10 Second Anime - Shokugeki no Soma S3 - Episode 1

Souma challenges one of the Elite 10 Council, Kuga, to a sales contest during the upcoming school festival for the prize of a Shokugeki against him and his seat. 3rd Season Premiere.

Episode 1 - "Challenging the Elite 10"

Hmm.

It's been almost exactly a full year since the end of the last season, but it looks like we missed quite a bit from the OAD's included with the manga during this time. So what do we get? Flashbacks to those special episodes we never saw as Megumi pedals next to Souma's moped. This way, we don't even get a sexy foodgasm this episode, only an allusion to one. This was also the way the season references how powerful the Elite 10 Council members really are. That's pretty cheap.

Continuing along with the theme of cheapness, the art direction looked really cheap. The characters look flat and washed out. There's a lot of talking using static screens scrolling at different speeds to simulate parallax and depth. About the only people being challenged in the motion department are the background guys and the effects guys. Not an auspicious start to the season.

At least the characters are still the same. There's a new voice actor for Erina because the original one is struggling with a lingering illness, but the replacement is still solid. They sound the same, they act the same, and they still have good comedic timing for the chibi gags. Considering how we're moving from the intense battle tournament style storytelling of last season to a more laid-back foundation building for several story arcs, I can be much more forgiving of the writing. This is a marathon, not a sprint like the Autumn Elections chapters were.

Still, I'd like to see a little more effort in the animation department other than just reframing manga panels with oblique angles and some sliding motion.

Heh.

It's the season opener and the exciting first scene is... Souma put-putting along next to Megumi on her bike... Way to really drag our eyeballs into the scene.

They're talking about this really intense scene with the Elite 10 with the finalists of the Autumn Elections. Wow, if only we could see that instead of this put-put stuff.

So, after just talking about the really compelling scene in the OVA instead of just, you know, giving us that scene, we know that Kuga is Souma's target for competition. This is Shounen battle story stuff, with cooking, so you can't just fight a master for his doujo. You need to pass a test first before you get to the real challenge. Here, Souma decided to make more money at his food stall during the school festival than Kuga does as his way of showing his worthiness.

We also missed out on some quality Rindo time. Her little conversation with Tsukasa was just not enough!

The opening credits have some spoilerish scenes from upcoming story arcs. Way better than the ending credits, which used recycled scenes from the past seasons and the OVA's which nobody has seen.

Kuga is all about spicy Chinese food, the Szechuan style, so it's nice that we got the bouncy Miyoko Houjou to be our guide.

And look at that basketball compared to Megumi. Which has the more the eye-catching texture and color?

The only half foodgasm we get this episode is from Souma? Well, he was only eating stuff made by apprentices, not from Kuga himself. And this looks like an elaborate head-fake on Kuga's part. He's not really going to cook the spicy tofu dish that he just showed Souma, right? He looks like the honest straightforward type, like Souma incidentally, but he does have a twinkle in his eye showing a bit of savviness.

Interesting. The Japanese borrowed "name-value" from English to stand for reputation or name recognition.

This talk of the three different areas for where the food booths will be set up just washed over me. Obviously, Souma is going to choose a strategy that maximizes foot traffic with food price. We just have to wait until he reveals it.

Oh. Souma's going to go with the splash zone strategy like he did with Erina's food station during the survival camp. Let's see how that works out.

And don't lose money on your booth or you get expelled. What?!