Shokugeki no Souma 183 and 184 – Secret Weapon and of Course its Jun!

It has been two weeks of preparation chapters with not much happening, so I just combined them. Good news for those who want male fan service though!

c) Quinn Dombrowski, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA)

Anyway, since Soma didn’t find any bear, I took some liberty of finding one.  Thankfully, there is only one bear species in Hokkaido so it didn’t take too long.

Pictured above is the Ussuri brown bear, which is actually one of the larger species of brown bears  found in the world. And despite numerous signs in Hokkaido telling you to beware of bears (if you ever visit), know that bears don’t actually eat people. Instead, this bear just eats small mammals like fish and birds, along with whatever fruit and vegetable it could find.

Anyway, someone who actually eats bear told me that the meat taste depends on what the bear eats. So a bear that eats fish will taste fishy and actually the worst bear meat of the lot. Its also apparently better to hunt bears near the mountains because bears raised with berries taste a whole lot better.

In this case, judging from the description of the hunter, the bear that will be served would taste pretty nice since it is eating berries right now. Not to mention those juicy fat due to winter!

And nice, we now know some of the ingredients that Soma and Akira is going to use to cook. In Soma case, he’s using Five Flavor Berry … a berry, which I have never heard of before.  lol

Apparently this berry is  used in Chinese herbal medicine for many ailments and have five distinct flavors hence Five-flavor Berry.  For Soma’s “secret ingredient” on how to fight the bear smell, I think it is quite inspired.  Not only is the inspiration from the Hokkaido lecture series,  which I want to happen, it is also for  bonus points inspired by Hisako and used in the form of a burger. Considering that Hisako lost to Akira in the Autumn Selection using the burger theme, its almost an indirect revenge. ^^

As for Akira, he’s using Cajun spice. And if the baldy’s reaction is anything to go by, in terms of smell, Akira is winning by a mile. I suppose this is only to be expected, Akira’s number 1 specialty is the fragrance after all. Still, this is only the preview, even if Akira’s food does smell better, I believe it would be the taste that would be the deciding factor so Soma so I’m not counting Soma out yet.

Besides, as we saw in the Autumn Selection, Hayama and Soma have similar cooking levels. Heck, wasn’t it stated that due to how the score was determined, if the match was a Shokugeki, Soma would have won?

Guess, what is the format of the latest match. ^^

Also, finally we found out why Hayama joined the dark side.  Of course, its JUN! Anything else, would be wildly out of character. Additionally, there are some interesting implication and tidbit of information peppered around.

• Jun is an elite ten member 

Which is a nice factoid. Though, since Jun is a 1st year middle school when Joichiro is in 2nd year high school, she is blatantly not in the same generation as Azami or Joichiro. Also, by my count, when Jun is in high school Azami and Joichiro would be already gone.

Also, this fact, eliminates the only possible alumni of Totsuki that is not introduced as an E10 member. I’m beginning to wonder if a Totsuki alumni are synonymous to an E10 membership considering the 1% graduation rate. Seriously, as I’ve said before, it seems Sanzaemon’s past administration has some problems.

• Research Society and how they function!

You know, while Akira is muttering his projects, “Flavorants prepared through solid-phase extraction“, “Developments of System for Preparing and Packaging Herb that specializes in Preserving their Freshness”…. I’m having a college thesis flashback. lol

Also, unless, this chapter is a parable about always backing up your data. ^^ The way that Azami just took control of the Shiori Seminar research might mean that any findings/data found using Totsuki resources and technology are  property of Totsuki.

….Which makes sense, heck this is the modus operandi of some companies in real life.

Thus, even if Akira and Jun have back-up of their data and went to another school/company they can’t make use of their research because that would be breaching Totsuki’s intellectual property. Not to mention, the fact with how Totsuki is hyped, I don’t think any company would be suicidal enough to try to steal from them.

•  Azami has zero scruples

You know with Rindou saying in the past few chapters that Central don’t have anything to do with the blatant sabotage of the judges?

I believe it.

In a sense that the E10 may have no idea of the blatant cheating/blackmail done by central. After all, its possible that the E10 might not be able to lower themselves to that level.

But, with this chapter, I feel that Azami might.

….And the fact makes me nervous. Because most of the rebels have some weakness like Hayama that can be taken advantage of  like –  friends/relatives/parents outside of Totsuki. And depending on how much connection Azami has or how far Totsuki’s reach is; I imagine that the rebels’ significant others can be easily put in danger.

In fact, the only ones that are safe  from blackmail right now by my count is, Alice, Ryo, Erina and perhaps Soma in descending order.

Alice is basically immune to blackmail right now. Alice hates Azami and Azami hates her back. Beside that, considering she’s a Nakiri, I don’t think Azami has the pull to blackmail Alice on anything. True, Azami can expel Alice but I believe besides Erina it is Alice which Azami can’t expel  without any sufficient cause.  For one, Alice actually has two loving influential parents, which I imagine might make a lot of noise.

Ryo’s weakness is Alice and considering that they are more or less parceled together. Unless Ryo has unknown parents that we do not know about, he’s pretty much immune.

As for Erina, she is basically the  safest and most vulnerable person against Azami. Unlike Alice, Azami can’t  even expel Erina as he needs her for some nebulous plan. Erina is also probably synonymous to “Nakiri” and “Totsuki” with lots of fame, not to mention his daughter, that expelling her would lead to a lot of uncomfortable questions. Erina’s only weakness which is shared by all the rebels are her newfound friends in the polar bear dome. But, considering that the worst case scenario of Azami trying to expel those same friends to unify Central’s ideal is already happening, that doesn’t count much as a weakness unless Azami changes his tune.  Of course,  Erina is also the most vulnerable simply because Azami is her father. Blood ties are hard to cut like that. Also, there is the abuse to consider, Erina’s trauma might rear its ugly head down the road.

Lastly, Soma simply because I doubt Joichirou can be threatened by Azami. Additionally, as Soma trash talked with Hayama this chapter, Soma is more than likely to challenge someone to Shokugeki than get himself blackmailed (even if the end result is 100% his expulsion). Still, I put Soma last because he actually has something to be blackmailed about – the shopping district wherein Yukihara is. I meant Eizan already almost “destroyed” it, so its very plausible that Azami can threaten the shopping district as well.