One of the most consistently entertaining titles that Viz Media has acquired is Yuto Tsukeda and Shun Saeki’s Food Wars! (Shokugeki No Soma).  To enjoy Food Wars! one has only to believe that a cooking school could exist in which young chefs are pitted against each other like gladiators to prepare the best dish.  No, they’re not baring short swords and setting out to impale each other; they’re baring their chef’s knives, and other cooking utensils, to create whatever masterpieces they can within the confines of a rapidly moving manga.  This is a review of the 11th volume in the series, but as it is inextricably tied to Soma’s challenge of Subaru in volume 10, I’ve recapped that volume for you in the following brief paragraphs.

In Food Wars (Shokugeki No Soma) Volume 10, “Conditions of Battle,” Yukihira’s respected rival Takumi lost his mezzaluna—his chef’s knife—to Subaru Mimasaka.  Subaru, who has claimed 100 knives by defeating other chefs in shokugeki (cooking duels), is painted in very broad strokes to be the monster of both volumes, kind of like Beowulf’s Grendel in the way that he stalks his enemies (To uncover the recipes they will use in the shokugeki), grinds them up, and, by surpassing their own recipes, spits them out and takes their knives as a trophy of the defeat.

Volume 10 ended with Soma agreeing to a shokugeki against Subaru, with the following stakes:  if Soma loses, he will surrender his own knife and give up being a chef; and, if Subaru loses, Subaru will give Soma all 100 knives he has won.  Soma is so confident in his skill that, after he issues the challenge, he tells Subaru he will be making beef stew.  Subaru, accustomed to stalking his competition to find out their game, is perhaps thrown a little off his own game by this bold move.

The first half of Volume 11, “The Sun Always Rises,” deals with Soma & Subaru’s shokugeki.  Their cooking duel grasps at one of the fundamental themes of cooking—that of art vs. science.  Cooking, involved as it is with  measurement and planning, can be distilled to a science, and Subaru has become to using this simple science to duplicate his enemies’ effects, and then, raise them up a notch or two by adding this or that effect to the preparation.  Subaru finds Soma resistant to this method, as the latter’s preparation is not mere planning, but an ongoing and never-ending communion with the skills that he has acquired in honing his craft, and he lets a good portion of the magic happen at his counter and stove during the shokugeki.  In the end, Subaru decides that Soma is going to ad lib his recipe during the cooking duel, and Subaru believes this failure of planning on Soma’s part will give Subaru the victory.  But Subaru may be wrong that Soma is throwing in the towel, and he may be misreading Soma’s more artistic devotion to cooking—cooking as a practice, not merely a preparation—as ad libbing.

In the second half of “The Sun Always Rises,” we see a battle between two more kitchen archetypes.  Ryo, a “kitchen warrior” is likened at times to a fiery dragon due to his passion for cooking, and at other times to a player of collectible card games, due to the way that he marshalls his resources.  In his opponent Akira Hayama, we see an inexhaustible catalog of spices and scents, ruled by the pure finesse of Hayama’s certain taste.  Ryo trains Rocky style, with one armed push-ups; Hayama trains his restraint in literal bondage, tied to a chair and blindfolded, as Jun places an array of aromatics near him for identification by scent alone.  This is not only the age old dualism of fire and ice, passion and restraint, it is also about the simmering rage that results in both chefs when the passion of one is putted against the sureness of knowledge in the other.

I won’t spoil the end of either shokugeki for you, but you only have to wait until April 5th for Volume 11 to arrive on shelves and find out for yourself.  I will tell you that if you think you know who wins both shkugeki, you are completely wrong, as there’s a bit of a twist…

Food Wars continues to be a delight to read.  Like the multi-layered winning recipes in these volumes, each rich story has multiple levels of meaning, each of which satisfies the reader in a different way.  For instance, although this has unconventional material for a shonen manga, you can definitely read this as one—there are not only plenty of exaggerated battle scenes, but also voluptuously over-endowed women, both of which are presented in fantasy sequences when the mangaka are visualizing the chefs’ and the tasters’ experiences and feelings for the readers.  For instance, in Ryo’s shokugeki, there are scenes that could come out of a more traditional shonen manga like Yu-Gi-Oh.  And the following “foodgasms” put to shame the doubly deep cleavage of other shonen manga:

"Foodgasm" scenes from Food Wars.

“Foodgasm” scenes from Food Wars.

foodwars20160319_01341137

“It cuts straight through me,” squees one of the judges.  When this second panel occurs, the judges are actually sitting in their seats, and, having just sampled the competing dishes, their sensual poses are mental phantasms that are supposed to portray how the food makes them feel.

So yeah, this is definitely not only a shonen manga, it is a big kids’ shonen manga (appropriately rated T+ by Viz Media).  However, one can imagine that it crosses the aisles and appeals to readers of both shonen and shojo manga, and, as the book is humorous and takes an adult tone, not talking down to its readership, it no doubt appeals to adult readers as well.  Adults have learned through long experience that under the tensions and repressions of adult life, there simmers a nonsensical cartoon of lusts and appetites, and this book will give expression to those seldom voiced drives.

Food Wars! can also be read as a series of allegorical battles, as I’ve alluded to in the recap above.  In volume 11, one is between art & science, and the other between the fire of passion and the icy refinement of taste.  And additionally, amazingly, Food Wars! can be read as an epicurean essay with the authors providing authentic food lore and even sharing recipes at the end of each part.

The multi-layered narrative is blended seamlessly, so that the manga is an effortless read, despite the fact that it actually contains a good bit of information.  At times, I’m reminded of Scott Pilgrim, although the fantasy element in Food Wars is more ornate and strictly decorative in a tale that is pretty firmly grounded in reality, despite the premise of gladiator chefs and some fanciful depictions of food love.

To do justice to Food Wars! in a review, a critic should really write their review in manga form, with their own approximation of how good reading each volume makes them feel set by artfully drawn “readergasms”; lacking the art skills to do this, I yet hope that you have an inkling of how much I adore Food Wars.

Related posts: