User Reviews

Fighting Foodons (aka Bistro Recipe) is a "monster catcher" anime in the vein of Pokemon, Digimon, and Monster Rancher. The big quirk of its bestiary is that each monster is food dish brought to life, ranging from fine dining to snack foods. The monster's strength is determined by how they were cooked before they were brought to life, being a good cook is just as important as being a good trainer.

The plot is the ultimate cliché: the Evil Glutton Empire is trying to take over the world and it is up to an inexperienced but brave and kind-hearted kid to beat the bad guys and protect his friends and family. Our protagonist is Chase, alongside him are his sister Kayla and her foodon Omelette, the reckless but usually helpful Pie Tin, and Oslo the wise sage who trains Chase. There is also Clawdia, a vain cat girl who is constantly stirs up trouble on behalf of the Glutton empire and constantly confronts the heroes. Chase's goal is to beat the Glutton Empire's top generals, their evil sorcerer leader King Gorge, and find his missing father.

Yeah, nothing original... But that is the point. Fighting Foodons is a parody of monster catching anime and video games. It has a field day with making fun of classic clichés, from the hero having an arrogant rival to traveling the world helping people along the way. Clawdia herself is an obvious nod to Team Rocket from Pokemon, heck some foodons can only say their own names! While there is some good character development, some serious moments, and the action sequences are top-notch, the anime is unbelievably goofy and genre savvy watchers will be able to predict most to the story right away.

The main reason to watch this anime is because it is intentionally ridiculous and parodies the ever-loving crap out of monster catching anime and video games. Those who have seen/played Pokemon and similar franchises will likely enjoy the subject matter and the parodying of said subject matter. Those who focus on the monsters won't be disappointed either, if you can stomach the terrible puns and portmanteaus Fighting Foodons has an excellent line of monsters. The English dub was done by 4kids, and believe it or not this is one of their best works. The campy acting compliments the ridiculous events perfectly.

In short: don't go watching Fighting Foodons expecting an action-oriented adventure like Pokemon; go into it expecting Bobobo-Bobobobo, something that is tongue-in-cheek, cliché on purpose, and exemplifies classic Japanese goofiness.

Being a avid animation fan, I admire anime not only for there great and unique art style but original storyline as well. I thought there was no poor show out there for this genre, all of them coming in at least decent.

Man have my eyes been opened.

Fighting Foodons is just another franchise to cash in on the pokemon craze and it shows. I don't mind the storyline in which a group of rebels go up against a evil king and his army, heck that the reason I fell in love with Monster Rancher. But the characters are as bland as they come with little to no personiltes (though I'll admit Kayla and Clawda was kinda cute). The monster they use to fight even more so. Do they seriously expect for me to cheer for a fighter with plate of rice curry for a head? The animation is very sup-par with clips in the frames every mintue or so. And all the joke are horrible horrible puns on food.

Overall, the lowest of anime show out there. If the characters were given bette personiltes and the writing more so. I would've put it in the decent catogory. But sadly it the occupit in my "it sucks" box for anime cartoons. Find something better and ignore this.

so what do you get when you mix the crazy iron chef with pokemon? this. yes, they DID go there! catch this on some FOX KIDS stations sat mornings if you want, but i'd reccomend against it.

pokemon was a hit, but this series has nothing going for it. and i've never seen a cooking anime go far...