Food Wars The Third Plate Episode 24 (Final) Review: The Basis for Strength

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the final episode of this season’s cour for Food Wars and it was a pretty cool one. Enjoy.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 強者たる所以

Plot

After Satoshi ruined his opponent in the previous episode, and this one being about Souma’s battle with Nene… we all know where this is going, don’t we? Nene suffered a huge defeat not just because of Soma’s adept culinary skills, but also due to her own negligence… Ouch.

Nene is preparing her Soba, putting her heart and soul into it. Her long, painful training and her constant striving to be the perfect student and heir to a huge family tradition are her strengths, but also her reason for failure; her soba, spectacular as it may have been, was lacking aroma, due to her preparing it in Hokkaido’s low-temperature climate.

Souma however, being the most chaotic-good character and having no formal formation in cooking other than his adaptability to stressful environments, read the match carefully and created a modern approach to his dish: hot, with strong rather than delicate flavors, and prepared with a flour coarse enough to withstand high frying temperatures.

Nene lost her clothes along with her dignity. Souma got an easy win. Nothing new there.

Episode Highlights

Judges names: Okay, I guess they were going for something international and exotic, but Charm, Histoire and… Anne? Really? How about Bob, Nick, and Science? Also, how much can these guys eat? I’ve never had proper traditional soba (trust me, I’m working on changing this after having watched this episode, even though finding conservative Japanese cuisine in London is highly unlikely) but I think that after all these servings they had they would have been too full to appreciate Soma’s dish. Whatever.

Did you almost forget about Erina’s cleavage?: Not to worry! After getting a nice long shot of every single person rooting for Soma, we get one of Erina, starting of course, with her unnaturally perky breasts. This along with the fact that her second name is the ‘god tongue’ does not aim at objectifying her at all, no sir. I would even say her whole existence serves to improve Soma’s persona, as in ‘He’s also hot enough to be fancied by THAT HOT TALENTED CHICK and win her over!’

No heating, really?: A school exclusive and premium enough to hire its own deluxe trains can’t get themselves a heated arena for the cooking to take place? I mean, if you think about it as a way to increase the level of challenge in the battles it might make sense, but even if that is the case, wouldn’t the temperature have risen next to all these fire sources? Just sayin’.

Themes & Trivia

Kawara soba, oh my lord: In the City of Shimonoseki, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, there is a local cuisine called kawara soba that consists of cha-soba, noodles with tea kneaded into the dough and various toppings that are served on a heated kawara tile. More here.

Kakiage tempura: Kakiage is a kind of Tempura dish with a variety of chopped vegetables and seafood. It is ridiculously good, but only when eaten fresh. The batter is heavenly light, gently salty and cracks beautifully in the mouth… uuuugh.

Sakura shrimp: Also known as cherry shrimp, it is a species of shrimp popularly known as the sakura shrimp or sakura ebi. The translucent pink shrimp derives its name from ‘sakura’, the Japanese word for the cherry blossom. The species grows to about 4–5 cm and lives primarily in Suruga Bay in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, where it is caught to be eaten. It is also caught in Taiwan.

Ciao~

Awesome cour finale. Good food facts, made me hungry, great stuff. If you haven’t already, do check the episode’s thread on Reddit. There are some amazing facts on the traditions of Japanese cuisine before and after the Meiji era. Really nice read.

How did you find the last Food Wars episode of this cour? Let us know in the comment section! And don’t forget to check the rest of the Spring 2018 anime reviews on MANGA.TOKYO!