The culinary high school scene has never been so cutthroat.
What They Say:
The final day of the Moon Festival is here. Soma and Kuga’s battle finally draws to a close–who will emerge the victor? After closing up shop in the Central Area, Soma and Megumi accept Rindo’s invitation to go to Tsukasa Eishi’s booth in the Yamanote Area! What kind of food will be served by the first seat?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This episode is packed. Let’s get right into it. We’re coming off of several episodes focused on Souma’s competition with Kuga for the Moon Festival, but Souma’s victory from the penultimate day was the big climax, so the rest of that little arc caps off rather quietly here. At this point, it doesn’t even matter who wins, so I was glad to see a little more background into Kuga’s character that confirmed that, as it turns out, neither of them won the battle they were hoping to. This kind of mutual disappointment is a sharp contrast to the highs of last episode, but defeat is always a powerful motivation for further character growth. We’ve been looking up at Kuga all this time and rooting for Souma as the underdog, but this reveal does wonders for Kuga’s character, not only as an underdog in his own story but as someone with remarkable parallels to Souma himself. At the end of the day, Souma was always the Kuga to so many of the weaker opponents he’s faced.
That transitions nicely into a greater exploration of Tsukasa and what makes him so fearsome. In competition shounen, there’s always someone at the top, and that person must always be introduced as a god that no others could hope to reach. Tsukasa isn’t the first character we’ve met who has held this position, and indeed several of the adults throughout the series are almost certainly beyond Tsukasa’s level. But at some point we have to accept that they simply exist in the different world; perhaps one day Souma will truly be able to defeat his father, and we’ll be in a different sort of series following adult chefs in their own competitions that will put those characters on the same level as these current students. For now, Tsukasa is top dog, and we get the first taste (sorry) of why that is. Of course, this show doesn’t take itself all that seriously, so even Tsukasa has to have some silly quirk, one that doubles as a weakness of sorts. If anything, his quirk/weakness actually feeds into (I’m really sorry) his status as the perfect young chef: he’s such a perfectionist that he doesn’t trust anyone else to touch his food, and is extremely nervous about the quality of his restaurant environment. As it turns out, though, this ends up serving as an even greater indication of why he’s so incredible: he doesn’t even bother asking how his food was received, because he’s so sure that it’s absolutely flawless. Yep, that’s a shounen number one.
But even all that isn’t even the main point of the episode. No, there’s a greater opponent than Tsukasa, one who thinks of himself as existing on a far higher level than any of these pathetic students that Totsuki accepts. We’ve had some villainous depictions of characters throughout the series as various times, but nothing on this level. In a series focused mostly on individual competitions, this is perhaps the most extreme actual plot twist that dramatically affects the entire cast and the trajectory of the story of Totsuki rather than just Souma and his friends, and the only sure bet is that there will be sweeping changes coming in the next several episodes and seasons.
In Summary:
While technically a transition episode in some respects, this is one of the most eventful we’ve ever gotten, wrapping up one arc and leading into something much bigger in very dramatic fashion. It’s a fascinating change to the status quo, and I can’t wait to see what develops from it.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.