Food Wars is a rare series that I picked up based purely on the premise (and being a Shonen Jump manga helped too). In the beginning, I usually bought series based on anime that I watched and liked. Back then a lot of anime had ‘and their journey continues!’ type of endings and very little guarantee of a sequel, so buying the manga was really the only option to find out the rest of the story. And nowadays I tend to buy series I have read on official manga apps and like enough to re-read. But Food Wars, I bought this one since it seemed like a spiritual sequel to Yakitate!! Japan which I absolutely LOVE. I had about 16 volumes when the Shonen Jump App launched and then switched to reading it week by week. Fun memories of reading it on the bus on the way home from work and having to quickly flick to the next page whenever a particularly pervy scene appeared LOL. It took me a little while to get around to buying the rest of the volumes, but I guess that gave me enough time to actually want to re-read it 🙂
Impressions by Arc
Introduction, Training Camp & Karaage Wars Arcs (Volumes 1 to 5)
The beginning of Food Wars is fun because Soma is such a peasant, gleefully showing up all the snobs. The training camp was particularly good at showcasing Soma’s ability to adapt and it was nice seeing Megumi very quickly gain *some* confidence.
Totsuki Autumn Election Arc (Volumes 6 to 13)
This was the best arc for the non-Soma/Megumi Polaris first years, after this they kinda just become spectator-commentator characters… I liked the points system because not only it is essentially a cooking battle royale, but you can compare based on total score as well as looking at the spread of the the individual scores. But it was also useless for suspense since you could guess who would actually make the top 4/8. Oh well, gotta give the Polaris guys their time in the spotlight, even if it just gets ripped out from under (over?) them within the next few chapters LOL
Stagiaire and Moon Banquet Festival Arcs (Volumes 13 to 16)
These are the two best arcs of the series. I really like seeing the business side of food, especially from the student’s point of view. Even though they are just students, because they are ~Totsuki~ students they are essentially pro cooks already, so it was nice seeing them learn new things and actually be on the back foot for once.
Soma and Megumi make a super cute team (as do Alice, Ryo and Akira). Soma makes improvements on his recipes based on past failures all the time in this series, but the Moon Banquet Festival is actually *about* him building upon his original idea (both from a food and presentation perspective) in ‘real time’, which is what makes this arc so fun. Also because both the Soma/Megumi team and Alice/Ryo/Akira team fail so hard in the first two days XD Kuga makes for an entertaining ‘villain’ as well.
Central Arc (Volumes 16 to 20)
Ugh. The start of a slog. A Shokugeki slog. I know that’s the name of the series, but the series has already shown that it doesn’t need to be a Shokugeki to be a good competition. Also, I don’t need my non-battle battle shonen manga to have air-tight plots, but Azami’s whole plan just doesn’t hold up to common sense. It’s the gourmet version of ‘let’s turn all humans into some sort of sci-fi goop so there are no more differences and no more war’ or whatever, which is just as stupid as it sounds. Anyway, we know Soma is going to beat Eizan, who isn’t even in his FINAL FORM yet, so there’s no tension or sense of accomplishment.
Promotion Exams Arc (Volumes 20 to 31)
The continuation of the slog. The beginning of the arc was actually ok. I like it when the characters have to come up with inventive ways to meet the challenge, even if it’s an artificial challenge caused by sabotage. What’s not ok is doing essentially the same thing two more times. We get the idea! Central is corrupt! Down with central!
Then there’s the team Shokugeki, which is a fun spin, but ultimately didn’t balance out the lack of suspense. It was too easy to predict who would win each Shokugeki, and the Council of Ten don’t really have that interesting areas of expertise. Either they were too hyper-focused on one thing (sushi/ramen/soba) or I just couldn’t care less. For example, Rindo’s exotic meat schitck sounds interesting, but I have no idea how to even imagine how any of it would taste, so it loses all it’s impact. And since my food preferences are biased towards peasant tastes, Tsukasa’s fancy French dishes just don’t wow me at all.
In addition, they went waaay overboard with the whole POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!!!!! thing:
- Isshiki stealing the Polaris member’s ingredients to mash-up his I-am-obsessed-with-Polaris dish
- Soma with his ‘Unlimited Blade Works’ techniques from his besties
- Erina avenging Megumi with her fancy-schmancy dorayaki
- Erina tsundere-copying Soma’s techniques/recipe to strip her dad naked (yeah…)
For all my complaining though, the match between Takumi and Eizan was *chef’s kiss* (no pun intended).
Also Erina’s final dish, while it lost a bit of impact due to the preceding corniness, was a nice return full circle for the series, complete with the cheesy dish name and ‘Happy to Serve’! It really felt appropriate as the finale of the manga…
Hot Spring Investigation and Beach Exam Arcs (Volumes 31 to 33)
…except it wasn’t, and I’m ok with that! Now that Azami’s been overthrown we can get back to fun stuff with (essentially) no stakes! I like detective stories and given poor Megumi is the one you know is gonna lose when they need someone on the ‘good side’ to take the fall, it was nice to see her succeed so effortlessly.
Then the beach exam returned to what I like best about the series – food as a business and teamwork.
BLUE Arc and Shokugeki no Soma ~Le dessert~ (Volumes 33 to 36)
So, because it felt like the series had it’s finale already, I was able to accept and enjoy the absurdity in this arc (Noir = circus and the Nakiri gifting/burstings). The first gate of the BLUE was actually kind of heart-warming? (the absurdity of the whole Noir thing makes me unsure on how much I actually feel this way). The second gate was really out there and surprisingly low-class (even though they had to make high-class dishes from the cheap-o ingredients). Scoring by assigning a dollar value was cool, I wish we could have seen more judgements on other character’s dishes. Third gate onwards was like the series thought ‘Oh yeah, it’s Shokugeki no Soma and we’re reaching the end of our run, we gotta chuck in more Shokugeki’s!!!!’ so it was pretty meh. In particular Soma vs Asahi fell flat because neither dish sounded or looked that appetising. I mean it’s pretty hard to screw up fried rice, but I guess you can by being too verbose when judging it?
~Le dessert~ was unnecessary imo. Unlike, say Haikyuu, we know all the characters are going to be chef’s or in the food industry so it wasn’t really all that interesting ‘revisiting’ all the characters in the future. Also we already saw them go through appearance changes when they went from first years to second years, so who cares really about another makeover? (not me that is). Asahi being a Nakiri though was pretty funny. Too neat (and throws earlier actions into an unintentionally incestuous light). But whatever.
Top 3 Dishes I’d Like to Eat
3rd Choice – Saito’s Mini Sushi
Nigiri is tasty and this set looks both super tasty and super cute! Also I’ve never eaten premium tuna so I’m sure that would be an absolute treat
2nd Choice – Soma’s Bento
This sounds really warming and also really salty LOL. Although I’m sure Soma would season it to perfection so no issues there (but if I were to try and make it…) In any case, total comfort food!
1st Choice – Alice’s Egg Trio
Pretty, light on the stomach and includes dessert! I love how the visuals play with your expectations (from left to right it’s actually jelly, a milkshake in the egg shell and mousse) and the way the flavours go from salty to bitter to sweet. It sounds great 😊
Top 3 Reactions
Honourable Mention – Saiba vs Isshiki and Megumi
A very wholesome reaction for a series not known for wholesome scenes 🤭 Plus bonus little Shinomiya (yup, I’m ignoring the evolutionary regression of the Polaris dorm-mistress)
3rd Place – Eizan vs Une
Given how often clothes burst off the characters, you end up being pretty desensitised to the amount of 2D flesh put on display. All the ‘naked’ reactions kinda blend into each other, but this ended up being pretty memorable since instead of strategically placed fabric/water/ingredients/flowy-something it’s swords in a magician’s sword box style configuration. So tasty it’s dangerous? 😋
2nd Place – Yukihira vs Decora
Errrm so I guess this could be considered erotic but it’s so ridiculous it’s just funny 😂 When I saw this the Monster Hunter ‘Soooo Tasty!’ jingle played in my head which just made everything funnier. Plus Soma’s facial expression 😂
1st Place – Monarch vs Megumi
This one was super unexpected, even Megumi couldn’t believe what she imagined 🤣 The dish was so good it turned Megumi bad! Talking about strategically placed items…. 😝
Top 3 Favourite Characters
Third Place – Megumi
Megumi really grew on me. I was always ok with her from the very beginning, but if Soma is the one who grows as a chef the most, Megumi grows almost just as much as a chef AND the most as a character. It was really nice seeing her gain confidence and eventually hone her ‘speciality’/’freakish talent’ of home-cooking. The Megumi from the first volume would never have even thought about travelling overseas to experience different cultures, let alone incorporate it into her own style of cooking. Also, Megumi is the best (reaction) cosplayer 😆
Second Place – Isshiki
The kind but weird senpai. Dude was just a lot of fun. I appreciate how he always did things his way and at his pace. The main downside to his character though would be he’s almost like a robot. He barely shows any emotions and I don’t recall him ever losing his temper or showing frustration. I guess that’s just how seriously he takes his reliable senpai role! In any case, he definitely brought lots of chuckles
First Place – Alice
Definite best girl! Another character who does things her way and her pace, but also demands others do what she says 😝 Her range of expressions is super impressive and both cute and funny. From a cooking point of view, all her dishes were always really interesting because of the visual presentation and technology behind it. And because she focussed a lot on temperature, even if the flavour was unknown to me, I could still imagine the cooling/heating sensation she was aiming for which made her dishes more engaging. Also, I didn’t realise until the very end (because I barely pay attention to the volume covers and haven’t watched the anime), but she has red eyes so bonus points there 😁
Bonus!
Splatoon x Food Wars!
I was so happy when I saw this. It just works so well! If Soma is Goggles-kun and Erina is Headphone-chan then I guess Takumi would be Glasses-kun and Alice would be Knit Cap-chan (although maybe Yuki is a better fit)?
Food Wars! feat. Jump Anime Heroines
This was amazing. Cross-overs are awesome. Shun Saeki’s art does all the characters justice and they are all super in character (including their reactions of course!). Gotta love Kagura dishing out wise words of advice (while stuffing her face) 😂 and Kiyoko being the concluding (and most lewd) reaction was hilarious, poor girl she tried so hard! Good thing Tanaka and Nishinoya weren’t around to witness that…
Conclusion
So while the plot and pacing weren’t amazing, the artwork (of both the characters and the food) was top-notch and the characters and their interactions were immensely fun and entertaining. And to the story-writing credit, things do all end up making sense or coming full circle (maybe a bit too neatly 🙃). I wish I liked cooking more, the tankobons come with recipes for home versions of all the dishes and I would love to try eating some of them (but have zero motivation to cook….) Maybe next re-read I’ll actually look at the recipes and pick out the easiest looking ones 😛
Categories: Series Review
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