Shokugeki No Soma

Souma assembles his think tank. It's so like him to look for unconventional avenues.

At least they had enough sense to not dismiss him for not showing up.

Hmm, if they speed things up, the election just might end at chapter 100.

Absolutely not. (spoiler for next chapter) They won't start cooking until chapter 98.

edited 28th Nov '14 3:50:06 PM by burnpsy

They stall for two whole chapters?

Well, what do you expect? They always start with an exposition about the judges, the dish and the rules before the cooking actually begins. New judge is Alice's mom, apparently.

Chapter out. On the one hand, more underdog crap. On the other hand, Leonora.

Those two are really setting themselves up for a humiliatiing defeat. Last chapter it looked like they might noticed he's planning something, but nope, they can see only this much.

On the other hand it seems that Erina already saw through Souma's plan. Just goes to show the difference in skill.

Leonora is hilarious, I can see where Alice get her quircks from. And her good looks. Nakiri family has all the best women in this manga.

Poor Erina, as if dealing with her cousin wasn't enough, her aunt is just as daft.

That's some grandiose stage they have. What would they do if it's cloudy?

Let the cooking begin!

The English Shonen Jump had an interview with series editor Seijiro Nakaji this week. His favourite chapters are chapters 4 ("The Godfather Speaks of Diamonds") and 21 ("The Perfect Recette").

Apparently nobody involved in making the manga thought that Soma even cared about Megumi until they realized that they hadn't established his character yet by chapter 21. It's at this point that they chose to make him someone who cares about his friends (on top of his earlier traits). Drawing that chapter and the one afterwards drove both the artist (Saeki) and the editor to tears. The editor also points out that the writer (Tsukuda) had to be extremely careful with handling the resulting match.

Soma's speech in chapter 4 was apparently Saeki's idea, which he pitched to Tsukuda. The dean's was based on a speech Nakaji heard was in common use at a certain art school.

The behind the scenes creation of the story is unusual for a manga like this with multiple people working on it. Usually the writer just dictates to the artist. However, in this series' case, Nakaji and Tsukuda meet regularly, and they bring in Saeki and the collaborator (Morisaki, she's a Japanese mini-celeb in charge of the recipes starting from chapter 5) to think of ideas weekly to monthly depending on their schedules. They always meet to discuss major storyline decisions.

Finally, Nakaji said they want the series to be easy to pick up at any point, so they won't be doing complex plot twists or anything.

Some translation stuff shown in the interview:

Viz's translation of Senzaemon's Red Baron nickname is "Gastric Godfather". (The scanlation opted for "The Don of the Food Mafia" and "Food's Demon King".)

Viz translation of the quote we're using on the page: "Children, 99% of you are nothing but common rocks. You exist solely to grind to perfection the 1% of you who are diamonds!"

edited 9th Dec '14 9:43:53 AM by burnpsy

Chapter 98: So we get a little background on Ryo's rivalry with Alice...

And we know what Erina is gonna try to do....

Oh great, more uncoventional official translations we now have to put up with in the wiki pages. I really don't like the "Gastric Godfather" nickname for old man Nakiri, since it sounds like some glutton who thinks of nothing but to fill up their stomachs.

Sounds like a Yu-Gi-Oh! card to me. OTOH, the choices Casanova made sound way too... I don't know what word I'm looking for, so I'll go with "blunt".

We do?

So Ryou is almost literally Alice dog? Kinda fitting.

Nakiri's are so eccentric.

Leonora isn't confident in her ability to say she's a judge, but she can easily chat about how all the competitors are eye candy. Way to go.

I actually kind of like Ryo and Alice's relationship, though if Ryo were the protagonist I'd probably consider Alice a bitch since there wouldn't have been a timeskip.

Wha... but she's so proud of her dog!

If Alice is a bitch and Ryou is her dog are you suggesting that I should ship them?

Edit: Come to think of it, Ryou has also said before that he's beaten Alice more than she's beaten him. She must pretty much never win anymore.

edited 10th Dec '14 11:19:18 AM by Arha

Well, yeah I already do!

Huh, Alice said she can't get a big lead on him, which means she has a lead if small one.

Well, what he said was Alice shouldn't lecture him before she could get more wins against him. It could mean that he either has won more times than Alice, or that they're about equals and he wouldn't recognize her skills unless she has won with a greater margin from him.

edited 21st Dec '14 12:20:33 PM by Shlugo_the_great

And here I was worried for a moment I wouldn't see foodgasms in animation.

Looks great so far. Mmm, look at that food shine.

1 cour can cover the Training Camp arc, and 2 could probably cover the entire Fall Tournament.

...Dat animation.

Chapter 99: Wow. This manga looks gorgeous when all of the pages are in full color. Is this our Christmas present from Jump or something?

Leonora's foodgasm: Too long, didn't read.

Hhhng that full color chapter.

Well, that's some...'disrobing' alright.

But that look from hayama. Oh wait next chapter's out.

Chapter 100. Hayama has become simply insufferable no matter what he does. Oh well, at least we're just about done.

Sooo hype for Soma's dish