It’s been officially confirmed that the Food Wars! Season 5 Episode 3 release date is scheduled for July 17, 2020, the summer 2020 anime season. Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma Season 5 Episode 3 has been postponed since the spring of 2020.
The delay was caused by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Due to the effect of the spread of COVID-19, further broadcast of the fifth plate will be postponed until July 2020,” stated the official Twitter account for Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma back in May 2020. “Further information will be announced as soon as the new date is fixed. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Rather than leaving anime fans stewing, Japanese TV stations began rebroadcasting reruns from the last Food Wars! season. The entire fifth season will restart on July 3, 2020.
Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma: The Fifth Plate (Shokugeki no Soma: Go no Sara) is being produced by animation studio J.C. Staff. The company has a reputation for running many anime projects at the same time and their schedules are often tight.
In general, anime studios’ schedules have suffered from cascading effects due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Like many other anime studios, Studio J.C. Staff is located on the outskirts of Tokyo, which has struggled to contain the viral spread.
Many studios outsource parts of the production process to contractors in China and South Korea. Sometimes compositing is outsourced entirely, and these companies handle multiple projects at the same time.
Industry insiders claim that it’s taking about double the time to create new episodes and three times as long to produce dubbed versions of episodes.
Food Wars! Season 5 anime is the ending of the series
The manga series, created by writer Yuto Tsukuda and illustrator Shun Saeki, ended in mid-2019 with Chapter 315 in Volume 36. However, there was a three-chapter epilogue called Food Wars Shokugeki no Soma ~ Le Dessert, bringing the total number of chapters in the story up to 318.
The fourth plate adapted up through Chapter 263. Including the final three chapters of the manga’s epilogue, the Food Wars! Season 5 anime only has 55 chapters left to adapt.
Therefore, it’s very likely that the Food Wars! Season 5 ending will the final conclusion to the story.
Other delayed anime in 2020
The Food Wars! Season 5 anime is just one of several major anime that has suffered delays. Black Clover Episode 133, That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Season 2, Slime Diaries Season 1, The Seven Deadly Sins Season 4, Haikyuu!! Season 4, Pokemon Journeys: The Series, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Season 3, The Quintessential Quintuplets Season 2, The Promised Neverland Season 2, Re: ZERO Season 2, Sword Art Online: Alicization Final Season, and No Guns Life Part 2 have all been pushed back to later dates.
The few anime that are not being delayed had production schedules that allowed for completion before the pandemic. Included in that shortlist are the Tower Of God anime, Trigger’s BNA (Brand New Animal), My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, and Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 2/Part 2.