Shokugeki no Souma

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Alternatives: English: Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma
Synonyms: Kimi to Watashi no Renai Soudan, Our Love Counseling, Shokugeki no Souma: Le Dessert
Japanese: 食戟のソーマ
Author: Saeki, Shun
Type: Manga
Volumes: 36
Chapters: 325
Status: Finished
Publish: 2012-11-26 to 2019-08-29
Serialization: Shounen Jump (Weekly)

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4.0
(41 Votes)
48.78%
17.07%
24.39%
9.76%
0.00%
0 Reading
0 Want to read
0 Read
Alternatives: English: Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma
Synonyms: Kimi to Watashi no Renai Soudan, Our Love Counseling, Shokugeki no Souma: Le Dessert
Japanese: 食戟のソーマ
Author: Saeki, Shun
Type: Manga
Volumes: 36
Chapters: 325
Status: Finished
Publish: 2012-11-26 to 2019-08-29
Serialization: Shounen Jump (Weekly)
Score
4.0
41 Votes
48.78%
17.07%
24.39%
9.76%
0.00%
0 Reading
0 Want to read
0 Read
Summary
Fifteen-year-old Souma Yukihira dreams to one day surpass his father's cooking skills and take over as the chef of their small family diner. However, his aspirations come to a halt when his father announces the closure of their restaurant, as he must travel abroad for cooking-related business.

In the meantime, Souma is urged by his father to attend Tootsuki Culinary Academy: a world-renowned school where expulsions of incompetent students are commonplace. Due to the curriculum's rigor, any student that manages to graduate is recognized as a chef of great caliber. Reluctantly agreeing to the proposition, Souma heads to Tootsuki's high school division for the entrance exam. Little does he know, he will soon begin a new chapter of his life—one that entails new friends, daring rivalries, and sleepless nights.

Reviews (41)
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Shokugeki no Souma review
by
Ro-ro3314
Apr 02, 2021
The first 263 Chapters of Shokugeki no Soma are a phenomenal remix of the shonen battle manga structure. Throughout the course of the story, authors Tsukuda and Morisaki managed to form a stimulating web of characters and battles that had me both invested and interested. The system of the Shokugeki itself is a stroke of genius. It combines the idea of the Shonen battle and tournament arc into a structure of food and delectable description. Every battle takes the time to delve deeply into how the dish functions and how that contrasts with their opponent’s actions. What really makes that structure work is the web of archetypical yet charming characters that act as the fun supporting cast. Soma himself is also surprisingly interesting in his own right and gets a great deal of subtle growth throughout the series. Seeing him take on challenge after challenge, we always have a feeling of his strength as a cook.

Beyond just the story, the artwork is strong and does a great work of supporting the narrative and food explanations. Some of the shokugeki’s do tend to get a little bloated with dialogue and explanations, but I feel that is necessary considering the form and context. Overall, I feel that Shokugeki no Soma does a great job of creating a dynamic action oriented shonen story about food. At least for the first 263 chapters…

After Chapter 263, the manga moves into a new story arc that takes place 4 months later. After this point, the pacing takes a massive nosedive. The balanced writing present in the shokugeki matches is completely gone, replaced with a breakneck speed that lacks all of the nuance present earlier. By this point, I had lost all feeling of scale in terms of how the characters stood up to one another. Along with this, all of the characters grew largely out of character. Erina and Soma were the worst examples of this. The former regressed considerably in order to try and give the story momentum. The latter grew into a caricature of himself due to a lack of insight into his thoughts. What was once a passionate and energetic chef turned into a Messiah who could save us all from ourselves. Along with this, many side characters kept unnecessarily popping up, achieving little with their time on screen.

The whole thing felt like Food Wars fanfiction. The new villain is probably the worst example of it. A few of the characters had already shown off vaguely supernatural powers in the past, but this new villain takes it to a whole new level. It completely shatters any tangibility this story had. It may have worked better if it was doubled in length, but even then, the problems are still very apparent. It comes off nearly as bad as Psycho-Pass 2 or even Steins;Gate 0. It single handedly reduced my score for the series from a 9 to a 7.

That being said, everything after chapter 263 doesn’t actually need to be read. It leaves the series with a few lose ends, but I would very much recommend stopping there. Because of that fact, my score didn’t actually lower as much as it actually deserved. Still, being able to skip that ending doesn’t change the fact that it makes the story as a whole deeply flawed. Shokugeki no Soma was a powerful and well written shonen battle manga till it fell apart with its final arc. A massive shame, though still an interesting read in the end. I would highly recommend reading everything up to chapter 263.
Shokugeki no Souma review
by
futanaripeen4
Apr 02, 2021
At first glance, it sounds like your standard shounen manga formula, doesn't it? A few chapters in, it certainly does affirm that sentiment.

What formula do you speak of, you ask ? Overpowered main character ; fights someone better -- loses initially or is faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge --> actual battle, wins through a trump card or sheer will or something naive.

Shokugeki no Soma - however, thoroughly shocked and impressed me.
First things first, the art is amazing. Nuff' said. No complaints from me. I'm not a fan of ecchi - but the way it combines with food and writing - it does it in a way that doesn't aim to 'turn one On'. However from what I've read so far, it's more to describe a feeling - and also for Comedic effect. If you view it that way, the Ecchi in this manga doesn't really disturb me. Further, the fact that practically Black lines and white spaces can 'color' and 'flavor' food to this extent is impressive ! The detail put in is amazing, the art really does complement the lengthy and difficult explanations - making it 'palatable'.

Moving on, in the Story aspect of this manga. Truly the progression is amazing, with each new phase (i.e from the small entrance exam to the Autumn Elections) appearing grander and even more challenging. WAIT ! Now, you might be saying, this is the same with many other shounen manga, be it the Action genre such as Bleach OR the Cooking genre such as Bartender or Yakitate Japan! or even Nobunaga no Chef or Dungeon Meshi etc. Now now, hear me out! What made this manga stand out - is the fact that each new phase while fulfilling the standard progression of the mangas within it's genre, it does it smoothly while balancing each other with new unique characters, or interesting quirks and settings. At times the scenes are absolutely crazy (ie. the Finals of the Autumn Election) to simpler settings (i.e. the No Contest in the Classroom). However, at each Shokugeki - the attention to detail, in dialogue, explanations and characters are incredibly captivating and amusing. Also, I haven't found any fillers (or at least nothing seemed like something trashy like a Filler to me).

This leads me to the crux of my Perfect score. Honestly in the words of Chapelle-sensei early on in this manga, "I would give this a higher score if I could". The crux is the Characters. Each of them are Unique. There's no such thing as a cookie cutter characters in this manga, save the extras in the background. From the teachers, to the judges to obviously the chefs. Each and everyone of them not only are provided with clothing that set them apart from each other, they are given backstories and histories, from brief to complex. Speaking about the Chefs, it continues to impress me 170+ chapters in- that the mangaka and team are able to continuously innovate and enhance them. Giving them proper 'Development' - through each phase of the manga, we can see of course Souma's growth. But we also see Ibusaki, Takuni, Aldini, Nakiri(s), Hayama etc's immense growth. Borne from their interactions with Souma but also spurred on by their losses with other chefs through the Shokugekis. The reader is able to see them mature at a reasonable pace - making them believable. What's more - what sets this manga apart is it's Subjectivity.

The main element of the Shokugeki is - food. There is certainly no Objective way of evaluating a person's cooking skills. Compared to other mangas where the hero has a observable and measureable way of seeing the fighting prowess or overpowered strength or immeasurable intelligence etc. In this manga, the characters ARE ALL CRAZY STRONG. But it's so hard to measure their skill. Plus, the story really doesn't give in to Predictability. The MC can Lose! Geniuses can triumph and lose too. That means, every phase will keep you on the edge of your seat.
What's more - these characters are Equally as Important as the main character. Not only can they hold their own as Stars - but they also make the main character better. Each with their own skills and ability to impress and entice the reader to rooting for them.

All in all, there is a good balance of comedy and seriousness. The main character is 'human'. He's not someone gifted or especially talented. It's interesting to see a MC that not only Struggles and Fails. But also one that COMBINES the past failures, trials and errors and struggles to improves himself.

This manga is a work of art that does not cut corners and is worthy of reading. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.


Shokugeki no Souma review
by
xenoglossy14
Apr 02, 2021
Shokugeki no Souma has a brilliant concept.
Its strengts lay within the Charakters and their unique personalities and goals.
I enjoyed reading it, until the ''régiment de cuisine'' Arc ended.

Afterwards it suffered from a illness, which can be known as the ''Bleach-Syndrome''.
If you read the last 100 or so chapters it leaves way too much to be desired.

Many of the Charakters are more or less thrown out of the picture and you don't really see them any more (though that too happened after the ''autumn Election'' Arc to a degree).
The developement of the Main Charakters is mostly ignored just to press in new things. There is a try to build up a new Villian for a new big Showdown, but he is written so poorly you start missing even the badly written Charakters of the Tokyo Ghoul Anime.
There are no words for my dissapointment in the ending of this otherwise good Manga.
Either the author wanted the Manga to End or he just didn't know how to continue and made this mess of an Arc.
Every bit of foreshadowed realtionship or events between Charakters is just gone (no Romance, no new Friendships, no Trio between Yukihira, Sadatsuka Nao and Kobayashi Rindo (which I wanted to have), no fitting Shokugeki to solve the Rivalry of Takumi and Yukihira, no threeway battle with Hayama and Kurokiba.) All of this considered the Manga left many things to be desired.

I highly recomend stopping after the ''régiment de cuisine'' Arc and only continuing with Fan made Doujinshi or Fan-Fictions in generell.

I only rate what was before that bad ending, thats why it gets a 9/10, otherwise it would have gone down to a 4or5/10.
Shokugeki no Souma review
by
Blank0979
Apr 02, 2021
This is the first time I've bothered to write a review, but I think I'll try to make a habit of it moving forward. I finished watching the 2nd season of the anime, and decided to check out the manga - I'm quite glad I did. I gave the anime an 8/10, but I was quite impressed at how the story evolved once I picked up the manga.

Story - 9/10:

My main qualm with the anime was that the food battles themselves took up too much of the plot, and often bogged down a bit. I get that Shokugeki literally means food wars/battles, but I really felt like the Autumn Elections arc went a little overboard in that regard. Time spent with the characters interacting was a pleasure, and watching the relationships develop, but the story itself seemed to stagnate a bit.

That all changes once Erina's father enters the picture. I don't want to spoil anything, other than to say that the story really picks up speed. There's a lot of forward momentum, and it seems as though the author learned from previous mistakes, as the food battles are much better utilized moving forward - they retain impact by not being overused, and they're not as long and drawn out.

Art - 9/10:

I'm not much of an art critic. I would generally rate most manga as being pretty high in the art category. The character models look great, and the food dishes are interesting (although in black and white they lose a lot of their realism and impact as compared to the anime).

Character - 10/10:

I'll admit I'm leaning forward a little with a full 10/10 score here - I'm anticipating where things are going as much as what we've read to date. But the main characters - Souma, Erina, Megumi - are very nicely fleshed out. They have real problems and interesting personalities. Relationships between characters develop in realistic ways. It's hard to go into too much depth without major spoilers, but I was impressed with the way that the characters were handled, as compared to most shounen manga/anime I've consumed. I especially like the depth given the secondary characters in the story - Alice, Ryo, Souma's dad, Nikumi, Hayama, Jun, Gin, Shinomiya, etc. The author does a better job than most stories at breathing life into characters who aren't the real drivers of the plot.

Enjoyment - 10/10:

This is an easy score. I ripped through the full manga in a few days after having finished the anime. It was a pleasure to read. Anytime I can't put a book down, that's an easy 10 from me. My only complaint is that now I have to wait week to week to keep reading :(

Overall - 9/10:

Like I said, I feel like the story stagnates a bit around the Autumn Elections arc, but that the author learned from that and really tightened up the writing moving forward. There's still a bit of room for improvement, but I have very high expectations as the story continues. The manga is full of fun, some humour, some drama, some disappointment, some feel good moments, and even a few teases of romance. The focus on food and cooking is an interesting switch from usual themes, but it's really not that integral to the overall story (you could easily swap "cooking school" out for pretty much any other random profession and tell the exact same story).

I would definitely recommend this story.
Shokugeki no Souma review
by
Okamimimi133
Apr 02, 2021
How to describe this manga ? One way to do it is like this , some randome dude that was having fun driving his car met a big ass wall-kun, then he crashed right into it , now it struggles to stay alive by fast pacing it's heart beat and trying different remedies , ' superpowerish' ones ... Ok I don't really know if this does make any sense whatsoever , but this is how I see this manga now .

This should've ended right after they took over the school , why in the blazing hell did they want to continue if it is clear as day that this writer has lost it's way ... Light Chefs vs Dark Chefs , really ?! Getting someone's knife equals getting their skills , really ?! If they wanted to go this path with this series they should've done this from the get go , not now in the last hour ...

My guess is that they want to finish it with some romance between Souma and Erina , because it seems that she is his last goal , making her submit to his cooking and admitting that its delicious and here I will be honest , this is the only thing that I would like to see a final battle between those two and some kind of happy ending to this tragic once wonderful series .

I know how this must look , but I am not venting my anger here , more like I feel disappointed with this manga , it really felt home when I was reading it and I learned new stuff about cooking , even tried a few recipes that came with the show , but now it's a really well drawn mess .
Thx for reading .
Shokugeki no Souma review
by
lucille01215
Apr 02, 2021
So, I'm writing my first Review ever here. Why for this Manga ? Dunno, just felt like it.

So Shokugeki no Souma is about a boy, who works at a small daily dinner his father owns - "The Yukihira's". He always competes with his father, but never seems to stand a chance. Than one day, his father suddenly goes somewhere outside of Japan and tells Souma to go to a Cooking Academy. He doesn't like the idea at first, thinks that it's child play, but he'll know very soon, that it isn't.

That should sum it up for this Review.

Now, let's start rating it.

I don't even know why I started reading this Manga (Well I watched the Anime first and loved it, but I don't know why I started watching it), but it somehow hooked me up from the beginning. I liked how it handles the enjoyment of eating tasty food with these overjoyed ecchi scenes, it is just hiarious. When I watch them cooking I also kind of feel like eating something (Well I don't know if that is good or bad - decide for yourself!). The Story isn't very different to other Shounen/Ganbatte Manga so I won't say anything about that. The Art is very good in my eyes, the food looks delicious and is very detailed, the males look cool and most of the females look very nice.
The Characters are one of the strongest points of this Manga in my eyes. Each one of them is different and most have a nice backstory (Well, some of them we get to know really late, but they have one!). Also The enemys Souma and his friends encounter are somewhat special. I was very impressed to see, in what difference you can present cooks. It is very awesome. Oh yeah, and there is also a lot of Shipping material too of course ;)

So all in all, this is a very nice Shounen Manga, which I really enjoy reading and would recommend everyone to at least give it a try.

(Sorry if my grammar is bad, english isn't my native language :D)
Shokugeki no Souma review
by
Tobuay15
Apr 02, 2021
Obviously, spoilers ahead. In essence, to sum it up, I wasted 315 chapters of a story. Shokugeki no Souma in my opinion, is one of the greatest downfalls/declines I've ever seen in a manga. As a personal fan of the Central Arc, I noticed even then that during the final fight of Rindo/Tsukasa, vs Erina/Yukihira, it felt extremely rushed, with no adequate pacing whatsoever. After thinking not much of it, I turn to the rest of the story, eager to see what happens afterwards. I was met with a ridiculous character named Asahi Saiba, a supposed "adopted" son of Joichiro, who he taught when he was young. While becoming a great chef, he manages to not only completely destroy Joichiro in a Shokugeki, but also Tsukasa, the first seat, as well, with no real showings of his power. However, that's not even my main issue. The issue lies with his character and the ending. Instead of showing what ways he's able to come back, and Soma being able to surpass his limits, he instead just does another "I'll surpass you" moment to somehow end up beating this supposed master of chefs, giving him the side character treatment as a result. In the end, it results in a battle between Yukihira, and Erina, and you would think finally, this is the scene where she says his food is good, right? No, instead typical Erina goes on to say it's not much more then slop. Yukihira, being flamed by this, wishes to challenge Erina one more time. And that's it. That's how it ends. It ends with a challenge in the middle of a giant competition, with no clear ending, leaving a load of loose ends, along with enough cliffhangers for eons to come. Sadly, in my opinion what was an honest 10 for me has been reduced to a 4, as almost half of this once great story, has turned into, in Erina Nakiri's words, nothing more than B-grade slop.
Shokugeki no Souma review
by
elchibi10
Apr 02, 2021
This is my first review so I hope that you'll not take it for granted.

Shokugeki no Souma is the first series I've read before I watched the anime. I just read this since my brother watched the anime and I want to know what it feels like to read the manga over watching it. For a cooking manga, it's like I'm reading a battle manga at the same time because of its concept.

Story - 10

Even though the story is like your typical Shonen manga where the MC is normally OP and nothing stands in his way, in which it is, there are times that Soma does lose. Out of all the characters, Megumi was the only one (so far) that has the most development and she has the sweetest backstory ever. The way how it was presented is well executed and it has those elements from hardcore cooking shows which makes it stand out.

Art - 9

The art is pleasing to the eye especially to the food. *drools. Each character design is unique to me and sometimes the fanservice here is sometimes better. I don't mind the fanservice here because it's not really the selling point at least but the best part is not focusing too much on it. (In the later chapters there's not that much fanservice)

Character - 8

Now this is where the series lacks in. Even though Soma is the MC, the main heroine, Megumi (again) has it all the way. I also like every other side character's background (especially Marui's shining moment) but when a new arc comes in, they seem to be left-out. I hope that the author focuses more on them in the main story at one point. There's also that harem where Soma's having but he's too oblivious to notice it and how come it's like this in most Shonen today?

Enjoyment - 9

I love the series and even bought the first nine volumes! Because buying and collecting manga gives a different feeling than downloading them online. If only other people will know the value of owning a real one.

Overrall - 9

I know that this is my first review and as a whole, this a great manga to read. I would not recommend this to someone new to manga and anime though. But overrall, it's an interesting series.
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