“Begin cooking!”
Impression
I love how everyone is doing their best to put on a great show for the audience, and Soma is just sitting there, asleep after leaving a pot to boil.
In general, it ended up as an episode focusing on everyone but Soma – everyone used the month they had before the Autumn Election in different ways, and we learnt a lot about the motivation of some of the newer characters. Houjou Miyoko in particular has a lot of ambition – she wants to do well as a girl in a sexist industry, and thus wants to gain credibility by graduating from Tootsuki as the very first female First Seat of the Elite Ten. It’s why she was so interested in Megumi when she heard about the Shokugeki she had with Shinomiya – and why she was so disappointed when she learnt of Soma’s involvement. Other characters like Sadatsuka Nao have goals which aren’t as praiseworthy but are no less lofty – she’s the stalker featured in the ‘Sacchan no Sexy Curry’ ED with an obsession over Erina-sama. Poor Hishoko didn’t do anything to deserve all that hate!
Also look at what happened to Isami! Like, holy crap that’s drastic.
In light of the training camp, it’s not really surprising that the preliminaries weed people out really fast – back then, you were expelled after practically one mistake. Here, there’s no threat of expulsion, but aiming to be among the best four in your tournament block isn’t easy either. In practice, it’s basically a group Shokugeki where you cook in front of an audience before presenting your dish to a panel of judges. And the thing is, even after you count out all the scrubs and background characters, there are easily more than four capable cooks from each block, which is what makes even the preliminaries exciting – it’s harder than normal to tell who’ll make it through. The number of characters in the spotlight don’t match up to the number of open spots at all, especially as most of the Polar Star members are foreshadowed to be quite skilled. Kurokiba has put on his bandanna, and Isshiki is watching out for what Megumi will do – the hidden potential of some of these characters might make the results rather surprising. And meanwhile, the ones who were hyped are seemingly doing conventional things, like Hayama, or even asleep like Soma!
