First Impressions / Shokugeki no Souma

Episode 22

「日常を越えるもの」 (Nichijou wo Koeru Mono)
“The One Who Surpasses the Ordinary”

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Episode 23

「華開く個の競演」 (Hana Hiraku Ko no Kyouen)
“The Competition of the Blossoming Individuals”

What an incredible competition this is turning out to be! The students are being pitted against each other with only four from each group proceeding forward. It completely blows my mind away how creative and unique each dish is and just how many applications of curry there are. I normally like to talk about the dishes and food served, but in this case, it’s hard to talk about everything and every components of all the dishes; instead, here the few that I would’ve liked to try: Ryou’s lobster curry (holy shit, with cognac?! and I love the green gooey part of the lobster), Megumi’s monkfish (because I love monkfish), Isami’s calzone (because it’s so so eat-friendly) and Marui’s white udon curry (with cheese, and potato? Carbs, come to me!). I’m not going to comment on Souma and Akira’s dishes yet though. Not to say that the others don’t look appetizing as well, but these are the few that captivate my taste buds personally. Sometimes when you think “too” out of the box (like Alice’s molecular gastronomy style), I can’t even imagine what it’d taste like so I have no comment.

Looking back, I think I got all my group B predictions right! Asides from the actual ranking and order of the top 4, I knew that both the Aldini brothers wouldn’t progress and either Hisako or Miyoko would move on. Amongst the top 4 for group A though… I’m still puzzled. I figured it’d be Akira, Souma and Ryou amongst the 3 of the 4… the last one is a wildcard or toss-up. Will it be Shun or Zenji rounding up the top 4? Your guess is as good as mine because there are no other characters we know in the A group.

As fascinating as the competition is though, there’s a lot of great character focus and development here that I find a good breakaway from all the foodgasms and delectables. Even if it’s for a minute or two, I think it shows what’s motivating everyone to do their best and how far they’ve come. The greatest example is Megumi from episode 22 – which literally made me tear up (I’m a big softie). The fact that she came so far from home because her family and village supported her, shows where she gets her strength from. She has a good foundation for food, she just needs to foster that and gain some confidence in her abilities. Her use of the monkfish and local village vegetables demonstrates what her family and home means to her on a plate. This touches me a lot because even though she’s so far from them, she uses them as inspiration and pulls from a source that only she has. As someone who may one day move very far from my family, I can’t help but empathize with her situation and feel incredibly happy for Megumi that so many of her supporters came to see her accomplish something great.

The other story that really stuck with me was Ryou’s. Although he’s incredibly scary and almost in a perverted/creepy way, I think his bipolar personality has quite the story behind it. It’s almost like he can’t always be “on” and he has this “off” mode where he’s so sluggish and calm in order to save up his energy. Seeing his first meeting with Alice was what I was waiting to see. She ventured all the way to Scandinavia out to meet someone like him… and I’m still not quite sure what their relationship is (without spoilers and I don’t think they’re a couple), but it looked like she found him to show him off to Erina. And to my surprise, he beats Hisako’s score from Group B too by one point! Not only was he proven to be quite the character, his lobster curry had a secondary portion where he engaged the judges to taste it again in a different manner. That’s certainly unique because none of the other students even thought of making the judges “try again” or gave them an alternative way to eat their food. It’s like serving deconstructed tuna tartare two ways or something which always makes for an interesting twist for your tastebuds.

Not to say that the other characters don’t have interesting backstories, like Zenji and Miyoko, but if I could go on and on discussing them, this post wouldn’t end. I’ll reserve judgment on Akira before I hear the rest of his background and see what he has prepared for us next week during the finale. His relationship with Jun should be explored a bit further and just how his dish tastes… d*mn, I’m drooling just thinking about it. Mmm… naan bread with curry. Considering that the next episode is the finale, I won’t doubt that a second season is on the horizon. The Autumn Elections aren’t even complete! Not to mention all the chapters outwards. Oh~ now I’m just expecting a cliff-hanger.

Author’s Note: I’m going to leave the same note here as I did on my Akagami no Shirayukihime post and that is, an apology for my tardiness. It’s not something that I wanted to make a habit of, but this summer has undoubtedly been busier for me than I thought I could handle. I’ve had more than a handful of weddings this summer, a major job change, a house purchase and of course, a new member to my family – a puppy! I’ve felt terrible for being absent on RC and even though I post, I forget to read comments and due my due deligence of keeping spoilers away. I thank all the readers that have been understanding. I can’t promise that I won’t be a bit delayed going forward, but I thought I owed an explanation at the least.

 

Preview

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16 Comments

  2. For a show about Souma, you can’t help but cheer for almost everyone else either, especially Megumi! That scene of her in tears while struggling to be brave for her family while practicing, then switching to the realization that she passed the preliminaries, was definitely a tear-jerker. Good to see perhaps the most caring character thriving on her own.

    Taiakun
    Reply

  3. I read the manga but I had such a near tear jerker moment for me gums. All the fooooooooooodis so great. The lewd episode was great, watching Marui bare his fangs was great, watching polar star be great was so satisfying.
    Manga readers, we need to talk asap. ASSEMBLE!
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Kabble
    Reply

  4. I love the characters in this show and I love the nickname fest going on. This show is so excellent, the intensity this cooking series brings is more powerful than most super powered shounen.

    Kabble
    Reply

    1. https://randomc.net/image/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2007.jpg
      https://randomc.net/image/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2012.jpg
      https://randomc.net/image/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2014.jpg
      https://randomc.net/image/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2022.jpg
      https://randomc.net/image/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma%20-%2023%20-%20Large%2017.jpg
      https://randomc.net/image/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma%20-%2023%20-%20Large%2021.jpg
      https://randomc.net/image/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma/Shokugeki%20no%20Souma%20-%2023%20-%20Large%2025.jpg
      Here are some delicious titles of the characters.

      Miyama
      Reply

  5. They are adapting this prelims with grace. FYI, in the manga it has some kind of pacing problem with too many things going on and switching from Hall A to B to A to B again continuously. In anime, they send some “flashbacks” to the arc’s prologue and decided to focus in each hall separately. GJ again, JC.

    No comment about the actual content, it was great. And if you’re hyped with prelims, just wait until the actual competition. This is just getting started.

    zeroyuki92
    Reply

    1. The Chinese girl got a bit shafted, unfortunately. Her pineapple dish was gorgeous, and even in the previous ep’s preview! But I guess they needed to get her out of the way to move on to the tertiary characters and up.

      Guile
      Reply

    1. I’d LOVE a second season, but it seems BD sales have been pretty miserable so I don’t know if we’ll see it or not. We may find out at the end of next weeks episode, who knows.

      Personally, this is one of the best manga-to-anime adaptations in some time I’d say, as far as staying true to the source material and doing the animation justice.

      7godeohs
      Reply

  8. I found it really funny that ALL of marui’s fans or research mates wear glasses. Like you can’t be a research nerd and not wear glasses or something, lmao. But it was really entertaining to see everyone get their own time to shine. No further words are necessary for megumi (because it was really rewarding and heartening to see her finally prove her worth :D) And I love how they really amped up on the fan service on episode 23, with Nikumi’s boobs jiggling up and down every second she appeared on screen almost, aha.

    One more episode! I’ll probably end up reading the rest of the manga afterwards since I don’t think I can wait that long~

    chromenova
    Reply

  9. Ryou’s supposed to be Scandinavian and Alice is supposed to be half Scandinavian and half Japanese. Yet, each looks far more like what you would expect from the others country and why would he be named Ryou if he was from Europe? That makes no sense. It’s like I can suspend my disbelief for almost everything but that is what annoys me. Oh well.

    Gouka Ryuu
    Reply

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