Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma (manga)
Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma (Japanese: 食戟のソーマ, Hepburn: Shokugeki no Sōma, lit. “Sōma of the Shokugeki”) is a Japanese manga and anime series written by Yūto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki. The series follows a restaurant chef who enrolls in an elite culinary school with a low graduation percentage. Yuki Morisaki also works as a contributor, providing the recipes for the series. It was serialized in Shueisha‘s Weekly Shōnen Jump from November 2012 to June 2019. Its chapters were compiled in 36 tankōbon volumes published by Shueisha, first released in April 2013. The manga is licensed by Viz Media in North America, who has been releasing the volumes digitally since March 2014, and released the first volume in print in August 2014. The series manga received sales of over 20 million.
An anime adaptation by J.C.Staff aired between April and September 2015. A second season, titled Food Wars! The Second Plate aired between July and September 2016. The first cour of the third season, titled Food Wars! The Third Plate, aired between October and December 2017. The second half aired between April and June 2018. A fourth season, titled Food Wars! The Fourth Plate, aired between October and December 2019. The fifth and final season, titled Food Wars! The Fifth Plate, aired between April and September 2020. The series has also had a pair of video games released in 2015. The series has received mixed reviews, with positive reactions to the narrative and genuine recipes depicted, whilst many critics panned the overuse of fan service.
Synopsis
The series is set mainly at Tōtsuki Culinary Academy (Tōtsuki Saryō Ryōri Gakuen), an elite culinary school located in Tokyo, Japan, where only a handful of students graduate from each year. Its students mostly come from Totsuki’s junior high school, but transfers are taken provided that they pass the entrance exam. The campus is a wide-ranging resort with many research societies (clubs), cooking classrooms, and large arenas used for competitions. Housing varies, but the most affordable is the Polaris Dormitory, where students have to impress the dorm matron with a dish in order to secure residence. Tōtsuki also runs a chain of resort hotels, with the biggest being the Tōtsuki resort run by Gin Dojima, which is visited during Soma’s first year at Tōtsuki.
The top student chefs occupy seats on the Council of Ten Masters, the highest governing body in the school aside from the school director. Students can initiate a shokugeki (anime: food war), a cook-off with stipulations on the line, with any other student or alumnus. Battles fought in this way could be for cooking utensils, research society facilities, council membership, or even expulsion from the school.
Plot
Teenager Soma Yukihira aspires to become a full-time chef in his father, Joichiro’s family restaurant, “Restaurant Yukihira”, and surpass his father’s culinary skills. However, Joichiro gets a new job that requires him to travel around the world and close his shop. Joichiro has enrolled Soma in Tōtsuki Culinary Academy, an elite culinary school where students engage in cooking competitions called shokugeki. Soma secures himself a spot at the school, despite the objections of Erina Nakiri, the talented granddaughter of the school’s dean. Soma is assigned to Polaris Dormitory where he meets other aspiring chefs, including Megumi Tadokoro. The story follows his adventures as he interacts with his peers and challenges Tōtsuki’s students as well as others in shokugeki competitions. Learning that his father was not only a student of Tōtsuki, but also the second seat in the Council of Ten, Soma plans on becoming the best at the academy.
Soma and the other first-year students participate in a cooking camp judged by the school’s alumni who expels about a third of the entering class. He enters the Fall Classic, a competition that takes the top 60 first-year students and pares them down to eight students who then compete in a single elimination tournament, The Autumn Elections. The first-years then participate in week-long stagiaire internships at local restaurants, as well as a large-scale school-wide Moon Festival. During the Moon Festival, Erina’s father Azami takes over the school, and Soma and Erina form a rebel faction to challenge the establishment. The disgruntled members of the Council join the Rebel Faction and with support from Joichiro and Gin, the Rebels confront Azami’s organization “Central” in a Regiment De Cuisine (Team Shokugeki). Eventually the Rebels emerge victorious and oust Azami with Erina as the new Headmaster.
Afterwards, Soma and the others enter into their second year. Several of the members in the Fall Classic have been promoted into the council, replacing the graduating third year batch. Their first assignment concerns about the existence of “dark chefs”, those who work with criminal organizations and other VIPs. A particular organization, the “Les Cuisiniers Noirs”, is led by Joichiro’s former protege Asahi Saiba who defeated the former. Asahi infiltrates Totsuki, and abducts Erina from the Academy, with the intention to marry her. To recover Erina, the trio of Soma, Megumi and Takumi participate in an invitation-only cooking competition called BLUE, organized by the World Gourmet Organization under its Headmaster Mana Nakiri, Erina’s mother. The trio encounter and fight against the Dark Chefs, with Soma eventually defeating Asahi. The manga ends with Soma and Erina facing each other in the final match of BLUE. Erina acknowledges Soma’s cooking but insists on calling it “disgusting”.
In the events of the epilogue ~Le dessert~, after the events of BLUE, Soma took an indefinite leave before taking the third year exams. During this time Erina and Hisako ask Joichiro about his past with Tamako, whereas Mana and Azami discover that Asahi is Azami’s biological son and Erina’s half-brother, leading the former to request him to join the Nakiri family. Many years after all Jewel Generation students graduation from Totsuki, Soma tells Erina that he’s returning home and offers another challenge for her to which she gladly accepts, certain that he will make Erina finally say “delicious”.
| Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma | |
Cover of the first manga volume featuring Sōma Yukihira
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| 食戟のソーマ (Shokugeki no Sōma) |
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| Genre | |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Yūto Tsukuda |
| Illustrated by | Shun Saeki |
| Published by | Shueisha |
| English publisher | |
| Imprint | Jump Comics |
| Magazine |
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| English magazine | |
| Demographic | Shōnen |
| Original run | November 26, 2012 – August 29, 2019 |
| Volumes | 36 |
| Light novel | |
| Shokugeki no Sōma: ~à la carte~ | |
| Written by | Michiko Itō |
| Illustrated by | Shun Saeki |
| Published by | Shueisha |
| Imprint | Jump j-Books |
| Demographic | Male |
| Original run | February 4, 2014 – April 3, 2015 |
| Volumes | 3 |
| Manga | |
| Shokugeki no Sōma: L’étoile | |
| Written by | Michiko Itō |
| Illustrated by | Taiki Asatoki |
| Published by | Shueisha |
| Magazine | Shōnen Jump+ |
| Demographic | Shōnen |
| Original run | March 3, 2015 – June 21, 2019 |
| Volumes | 8 |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Yoshitomo Yonetani |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | Shogo Yasukawa |
| Music by | Tatsuya Kato |
| Studio | J.C.Staff |
| Licensed by |
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| Original network | TBS, MBS, CBC, BS-TBS, Animax, Tokyo MX, BS11 |
| English network | |
| Original run | April 4, 2015 – September 26, 2020 |
| Episodes | 86 + 5 OVAs |
| Light novel | |
| Shokugeki no Sōma: ~Fratelli Aldini~ | |
| Written by | Michiko Itō |
| Illustrated by | Shun Saeki |
| Published by | Shueisha |
| Imprint | Jump j-Books |
| Demographic | Male |
| Published | October 2, 2015 |
| Volumes | 1 |
| Video games | |
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A simple moment can change the entire life…
A pure friendship is being born…
nimabi
Thank you very much for sharing, I learned a lot from your article. Very cool. Thanks. nimabi