(L) Shokugeki no Soma [Manga]

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by MAX_COLA_POWER!

Ikumi earns her nickname in a different, and dare I say, more deserving way in those. Also, fixed.

Not just ero doujinshi, even the few non-ero ones have a considerably better written Souma. He's that poorly written by his own author that he comes off as a more compelling character in other people's works.

As for this chapter, I don't think there's much fanfiction/doujinshi material, unless you consider Souma eating some ice lolly, or Erina listening about Asahi's daddy issues to be fiction material.

[germanturkey]

hardly a new hair style. modeling herself after best girl tadokoro.

[~Yami~]

gorgeous new hairstyle from Erina

so Souma lived for several years without his dad?
I wonder why he never mention his memory about his mom then.. he should have a lot

Please change the villain in this arc.. he is too lame... his background story is far from sob story

[Krono]

Originally Posted by Used Can

this is even considering a scenario in which Erina beats Asahi on her own and doesn't have to marry him

That's sadly unlikely I'd say. It'd be the best resolution for the whole "marry Asahi" thing for Erina to beat him 1v1, but I suspect it won't happen. The series can't have both Erina and Souma beat Asahi in BLUE and have it still have full impact both times. Plus the issue that in most scenarios one defeat would mean elimination, so he couldn't be beaten twice. Even if it was a three way competition and both of them scored higher than him wouldn't have quite the same effect as one of them beating him 1v1. Not to mention that such a three way would have either Erina beating Souma(and thus knocking him out of BLUE), or have Souma fully surpassing Erina in a circumstance that wasn't a 1v1, which again isn't desirable.

So the most likely scenarios in my mind are that either Souma beats Asahi without Asahi ever getting the chance to defeat Erina, or Asahi defeats Erina(likely via some contrivance so she doesn't look too bad), and Souma makes a bet to reverse the affects of Erina losing, and then defeats Asahi.

[LeftSeven]

^
it's simple.
1. asahi vs erina,
>erina wins which means asahi'll out of competition-> soma won't face asahi, story wouldn't take this direction.
> asahi wins which means asahi get erina-> soma beating asahi is meaningless-> game over.

2. soma vs asahi
> soma wins which means he'll face erina as final boss in final, win blue (get erina lol)
> asahi wins which means soma'll out of competition, game over

if erina beat soma in finals, nope, as it would defeat the purpose of soma to reclaim his first seat title for real.

there's likely that soma would overhear asahi and erina aggrement about wedding and try to prevent it by challenge asahi, but there's problem here?
what is erina to soma? does soma have a right to meddle with erina's life?
as for asahi, why he should accept a challenge from soma which lost to him?

i think the only possible outcome is option 2 when soma wins asahi where asahi can't have power to refuse blue's rule.

[DragonOsman]

Asahi already told Souma to come to the highest stage of the tournament if he wants compete against him. That's almost the same as accepting the challenge (kind of).

But why would Souma beating Asahi in that first scenario be meaningless? If Souma or Erina beats Asahi, then Asahi can't marry Erina. That's their whole deal.

@Skyterror: The bookmaster didn't know about Souma at all before this Blue competition, so it couldn't have been Erina from the get-go. Or Senzaemon. It could only be either Erina's mom or someone else entirely.

[Skyterror3381]

Originally Posted by Used Can

That's funny, because I've seen Souma get more characterisation in some doujinshi, and that's saying a lot.


I'll never understand why some authors like writing scenes like this one, in which the MC acts like a complete dumbass. Like, at the very least you would want to have an idea about the competition you're about to enter, since rules could screw you over.


This is a huge problem. Tsukuda has done nothing to make us believe that Souma is on par with Tsukasa now, and yet we're somewhat expected to believe that he'll be able to beat Asahi somehow (I'm making that assumption, because it would be anti-climactic as fuck if that doesn't happen). We saw plenty of rubbish during the RdC, for one even Erina shouldn't have been able to beat Tsukasa, but at least with her we were always told she was highly talented, highly trained and she has her very special tongue, so it's possible to suspend your disbelief. On the other hand, there's nothing about Souma that might make readers think that he may have a realistic shot, and it's the whole "he'll win because he's the MC" (and this is a situation in which if he doesn't win it will also be really disappointing - this is even considering a scenario in which Erina beats Asahi on her own and doesn't have to marry him) that kills any chance of hype for this manga.

Seriously, I think I've said this before, but I can understand Tsukuda being a shit writer, but what I don't understand is how his editor allows him to get away with all of this. If the ever-decreasing sales aren't an indicator, things aren't going in a way that fans like, so it stands to reason that they would be more strict with Tsukuda and restrain him when his ideas are really stupid (like the entirety of this arc, for example).

Yeah, soma’s latest victories aren’t exactly convincing. If anything, they’re simply because “he’s the MC - he can’t... mustn’t lose!”.

I wish we can see the old soma, where he trained and created countless dishes like he did against mimasaka or his curry dish (can’t remember the competition, but it was his first battle against hayama). Remember where he tried different combinations of spices? When he had to study and train for his matches? That’s what I want to see. Not “Muh diner-dish someway, somehow beat Gordon ramsay’s Best dish, because me MC lol”.

Tsukasa’s victories are natural, since we know he’s been training and creating gourmet dishes for a long time. He also has travelled to many places, battle other gourmet chefs and constantly improve his dishes.

As for soma, the only thing close to tsukasa’s growth he’s had was his stagiare with Shinomiya, which he apparently forgot - notice how he practically never employed his stagiare skills (French culinary techniques)?

I can understand sticking with your origins, your roots. But there will be a time where you have to grow. To develop. Look at Shinomiya. His specialty are legumes, which can be said as common, low-level ingredients. But he used them (legumes) to create gourmet dishes. He used Big Mac’s ingredients and foundations to make gourmet burgers and other gourmet dishes. Whereas soma only improved his Big Mac, but not changing what it essentially is - a Big Mac.

Remember your stagiare, soma! Employ what you learned there!!

[DragonOsman]

He could be doing what someone else on here said: holding back some of his cards until the later stages of the competition. I hope that's what he's doing, and that one of those cards is the techniques he learned during his stagiaire. That'd be good.

[LeftSeven]

Originally Posted by DragonOsman

Asahi already told Souma to come to the highest stage of the tournament if he wants compete against him. That's almost the same as accepting the challenge (kind of).

But why would Souma beating Asahi in that first scenario be meaningless? If Souma or Erina beats Asahi, then Asahi can't marry Erina. That's their whole deal.

read the word before it, soma beating asahi would be meaningless if erina faced asahi first then she lose, that mean asahi has already get his right to marry erina as promised.

as for erina will face asahi first then win, it mean that soma would never has chance to face asahi as he will out ouf blue.

to me, soma face asahi first then erina later makes more sense. or erina should lose before face asahi to cancel the agreement.

do you know why asahi said that to soma to catch him to 3rd gate? because he's so confident and belittle that soma would never pass 3rd gate as we know his henchmen which he acknowledge being stronger than elite10 would fail soma at 3rd gate.
i even never consider it as challenge though.

[Krono]

@LeftSeven

The problem is that there are other scenarios.

Souma learns that Asahi made a bet with Erina that she'd have to marry Asahi if he beat her in BLUE. Asahi wins, Erina is obviously uphappy but is willing to keep her word. Souma sees that she's uphappy and makes a bet with Asahi that if Souma beats him in BLUE, Erina doesn't have to marry Asahi. If Asahi won't agree to the bet out of simple arrogance, Souma can probably bet the right to inherit the Yukihara diner if he loses and Asahi would take that.

That'd set up a confrontation between Asahi where Souma has everything riding on the outcome. Erina's freedom from the marriage agreement, and Souma's home and dreams of running Yukiahara in the future.

Alternatively, since I don't think we saw the conclusion of the agreement after Asahi told Erina about the BLUE aspect, their bet could be conditioned not just on beating Erina, but on Asahi winning BLUE. In which case, Erina can lose to Asahi or Souma and it doesn't matter as long as Souma keeps Asahi from winning BLUE.

Either one of those would create a scenario where it's fine for Erina to lose, so that Souma can save the day.

[Iron21]

One thing that irritated me about this chapter is Erina. The last time we saw her, she was raging hard because Asahi kidnapped her, and had her tied to a chair in a room full of drugs and killer henchman. We get to this chapter, she's standing next to him while he reads their future honeymoon plans to her?... She's stuttering talking to him and the best thing she could do was give him a half ass tsundere routine that is usually reserve for Soma when he mildly annoys her.

She also says she doesn't get involved with people she doesn't even know? (I mean, he's a dark chef, he kidnapped you, and trying to force you to marry him, what more do you really need to know?) She allows him to tell her his sob story that may or may not be true. Instead of just simply walking away from him (You're not tied to chair still?). After he tells his story, she gets fluster over his quirky personalty and is not sure if he's serious, but thinks she saw his true self while staring at him? Then she still engages him afterward as his continues to plan their honeymoon? And this also after he admitted he wants to eliminate Soma and become him... I know what Tsukuda was trying to do here, but I found this interaction a joke and felt like the situation was getting treated like one too.

[DragonOsman]

She still doesn't like him Asahi, though, and I don't think she's completely forgiven him for having kidnapped her. She just can't get rid of him.

@LeftSeven: The way I interpreted it is also as just Asahi having to win BLUE to marry Erina. IIRC, that was also their deal that he put in front of her when he kidnapped her. That if her side wins BLUE, he won't marry her.

Also, even if it's that he marries her if she loses to him, Souma can still save the day by making another bet with him where if he (Souma) wins, Asahi will have to back off.

[kampfer91]

Souma didn't treat anything seriously and overconfident in his diner menu is getting annoying .

Hope his father smack some senses to him , like saying his current diner dishes are no match for Asahi unless he put his soul to it .

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Krono

That's sadly unlikely I'd say. It'd be the best resolution for the whole "marry Asahi" thing for Erina to beat him 1v1

That type of scenario was precisely what I referred to as being disappointing, because once again beating the bad guy of the arc would get taken away from Souma - since it already happened during the RdC with Erina being the one who defeated Tsukasa, and who forced Azami to admit defeat. Of course, back then Azami was Erina's antagonist, as he had close to no personal relationship with Souma. However, right now Asahi's main motivation is to take Souma's place (the whole Erina thing is clearly just being used as a plot device to give her a role, due to her massive popularity, since she's currently the only thing keeping this manga alive). So, having Erina being the one to defeat him robs Souma of having any real purpose (as a character) in BLUE, meaning the MC was ultimately inconsequential.

Originally Posted by Skyterror3381

Remember your stagiare, soma! Employ what you learned there!!

To be fair, he has applied what he learned during his Stagiaire. The appetiser he made for the Final Bout of the RdC was an application of all he had learned, especially what he learned during his time at Shinomiya's. The issue here is he's been using none of that recently, and the worst thing is that we haven't seen any improvement from that. Think about it, in BLUE, of all places, he's been resorting to Yukihira's menu as if everything he's learned has been for nothing. Leaving aside the in-story possibility that he simply isn't going all out, from a meta perspective it's also boring to read about him using the same old menus. Considering this is a cooking manga, part of the fun should be about the MC learning and trying new things, creating his own stuff as he moves forward.

Originally Posted by Iron21

Spoiler for Saving space:

One thing that irritated me about this chapter is Erina. The last time we saw her, she was raging hard because Asahi kidnapped her, and had her tied to a chair in a room full of drugs and killer henchman. We get to this chapter, she's standing next to him while he reads their future honeymoon plans to her?... She's stuttering talking to him and the best thing she could do was give him a half ass tsundere routine that is usually reserve for Soma when he mildly annoys her.

She also says she doesn't get involved with people she doesn't even know? (I mean, he's a dark chef, he kidnapped you, and trying to force you to marry him, what more do you really need to know?) She allows him to tell her his sob story that may or may not be true. Instead of just simply walking away from him (You're not tied to chair still?). After he tells his story, she gets fluster over his quirky personalty and is not sure if he's serious, but thinks she saw his true self while staring at him? Then she still engages him afterward as his continues to plan their honeymoon? And this also after he admitted he wants to eliminate Soma and become him... I know what Tsukuda was trying to do here, but I found this interaction a joke and felt like the situation was getting treated like one too.

The whole thing was jarring as fuck. No matter how annoying Asahi was being, it makes no sense for her to give him any attention. The expected course of action would have been to simply act cold toward him and ignore him.
The funny thing is this chapter should have got some attention since Erina showed up after a while, but then Tsukuda writes things in a way that is sure to anger most of his Japanese fans (sure, other fans too, but I'm sure most of the money he gets comes from his local fans).

Originally Posted by kampfer91

Souma didn't treat anything seriously and overconfident in his diner menu is getting annoying .

Hope his father smack some senses to him , like saying his current diner dishes are no match for Asahi unless he put his soul to it .

The sad thing is that, going by what the manga is trying to show us, Souma is indeed pouring his soul in this, since he's aiming to keep Yukihira, which is his main motivation. What I don't understand is why Tsukuda thinks that's a good motivation for him to have. It's literally a chick not wanting to fly out of its nest. That's a very bland motivation. I can understand that being just his original motivation before he saw more of the culinary world, and then he developed a more ambitious motivation, but for some reason Tsukuda has kept things that way. The motivation is so bad that you cannot tell whether Souma is being serious about things.

As for Jouichirou, he's pretty much the same as Souma. Not to mention he has a thing for being away whenever it counts. He's a terrible character, little more than a plot device.

[MAX_COLA_POWER!]

Not to mention that if every single main plot line after the autumn elections is gonna be Souma cleaning up Jou's messes, then they might as well declare this the final arc.

[Used Can]

The funny thing is that whilst Azami's issue was something that Jou wasn't directly responsible for (Azami's beef wasn't with Jou but with the "system" that caused him to burn out), the issue with Asahi is entirely his fault. There was nothing preventing Jou from adopting him. Unless the circumstances surrounding his wife's death were really messy and he didn't want to involve Asahi in all that mess (and I highly doubt that's the case), then there was nothing stopping him from making Asahi his son. Even if he couldn't immediately do all the paperwork, he could have done so after things settled down, which would have involved a couple of months at worst.

[DragonOsman]

Yeah, Souma's motivation really is too bland. I also don't like how he's completely indifferent about BLUE itself.

As for Erina. She still doesn't want to marry Asahi and that's enough for me. There's no NTR here (well, technically, she and Souma aren't really in love yet anyway -- though the fact that her ideal man is Jouichirou who is a lot like Souma, does mean that Souma has more of a chance that Asahi).

[Tyrant Ruler]

Originally Posted by kampfer91

Souma didn't treat anything seriously and overconfident in his diner menu is getting annoying .

Hope his father smack some senses to him , like saying his current diner dishes are no match for Asahi unless he put his soul to it .

but joe is no different though his the one that cause all of this mess because he was so carefree in the pass. someone else would be more fit to do that

[rladls2121]

The weird feeling I have after seeing Asahi's sad story of his.
And then watching Souma's usual positive personality filled with optimism trait of his and his smile.
I just don't take this series seriously.

I remember way back when Souma punch the wall after his loss against Shinomiya, and Dojima watching that Souma.
In these recent chapters, I don't see that side of Souma at all.

[LeftSeven]

^
they completely live in different life and upbringing, soma's mom take care of soma with warm and gentle heart like mother always do. remember when joe said soma really resemble his wife.
while asahi had bad mother..bad mother. is easy right?

shinomiya arc has the purpose to open soma's eyes that cooking was not limited by yukihira only, but now soma has improved after that.
btw, why did you only remember that when there's so many case where soma show his growth, like festival arc, polar dorm demolishing, joe's past, hayama rematch, and the last with saito.

it's clearly that people want soma to suffer and see his loss his confident so he can improve..lol

Originally Posted by Krono

@LeftSeven

The problem is that there are other scenarios.

Souma learns that Asahi made a bet with Erina that she'd have to marry Asahi if he beat her in BLUE. Asahi wins, Erina is obviously uphappy but is willing to keep her word. Souma sees that she's uphappy and makes a bet with Asahi that if Souma beats him in BLUE, Erina doesn't have to marry Asahi. If Asahi won't agree to the bet out of simple arrogance, Souma can probably bet the right to inherit the Yukihara diner if he loses and Asahi would take that.

That'd set up a confrontation between Asahi where Souma has everything riding on the outcome. Erina's freedom from the marriage agreement, and Souma's home and dreams of running Yukiahara in the future.

Alternatively, since I don't think we saw the conclusion of the agreement after Asahi told Erina about the BLUE aspect, their bet could be conditioned not just on beating Erina, but on Asahi winning BLUE. In which case, Erina can lose to Asahi or Souma and it doesn't matter as long as Souma keeps Asahi from winning BLUE.

Either one of those would create a scenario where it's fine for Erina to lose, so that Souma can save the day.

why does yukihira dinner have anything to do with asahi? asahi want the world and nakiri, besides he has beaten soma once, so he is already complete his goal of becoming soma. this is different case with polar dorm where his place to study, this is about someone's life that soma has no right to meddle.

remember the chat between soma and erina on balcony about their rematch? i think that foreshadowing soma would face erina in blue, erina losing to asahi would means that soma can't show the world that he's fit for first seat while this blue is his chance to beat her for sure.

so, i think beating asahi first then erina is like killing two bird with one stone, one to prevent asahi marry erina and other to be first seat for sure by beating erina.

Originally Posted by DragonOsman

She still doesn't like him Asahi, though, and I don't think she's completely forgiven him for having kidnapped her. She just can't get rid of him.

@LeftSeven: The way I interpreted it is also as just Asahi having to win BLUE to marry Erina. IIRC, that was also their deal that he put in front of her when he kidnapped her. That if her side wins BLUE, he won't marry her.

Also, even if it's that he marries her if she loses to him, Souma can still save the day by making another bet with him where if he (Souma) wins, Asahi will have to back off.

yeah it's useless to avoid him while he's pycho and persistent, he keep going near her, so listen to his bullshit is only thing she could do, why people can't understand something simple as this lol

lol.. i think that winning blue just for asahi to get as much as guest when the day of their wedding. instead, beating erina is priority for asahi for now.

what would he bet then? yukihira? nope, asahi want the world and nakiri. become soma? he defeated him once so he's soma now. become jou's son? not that matter anymore.

do you remember the chat between soma and erina on balcony about their rematch?
i think that's foreshadowing that they would faced each other, erina doesn't have reason to lose if that happend.