KFC and IHOP are not going to cut it when you've finished reading this volume of Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Sōma. From breakfasts to tempt even the least enthusiastic morning eater to fried chicken that will make you wish you could pull it out of the illustration and eat it, this book is full of culinary delights sure to make you drool and dust off your cooking skills. It also offers a break from the insane levels of competition within Totsuki itself, allowing us to take a deep breath before the Fall Classic storyline takes off in the next book, making this a much less tense volume, although no less readable.

Picking up from the cliffhanger of volume four, the fifth book in the series takes us to the tension-filled final half hour of the breakfast buffet competition at Totsuki's training camp. While everyone else's morning delights are moving quickly – in some cases far surpassing the two hundred serving minimum, Soma's omelets are stagnating, causing everyone else to panic. It's one of the more interesting parts of his character, not to mention one of the things that keeps the story from getting too intense, that Soma himself rarely, if ever, panics. He assesses the problem and finds a way around it, taking each moment of near failure and turning it into a learning opportunity. Other students can't understand how “failing” could possibly equate to “learning and improving,” which only serves to highlight how stuck in their ways and egotistical they are. Not that Soma lacks in the self-confidence arena – but unlike Erina he doesn't allow his knowledge of his own prowess blind him to the possibilities around him. I would hazard that it is this ability that irritates the more stuck-up and traditional chef wannabes around him, as it shows a flexibility which they lack. It is also this quality that enables him to inspire those who don't recognize their own strengths, like Megumi, and ultimately makes him stand out as both a chef and a character.

Speaking of characters, this volume marks the return of Kurase, the middle school friend of Soma's who has been harboring a crush on him. She pops back up when, as a break from the intensity of the training camp storyline, Totsuki students have a mini-break in the form of a long weekend. Soma opts to go home and air out the family restaurant, which results in a flood of business that he wasn't expecting. But as he's serving loyal customers, he notices that there's drastically decreased traffic on the traditional shopping street the restaurant is located on. The head of the street's association tells him that a national fried chicken chain and some big box stores have opened up in the nearby train station, which has effectively stolen all of the street's local business. Soma determines to put a stop to that, and Kurase's friends, knowing her crush, push her into being his helper. But bigger guns are going to be required as well, so Soma calls Nikumi, the meat-loving girl from the Bowl Club, to help out as well. The story that follows is still highly competitive, but the stakes make it feel different from the norm of the manga's plots, giving us instead of a battle of equals an underdog story that works really well on two levels: as a plot in and of itself, but also as a breather from the school-based stories. Seeing Soma on his home turf helps us to understand where his attitude comes from, and having Nikumi in an out-of-school storyline, while not precisely adding to her character, certainly gives us a different, less abrasive view of her. This is something that is sadly lacking in characters like Erina, who we do see as having a suppressed softer side but still has too much “tsun” and not enough “dere” to make her as likable as she could be. Although her reaction when she figures out who Soma's related to should make for an interesting revelation when the story eventually goes there...

While the sexual imagery has been greatly toned down since volume one, Saeki still does have a sensual edge to his artwork, particularly when people are eating. Food is generally shown as being good enough to blow your clothes off, and the usual manga misconceptions about breasts and appropriate school attire are present. Saeki also has some issues with drawing the female crotch when a woman is wearing pants; they tend to look severely uncomfortable, possibly in the interest of fanservice, since his bodies look good otherwise. For the female gaze, Isshiki is still largely nude but for his loincloth, although as a rare treat we do also get to see him in his school uniform towards the end of the book. That definitely requires a double-take; it's easy to just think of him as “the naked guy.”

Food Wars! is one of the fastest-reading shounen manga currently being translated into English. Each volume is full of cliffhangers and competitions guaranteed to make you reluctant to put the book down once you've started reading. The fifth volume is only marginally an exception, as you can conceivably take a breather between story arcs, but each one has the same obsessive quality that makes this series so engrossing. It has its issues with sexualization and unbearably egotistical characters, but if you haven't picked up this series yet, there's no better time to start than now. Just maybe don't read it when you're hungry.