All aboard the Ratcheting Up the Tension Express as we begin our tour of the wintry north, Hokkaido, where the aspiring student chefs have to pass the Advancement Exams if they wish to remain at Totsuki for another year. The arch villain doesn’t appear at all, but we do get some surprise visitors on the trek up north.
Creative Staff:
Story: Yuto Tsukuda
Art: Shun Saeki
Contributor: Yuki Morisaki
Translation: Adrienne Beck
Production: James Gaubatz, Mara Coman (Touch up art and lettering), Alice Lewis (design), Jennifer LeBlanc (editor)
What They Say:
In the frigid north of Hokkaido, Totsuki’s first-year students face their greatest challenge yet—the advancement exams! Dean Azami sees Soma and the gang as resisters of his administration, so he hits them with everything he’s got, fair or not. Will the kids find a way to triumph over his shady tactics and advance to their second year, or will Azami freeze them in their tracks?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Originally, I was a bit worried about this whole Resistance vs. Azami the Food Fascist plot development, but now, I’m not too worried about it at all, since Food Wars continues to place its focus squarely where it’s always been: on the food. Even if we do increasingly have the appearance of that emotion that, in my opinion, kills comedy quickly—malice—it’s continually upended by Soma and the Polar Star group’s inventiveness and resilience (their cooking skills we can all take for granted at this point).
We knew that Azami and his minions (the instructors of Totsuki as they are now) would throw every kind of obstacle into the path of Soma and his friends…but then we also knew that “our heroes” would find ways to overcome them. From the beginning Salmon Test to the following Noodle Test, it wasn’t really in doubt that they would all find a way to pass. Erina’s rigorous training about Hokkaido and all it is known for on a culinary level prepared them to face the challenges and surpass them in grand fashion (not with ease; there is nothing easy in their surviving the opening rounds of battle). Knowledge and skill combined with pluck and creativity help them through.
Realizing that normal challenges will not work, Azami (who remains off the pages for the entire volume, but is a malevolent presence hovering outside the manga panels) decides to up the stakes beyond reason: when the Resistance is split up to follow different routes through the prefecture (which also normally happened during the old Totsuki regime), instead of facing normal tasks set by instructors, Azami deploys the Council of Ten to personally deal with the rebels. He clearly intends to crush them all at this stage. Soma faces an old foe in his upcoming battle that will focus on bear meat (which is not your normal thing, something you can just pop down to the supermarket to get a hunk of). The choice of material puts Soma at a major disadvantage versus his opponent, but that just raises Soma’s excitement. Before one thinks that this is just too unfair, our spiky-haired hero will get assistance from yet another surprise visitor.
This was a fun, rollicking ride that shined as well in the quieter moments. Perhaps the major appeal on that side is the continuing character development of Erina Nakiri, who is slowly, a bit at a time, coming out of the hard shell she was trapped inside of following her father’s abuse and the less intentional cruelty inflicted upon her by her family members who actually love her, but held her tight to the role of being a Nakiri and being the Divine Tongue on top of that. If it were not for that cursed gift (in retrospect, we see it for the curse that it can be), perhaps Erina might have been another Alice Nakiri instead: playful, charming, teasing, and most importantly…fun. She is ever so slowly regaining some sense of fun and wonder thanks to all of the friends she has been making among the Polar Star crowd.
The battles are only beginning as winter has come.
In Summary:
Soma and the others who disagree with the Azami administration set out for the north, Hokkaido, to take part in the Advancement Exams that allow one to stay at Totsuki for a second year. Up there, while those who have fallen to their knees before Central get an easy ride through the culinary rituals, Soma and friends are forced to improvise in order to pass the tests. When the fixed examinations fail to do them in, Azami decides to set even more daunting challenges for the opposition. Soma will have to face an old foe in a battle on the foe’s home turf, so to speak. Exciting times are ahead as the battles now begin to involve the Elite Ten personally.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A
Package Rating: A-
Text/Translation: A-
Age Rating: Teen+ (16+)
Released By:Viz Media
Release Date: December 5th, 2017
MSRP: $9.99