10 Second Anime - Shokugeki no Soma - Episode 24 [END]

Hayama and Souma compete for the top of A Block. Their duel becomes a de facto shokugeki. Season Finale.

Episode 24 - "The Banquet of Warriors"

Heh.

Nice. Both Hayama and Souma used the idea of a fragrance bomb and they also used an underlying paste to unite all the spices' flavors. Where Hayama made the ultimate in classic curry, using nan bread as a cap and yogurt to mellow out the holy basil, Souma made a very personal take on curry using his own failures as inspiration.

I guess Natsumi was too sexy to keep giving us foodgasms. Her reactions last episode were quite enough. She did give us the same sexy voice her sister used with Isshiki in trying to get Hayama to come work for her.

 

Yowza! Souma's curry packs a punch!

I laughed out loud at this. After all the build up with how the curry smell I was expecting something outrageous, but that smack to the face! Ha! Thankfully Natsumi's pretty face was not involved in Souma's assault.

 

Souma's curry was so personally Japanese. Omelet Rice? I'm surprised he didn't write something on top of the omelet with his oyster sauce based drizzle. But to base his curry dish on his failed idea of a soufflé omelet and his rice risotto really brought home Fumio's description of his character - the ultimate sore loser. Adding in the Yukihira house mango chutney was a nod to his roots and his Dad.

 

Erina has been left out of the story for quite a while, so I'm glad that even just a whiff of Souma's creation gave the God Tongue tingles.

Ha! This whole sequence with her was a nice callback to their first meeting, complete with an invasion of annoying little Souma's.

Yeah, that's the stuff. Good ending for Erina.

Too bad we saw a recycled pouting image from when she punched her desk. We could have had something different there.

 

Souma may have lost on points, but if he and Hayama had been in a shokugeki, Souma would have won. Moral victory, there. Even the judges at the end were comparing their dishes and fighting about it. Souma definitely made his presence known.

 

The epilogue was all sorts of fun. Souma made a clueless confession of love (for her food) to Megumi. Ikumi and the other girls needed to eavesdrop.

The other kids saw the weirdness that was Polar Dormitory.

Ikumi made her own confession of sorts by admitting she would only let one person call her "Nikumi." Never mind that her club president cried it out like a loud father at his child's sports event. 

Although Souma may be clueless about the girls' attention, with Erina, Ikumi and Megumi already riding the shipping lanes, Souma made it clear who his favorite was.

Who else but Megumi would get first taste of his next terrible creation? He and his Dad were on the same yogurt wavelength. I really don't know which would be worse between char-broiled sardines and calamari. I prefer Megumi's reaction to Joichiro's.

 

This is an ending for now, not an actual end. I hope the next installment comes soon.

Final Thoughts.

After watching Koufuku Graffiti in the Spring, I was excited to see the differences between a battle style cooking show and a slice of life cute girls do cute things anime version. I had seen a baking show many years ago called Yakitate Japan!, so I knew what to expect with the actual competition part and the judging. I was not expecting a sexier more outrageous kind of foodgasm than what was presented in Koufuku Graffiti. Shokugeki's style was absolutely more aggressive and targeting young men. I loved them, I mean, those, er, it!

 

This was still a competition based story for young men, so themes of never giving up, individuality, growing up and protecting places and people close to you abounded. It reminded me very much of Saki for mahjong, but with much more testosterone and much less mutual feminine affection.

 

Souma the hero was appealing with his character traits of learning from his mistakes, appreciating his failures and even using them as the basis for victory. That's a good message for any young boy growing up. He's like the cooking version of Naruto.

 

The comedy, along with its different styles of animation, also worked well. The gags were never old, the reactions were outrageous, and the timing was right on. This was a show I looked forward to every week, just to see what the mix of comedy, stylized cooking violence and sensual reactions were going to be. The manga is ongoing, so I'll be looking out for the next installment.