10 Second Anime - Shokugeki no Soma S3 - Episode 18

Souma's bout against Hayama hinges on how they made bear meat conform to their individual cooking style and one other key factor.

Episode 18 - "For Whose Sake"

Hmm.

One of the major conventions of Japanese culture is that cooking tastes better when it's made with love. Drilling down a little further, the idea is that a mother or a wife needs to have the idea in mind while she cooks that her beloved will want to say her food is delicious. The judging in Shokugeki takes that idea to the extreme, where you can't just have an individual style of cooking, but you need to focus that style on a target.

Usually in a cooking battle, the targets are the judges, but in this battle between Souma and Hayama, Souma made his target Hayama himself. I'm not sure Souma has actually established an individual style like Hisako has chosen Chinese homeopathy, or Hayama has chosen spices. His style appears to be obsession with his target. His dish in this story arc has all the elements of his previous two battles with Hayama, like caramelizing honey and then using that step to both subtract aroma and emphasize it. It's like his dish was tailor made for Hayama as Souma gloats, "Here's how you beat me before and now I'm going to beat you with it by making you say it's delicious!"

For Hayama, he had lost focus on what and who he was cooking for. He had thrown in with Central to protect the Shiomi Spice Research group, but when Shiomi herself said not to trust Azami's promises, he ended up cooking for his own pride instead. The deciding vote on the match felt that muddle in focus, where his meat was superior to Souma's, but his sauce only did more of the same instead of focusing on the bear taste and smell like Souma's did. Souma had a clear objective in mind with his cooking, and that was to brutalize Hayama's nose and mouth. The judges were incidental, which was totally fine by Soue Nakiri. As long as he can tell you're not cooking for yourself and it tastes good, you got his vote.

One other thing I'm noticing is how the previews appear to focus on the epilogues of each of the episodes instead of the actual episodes. This is getting kind of old where they're playing with our expectations of deeper retellings of the side stories from the manga, but then just turning them into epilogue montages. Let's not keep teasing the audience this way, okay?

Heh.

Flashback to Hayama turning to the dark side. Shiomi even told him that Azami wouldn't keep his promises, and Hayama kept on his own path. Too much pride in this one.

Well. Obviously Hayama's meat was better than Souma's, but what about that special sauce?

Souma took a hit with the meat, but he knows the judging isn't over yet. And Soue confirmed it.

Hayama made some biscuits to go with his chicken fried bear, but nobody talked about it? It seems like his bear dish is just going through the motions.

Here we go. Comparing gravy and dipping sauce.

There it is! Not just some clothes blasting taste explosion, but transporting to a fantastical flavored world. That's Souma's cooking right there.

Ha! And what? The girls actually got stripped? I thought only Nakiris' clothes went missing.

Oh ho! The Gift! The usual Nakiri "chest-baring" is called "Explosion," but when you get to the next level, the clothes explosion gets "granted" to people around that Nakiri. Very dangerous!

Soue is full-on naked and it ain't no thing.

Cilla and Berta put their clothes back on real quick.

Aha. Souma used honey with his sauce, which is a good idea for the bear meat theme. But he used a specific honey to draw out the bear smell as savoriness. More of that Yukihira obsession.

Ha! Souma is such the villain. Using his opponent's cooking techniques against him and shoving it in his face! Souma holds a grudge, apparently. He lost to Hayama twice, the first by caramelization of something and then by subtracting and emphasizing a smell at the same time. Eat that, Hayama! No, really, here's your share...

Hayama knows it. His meat might be better, but Souma's sauce was better than his gravy. So who wins?

Ooh. The twins split their vote.

Welp, Soue was the wrong judge for Central's purposes. The idea that an individual cooking style pointed at a specific diner is diametrically opposed to Azami's ideals of one taste only.

Doujima doesn't even have to taste anything to know that Hayama's dish was mushy in its cooking target. For whom was he cooking? He thinks it was for Shiomi, but Shiomi refused his methods, so in the end, he was only cooking for himself. He's not going to win that way against a discerning Nakiri tongue.

Hee. That is not the happy face of someone cooking for a loved one! Souma wanted to stuff his dish down Hayama's face and force him to admit it was better. Souma the Villain!

Ouch. Shiomi slap! She says she doesn't need a research group. She just wants to see him cooking with friends. Friends who want to beat him up with cooking...

Nice. Souma finally wins against Hayama. His first defeat was mixed, because he lost on points, but would have won if it were a shokugeki. The next was a three way battle, so who knows how that would have gone. But he got a split decision, like a boxing match here. He'll take it!

Oh, and now we see the preview stuff from last week in the epilogue. Everybody lost! Which means they'll be expelled, like Hayama.

Except, we don't see the results from Megumi and Takumi against Rindou. Are they actually going to give us an episode of that? Let's hope.

Next time, Erina declares war. Again?