Shokugeki no Soma – 10
Wildest 10 minute party ever.
The season may be ending, but I smile to myself when I think about how Shokugeki no Soma will be continuing on into a second cour. I like sticking with a show I know will be good instead of the random roulette of trying to find a good show to blog each season. I say random because I’m 50/50 at predicting which shows I’ll like and which ones I won’t. Thankfully, I hit the jackpot with Shokugeki no Soma!
First of all, let me give thanks (again) for the male fanservice. None of the guys really float my boat but I’ll take whatever I can get. The whole dual fanservice thing just plays to the absurdity of the show, because absolutely no one is left out of being objectified. Anyone could get their clothes ripped off at any time, revealing delicious skin and toned abs…Wait, where was I? Anyways, I’m all for some male skinship for the sake of introducing us to Dojima and displaying Isshiki’s skill level without being boring. And nakedness can make any conversation exciting.
Is that you, Dio?
The real focus of the episode is Megumi, who is gradually building up her confidence as a chef. Maybe a hoard of muscular dudes aren’t the best gourmet critics (who can tell?), but it was still a big boost to her ego to have all that praise. The foraging challenge also really helped her strive for something more, while not completely overwhelming her since she had Soma easing her along. Basically, all of the challenges so far have been at just the right difficulty to nurture her growth. She’s a wonderful chef, she just gets anxiety attacks when she’s being graded on her cooking.
Unfortunately, her latest challenge is far too harsh. More accurately, her judge is too harsh. Megumi uses her newfound skills brilliantly to perform without Soma’s guidance – she improvises the dish so that it will taste as delicious as possible with that gross-ass brown cauliflower. This should be a big moment for her as she proves that she can be creative and smart independently from Soma. However, she gets punished for this. After coming all this way, she is chastised for something that she should be praised for. It’s heart-wrenching to see her be torn down at this point.
“Delicious…you fail!”
I’m with Soma that it’s ridiculous to sabotage the chefs with bad ingredients. Unless you’re planning on making a living as a celebrity chef who just competes in Chopped every week, you’re not going to be shoving your co-workers out of the way for vegetables. Working in a kitchen is about teamwork. There’s absolutely no point in making it a competition beyond “who can make the most delicious food?” by introducing bad ingredients in there.
I can’t help but rant about it, but my disclaimer is that I know Shinomiya is supposed to be “that guy.” His reasoning is supposed to make no sense to anyone who realizes the world isn’t about being a selfish jerk all the time. So in that way, he’s a very effective character because I hate him…and it’s hard to make me hate a man with glasses. The alumni chefs seem like pretty flat characters so far, but they certainly stir things up. Since Mito has developed nicely, I’ll give them some time to become more than just all-powerful overlords with One Defining Personality Trait.
On a side note, it’s nice to see the rest of the gang making it through cooking hell with Soma. I know they’ll each get their own time to shine, so this is time well spent getting us closer to them. I’m still a little iffy about how JC Staff treats the more comedic, slice of life scenes as time to cute corners with an overflow of chibis though. The comedic timing is super off when they go that route, making me want to cringe at any attempts of making a joke. But man oh man do they still deliver everything I want and more on the hyper dramatic scenes and food porn!
Everything I dislike, all in one scene
About Overcooled
A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Top 10 Food Wars! Characters Revealed
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
NEAT!
I don’t even know the name of the pink-haired girl…she must really become important somehow later, wow.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
It’s bittersweet. While I’m weeping that most of the series I’m watching are near their ends (Well, one or two are split cours), I’m thankful that Shokugeki is continuing since it’s one of my favorite shows and stays consistent with what it does: mainly putting the characters through cooking hell to survive.
A question, OC: What are the odds of your survival if you ever enrolled in a school like that?
That’s what you thought when you saw him? For a second, I could’ve sworn it was a Terra Formar that invaded the room.
The name “Yukihira” caught Dojima’s ear as he left the bath and rings to him as familiar. It’s enough to start believing Soma’s father does have some connections to the academy and why he sent Soma there for the next three years.
Yeah, I was pissed with Shinomiya’s form of conduct. The douche said the dish was the easiest of his challenges. Being highly critical is one thing but sabotaging students with overripe ingredients is totally out of bounds. In other words, it meant he hardly had any intention of passing anyone and probably has done the same ever since the camp started after hearing 30 students got the boot the day before. Safe to assume not everyone is aware of how he does things. Dojima was lurking in the shadows donning a disappointed expression on his face. According to manga readers, his personal experiences molded him this way. I’d like to know what they were.
Glad to see Soma step in to defend Megumi because she deserved it and made progress carrying out the task on her own. That Shokugeki challenge was epic.
Hmm, I rather like the chibi parts.
Side note: 10,000 comments in the bag, Master!!! My army is 10,000 strong and I got the Holy Grail!!!! Whew, this took some time. Personally, I never thought I’d get this far when I began commenting on Metanorn. Just shows how awesome the site is.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Ah, I feel the same. Shokugeki is there to comfort me as the rest of the shows I like are ending.
I’m am amateur cook so I don’t think I’d survive too long at that school as much as I wish I could! I would last until the foraging challenge perhaps since I can’t fish and I don’t know which herbs are edible. Unless I figure out how to use karate on wild chickens to make karaage then I’d be doomed.
Oh and The Dio thing is because Dojima’s seiyuu is the same as Dio’s – Koyasu Takehito. The visualized sound effects help with the imagery too!
Shinomiya is really the worst. Bragging about his recette really rubbed me the wrong way too. I guess there’s a story behind why he’s like this and by then I’ll probably be more forgiving.
CONGRATS ON SO MANY COMMENTS! I did well in choosing you as my servant kekeke! …Now I need to catch up to you with my comments.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
JC Staff? Make this happen!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Can someone help? Spammy just robbed an important comment.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
IT’S OVER 10,000!!!
Now, 50 things you didn’t know about BB. 😛
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Yeah, I crossed another threshold but lost my “Meta Team” status in exchange. I wonder if it wouldn’t hurt to ask that it’d be “Meta Master” instead.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Welcome to 「 」. 😛
It seems that you also break things. 😛
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Indeed. I shatter records.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Izuna-tan! <3
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Shinomiya actually has something of the right idea. If there is anything I learned in decades in the Food and Beverage Industry is that shit rolls downhill, or from the top of the totem poll to the bottom. It is one of the punches you have to learn to take/roll with/dodge/get used to. The Chef is responsible for everything in the kitchen. Recipe discipline is the top tier rule of quality control. The lesson he has to teach is a valuable one.
But he is such a douche-burger that the lesson is lost. He’s the chef that forgot to pay the electric bill, and then chastises his sous for not being able to build a prep list out of rotten meat and turned produce (and I am not writing a very pleasant sounding comment, I am so sorry).
I’m hoping the food battle that ensues will take that into account. I’d like to see Shinomiya eat as many of his ill tasting words. You can taste the love in food, and you can taste the condescension as well.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Always nice to hear your side of things since you’ve actually worked serving up food to customers. :3
Shinomiya sabotaged his chefs with bad ingredients and then went a step further to punish Megumi for making the best out of that sabotage. That’s doubly unfair! I also hope Soma makes him realize how rude he’s being in the Shokugeki. Soma’s good at using cheap quality ingredients and transforming them so he’s the perfect person to put Shinomiya in his place.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I hope they pace that battle well. Thematically it will be about making the best of what ingredients you can get. So I think it’s going to be the Big Bang Boom version of the previous recette recipe, or something like that.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
It appears like Shirou; Saber vs Sakura.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
The grand prize is Shirou for whoever wins the catfight!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Those poor girls! 😛
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
lol yeah that would be more of a punishment for me. They can keep him!
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
I shall keep the best girl: Illya. >_>
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Shinomiya’s subsequent character development will make him one of Souma’s top 10 popular characters per a recent Shonen Jump poll. (#7, to be exact).
The top 3 are:
#1 – Souma
#2 – Erina
#3 – Takumi
Megumi is #4, Nikumi #9,
Mr. NakedIsshiki # 10.POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
After Mito, I realized this show takes a while to really develop characters past being cardboard cut-outs of tropes. So while I hate Shinomiya with a burning passion now, I can totally see how it’s possible to turn that around and make him more likeable. We’ll see!
I’ll have to make my own character rankings once the show is over =w=
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Must be a fierce competition. I heard Megumi fell down one rank in the poll.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I think I’m tiring of the “let’s substitute another battle / competition / cook-off for some actual plot” of this show. And I realize that’s what a lot of the draw is for a lot of people, but I’ve already watched a lot of Food Network, I’ve already watched lots of Hell’s Kitchen and Iron Chef and MasterChef and and Worst Cooks in America. So now this show is combining cooking battles, which I have to say I’m kinda burned out on, with shounen battle anime tropes, which I’ve never been a big fan of. And my annoyance even leaks into the parts where they actually do something besides have long, drawn-out cooking battles… actually, I should say besides the long, drawn-out food tasting parts, because those are usually much longer than the cooking part. Anyway, I get annoyed because in those they half the time substitute yelling at each other (Souma and Erina, Takumi and Souma, Marui and everyone) for actually doing anything.
I’d love more development for characters. I’d love less “zOMG There’s SOOOOO much pressure, you could get expelled for stepping on a sidewalk crack!” (“Don’t you realize that you could break your mother’s back doing that? If that’s how much you care for your mother’s health, then you obviously can’t treat ingredients right! Expelled!”) But I doubt I’m gonna get any of that.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Um… the full title of the series is called “Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma”. So cooking battles are supposed come with the territory. It makes half the series what it is. Without it, there wouldn’t be much point to the title.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
There is an overwhelming arrogance to those reality cooking shows, as they are fictional vehicles for awesome for very real jerkwads. I think Mitchell and Webb do in one comedy bit what entire articles could do in shooting them down. At least SnS is fiction from the top down.
But for it’s other elements, it has done exactly as it said on the tine from the first episode. It’s a shounen style program from the top down.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Shokugeki no Soma genre tags, courtesy of MAL: Ecchi, School, Shounen.
You can’t be clearer than that if you tried.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
You could use those three tags for tons of shows that aren’t the same. Yamada and the 7 Witches has those three tags as well. I guess they didn’t get the memo about how their show was supposed to go.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…yeah, those three tags have a wiiiiiiiide margin…..you don’t even have to agree with that ‘tuber’s list…..
But why even bother with tags, a first episode, like I already said, will tell you what to expect.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
The only thing I’ve watched: Yosuga no Sora. Twincest is Wincest! :3
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I dunno, if it had gone with more stuff like in the first episode, that might be more something I like. There was actually some story and discovery of character there. Instead, it’s feels to me like it’s descended into solely a series of one-on-one battles, where Souma can’t go more than a couple hours without challenging someone to something (and it’s not like anyone’s arguing it’s not, just that I should not say what I’d rather see).
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Don’t remind me of that one. I dropped that series hard some time ago.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Aren’t you an oppai-con? Or am I confusing you with someone else?
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
*facepalm* As if the reason was anything near as petty as that. Come on, honestly… That’s not even funny.
I dropped that series like a hot potato because I grew disgusted and fed up with the rampant kissing shtick that allowed anyone in it. I was behind by about 4 episodes but after skimming through Random Curiosity, I saw some stills that really got on my nerves. So I decided that was it and deleted all the episodes in the backlog along with those I already saw. The sooner I forget that eyesore and waste of time, the better.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
If you don’t like it, that’s too bad. I won’t change my perceptions to please anybody.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
You are repeatedly posting things that are hurtful to other readers, not about their opinions, but about the way they are. I think we understand your position already. It’s unnecessary to keep reiterating it.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
It was to make myself perfectly clear. Nor is this considered “repeatedly”. I’m no liberal that lets everything slide. I draw the line somewhere. Remember, I watched Sakura Trick as you were blogging it, so you of all people should know exactly where my true issue lies.
Plus, you should practice what you preach. Especially in light of a little while ago. Please bear in mind for the future that anything you write, even if you erase it later on, will be sent to the recipient’s inbox. It’s not the first time you’ve done it. Fair enough?
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
From our rules section.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
@BB Ah. Okay and fair enough. And are you referring to me not liking it? Because after seeing Aroduc’s scathing first episode review, I filed it under ‘to forget’. The only thing I remember about it is that it belonged to supercategory Slice of Life, subset ecchi. With Fantasy. Oppai was the other defining feature iirc or not. And belonged to the category of ‘majority of male viewers would find interesting’.
If you are offended by the oppai-con comment, I’ll take it back. It was only ever meant as an innocent question.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
@skylion If I ever wanted to troll/flame/be a complete KKK, I’d do it at ANN instead. Because they are unworthy of my attentions. (that somehow is a completely oxymoronic statement).
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
@Di Gi Kazune: No, no, no. The oppai thing was ill timed when I saw it because something had just happened that had me riled up, so profund apologies.
But I’m sticking to my reasoning for dropping Yamada. Anyone else wants to continue, I leave it to them because that’s their business but I won’t be joining. I pass my judgment on the series and what’s in it, not the people who watch and enjoy it for whatever reasons. So anyone that so much as brings up the words “bad taste” or that it’s on “one side” is worthy of a low opinion.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
@BB That’s cool… sometimes the internets is lousy at conveying non-verbal communication.
To lighten up the mood, I never ever had made the connection that Batman is secretly a vampire.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Actually, it darkens things even more. X_x
https://youtu.be/tpu6yPAFHrs?t=4m53s
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
@Di Gi Kazune: It’s all good, then. ???!! How did you even begin to make that connection?
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Dammit, you are too quick to reply! 😛
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
The magnificence of the inbox, friend! 😛
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Well, there’s your dark and vampiric answer. Seriously, it would be cool as a new Batman movie reboot.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Just use an even better tag: Slice Of Life. 😛
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
There are things I realize shouldn’t stay posted, so I delete them, and this time I reposted it with different language (and it’s not like I used profanity in the first one either). I think we *all* know what your issue is, and what I’m saying is to please stop posting things that are hurtful to other people’s identity, in accordance with the site rules that skylion quoted (and which should also include homophobic remarks).
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
From my point of view, I was being subtle about what I said. Neither was I using specific words to instill offense which was not my intention. I was being vague. You’re the one who read in between the lines and blew things up needlessly. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a need for all this fuss. It didn’t have to go as far as it did.