Creative Staff
Story/Art: Yuto Tsukuda/Shun Saeki
Translation/Adaptation: Adrienne Beck
What They Say
Soma Yukihira’s old man runs a small family restaurant in the less savory end of town. Aiming to one day surpass his father’s culinary prowess, Soma hones his skills day in and day out until one day, out of the blue, his father decides to enroll Soma in a classy culinary school! Can Soma really cut it in a school that prides itself on a 10 percent graduation rate? And can he convince the beautiful, domineering heiress of the school that he belongs there at all?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Not since Ratatouille have I seen a story that treats food with a passion and fervor normally reserved for deeply personal religious experiences. Food Wars is so devoted to the beauty and power of the culinary arts that the mere tasting of food is treated with the same majesty as the long awaited first kiss between two lovers or the final victorious blow against an evil villain. The comic features the journey of Soma Yukihira, the talented son of a world renowned chef. At his father’s insistence, he transfers to the Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute, a prestigious school that favors a cutthroat approach to success and celebrates its extremely low number of graduates.
Those who have seen Kill La Kill may feel like Food Wars treads familiar ground. Like Honnuji Academy, Totsuki has its fair share of colorful characters. Notable among them is Erina Nakiri, a woman with a sense of taste so refined she makes Gordon Ramsay look like a line cook at Denny’s. As the school’s heiress and head of the Council of Ten Masters, she puts her fellow students through a physical and emotional ringer to determine whether or not they have what it takes to become chefs. Erina’s intelligence, education and “Divine Tongue” are more than enough to end careers as well as launch them, making Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute THE place to send the sons and daughters of esteemed restaurateurs.
With his free spirited and cavalier method of cooking, Soma settles in quickly as Erina’s foil and chief rival. Though he lacks a formal education, the time spent with his father at their family restaurant was more than enough to build talent. Happy in his work, Soma dreams of surpassing his father and is often found experimenting with different dishes that, to his strange delight, fail spectacularly. Such displays might suggest ineptitude until a high powered land shark threatens to buy out the restaurant. When the urban planner commands her hired goons to shake down the restaurant and destroy all the ingredients, the young chef makes a deal: if he can make a roast she enjoys, her company will stop harassing their business. Using simple breakfast ingredients, he creates the “Joke Pork Roast,” a dish so good that sends the woman into the orgasmic throes of savory pleasure.
Despite this victory, Soma’s father announces his intention to close the restaurant for three years. In that time, he ships Soma off to Totsuki as a test of his mettle. Immediately labeled an outcast due to his “lowborn” status, the tables are quickly turned – and enemies made – after proving himself far more adept at cooking and performing under pressure than everyone else. This first volume establishes our hero as a source of disruption to Erina’s status quo. His knowledge and skill flies in the face of modern conventions and traditional teaching, something that Erina simply cannot comprehend because of her lifetime of seeking painful and unforgiving perfection. Soma’s disinterest and snubbing of the woman’s talents and infamy earns the ire of his classmates, many of whom try to sabotage his work only to watch in shock as Soma not only saves the dish but turns it into something far more creative and tasty.
The artwork Food Wars, while quite good, is at its best when food is involved. Shun Saeki goes all out during cooking scenes, offering closeups so detailed and tantalizing I felt compelled to lick the pages. Apart from food preparation and presentation, there are pages dedicated to people’s reactions to Soma’s creations. These usually depict men and women (but mostly women) stripped naked with their naughty bits strategically covered, made vulnerable by the sheer power of flavor. Moments such as these are played for laughs rather than all out eroticism, though Saeki does go a bit overboard when depicting women caught in the lusty, slimy tendrils of a giant squid after trying Soma’s experiments. This cheap attempt at sexiness and fanservice is rather unnecessary for this the overall theme of the manga, however it isn’t enough to derail the immensely enjoyable experience.
Erina’s own tasting scenes proves that she exists in a class far above anyone else. Often shown in places of extreme tranquility, her tasting experiences transforms flavor into a relaxing bath in a hot spring or a meditation exercise under a waterfall. These moments of peace are usually interrupted by various imperfections that take the form of horribly out of place objects like a jukebox and a mountain gorilla. She uses this imagery to help her deliver scathing metaphoric critiques that cut her students to the bone. Situations like this may seem over the top, but it just goes to show that real food lovers see cuisine as art that has the potential to be extraordinarily pure and beautiful.
Included in the first volume of Food Wars is a one shot comic that, as Tsukuda mentions in his afterward, served as the “prototype” for the larger story as it features Soma and Erina butting heads over a class lecture that escalates into an Iron Chef-style battle with her personal secretary, a mammoth of a man not unlike Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago. The bonus comic defines the relationship between Soma and Erina in such a way that shows Soma destined to succeed. After declaring her work as “boring,” Soma belittles her quest for constant perfection because it doesn’t free her to be adventurous and try something new. The message that failure, as fearsome as it can be, is the best way to do better is so fitting for this manga that I hope it gets implemented into the larger story.
In Summary
Delightful, delectable and delicious, Food Wars was a manga that I just couldn’t put down. Great characters make for entertaining situational comedy set in a “take no prisoners” world of haute cuisine. Food Wars also got me excited about wanting to start cooking again and I was pleased to see that Tsukuda offers the recipe for Morphing Furikake Rice, Soma’s test dish that brought Erina to her knees. A great read for amatuer chefs, Iron Chefs and everyone in between.
Content Grade: A+
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: August 5th, 2014
MSRP: $9.99
