The third season of Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, subtitled The Third Plate, is currently airing to high acclaim. The manga has sold more than 10 million copies in total, and it holds an established popularity among the most competitive rivals on Weekly Shonen Jump. It’s very rare that a manga series about cooking catches on with Jump readers in the first place, and you could call its success a brilliant feat. The original writer, Yuto Tsukuda, creates stories that you can’t foresee, and the artist, Shun Saeki, draws glamorous food and characters, while Yuki Morisaki supports them with her expertise in cooking.

Today I’d like to re-introduce an important part of the story described near the beginning. This part is included in Episode 11 of the TV anime series, titled ‘The Magician from the East’. This episode is based on chapters 22 to 24 of the manga. It is about Soma and Megumi’s challenge to Shinomiya, who once held the first seat of the Elite Ten and is now the reputed owner of a French restaurant on the epicurean forefront. They challenge him to a shokugeki (cooking battle) at the training camp in which all the first-year students of the Totsuki Academy must participate. Soma meets Dojima and Shinomiya for the first time at this camp, and the two will appear again later as important characters in order for Soma and Megumi to grow. This encounter of theirs is absolutely essential in both the anime and the manga.

Worried Residents of Polar Star Dormitory

In the manga, Yoshino and Sakaki, who had already finished their tasks, talk about their concern that they can’t find Megumi before her and Souma’s battle against the alumnus Shinomiya. In the anime, the conversation includes the other Polar Star Dormitory residents, including Ibusaki, Marui, Aoki, and Satou. The dialogs are not very different but revised slightly as needed to fit the change.

Moreover, the second part of the anime episode starts with an anime-original scene with all those six characters. It describes how each of them is worried about Soma and Megumi; they learn that Megumi was almost expelled and Soma challenged Shinomiya to a cooking battle to get her expulsion rescinded. Yoshino cries out and others try to calm her down while being seriously worried.

I believe that the biggest difference between the first season and the second season of this anime series is that the first season was twice as long as the second. I feel that the second season was a bit too overhasty to fit everything from the Autumn Election to the Stagiaire arc within just one cour. Since it featured mainly cooking battles, I had no problem watching it for the story itself, but I doubt it was as rich and garnished as the first season was. I had a comforting sense of relief when I saw this small event of having more to worry about after accepting Soma as part of the Polar Star family.

The Wall of the Kitchen

The place where Soma and Megumi challenge Shinomiya is a kitchen in the first basement of Hotel Totsuki Detached-Palace Annex. Doujima designated it because nobody was using it for the camp and it was free from disturbances. If you compare the manga and the anime, you will find that the wall of the kitchen looks different.

In the manga, the wall appears to be made of common material and looks peaceful and settled, but the wall in the anime was bare concrete. It adds a touch of class, but it didn’t look like a space for cooking, to be honest.

However, the inorganic look of the concrete wall actually made the Chou farci cooked by Shinomiya and the Rainbow Terrine by Megumi and Souma look even sharper and more colorful. Black and white manga can’t really show contrasts like this, so full-color anime can use this to a powerful advantage. Since the main focus of Food Wars is food, color combinations and/or balance can be a quite an important key to attract fans. Such thoughts may help manga readers to get convinced of the change.

The Image of His Father

Dojima was quietly watching Souma and Megumi as they entered the kitchen. Both the manga and anime series have the same scene, but the anime shows Dojima’s face more than the manga. He made various expressions on his face, from a smile to serious, and we don’t know what each expression of his supposedly meant. He realizes that Soma is a son of his rival from his school days, Joichiro Saiba, later when the camp ends, but he might have noticed and picked up signs from Soma’s behaviors and words at the battle too.

Soma versus Joichiro, and Dojima versus Joichiro. Their relationship is a cornerstone of the third season’s story development. Moreover, the relationship between Megumi and Shinomiya that they develop at this camp will have a lot of meaning later in the currently running arc in the Weekly Shonen Jump. The story continues to develop on a larger scale with the said training camp as the starting point and a framed story with foreshadowing. It is a significant encounter for the main characters to grow and develop to advance their lives.

Whether reading the manga or watching the anime series, it is very meaningful to check back the past episodes to enjoy the series deeply. There are new discoveries you can make only after learning enough and making advances in the story.

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma (Season 1) Series Review