I figured enough people talk about this and enough chapters/episodes have been released to possibly warrant a thread of its own.

Shokugeki no Souma is a manga and anime centered around a battling academy. With food!

In Tootsuki Culinary Academy, students often face off in 'Shokugeki', which basically amounts to a cooking showdown. This concept is central to the series.

Do not be put-off by the heavy focus in cooking. It doesn't take a food enthusiast to enjoy this. SnS is basically a classic Shonen manga, only the character do battle with cooking rather than weapons/magic/whatever.

Yukihira Soma, the titular protagonist, is a great main character in that he is neither overpowered nor a dunce, with clear character progression and expanding abilities as the series goes on. He knows what he wants and he does his best to get it. Not always with success, but he is ambitious, and that is something I really like in protagonists. The supporting cast is mainly great, with a few shaky presences here and there, but overall they add to the story's awesomeness rather than subtract from it.

There are some elements of ecchi to it, but those are mostly for comedic purposes. The series in no way relies on them.

SnS also has a pretty great spinoff centered around Etoile, one of the best supporting characters in the series, as well as a few side-stories.


For the purposes of this thread, discussion will include both anime and manga adaptations, so people who have only watched the anime, be warned of SPOILERS from the manga.

The latest few manga chapters prompted me to make a thread. So much is changing so quickly. I wonder if Erina will actually manage to run away. To the Polar Star of all places.

Papa Nakiri continues to get equal parts creepier and equal parts more awesome whenever I see him, and Grandpa Nakiri is just getting more and more awesome. I mean, of course he'd be a fitness buff. Why not, right?


Anyway. Shokugeki no Soma thread. Go!

 

I am only a few episodes in, but I liked the early episodes, and I lolled at the very transparent fact that the artist has experience with hentai - it is entirely too happy to take advantage of every female character around to toss a bunch of rather dodgy visuals onto the screen.

If the theme of battling with food appeals (and it does make for a pretty neat concept) then I also recommend Yakitake!! Japan, which I've been catching up on. It's somewhat older, and very much a stereotypical Shonen tale to the point of having an idiot genius main character whose obsession is bread, but it gets ever sillier and it has a funny cast as well.

Another, far more fantasy-themed food manga/anime would be Toriko, which is basically comparable to other 'travel the world' anime like One Piece, except the target is not so much pirate treasure as giant mutant animals and plants which exist only for chefs to make impossibly delectable meals out of.

Really, if you like food, Japan's got you covered.

 

To be fair it's pretty happy to take advantage of every male character around too.

 

I missed chatting about this in the old anime & manga thread.

Yeah, amazing series. Even if you don't give a damn about cooking, check this out. It got super popular for a reason. Amazing art, cool characters, very likeable protagonist.

I'm talking about the manga here, I haven't checked out the anime, since it's an adaption, and the manga is pretty amazing.

The last few chapters really have thrown us the first big shift in the series imo, with the seriously evil father and past trauma, but I'm sure the ambiguous shōnen genre will stop things from becoming too dark.

One of the weekly updates I look forward to the most.

 

Yea, Right now the only thing I read are One Piece, Fairy Tail, and this. It's really well done and I love cooking so it works out.

Speaking of food related mangas, has anyone read Addicted to Curry? One of the first manga I read, I wish SNS put recipes at the end of the chapter like AC did.

 

They're not official recipes but this guy has some decent Soma replication recipes.

 

So new chapter is out. I guess were finally gonna see cooking again. The Polar Star Dorm is described as it's own independent nation. So I guess it's time for war... a cooking war.

 

Shit is going down, for sure. Papa Nakiri's plan is so far unfolding unchallenged, as was to be expected. We're still to see it's long term repercussions, or any form of 'resistances' to the changes. The Elite Ten is now firmly on an antagonistic role, though there seems to be a schism even in that group.

This makes things more interesting, imo, with such sweeping changes to a series that was honestly starting to get a bit stale.

 

Your face is stale.

Didn't Azami intimate that the concept of 'Shokugeki' is basically being scrapped? Then shortly after he moved on Polar Star (presumably because Alice - as much as I love her - is as subtle as a sledgehammer and he knows Erina is there) to somehow dismantle an independently owned and funded dorm?

I dunno. Soma's face on the last page was epic though.

 

Seems to me like Eizan is just going to try to have his goons trash the dorm and beat up whoever wants to cross him about it. We'll have to see what makes him back off of that so that he can get his ass properly whipped in the kitchen. Probably going to be Erina stepping out and scaring the lowlifes off. Even if Eizan himself doesn't sweat her that much, those other students are likely to be intimidated by her presence.

I'd like it better if Souma and/or Isshiki saw this coming and brought in some muscle of their own though. Put that hulking frame to good use, Mimisaka.

 

I am really disliking the current arc right now. Erina's dad is like a very bad joke.

 

The conflict itself isn't a bad one, it's just that Azami is poorly executed as a bad guy, but that might be because we don't know his motivation yet.

That said, I'm really looking forward to the cooking battles between Souma and crew and the Elite 10 members that voted for Azami.

That, or a cooking battle between Azami and Grandfather Muscles, Alice's Dad, and Doujima.

Also, calling it now, Azami's foodgasm reaction is going to be opening his eyes all the way.

 

We haven't really seen the 'conflict' yet. Azami has come in preaching this psuedo-socialist utopia, deposing the (frankly, ridiculous) meritocracy while we're all waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We had a taste of it last chapter, but I'm still not sure it happens if Erina isn't hiding out there.

Need to see more.

 

Aside from him getting rid of clubs, I agree with Azami's policies.

 

Υοu agree with regulating recipes and basically killing the creativity of everyone except the Elite Ten and a few hand picked students?

 

I think he just doesn't like Polar Star Dorm in general. Fun fact at a certain point every member of the Elite 10 was a Polar Star Dorm member. So in order for that to happen Azami can't be one of the elite 10. Unless of course he was part of PSD, which so far seems like he wasn't. Anyway i'm guessing he lost his seat, and a PSD member was who took it.

I'm personally betting that the Protag's father beat him in a shokugeki under the terms that he resigns his seat if he loses.

 

I bet the opposite happened for reasons we don't yet know.

All we know is that Joichiro was a rising star that mysteriously disappeared from Totsuki. Him being expelled in a secret Shokugeki would explain that.

 

Well, no, not on that part, that's why I said I disagreed with him getting rid of clubs and creativity in general.

I do agree with him getting rid of the system whereby 99% of the student body is expelled before graduating. Tootsuki is a school, and so they should be striving to give their students the very best in education. The Elite 10 can help in providing that by teaching students their techniques.

Soma grew up learning under his father, a former second seat. He (unknowingly) learned advanced culinary techniques, such as when Isshiki noticed he cooked mackeral poelee-style. Given that he was surprised Soma knew the technique, and that Ryoko and Yuki didn't know it either, it must not be a commonly taught at Tootsuki. With the new system, it probably will be taught.

Students, once they've graduated from Tootsuki, will have great knowledge of ingredients and techniques, enough to most likely land a position in a number of good restaurants. Here is where they can begin to show their creativity by utilizing all they have learned.

 

Α professional environment is not a good place to explore new things for the first time. Especially for students who have only been trained to copy a few select recipes and do not know how to create their own dishes. Tootsuki used to teach creativity and innovation. Now, it teaches copy pasting.

At least to most students.

 

That sounds like millennial, new age, cotton wool bs to me, lol.

Totsuki is very obviously not interested in teaching people how to cook - I gathered/ assumed they learn all the essentials during elementary/middle school.

Their MO is (was?) to basically put the kids under so much pressure that they break, the very best come out as diamonds. World class chefs. The rest? Well, they obviously couldn't handle the pressure.