Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma

Episode 23

Sometimes the way anime thinks breasts works is enough to give you nightmares. (Or at least a major fit of the giggles.) This penultimate episode of Food Wars! is a stunning example of the questionable physics involved in anime bosoms – apparently at Totsuki, women's breasts can move on their own to complement her emotions. When you think about it, that means that they are apparently sentient, able to comprehend the thoughts of the female they're attached to in order to bounce menacingly as Nikumi tries to intimidate Natsume or to flip up when Natsume is excited by the taste of a dish. Gosh, what a world to live in!

Sarcasm aside, this episode, while not decreasing in terms of plot from last week, takes us back to the issues raised by episode one months ago, and stands to make some viewers uncomfortable in the same way. With the action shifting over to the other half of the competition, we find that the judges for Group A are much harsher than those for Group B, like that one teacher who makes it a policy not to give out As no matter how good a student's work is. The chief offender here is Natsume, twin sister of Orie, and she is simply determined not to be impressed. So once she gets a taste of what the Totsuki students can really offer, naturally she has to be shown to have been mistaken in her snobbery. Regretfully, Food Wars! decides to do this via sexualized foodgasms of her liking the dishes against her will, trembling and drooling in anticipation of something she clearly does not want to enjoy. Had this been used for just one of the entries, it would have been a little uncomfortable, but not as much of a problem as it is when she has a different, highly sexualized reaction to every single dish made by a named character. There are no penetrative aspects, as was the problem with earlier foodgasms, but the quivering of her body, one scene with her tongue, and the expression on her face – to say nothing of when she collapses from exhaustion – all make this episode problematic. There is one attempt to incorporate the men into the sexualized reaction, but that's it. That these scenes can be interpreted as punishment for her off-hand dismissal of the students' dishes is really what makes it troubling to me. If these were just especially good recipes and she hadn't been so forthright about refusing to give any points previously, it would still be exploitative, but in a more basic fanservice way. I realize that not everyone will agree with my take here, but it was often enough to make this episode much less enjoyable for me; at least previous instances of uncomfortable foodgasms were one-offs, rather than making up most of the episode.

There's also the underlying feeling that they were put in to make the episode both longer and more interesting. As I noted last week, there's a definite formula with this competition, and while that's fine, it has been stuck in this pattern for a while now. I can't help wondering if this was done to spice up the action, so to speak, as well as to punish Natsume for her actions. There's certainly an increase in regular fanservice, with boobs and butts aplenty, and even cause for a fair amount of censoring. (Via bright lights and yes, always annoying.) There's a little less backstory for secondary characters as well, with both Akira and Ryu getting only brief flashes, unlike the more expansive histories we saw for some of the girls.

On the bright side, the food itself is still interesting, as are the explanations. Fellow New Englanders will probably find the lobster doesn't look like what we're used to – most notably missing the large claws – but the image of Napoleon Bonaparte riding a lobster is priceless. There's also some amusing irony when Natsume refuses to “slurp” the body of the lobster but has zero issues slurping up udon noodles, clearly not making the connection between the two. The end of the episode does a great job of setting up the tension for the final showdown between Soma and Akira, and next week's finale has the potential to be very good.

The major issue with episode twenty-three is really the attempt to use the uncomfortable fanservice of the early episodes to humiliate Natsume. Ludicrous boob physics are silly, but would not have been enough to make me feel this was not as good as this show can be. But I can say that these past episodes while they may have dragged a bit, have certainly taken us to the point where the Akira/Soma showdown is very highly anticipated, and I'm looking forward to seeing whether they'll tie or one will come out on top as the reigning King of Curry.

Rating: C+

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.