FOOD WARS!: SHOKUGEKI NO SOMA, VOL. 36
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia
STORY: Yuto Tsukuda
ART: Shun Saeki
TRANSLATION: Adrienne Beck
CONTRIBUTOR: Yuki Morisaki
LETTERS: James Gaubatz; Mara Coman
EDITOR: Jennifer LeBlanc
ISBN: 978-1-9747-1542-8; paperback (June 2020); Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
248pp, B&W, $9.99 US, $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK
Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma is a shonen manga series written by Yuto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki. Yuki Morisaki, a culinary researcher, also works as a contributor, providing the recipes for the series. Food Wars! was serialized in the Japanese manga magazine, Weekly Shonen Jump, from November 2012 to June 2019. VIZ Media published an English-language edition of the manga as a paperback graphic novel series from August 2014 to June 2020 under two imprints: first, “Shonen Jump Advanced” and then, “Shonen Jump.”
Food Wars! focuses on teenager Soma Yukihira. He grows up cooking in his father's Yukihira Family Restaurant. The 15-year-old wants to be a better chef than his father, Joshiro Yukihira (Saiba), so he hones his skills day in and day out. His father decides to enroll him in a classy culinary school, Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute, a place that prides itself on a 10 percent graduation rate. If Soma Yukihira really does not want to attend Totsuki, how can he succeed?
As Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma, Vol. 36 (Chapters 309 to 315; entitled “Shokugeki No Soma”) opens, the “Blue,” a world-renowned cooking tournament for the best of the best young chefs from around the world, approaches its conclusion. This year, for the first time, traditional chefs clash with the “underground noir” (or “cuisiniers noir”) chefs. Soma has been eager for a rematch with the noir, Asahi Saiba, who defeated him.
Now, the two are facing off, and the judge is the impossible-to-please “Lady Mana,” who is Erina Nakiri's mysterious mother. Like Erina, Mana suffers the “curse of the 'Divine Tongue',” and Mana has not found a dish that satisfies her in years. As “the Book” (highest judge), Mana has demanded that Soma and Asahi prepare a dish that represents the “five grand cuisines of the world,” which are French, Chinese, Turkish, Indian, and Italian.
Asahi has shocked the audience with his dish, the “basty,” a soup covered with a lattice pie crust, and it represents the five grand cuisines. Even Lady Mana is so impressed by what she tastes that she both experiences “the gifting” transfers it to those around her. And what is Soma's answer to Asahi's basty? It's fried rice?!
Can Soma win with what seems like a rather ordinary dish? And finally, can Soma inspire the dispirited Erina to be herself again?
THE LOWDOWN: The Food Wars! manga spent the last 30 or so chapters racing towards the conclusion of its narrative. At the grand cooking tournament, the Blue, readers prepared to learn the answer to the question of who is the best chef?
Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma Graphic Novel Volume 36 is the final tankobon (graphic novel) volume of the series. The English-language edition was originally published in June 2020, but I only recently had a chance to finish reading the last few volumes of the series.
What can I tell you, dear readers? To the end, writer Yuto Tsukuda and artist Shun Saeki maintained the series' mix of competition, camaraderie, and cooking. As he has been doing since the beginning of the series, Yuki Morisaki, wrote home versions of shokugeki recipes, which, in this volume, was Soma's winning dish. It is that consistency that kept Food Wars! an exciting read throughout its six-year, 315-chapter, 36-volume run.
To the end, Adrienne Beck's translation catches the sense of competition and of comedy-drama in all their varies modes. Letterers James Gaubatz and Mara Coman created a rhythm that kept this often dialogue-heavy story from overwhelming readers. Of the foodie manga that I have read, I think Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma is the one most likely to continue to capture the interest of readers in the decade of the 2020s the way it did in the decade of the 20-teens. I think it is a must for fans of Weekly Shonen Jump series.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Readers hungry for good manga will want the “Shonen Jump” title, Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma.
A
9 out of 10
The volume includes the following bonus features:
– Afterwords written by Yuto Tsukuda, Shun Saeki, and Yuki Morisaki
– The three-part epilogue, “Food Wars! Le Dessert,” that was originally published in Jump GIGA Summer 2019. The three parts are entitled “Le Presént,” “Le Passé,” and “Le Futur.”
– “Special Commemorative Illustrations on the End of 'Food Wars!'” from Eiichiro Oda of “One Piece,” Kohei Horikoshi of “My Hero Academia,” Yuki Tabata of “Black Clover,” and Tadahiro Miura of “Yuna of the Haunted Hot Springs”
– miscellaneous illustrations
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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