Shokugeki no Souma
Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma

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If you asked me after the second major arc in Food Wars (Shokugeki no Souma) how I'd rate it. I'd say either a 9 or a 10 if I was feeling generous. It was easily one of my favorite mangas with a few minor issues.

In general the story was excellent, the art superb, and really my complaints were nitpicks, of "Accomplished chefs" not knowing relatively common food prep. I would say they embellish how good certain techniques are, over sell how good young chefs are, and the recipes in the manga are... weak.

But the thing is, there's so much ... more to like. In one of the first chapter a female character tastes the main character (Soma Yukahiri) and gets attacked by squid in a bit of a sexualized image. Then later another character tastes a great dish and it looks like her clothes are ripped of and she has an ... well probably an orgasm. This isn't a one time thing, every great meal has a unique scene of what fans have called "Foodgasms" and after the initial awkwardness, it gets better almost every time, especially when a pun is worked in. Man or woman... foodgasms are the goal, and Food Wars continues to deliver it on.

The food too is embellished but looks unbelievably good for "the entire manga". Every dish looks good, and while I would glad debate pretentiousness versus flavor, or culinary opinions... there's at least a solid understanding of food and high end food for "The entire manga".

So why a 7/10, or better yet, why do I say "The entire manga" like that? Well that's the thing, chapter 262 is the final chapter of the second arc, I won't discuss what that arc is, but it's also the end of volume 30. It's also where the manga should ABSOLUTELY have ended.

Because the rest of the manga is trash. Ok not a 2/10, but more like a 5 or 6 out of ten.

There's a major battle at the end of that second arc, the third arc tries to create the same battle and fails. But the third arc seems to be missing something and I can explain it simply.

The first two arcs are filled with beautiful cooking, a battle of will, a battle of techniques, a battle of characters. Every character had a unique personality and that is what made them interesting.

Arc 3 gave people "Special abilities" Instead of taking food and elevating it to "haute cuisine" characters started using something like a "chainsaw that puts spice deep into the meat". Only problem is that makes no sense. A chain saw that inject spice into meat wouldn't look like a chain saw. And EVERY new character has that. But more importantly, almost no one has an interesting dish, and even the few that are displayed are made with "Bullshit" reasoning or ingredients. Even when Soma Yukihira makes something amazingly, it's usually not a cooking technique but just deus ex machina's that doing it.

And yet that's not the worst. The worst is there's TWO major points where major or main characters make a meal that is skipped or omitted in the manga. The thing is... this is like Shonen 101. People WANT to see the main characters doing stuff. They want to see the main characters, win lose or fail, and in this case, if they are winning, that's the point. And instead... time skip, no explanation, it just jumps forward in time a significant amount. I can't say more about this one as it's a spoiler, but it really shows a weakness of the series, and possibly a laziness of the writers.

So does the extremely weak third arc mean the series is tainted? Yup.

Does that mean I won't read this again? No.

But it does mean I'll stop at chapter 262, I'll enjoy the first two arcs and stop, and the thing is, when actively have to avoid a third of a manga and are judging the ENTIRE manga? Well then that's a 7/10. But I still wouldn't mind seeing another manga like the first two chapters of this one...

PS. Books needed more Rindō Kobayashi.

My local library had a copy of every volume of Food Wars: Shokugeki No Soma, which made it easy to binge-read in a cost effective way. Otherwise, I would have felt as though I wasted my money. The art was on the better end for Shounen Jump releases, the characters were enjoyable, the setting was intriguing, the series was slightly educational while being entertaining, yet despite being surrounded by all this delicious food, I still came out feeling empty when the story concluded.

All of the arcs were pretty good except for the last two. Those who enjoy cooking will probably enjoy this manga and look ... over it's faults. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone else. I only completed it because I have difficulty abandoning manga series I get that far in.

FOR THE SAKE OF SPOILERS, I WILL NOT BE PROVIDING SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FOR MY ARGUMENTS.

This manga was painful to watch develop.

You see, I'm not really qualified enough to talk about art and such but what I can talk about is how much this manga fell apart.

You see, I am VERY partial to this manga since it was indeed the first anime I had ever watched from the day it aired. It was my introduction into my now weeb life and what a wonderful one it was.

I remember watching the first season and simply being infatuated with how amazing everything seemed but sadly, this was not ... always the case.

The quality of the anime started to fall off, albeit the second season still was very good (in my opinion), but this drop-off which took place in the third season spurred me to check out the manga.

Previous to the first part of third season, I had promised myself that I would stick out the anime and would not read the manga since I wanted to finish what I had started in the year of 2015 but, my impatience soon outweighed my self-promises.

As I started to read the manga from chapter one, I was thrown back into the wonder of what I first encountered as a freshman in high school. With this manga came a flood of memories (the most prominent being: when a new episode released the discussions that my friends and I had shortly after watching) and many emotions. Some may say that I am blinded by sentiments but looking objectively, I do believe that Shokugeki no Soma is truly great in its first half. The true turn for the worst is marked by the second trial in the Promotion Exam.

After this event takes place, the manga loses all sense of good character development, good character and story arcs, good character relationships, and consistency which it so masterfully did in its earlier stages.

This dramatic deterioration is most likely what plummeted my ratings to where they stand now (Story: 2, Art: 9, Character: 2, Enjoyment: 1 = Overall: 4).

This is painful for me to write because of my emotional attachment to this manga (and it's anime) but I must be honest. Honestly, you should simply stop reading the manga once the time-skip takes place (Chapter 264).

After this time skip takes place is when the greatest disappointment also takes place. We are now introduced back into the world of Shokugeki no Soma, but this time, we are given the same feeling as if we were back at Chapter 1. For me at least, I felt as though the manga had reset and the Promotion Exams were merely a slip-up in the manga and it would steadily progress. With this time skip we are given hope of the original Shokugeki no Soma that we all know and love BUT, those feelings are quite quickly taken away.

A few chapters into this new arc and we can tell that the manga will never be the same. We know it will never return to its former glory but we press on because of the obligation to finish what we once loved, much like an old married couple's promise to live out their final days together although they no longer desire the others company.

In the latter half of the manga, it seems that the authors simply had given up on putting the same passion into each chapter as they had previously because of the dedicated fan base.

Character development got lazy, extremely lazy. We were fed the same facts and flashbacks over and over with shallow reasoning or shallow attempts at emotion. For me, this lead to characters becoming less and less attached to not only the manga, but to myself. I often caught myself skimming over long monologues which I had once carefully analyzed. The repetitiveness of the manga is mind-numbing.

In the first half of Shokugeki no Soma, character's actions are carefully thought through and logically consistent with their previous actions or decisions but in the latter half, all of this established story and logic falls apart. It falls apart not because it wasn't strong enough to hold itself together, but because things start to contradict themselves. There are many times in the latter half of this manga that I find myself questioning the characters and not being able to come up with logical reasons or examples as to why said action would occur. In the first half, I could quickly reason with myself as to why a decision was made the way it was or as to why an action had taken place.

But on top of all of this, the ending is by far the worst. I will not say any details but this ending single-handedly could have taken this manga from a 9 to a 5. The ending literally leaves an entire arc open-ended and the entire over-arching arc of the manga open. It is so bad it actually feels as if Shounen Jump got bored with the series, axed it, and told Yuto Tsukada and Shun Saeki to wrap it up somehow. The ending was beyond unsatisfying and my least favorite part about the series.

You see, the let down of this manga is one of the worst I have yet to experience (yes, I know My Hero Academia also is quite bad, so far, but I was never really attached to it to begin with). But, even in all of this disappointment, would I recommend reading this manga?

Yes, I would. The feelings cultivated from the first half of the story are priceless and something I will always remember.

Thank you for reading this long, ignorant review.