed the cooking subgenre of manga/anime for good. But though it hits many of the familiar beats of a more typical shonen, one thing the culinary show does better than other shonen stories is gender equality. The action-heavy genre is traditionally marketed towards a young male demographic and, as a result, infamous for relegating women to mostly background as eye candy. Food Wars!, however, has neatly sidestepped these issues by including female characters with nuanced personalities that actively participate in the story.

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Underdeveloped side characters are a common shonen problem and this is exponentially worse for female characters. Women/girls tend to receive shallow personalities revolving around mostly just being cute or crushing on the male protagonist. Food Wars! effortlessly sidesteps over this hurdle by giving the female students of the cooking school unique personalities that are as nuanced as the male ones: Megumi Tadoroko is shy yet determined. Alice Nakiri is imperious yet loyal. Ikumi Mito is tough with an unexpectedly soft side.

Though these characters could fall into certain character tropes, it's no more serious than the standard male templates. All of these young women are distinct from each other and though Ikumi likes the main male lead, Soma, romantically, it's not a major part of their characters.

But if this weren't progressive enough, Food Wars! goes a step further and gives its female cast backstories and motivations that, once again, have nothing to do with Soma. Just like the male students, the female students have dreams of becoming the best chefs and the male students don't disparage these aspirations. Megumi, Alice, Erina Nakiri, Ryoko Sakaki and Yuki Yoshino have amazing specialties and they fight as fiercely as their male peers to make a name for themselves. These female chefs have their own agency and solve their own problems.

Shonen anime has a bad habit of making women flock to a male protagonist to have him heal them with his charisma but Food Wars! offers a healthier option: Soma instead offers encouragement but for problems as internal as Megumi's shyness or Erina's abusive childhood, the female characters have to take control over their own lives.

Because they are so well-developed, they end up playing active roles that are unconstrained by gender. Whether as deuteragonists or antagonists, Food Wars!' female characters are never relegated to the background by virtue of being made to be just as essential to the plot as the male ones. In fact, Erina plays an important role in the fourth season and is a key piece in defeating Central. No one bats an eye when she assumes a leadership role (a male-dominated one) and Soma is the first to volunteer her as the next Director. While Food Wars! sidesteps the contention around mixed-gender fights, it's liberating to see men seriously cooking-off against women, showing that both of these genders respect each other as equal combatants. There are even some female students who cook better than the male students, which is taken in its stride with no fuss made.

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Shonen devotes a lot of time on female/male relationships (usually romantic) but rarely develops female/female relationships. Well-rounded anime should pass the Bechdel test just like any other piece of media. (A simple test wherein two women have to talk to each other about something other than a man.) Many shonen abysmally fail this low bar. However, Food Wars! passes without missing a beat as the female students foster healthy friendships and have plenty of conversations that don't include any discussion of men. The best examples of these are between Erina and Hisako or Erina and Megumi. These relationships are incredibly pure as we see how these young women inspire each other and provide encouragement on the hard road to becoming a chef. They're are a sign that Food Wars! sees women as independently-thinking individuals instead of merely "waifus" meant to butter up a male protagonist or viewer.

Last but not least, there's equal-opportunity stripping. Food Wars! does heavily lean into fan service with almost every female character possessing generously-sized chests and being subjected to numerous panty shots and hentai-like foodgasm moans. Virtually every shonen anime features big-busted women who have their clothing slowly shredded way (like Fairy TailFire Force and Seven Deadly Sins), and while it doesn't counteract it, Food Wars! at least extends this courtesy to its male characters. When these male characters eat delicious dishes and viewers are treated to shredded six-packs and butt shots. So, while there is gratuitous nudity, it feels a little less targeted towards the male gaze and works as a running gag the anime puts all of the characters through.

Food Wars! isn't completely free of the sexist tropes. However, it is welcome relief from the norm with its inclusion of female characters that are more nuanced and active in the story than you'll find in most other modern shonen.

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