“All ingredients bow before worthy meat!”
Impression
Soma is discovering a bit more of Tootsuki every episode, and it’s clear that he’s impressed by what he sees – from the farm the Polar Star residents are nurturing to the huge variety of research societies available for the students to look into the sort of cooking they’re interested in. And we had a small first hint into what Megumi will later develop as her own cooking ‘style’ – I don’t remember so much emphasis on that in the manga (although it may just be the hindsight I now have that I didn’t before) so it’ll serve as a nice bit of foreshadowing into later events.
For now, the main emphasis is on the now-introduced Meat Master, a first-year known as Mito Ikumi who is very loyal to Erina-sama. It’s on her orders that Nikumi has set out to shut down the Don RS which, despite its history and fruitful research is now about to be axed. Konishi has been pressured into a Shokugeki, and will almost certainly lose to a powerhouse first-year in light of their difference in skill and ability to procure ingredients, if not because of Konishi’s overwhelming lack of self-confidence. It’s no surprise to see Soma throw himself into the fire given his penchant to get into all sorts of trouble, and it’s a hurdle which has a very real possibility of Soma actually losing and failing to clear it – and with that comes the price of having to leave Tootsuki. It looks like he hasn’t even given the prospect of failure a second thought though! The relative value of the ‘bets’ made by Soma and Nikumi might seem a little odd at first, but to Nikumi it must be a really humiliating prospect to have to join the Don RS. Her pedigree and what she deems important in cooking goes against the idea of a cheap and fast ‘diner’ dish like a don, and it’ll be enough of a blow to her pride if she has to join the society and help it out. This first Shokugeki that Soma is participating in is basically a clash between his ideals and that of Erina-sama’s.
Nikumi is putting priority on the price and quality of her ingredients – and she knows enough to make sure that a high price guarantees quality. It’s what Soma wants to go against – he could have gone all out and bought the best meat he could, but it would go against the very reason he challenged her to begin with. And he wouldn’t have the money to do that anyway, especially considering that he had to experiment with various versions of his dish. The irony, of course, is that they spent the first bit of the episode advertising how good ingredients were important! But it’s also about adhering to the style of the dish you’re making, and this is something they will emphasise more than once as more Shokugekis are conducted. Soma and Nikumi are competing to see who can make the best don. Not who can make the most wonderful and expensive dish that will be enough to make Erina-sama blush. So what will be important is a knowledge and understanding of what a don is, and what makes a don – and in that respect, Soma has the advantage.
An overall solid episode – but I thought we might have gotten a Shokugeki, but I guess not:(. I also liked the foreshadowing part, but I think I remember that scene from the manga? Maybe not. The only thing I wasn’t too impressed with was Nikumi’s seiyu. It wasn’t bad but I felt like they could have done better, but I think I’m just being picky.
I was hoping this would be resolved within an episode, but a lot of time was spent on exposition. Oh well!
I went and had a look, and the farm scene is definitely in the manga but only happened after the Shokugeki against Nikumi. Looks like they switched things around a bit so that the episode would end where it did. Nikumi’s seiyuu is slightly different from what I expected, but yeah her voice isn’t bad. Everyone pales in comparison to Erina-sama though!