It’s a classic battle of dark vs. light (now with more bondage).
What They Say:
The Unknown Known
Shokugeki no Soma centers on Yukihira Soma, a middle school student who is determined to surpass his father’s culinary skills. One day, his father decides to close down their family restaurant and hone his skills in Europe. Before leaving he enrolls Soma in an elite culinary school that is extremely difficult to enter with a graduation rate of only 10 percent. Will Souma be able to improve his skills, or will the kitchen prove to be too hot?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the Autumn Elections roll on, we get to see not only the preparation phase but the first judging sessions that allow us to delve deeply into the intricacies each young chef has weaved into their respective dish. This is the finest gold of this series, and to start it off we have two girls with the greatest adoration for Erina, which manifest in very different ways. But first, we do check in on our main characters to get some indication of how they’re overcoming the situations they’ve found themselves in. The previous episode ended with a hilarious stinger implying that Soma was out for the count and may have to scramble at the end to pull something together, but in fact it was the exact opposite, and within the first few seconds of this episode, we see that this is very much still the effortlessly composed Soma we’ve always known. That kind of charisma influences someone like Megumi, who couldn’t be any more different naturally, to do her best and go for the biggest show she can muster regardless of the risk and her army of naysayers.
Before the judging begins, Megumi gets the most focus, which is always welcome as one of the best things about the series has been the progression of her character. Now she’s able to confidently be one of the biggest spectacles of the competition, performing an extremely impressive feat of food preparation flawlessly. This calls for a flashback, and it’s hard to not like Megumi flashbacks, especially when they show how determined she’s been when it’s counted even going back to her time as a small child, ignoring any assumptions of her ability as someone so young or female and pushing through to accomplish something that now serves her well.
The main event here is most definitely the battle between Nao, the stalker we’ve been seeing in the opening and especially ending since halfway through the series and only recently met in the series proper, and Hisako, Erina’s faithful lapdog we’ve seen almost as regularly as Erina herself. Despite this, Hisako has hardly had any more real character material than Nao, because so far she’s existed to praise and serve Erina and not much else. With the opening indicating a much larger role for her going forward, it was only a matter of time before that proved true, and what a showing she makes. Nao goes first, embodying the image of a witch in every aspect, and even managing to make a dish smell unbearably disgusting while tasting amazing enough to inspire some orgasmic reactions from the jaded judges, even to the point of our (maybe?) first bondage scene of the series. That’s a pretty big milestone, I’d say. However, Hisako proves she’s a lot more than just another Erina supporter, and the effect she has on Nao (and the ED) is pure gold.
In Summary:
The formula seems to be set to show off what all the major characters have pulled off in the preliminaries of the Autumn Elections, with Soma almost certainly slotted for the finale. In another series this might be an issue, but Food Wars! has it down to the most deliciously artful science.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
This is just such an awesome show, from top to bottom. The biggest lesson this show has to teach is what can happen when there’s enough time to tell the story the way it’s meant to be told.