Shokugeki no Soma

[MFauli]

There´s bullshit and then there´s bullshit. This victory of Yukihira´s didn´t have the slightest hint as to why HE won this match.

[shinta|hikari]

Because his stew made men gayer.

[neflight86]

I believe all of the additional meats were cow-based, still, right? I figure that still counts as beef stew.

[Buffalobiian]

I believe all of the additional meats were cow-based, still, right? I figure that still counts as beef stew.

But he only stewed the ox-tail. That's what makes it an oxtail beef stew.

Pork garnish is readily acceptable because it's garnish and serves as an accent to the dish. Oxtail made up maybe 20% of Souma's dish. The rest of it is "beef cooked in a variety of manner then added to soup", even if they were all cow-based meats.

The judges were unhappy about that at first since it's barely a stew.

That said, he didn't actually have to make a stew. He just has to make something Western and amazing.

[shinta|hikari]

What soup? The oxtail is taken out of the soup/sauce when serving.

[Buffalobiian]

What's the hexagonal-looking piece of meat in the middle of their dishes?

Looks like oxtail to me.

[shinta|hikari]

It's taken out of the soup and served. The soup doesn't go into the dish. They explained that in the last episode when talking about garnishes and why they are so important (they're not).

[Buffalobiian]

So this broth/sauce isn't what the oxtail is cooked in?

[shinta|hikari]

Actually, I got confused by the type of stew he was making, thinking it was more similar to nikujaga. The sauce DOES go into the dish. What doesn't go into the dish is everything else it was cooked with. So in your example image, those carrots would be strained out.

However, the stew doesn't have a soupy sauce. It'll be reduced to a thick consistency, and the garnishes are not mixed in it. Garnishes, by definition, are toppings or placed on the side, not mixed in the sauce. So the flavors they had during cooking are distinct from the stew, supposedly allowing for that amusement park effect. That I can actually understand as a very fun eating experience. It's just not stew, and those aren't garnishes anymore because they outweigh the main dish lol.

It sounds more like a beef platter. Actually, it would've made more sense for Souma to win that way. Mimasaka thinks he's making stew. Then Souma makes a completely new dish that isn't stew, but is western, with stew being only one part of it, making Mimasaka's dish the incomplete one in comparison. That's a better reason for winning than "I used my whole protagonist's life to make this dish."

[Munsu]

There´s bullshit and then there´s bullshit. This victory of Yukihira´s didn´t have the slightest hint as to why HE won this match.

He won the match because it tasted better and was superior. What other hint do you need?

[shinta|hikari]

I think it's because he was calling it a stew when it technically isn't anymore. It's like having a pasta competition and using pasta as a side dish with a giant steak as the main.

However, as Buff said, it's not a stew contest. It's a western dish contest. That said, the cooking techniques Souma used for the "garnishes" were pretty Japanese... So it's still not a perfect fit to the theme.

[MFauli]

He won the match because it tasted better and was superior. What other hint do you need?

You´re missing the point. Soma´s opponent was there because he´s known as the copy-monster. Stealing any cook´s cooking and improving upon it.

Soma won because he broke he either broke the rules, or because he was unpredictable because ... BECAUSE!

I actually had hoped Soma would just cook whatever he planned to and not do anything special, then winning, because "it tastes better", showing his pure cooking prowess. But that didn´t happen.

[neflight86]

I actually had hoped Soma would just cook whatever he planned to and not do anything special, then winning, because "it tastes better", showing his pure cooking prowess. But that didn´t happen.

From how they described it, I assumed that what happened was: copycat took Soma's recipe, and improved it with a simple twist. Soma took his recipe and added a lifetime worth of experimentations and revisions to improve it. I believe he mentioned it wasn't even done being revised until that morning. You could argue no amount of profiling could capture the entirety of a person's cooking theology if brought to bear (copycat always cornered his opponents with a baited shokugeki to narrow their thinking under the pressure and make predictions easier), or that his profiling simply didn't account for that facet of his personality, the calm under pressure no matter what.

I doubt I've convinced you, and it is the author's job to garner buy in from the audience, but I wanted to share that I feel there is 'enough' there to conclude a deserved win with what we were given.

[shinta|hikari]

Enough bullshit, definitely lol.

Basically, Souma overcame the copycat by breaking the rules of his copycat ability instead of going around it or thinking of something new/different. It's typical shounen, and last time I looked, this is shounen. Mimasaka summarized it best. "This guy went beyond my trace ability!"

I'm pretty sure most if not all the chefs Mimasaka battled put all their experience and skill to the fore considering the stakes. It'd be weird if no one else did what Souma allegedly did, which was, well, do his best.

[neflight86]

Actually, as copycat himself mentioned, most opponents panicked or even gave up "not producing a dish". Even Aldini's shokugeki demonstrated he was in a compromised state of mind with his and his brother's 'honor' on the line. People generally don't perform as well under pressure, and the pressure of being imitated (or even surpassed by that imitation) further compromises your abilities.

As an unrelated example: I play Street Fighter. The most stressful match I can be in is a mirror match, because both my opponent and I are working with the same toolset, and the winner simply better leveraged that toolset to his or her advantage. Excuses like 'that was a bad matchup for me' or 'I didn't know that character's mixups' don't work and as a player that loses in this scenario, you either choose to ignore the results or try to be objective and see where you made a mistake. That is 'back of the mind' terrifying to people with egos (like me), leading to poorer, reactionary play.

If anything, Soma's shounen power is his complete disregard of the weight of competition, and the weight of loss. Maybe this is the manifestation of a complete lack of pride?

[shinta|hikari]

Then the reason Souma won was simply because he managed to stay calm. The bullshit about pouring all your experience into a dish is an insult to every other chef Mimasaka has battled, including Aldini. It assumes they weren't doing their best. But that was the exact reason that was mentioned. Souma staying calm was just an afterthought that supposedly enabled him to do what he did.

I wrote an alternative explanation earlier:

It sounds more like a beef platter. Actually, it would've made more sense for Souma to win that way. Mimasaka thinks he's making stew. Then Souma makes a completely new dish that isn't stew, but is western, with stew being only one part of it, making Mimasaka's dish the incomplete one in comparison. That's a better reason for winning than "I used my whole protagonist's life to make this dish."

And the reason why I like it, aside from the fact that I wrote it, is that it combines the 2 patterns Mimasaka observed in his opponents. 1) They try to trick him. 2) They try to improvise.

This method is a combination of both. Mimasaka gets tricked because Souma decided to improvise using inspiration in the end. So Mimasaka completely read Souma's stew dish and exceeded it. What he failed to read was that Souma was looking at a much larger picture, with that stew dish just being a part of it. While Mimasaka was only looking at Souma's past and emulating it, Souma was looking at the vast future without pigeonholing himself.

It kinda is what this episode tried to do, but explained and delivered better. It's also a completely fitting end for a troll like Mimasaka.

But then again, this is shounen. Souma isn't supposed to be devious or smart enough for such a plan. He's supposed to power through impossible obstacles and befriend all his former enemies.

[Munsu]

Then the reason Souma won was simply because he managed to stay calm. The bullshit about pouring all your experience into a dish is an insult to every other chef Mimasaka has battled, including Aldini. It assumes they weren't doing their best. But that was the exact reason that was mentioned. Souma staying calm was just an afterthought that supposedly enabled him to do what he did.

I wrote an alternative explanation earlier:


And the reason why I like it, aside from the fact that I wrote it, is that it combines the 2 patterns Mimasaka observed in his opponents. 1) They try to trick him. 2) They try to improvise.

This method is a combination of both. Mimasaka gets tricked because Souma decided to improvise using inspiration in the end. So Mimasaka completely read Souma's stew dish and exceeded it. What he failed to read was that Souma was looking at a much larger picture, with that stew dish just being a part of it. While Mimasaka was only looking at Souma's past and emulating it, Souma was looking at the vast future without pigeonholing himself.

It kinda is what this episode tried to do, but explained and delivered better. It's also a completely fitting end for a troll like Mimasaka.

But then again, this is shounen. Souma isn't supposed to be devious or smart enough for such a plan. He's supposed to power through impossible obstacles and befriend all his former enemies.

I think you're mischaracterizing what Souma did vs. what the rest did. The rest came into the competition with a set recipe, yes the best version of it they had (or maybe what they were complacent with at the time) only to be one-upped by the opponent who did the same, but with a twist (one can assume that the twist was also tailored made to get the judges approval).

What Souma did was kept trying to surpass his previous recipes, while at the same time leaving no trace of what he was attempting. He said it himself, he created it in his head. More so, he was confident that his experience and all his gains and failures are not something Mimasaka was going to be able to duplicate. There was no info to gather.

So in the end, it was a new dish for him that only Souma knew about and since as prolific as Mimasaka's profiling may be, he was simply incapable of first guessing the exact dish Souma was going to do, and then secondly wasn't going to one-up it by adding his twist.

It's not that he put all his experiences and did his best (as opposed as to other opponents), the point was that this wasn't exactly improvised (though that point is still unclear all told, guess it depends on what one means by improv). It wasn't really a dish he come up with suddenly, it was a dish that his experiences built him towards. It was a dish that only existed for him and him alone, until now that the cat is out of the bag.

Call it bullshit or whatever, but the premise of this show is based on said bullshit... seems pointless to complain about this arbitrary way of competition 6 episodes into season 2.

But yeah, I also agree that the explanation failed as it were.

[shinta|hikari]

What Souma did was kept trying to surpass his previous recipes, while at the same time leaving no trace of what he was attempting.

This is literally what every chef should be doing in a cook off against Mimasaka. My point was this isn't anything special or impressive. That's why I said it's an insult to Aldini and the other beaten competitors if they aren't even considered to have given their best.

Basically, Souma is just plain better than everyone that was beaten before him, so he won. No tactics, no twists, nothing.

And to be clear, I've always been a critic of the shounen bullshit and culinary inaccuracies of this show, not just this time.

[Munsu]

This is literally what every chef should be doing in a cook off against Mimasaka. My point was this isn't anything special or impressive. That's why I said it's an insult to Aldini and the other beaten competitors if they aren't even considered to have given their best.

Basically, Souma is just plain better than everyone that was beaten before him, so he won. No tactics, no twists, nothing.

And to be clear, I've always been a critic of the shounen bullshit and culinary inaccuracies of this show, not just this time.

1. You're assuming the opponents were aware of Mimasaka and his style, Aldini was unaware of it.

2. Cooks can become complacent with a specific recipe, more so, additional "twists" for lack of better word to tailor make that specific recipe to the judges, which is Mimasaka did. They did their best because they were unaware that there was anywhere higher to go.

3. From the get go it's been a point of focus to show that Souma has more experience, wordly and proffesional experience, than just about anyone or most in this school. So putting all his experiences together on one dish will be vastly different to another's experience.

4. Main point though is that he left no trace of what he was attempting.

5. And yes, not everyone is capable of giving their best at any given moment. While I don't agree with your conclusion, insulting as it may be, yep, they very well might have not put the best what they had to offer. They're students and kids after all, and even if they weren't.

6. Also important to note, that was mentioned in the context of not why or how he made this great dish, but it was to explain why it wasn't "improv" and whatever that means.

[shinta|hikari]

1 - Trying to improve your best recipes applies to all match ups, not just Mimasaka, and in fact should be done by all chefs constantly. Take note, some recipes can in fact not be improved. Which is why I think Mimasaka's style is inherently bullshit, but I digress.

Also, I'm assuming at least some of the losers knew Mimasaka's style. So many people in the show apparently do.

2, 3, and 5 are basically elaborating on my point: Souma is just plain better than everyone who lost to Mimasaka, so he won. Souma constantly strives to improve, has more experience, and is always calm. He's better in all aspects!

4 is the 1st option of Mimasaka's opponents, as he said so himself. Pretend to do something else while hiding your Ace as much as possible. Everyone else still got traced, except Souma, even after Mimasaka got full coverage of his trials from the reporter.

My complaint was that Souma didn't win this match by tactics, seeing a weakness in Mimasaka's style, or turning Mimasaka's trace against him. He just bruteforced it with his sheer superiority over all those who lost. He was basically immune to trace just because he is that good.

Or everyone else just kinda sucks because they don't investigate the enemy, don't constantly improve themselves, don't have enough experience, and don't have the guts to stay calm in a contest.

However, Mimasaka actually recognized all those strong points that Souma possessed and still had full confidence in his trace. Why did his trace fail then? It all boils down to Souma doing 6. The "not improv but a product of experience" element is supposedly what put his stew above Mimasaka's trace.

6 is the truly bullshit part. It's either you made it up on the spot or you planned it beforehand. Calling it both and saying it's a sudden ejaculation of accumulated experience is bullshit.

Souma basically said, "I improvised, but my improv is different from the improv of everyone else who tried it against you because I've got experience (that Aldini also had but meh) and mad skillz. Your trace deserved no countermeasure because I can beat it by being myself."

The problem with this conclusion is that the trace ability was built up in such a way that it was a perfect copy of the recipe with an additional twist. It has never failed before despite everyone else's attempts to counter it. But Souma beats it without even doing anything to directly address it. He beat it by being his bad ass self, but it was explained in such a way as if he had actually done something special for that match. He didn't.

It's like watching a shounen fighting series, have an enemy that can copy moves perfectly plus more, and then having that enemy beaten by the main character just because the main character is stronger and faster. What was the point of introducing the copy element?