Shokugeki No Soma

Asahi's meal was good, but even he couldn't deal with a bullet to the face.

The ultimate twist.

Just give him some chicken fried bananas with salt.

That’s a guaranteed death sentence.

The ultimate villain: capitalism. What is worth $50 when (X) is in season is $100 when it's not. Always order the special you guys, it's worth it 80% of the time.

I don't think a Yukihira special item passing this test wouldn't be too far fetched. There are a bunch of Michelin-star ranked restaurants that sell theirs on the cheap. "Technically" more valuable than they are priced, at least in the eyes of food snobs.

...But if it's a dish worth 600$ then you couldn't really afford to sell it for less. Otherwise it's not really worth that much, is it?

The worth of something is mostly dependent on what the people buying it are willing to pay. If that judge would be willing to pay 600$ to eat Tsukasas dish (and not feel disappointed after eating it) it´s worth that much to her. I still call bullshit on such a high number and that Somas cooking adds no value to his ingredients, but the worth of something is always defined by what people are willing to pay.

Yeah that is the idea. it is exaggerated to the extreme as this series does but I do get it.

I and some big-deal artist could hypothetically spend the same amount for raw materials but he will probably sell his shit at a way higher price.

Edited by mrsunshinesprinkles on Nov 11th 2018 at 5:20:09 PM

Artists & rich people am I right?

But if everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it then the test is entirely arbitrary.

I hate this test. The more I think about it the more it makes no sense.

It does boil down to "how much she likes it", and the price is just her score, yeah. I don't mind it much.

I wish they could give that art money to more noble causes, like funding Season 3 for spice and wolf.

Edited by mrsunshinesprinkles on Nov 11th 2018 at 6:03:11 PM

Every "single dish" competition in this series so far has been judged arbitrarily (only on how much the juror liked it). The only other way i can see to judge how good a dish is by comparing sales of it over at least a day, which would not work with here.

I actually think this kind of testing is not THAT bad, but i´m annoyed at the inflated numbers...

I think if the numbers weren’t that inflated it be a bit more bearable.

Edited by slimcoder on Nov 11th 2018 at 2:26:59 AM

I don't mind because the series, by default, has been inflating numbers since day one.

I don't mind judging in terms of how much money the judge is willing to pay. What grinds my gears is that this is the exact thing that's been Souma's forte since day one, but now he somehow can't even get a positive value on his efforts and has to fall back on his dad's recipe.

What is he learning from that school?

...Which is not always based on the quality of the product purchased. Case in point, I know a restaurant that serves overpriced dishes that tastes bad (and the service isn't good), but for some reason people continue to flock there because, I don't know, they like the architecture of the building or something.

Because it has the name of that big-deal artist tied to the product, and not necessarily because his "shit" is actually any good. Let's say he decided to sell his stuff anonymously, people would probably not buy it with the same price.

The "idea" of this challenge is that more expensive = more delicioso but you are correct. That doesn't apply all the time in real life, and established brands usually make more money than actual quality; there's a bunch of YT videos with rich people getting punked, as they blind taste-test a gourmet burger vs a big mac.

I understand that the reality of stupid boujee nonsense doesn't line up with the idea of it, but Souma is an "idealized" version of the boujee fine dining, so I'm willing to accept that.

I do get the core complaint though, and it's something that really permeates through the rest of the series- it's an arbitrary "victory" condition. I feel like that's a problem with the genre of cooking battle series as a whole- It's hard for a cook-off to be as definitive and conclusive as a punch-up where one dude gets knocked the fuck off- food is so damn subjective. Everyone in the Souma-universe seems to be on the same page as to "what foods are better than the others" while for a lot of us, we might mark down something simply because we hate certain methods-of-preparation or ingredients (I'm not big on most cooked fish, meself). In many ways we kinda have to "take their word for it" that one meal is better than the other- especially since most of us don't have the "fine dining" frame of reference.

Edited by mrsunshinesprinkles on Nov 11th 2018 at 9:45:31 PM

Yea, that's my main complaint here, the win conditions feel so damn arbitrary and you have to essentially take the story's word for it that it makes sense regardless of how you feel about it. It's similar to what happened at the Autumn Elections when when all three finalists were judged on "the face of their cooking".

And I'm not really the type of person who can turn my brain off and just enjoy the spectacle if I can't follow what's going on.

But whatever, it's not like the win conditions matter; this is just another "My diner food IS worthy" deal like what usually happens to elitism in this series.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Nov 11th 2018 at 8:58:00 AM

This kind of exaggeration would work if the manga was more unrealistic tbh.

Like Tennis Balls killed the Dinosaurs kind of unrealistic.

The exaggeration isn't the issue, it's lack of understanding of the win conditions.

That's what he's saying though. Actual superpowers would make everything easier to understand because the series is running off Fighting Series logic.

Was Toriko more comprehensible then?

No it wouldn't because you'd still have these arbitrary win conditions to pass the competition.

Unless he's saying the series should just be superpowers with food instead of anything resembling actual cooking.

Prince of Tennis is pretty straightforward; you just get a higher score than the other guy in Tennis. Nothing really complicated there.

Y'know, when they explained this test last week, I thought that the idea was that you had to spend $100 on convenience store food and somehow make a reasonable sized meal that you couldn't have made if you'd payed less- so you not only have to know to how properly handle low-end ingredients of all kinds, but you have to be able to combine coherently combine a huge number of distinct flavour- so you'd need a wide knowledge base, a skilled hand, and piles of creativity.

But, no, as it turns out you're actually penalized for spending large amounts on ingredients, and you're actually just judged vaguely based on how high-class the end product seems.

Edited by Gilphon on Nov 11th 2018 at 8:20:24 AM

This test is definitely bullshit. I can't even start to understand the rules. Tsukasa cooked a more refined meal perhaps, with more steps and fine details along the way, but Soma was just as creative with his cooking and served something that looked really high-end too.

I expected for this challenge to be several ways to pass. For example, simply waiting for other contestants to make their move ; thus depleting the reserves, which would jack up the prices of common ingredients and bring the value of your dish above 100$. An economics trick. But it's just going to be "MUH COOKING".

At least we can expect a one-on-one Soma vs Tsukasa duel again now. Which would perhaps give Soma a tiiiiiiny little bit of credibility as the first seat.