Food Wars Volume 20 - Review
By: Zelyhon
With the third season of the anime underway, it's time to catch back up on the manga. Volume 20 picks up right about the time the third season starts, so let's jump right in!
This volume of Food Wars starts with the conclusion of the impromptu Shokugeki between Tsukasa, the First Seat of the Council of Ten, and Soma. To the surprise of pretty much no one, Tsukasa stomps Soma flat. Tsukasa then doesn't force Soma to join Central, essentially letting him off the hook for the consequences he threatened. As I was reading it, this was pretty much what I expected to happen. There was no possible way that Soma, at this point in the series, would be able to match the First Seat, even in an spur-of-the-moment match without Tsukasa having time to prepare. At the same time, having Soma essentially join the opposition, while an interesting proposition, wasn't going to happen either. While there wasn't much surprise in the outcome of the match, it was executed quite well. We got to see more tangible growth from Soma in developing his own specialty after learning from Shinomiya. This continues to play on the tangible lesson from his loss to Hayama in the finals. It's good that this is continuing to be a theme with Soma and definitely follows in some of the footsteps of the descriptions we had of his father's food.
As we move on from the end of the club purge the Azami administration orchestrated, we find that both Megumi and Ikumi helped their clubs to survive the purge. Azami and Tsukasa continue to scheme and have settled on the advancement exams as the next method to weed out the resistance. They continue to frame their takeover of the school as a positive. Instead of weeding out the best students from the rest, all the students need to do now is to follow the teachings of Central and they will all pass. While the previous system may not have been perfect, the Old Guard of the school notes that this stifles the chefs and forces them into a specific mold, simply pumping out the same dishes handed down from on-high by their "betters." I enjoyed seeing more of Azami's larger scheme for the school unfold, especially with him continuing to play it off as a positive. It puts an interesting spin on him, since only a few now even recognize what he is doing is against the core values of the school. It ties nicely in with Soma's growth and how future students will not only not be able to do that, but will not even recognize that it is something that they are being deprived of.
Of course, these exams pose a problem for the rest of the Polar Star dorm. As none of them follow Azami's script, they are unwilling to simply imitate the dishes to pass. As such, they are all facing expulsion. Like with the corruption of the Shokugeki system, they know the instructors will be biased against them and do everything in their power to stop them. So, in the face of that, how can they possibly pass?
As they are deliberating on that question, Erina comes to Soma's room to talk further about his father and her past. She opens up in a way that neither Soma nor the reader have ever seen. She talks to him about her admiration for his father and how he is her inspiration, but that it mingles with the fact that she doesn't believe Azami to be wholly wrong either. In the face of this, Soma opts to cook for her, to reinspire her with some more Yukihira-style cooking like his father did so long ago. Soma's dish, a tempura egg, is conceptually really interesting. I also very much enjoyed the description of how it was prepared and how out-there of a preparation it was. It certainly makes the point that a dish that weird and experimental would probably never be discovered under the Central system, since that sort of experimentation would be forbidden.
The dish does the job and reinvigorates Erina. With renewed determination, she summons the whole dorm to the front and talks about the dangers and threats confronting them. She then turns it all around to inspire the dorm and fully convey that she is going to be right there on the front lines fighting alongside them. Even if she herself would never be expelled by Central, she intends to put everything she can on the line to fight on with her friends. I loved Erina's speech to the dorm about the challenges and how they would simply have to overcome it through the strength of their cooking. It marks a major turning point for her character. Erina hasn't been an antagonist for a while, but this is the start of her actively helping the dorm in its resistance against her father. Prior to this, she's been a passive watcher. Now, with Erina stepping forward to help teach and train on the regional foods, she'll take more of a spotlight. I'm personally very excited to watch Erina more actively resist her father's plans.
Thus, we are moving on to the next major arc of the series, with all members of the dorm, assisted by Erina, fighting back against Azami. It's a great setup and we'll see how they go from here.
Note: We received a digital review copy of Food Wars Volume 20 from VIZ Media in exchange for our honest review