10 Second Anime - Shokugeki no Soma S2 - Episode 9

The three finalists serve their fish dishes. Souma offers a surprising twist on this seasonal fish.

Episode 9 - "A Sword That Signals Autumn"

Heh.

The producers really, really wanted to pound this sword metaphor into the ground, so let's look at the "swords" in action.

Ryo and Hayama look perfectly poised for battle. Souma trots out "dat face" that he used for his student ID...

Souma's cheering section couldn't believe what he pulled out of his cooler.

That sword stuff was just the continuation of last week's epilogue to push the sword metaphor in our faces. This week's episode brought us the autumn metaphor that Souma will use as his actual weapon.

The judges are looking up at the full moon through the hall's retractable roof. The Autumn Elections always take place during the first full moon of Fall and is timed for the moon to take two hours to cross the opening.

I had my doubts that a lone woman could carry the funny and the sexy for this final round of judging, but Leonora was easily up to the task.

She doubled her anticipation by looking forward to Ryo's cooking, whom she has know for years, and by wanting to see what Souma's surprising skills, which were enough to defeat her daughter, would produce for her taste buds.

She's just as flighty as Alice. She got mad at Erina for calling her "Auntie," but hearing "Granny" instead. She does have trouble with Japanese and those two words can sound alike (oba-san vs. obaa-san).

Look at that pout! She is so Alice's mother.

But Leonora was introduced for the sexy and she delivered that too.

The writing played off those expectations and introduced a long joke setup with a personality quirk punchline.

Like Grandpa Nakiri, when Leonora tastes good food, she "bares" herself. In Grandpa's case, it's his chest. What does Leonora bare? Remember, she's only related by marriage...

The girls in the audience were worried they would see a foodgasm enter their reality.

My body was ready.

And the joke was that she "bares" her good Japanese and ditches her accented and ungrammatical Japanese. Derp!

Don't worry. She got good and naked for her foodgasms.

We also learned of another Grandpa Nakiri quirk: the grin in anticipation. This can come from what the dish looks like and how it smells.

Ryo's dish was up first and evoked a high tech aquatic scene.

It was all seafood, since that's his specialty, but was cooked in heat resistant clear wrap so that not even the water vapor would escape during cooking.

Ryo did that to make an aroma detonator when the dish was unwrapped. These cooking events are all about the first impression, so frontloading the sensations is the usual tactic.

Hayama opted for a seared sashimi like dish that relied on searing a traditional Japanese sauce to invoke his own aroma bomb.

All that was left was to find out the mystery of Souma's picked dish.

He made a rice dish with the fish pickled and aged in salted rice bran. Not only did this reference a traditional dish from Hokkaido, but it called forth the flavor of Autumn because that's when Pacific Saury is in season.

While Souma's dish did get Leonora to bare her Japanese, it didn't get Grandpa Nakiri to bare his chest while Ryo's and Hayama's dishes did.

But! Souma had something set up for when you get served seconds!

This is when Hayama and Ryo knew they were in trouble because that's when Souma unleashed his real sword. The Sword That Signals Autumn. I'm just playing with the title to increase the suspense.

Notice the glow of the sword is the color of the moonlight...

And cliffhanger. We'll have to find out how he wins next week.

Geh.

As the lone woman on the judges' panel, Leonora had a large responsibility to bring the sexy in the foodgasms. She easily handled that.

First up was Ryo's dish where the food was wrapped up in the heat resistant plastic tied up with a red ribbon.

Damn that red ribbon!

The fanciful part of the foodgasm made sure you recognized Leonora's ample assets.

Hayama's dish came close to the explosive foodgasms we usually see Souma produce.

It's getting there. Flashes of light. Naked body parts. Sexual tension buildup.

But no playful aspect yet. Even Mimasaka channeling Souma in the last round produced that weird wrestling match with beef and bacon.

We didn't get to see Souma's foodgasm, but that's because he hadn't finished serving his dish yet. Leonora has only produced the anticipatory spasms.

I'm really looking forward to see what the reactions are going to be. My question is just how naked are Dojima and Grandpa Nakiri going to get? And will they get in the way of an epic MILF foodgasm? We'll have to find out next week.