We're heading into the last battle to determine if either Shizuku or Issei is worthy of even searching for “The Drops of God.” Volume 11 into 12 just hits it out of the park, with a perfect play of the best of this series. Also, that is a carefully chosen metaphor for this volume, as our attention once again turns back to the baseball-inspired Bistro 9. Having sorted Chef Mikasa's life out after the owner of her restaurant, Angoulême, attempted to fix the Tokyo Food and Wine show, we now find that Harashima, the “captain” of the team at Bistro 9, would like Shizuku to do him a favor.

At last, this series has a good couple of innings. Without Issei's pretentiousness, or the pressure of the contest with him on his mind, Shizuku and the Taiyo Beer team pull out a clutch…okay, I'll stop now. Shizuku needs help, Harashima needs a favor, and we get the best arc to date of the manga, suffused with the deep love of wine and food that made me want to try every wine, eat every food. The arc ends with a romance at the restaurant they helped, and Shizuku takes a step forward. This is what this series is best at.

Previous volumes have dug deeply into French and Italian cuisines, but the finale for the “Drops of God” contest is to understand Chinese cuisine—we begin with Imperial cuisine, which originated in the Shandong and Jiangsu regions and (for our modern benefit) has influenced what is thought of as Beijing cuisine in the 21st century. For an American brought up on “Chinese” food of the mid-20th century, which was often Polynesian themed and is mostly what a Chinese friend of a friend described as “candied food,” this was fun.

When a winemaker by the name of Sara Perez is mentioned, I suddenly and forcibly realized what has actually changed from the original series to this one. Where the initial Drops of God gently introduced different regions, countries whose wine you haven't tried yet (Argentinian wines are really good!). In Drops of God: Mariage, we're not just focusing on wine and food; we're learning more about how wines are made. In the last few decades, New World wines aren't new or surprising anymore. But agroecology and biosustainability are. And, at last, while Shizuku sees images of Imperial China as he drinks, we are reminded that the future is in wines grown by younger winemakers to grow on a warming planet. Wine growers everywhere are looking for new methods, new and old grapes that do better in hotter, drier earth. They are pioneering new means of water reclamation and use. All of which leads so beautifully to the upcoming second season of the Drops of God television series.

If Drops of God was a 101/102 level course in wines, focused on what a person might expect from wine grown around the world, then Drops of God: Mariage is a senior year course with more specific discussion of how wines pair with food, how their growth, the means with which they are turned into wine, and bottling affect those parings. Sure, we still get fantastic visions along without wine, but now we begin to understand that the wine in this case is more like a tarot card than an encyclopedia. Shizuku's vision always includes people, and the wine is a motif for the emotions captured in that scene. Will that be enough for him to win? I cannot even begin to guess, especially as the next arc will very likely belong to Issei, who has aged, but not at all mellowed. If anything, when we do show up, he's now treating Maki less like someone he owes, and more like a student he's teaching. In turn, she's less a sophisticated businesswoman and more exaggeratedly expressive, in an infantilizing way.

A bit more superficially, Drops of God: Mariage also gives space to women in the wine-making world. This manga is some years old, but it is still extraordinary that women in any industry are seen as a thing that must be mentioned—but it's good that this manga makes space to make the point that women are among the leaders in this industry.

The last volume kicks the Chinese battle into high gear, and we are treated to an Iron Chef-like display from Shizuku, where a menu is pulled from less-than-stellar ingredients, and a full-on display in which Issei takes a common food and overcomplicates every step. In many ways, this is the perfect example of these two combatants: Shizuku reminding us that wine and food don't have to be expensive to be good, and Issei striving for perfection to a level of obsession.

Two small items of interest happen here as well—Shizuku makes a new friend in Bistro 9's owner, Harashima, who accompanies him on his Chinese food quest, and Maki, Issei's sponsor and sometime lover, takes the companion role for Issei. It's kind of nice to see Shizuku bond with a guy his own age, and Issei, well, he smiles. That's new.

We're heading into the final preliminary battle to see if either of them is worthy(!) to get the clue that probably doesn't really lead to the “Drops of God,” but might lead them to understand their father/mentor a bit better.