Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma

Episode 14

Everyone has their own methods and recipes for success, and everyone will attribute victories to a certain skill or item that might be different from someone else's. That's a facet of human nature that Food Wars! has been good about capturing, and this week's episode is probably the example of it. With 200 servings necessary to pass the egg breakfast challenge that began last week, all of the main characters are relying on their own specialties and good luck skills to get them through – Alice (Erina's cousin, who was introduced last week but not named) has her gastronomy know-how, Tadokoro has her regional knowledge and artistic creativity, Erina has her ego, and Takumi has his cultural base. And what does Soma have? As you doubtless recall, he was on the verge of failing when we ended the episode thirteen, and with only half an hour left on the clock, he's on the verge of panic. It makes sense – after all, he's worked in a restaurant that didn't have a buffet, so it's not a style of serving he's accustomed to. But as the clock runs down and he sees how little he's served, to say nothing of the way his soufflé has collapsed, he has to whip out his special skill: adaptability.

Of all of the students we've met so far, Soma seems to be the one least set in his ways. He has just as many set recipes as the others, but he's willing to use them in more creative ways, and more importantly he's able to think on his feet in a way that we've seen Tadokoro and Nikumi (at least) fail at. He has an ego, yes, and he is as competitive as any of the more obnoxious characters, but he tempers that with a quick wit. It's hard to imagine that Erina wouldn't have stalled if she saw that the unthinkable (losing) was about to happen, because it would simply take away what she's always defined herself as, which is someone who wins. Soma has that aspect to his character as well, but he understands that he has to work for it, which is what we see going on this week.

All of that said, this episode, which wraps up the camp arc (thankfully; it was starting to drag), still has some issues with pacing and focus. It feels very stretched out as the show tries to fill twenty-four minutes with Soma's last-ditch effort. While we do need to know how the others are doing and see how they react to Soma's apparent doom (Takumi's is the most interesting reaction), that takes up a bit too much time, as does the description of Alice's dish, which I could have sworn was covered last week. Soma himself is only in about a third of the episode as he reverses his situation, and since it's his lightning-quick thinking and the base skills that his father taught him that are important here, watching ladies lose their clothes over someone else's cooking sort of pales, at least in terms of plot advancement. There are some good non-plot moments, such as when he refuses to rise to Erina's bait (which you know he's got to be doing on purpose, given his own competitive nature) or when Alice confirms my suspicious that Erina's always been a jerk by describing growing up with her, but by and large this episode just doesn't quite work as a whole.

With the cooking camp story arc complete, the specter of another highly competitive event is looming on the horizon. Hopefully we'll get a little break from Totsuki (as we do in the manga) before launching into it, but even more, let's hope that the pacing improves as we leave the camp behind.

Rating: B

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.