Are you tired of reading wall after wall of pretentious text? Do you just want to know if you should watch the darn show? Me too. TLDR Dont even bother reading this review. Just look at that banner of Saber and decide if you need this in your life or not. You should definitely watch either Fate:Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works or Heavens Feel before this or else you wont know any of the characters. PLOT Great Episodes are max 14 minutes long which is just enough to not bore you while giving you enough fluffy goodness. Theres a lot of scenes that dont involve cooking which isnt a bad thing because having only cooking would make the episodes feel drawn out and repetitive. Every episode has a scenario that leads into the cooking scene and I was impressed by how varied they managed to make them. 500https://i.ur.com/D0d5HmZ.jpg They include enough detail in the recipes to the point where if youve cooked before you could probably make most of them. I didnt bother with the super complex ones but I was able to make the dish from episode 8 with minor modifications. It was pretty good actually. CHARACTERS Great Theres tons of heartwarming comfy moments between every conceivable combination of characters including some less common ones such as Taiga and Illya. Scenes with Caster and Soichirou made me realize that theyre actually super cute together when theyre not trying to kill people. Im surprised how faithfully they stick to the characters. Lancer is a bro Sakura and Rin just want a healthy sibling relationship Saber is really wholesome underneath her exterior etc. It feels strange to write this but they actually expand on things like Shirou and Taigas relationship. This show actually fleshes out some of the characters. There is character development in the Fate Stay Night cooking spinoff. ART AND ANIMATION Good The animation is pretty bad by Ufotable standards meaning it isnt bad. They go for a flat simple hand drawn style but it only adds to the comfiness of the whole show. The quality of the character designs arent sacrificed and more importantly neither is the quality of the food. I didnt want to include spoilers so I decided to put a screenshot of some ingredients instead of one of the final dishes. Both the cooking and noncooking scenes look great. https://i.ur.com/q8h2afP.png MUSIC AND SOUND Great but has flaws To all OP skippers: The OP is only one minute long so dont spam that fast forward button too many times. To all OP skippers: dont you fucking dare. Apron Boy is an absolute bop. I normally skip OPs but I never skipped it once even though I watched the show in one sitting. The ED is very laid back and always manages to leave me with a smile on my face. Watching the ED is also mandatory. The soundtrack has a mix of calming and upbeat/happy songs. Its not amazing but it does what it needs to do and complements whats happening on screen. They paid attention to things like the scraping of a wooden spoon on a pan but they didnt include other things like the glug glug sound of pouring a bottle of oil. Sometimes the sound of shaking a salt or pepper shaker isnt there either. Sound design isnt something I normally notice but there were some inconsistencies. THEMES AND MESSAGE lol Friendship family all that good stuff. Dont expect to do too much thinking. WHO SHOULD WATCH THIS You should definitely have seen Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works or Heavens Feel before this. If youve just watched something depressing throw this on as therapy. Basically an iyashikei but Fate. RECOMMENDATIONS Carnival Phantasmhttps://anilist.co/anime/10012/CarnivalPhantasm/ is a Type Moon spinoff that includes mostly Fate Stay Night stuff. I found it hilarious even though I havent read Tsukihime or whatever else they put in that show. Its a balls to the wall wacky comedy rather than laid back but if youre looking for something fun and Fate related Carnival Phantasm is a great choice. If youre looking for shows with the same chill vibe as Todays Menu check out some iyashikeihttps://anilist.co/search/anime?genres=Iyashikeisort=POPULARITYDESCminimumTagRank=50 or cgdcthttps://anilist.co/search/anime?genres=Cute20Girls20Doing20Cute20Thingssort=POPULARITYDESCminimumTagRank=50 and pick one with a premise that appeals to you. CONCLUSION Heavens Feel sapped my will to live and this brought it back. If you want happy chemicals in your brain give this a shot. Are you ready? Itadakimasu. Visit my profile groggy1 to give feedback or to see my other work