As long as Megumi is the one who defeats Erina in a Shokugeki, I'll be fine with whatever else they do. Soma's main opponent isn't anyone in the school. It's his father. This is basically a Grappler Baki situation, and it will obviously play out accordingly. He'll defeat and rise above everybody else in turn, that's a given, and some of those people will become friends, mentors, rivals, or even disciples in the process. But Megumi is the one who needs to defeat Erina. Cooking with earnest kindness should ultimately be the trump that defeats flawless cooking without mistakes.

 

Well, I pretty much can't stand Tadokoro so I'm hard-pressed to want to agree with her beating Erina or generally being elevated any further than she already has been. Your scenario isn't necessarily 'wrong' but it's just a matter of personal preference. Megumi and her kindness are what I think would be appropriate to beat Souma if he ever strays off the 'right' path and falls into the darkside/Asura thing that his dad used to be. Which I imagine happening if he keeps racking up losses at the rate he has been. You just get the vibe lately that he's getting increasingly frustrated by it, and I think it's a necessary phase in his development. Thus far, it seems to be like he's been getting along by trying to ape his dad's personality and mannerisms without really having walked down his path. Him losing this one to Alice might really be what sends him off the rails, too, if it happens. And then it'll be on Tadokoro to finally bring him back to his senses after he goes a while tearing holes through everyone else in his path.

Wait, did I just start out saying I don't like Megumi and then end saying that I think she should beat the MC? Gah.

But in the end as well, I think it should be Souma and his constant stream of 'mistakes' that trumps Erina's utter perfection. And I also think that if he does have a rival within Tootsuki itself, it is and always has been Erina and he needs to beat her at some point down the road.

But on the other hand, I do like Kingdom.

Adjusted for difficulty, I think this comes out to about Over Nine Thousand levels up in badass.

 

I keep wondering how true Kingdom is to documented history, but I stop myself from Googling in fear history would disappoint me.

 

High School of the Dead has been on hiatus since march 2011. What I personally use to keep track of my manga is: Manga Updates.

 

See, I disagree on that. Megumi still has an unresolved issue on the table. She never defeated Kojiro. She lost in terms of cooking, and drew on 'heart' alone, which is a hollow victory at best.

Kojiro's philosophy of precisely following the rules and doing everything exactly the correct way is nothing more and nothing less than an extension of the argument Erina makes for cooking, i.e. "it must be done perfectly every time, there can be no mistakes or deviations."

And I refuse to acknowledge Erina as being Soma's rival. She isn't. Maybe the Erina in the oneshot prologue, where she genuinely hated him for insulting her cooking but was still willing to admit that he had made the better dish. Maybe she would have been Soma's rival. But not this Erina. This Erina LIED. She falsified his results on the exam for no greater reason than her belief that his dish was too plebeian. It didn't matter that it was delicious, which is supposed to be the ONLY thing that matters at the school. She failed him anyway because it wasn't sophisticated enough.

She's a liar, a cheat, and a fraud. If she doesn't even have the integrity to admit when she tastes good food, which, I'll remind you, is literally her claim to fame, then she has no business being Soma's rival.

Soma's rival is his father, but discounting that, you could say that the entire school itself is his rival. He needs to overcome everyone at some point, not to prove anything to himself, but to improve his skills and hone his abilities until he can stand next to his father.

But Erina is interesting, because while she doesn't synch with Soma at all, she does have a complete opposite in somebody else.

Megumi.

Both are girls. One was born to a wealthy family, one was born in a poor fishing village. Both are involved with Soma and the events of the plot. Erina's forte is making perfect, sophisticated food. Megumi consistently wins through by making homey meals that are cooked from the heart. Erina lies and actively manipulates to get her way. Megumi is honest and doesn't realize the enormous influence she naturally has on people. Erina is a tyrant. Megumi is kindhearted. Erina was born with immense talent. Megumi had to work hard to gain her skills. Megumi took in Soma's ideal of making mistakes to help make better dishes. Erina discarded the ideal as a foolish excuse made by the incompetent. Megumi likes Soma. Erina hates him.

Through her own character development in the series, Megumi has become Erina's polar opposite. She is her mirror image in every way. Soma may win a victory over Erina in the process of traveling his path to his father, but the person who will ultimately defeat her probably won't be him. It will be Megumi. Soma has nothing to prove to the world or to Erina, he's only interested in becoming a better chef. But Megumi has everything to prove, and there's no one better at the school for her to prove it against than Erina.

 

The answer to that is "kinda but when you really get down to it we don't know," I think.

 

If the events of Kingdom were true to life, all of us would be subjects of the eternal Qin Dynasty.

 

TWGOK concludes in the next volume. Thank you, Wakaki-sensei, for never setting the bar low and in general being just that awesome. Hats off! Still the best Harem-deconstruction ever (even keeping Negima in mind).

 

I should probably catch up on that at some point. It lost me after the Goddess Arc when Keima reverted to being a kid (or something, idr exactly now). Just wasn't interesting in reading a harem comedy about a child.

 

Well yes. Thank god the Qin Dynasty didn't have the ability to field people capable of chopping full grown horses in half.

 

A lot of has some historical roots. Most of the big generals existed, same with some of the battles. Some were made up. How the battles actually were though, are largely unclear. Naturally, Shin is completely fictional. History goes on with basically the Qin empire killing Ryofui for being arrogant, him managing to unite all of China, but with it collapsing shortly afterwards. Pretty sure Riboku existed, though I don't know about Houken.

 

I thought it was a Houken that existed but not Riboku. And Houken was not quite the paragon of slaughter that we see.

That said... Riboku is a non-military figure in Zhao, too. He might well be real.

 

I think they both exist, it's just that I actually asked someone about Riboku to confirm, while I never checked up on Houken. The whole "Three Great Heavens" is definitely a thing, just not too sure who the figures were.

 

I want to see more of Yontawa, but Shin is too badass. I'm worried, he gets more awesome, the world explodes. Kingdom is a manga that only got better, the first 50 chpaters were nice, but ou that, after that it kep getring better until we really met Ouki, and holy shit, didn't things got awesome.

I agree with everythin Raine said, Erina is an antagonist through and through, she is completely different from the Erina in the one shot. I shouldn't really like Megumi, she has too many clichés of female manga protagonists for my taste, but she grows on you too much. Just like HTTYD, the clichés are well done and in a interesting way, so they don't bother me too much. I really like Alice though, wish she was the main heroine.

 

Shin is actually based on a historical figure. A general with the name of Li Xin.

 

Yeah, the reason I called him fictional though is that there is definitely not that kind of in depth knowledge about him, with the whole assisting the king in securing throne, etc. Like you said though, there was definitely a general by the name of Li Xin. But then again, a lot of people had 信 as their names too.

 

We'll see with Erina. I don't think she's going to remain in an antagonist's role for much longer, depending on how she reacts to the whole Souma/Jouichirou reveal when it hits her. Though that's entirely the reason I don't like the idea of pairing those two (I'd actually much rather no shipping at all but it seems unfortunately inevitable, given the dad's unheard advice way back when). If it must be, I would rather Souma be with someone who likes him for him and not for his resemblance to his father.

Megumi is just boring. Too much Hinata in her, and I don't care for that character archetype. I agree on Alice. She would be much more interesting than Tadokoro or Erina and I wish she'd get elevated into their ambiguously shared heroine spot.

 

Tower of God

LOL, poor Reflejo. Considering his backstory, I think he might die of a jealous rage-induced stroke once Baam's Princess comes breaking through the cavern walls.

Also, really not feeling it with respect to any sense of danger here. I do wonder if this will be the time SIU actually does do something nasty, and my complacent attitude is setting me up to be epic trolled.

 

So I reckon we have only one or two chapters left in this Kingdom arc. these resolution chapters were quite engaging because they're such a change of pace from constant war.

I feel basically the same way.

 

It doesn't really matter if you find Megumi boring or not. This isn't a dissertation on the merits of characters or why you think they're cliche. I'm happy you have an opinion about the merits of one of the characters as a character, but I honestly don't really care. That's not what I'm talking about at all. If we were talking about irritating cliches, we'd start with how Erin couldn't be more of a copy-paste Ojou-Sama if people carried her on a litter and literally washed her feet. That's annoying as shit, far more so than anything Megumi has done. At least Megumi has fucking developed.

My point is that Erin isn't Soma's rival, and why that is the case. Her character is wrong for it. She's a straight antagonist at best, and a temporary distraction for the plot at worst, playing the antagonistic role until someone better, like an asshole alumni or a Dark Horse unstoppable peer comes along to take up that mantle.

This is following the Grappler Baki plot. The inferior but talented son with vast potential must rise up to match the godlike prowess and ability of the father. Everything in the story is a stepping stone for him to reach that plateau. Baki had enemies and rivals along the way, but they were always temporary at best, necessary movers and shakers for the current plot arc. In the end, they always faded back and downshifted away, either relegated to secondary roles, or becoming friends, allies, disciples, or cannon fodder for the new antagonist. Even the unassailable masters who were there from the beginning were ultimately sidelined to playing second fiddle to Baki. At the very end, he and his father stood alone on the plateau only they could share. And on that plateau, in public, in front of the world, they fought as equals.

The same thing is going to happen here. Erin will inevitably either be demoted to a less antagonistic role, or be 'fed' to a better antagonist to set them up.

But she was never Soma's rival. His foil, yes, but not his rival. And while Soma will likely triumph over her at some point (or over the antagonist that eats her, thereby achieving the same effect) during his inevitable ascent to the top, the person most suited to actually defeat Erin, to formally win over her in a Shokugeki, to prove her cooking morals and ethics wrong in a public forum, is Megumi. Not Soma.

Because Soma defeating Erina does nothing but prove that Soma is a better chef than she is, which we honestly already knew from the beginning anyway. But Megumi defeating her proves that Erina was WRONG. And that's something much different, and far more important, than the former.