I love that we know are moving into the quarter finals of the tournament and Soma's partner is super interesting!! I do think I'm ready for a different story arc, but it was a good addition to the series. Hopefully by the time I finish volume 10 I can do a full series review.
Reread of 2022: I DO HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY OTHER THAN THAT (See my review from 2018 down below) THAT CLIFF-HANGER IS RUDE! No I don't remember what happens lol. My memory is also rude.
First read, 2018, below
I don't have anything to say other than I love this series
Edit (2022): I do not mean that it's actually rude. I just love the series ok?
I felt pretty lost going into this one. It's been so long since I read the last volume, I didn't remember much of what happened. Thankfully it wasn't too hard to pick back up, as I knew the basics - big competition, these are the people who were introduced last time, etc.
It was interesting seeing more of Akira & Jun's backstory - it looks interesting. Hopefully some of the story focuses on them and their interactions in the future. It's a very cute mentor/parent type relationship between them.
In a way it's a typical Shonen-manga, with the volume focusing largely on the 'fights' between the characters. Despite this, it kept it interesting and held my attention, with shots of backstory given of the competitors and lots of information & facts about the food being shown. And I was eager to start the next volume at the end - I wanted to see what Souma's surprise was that he had come up with to compete with Alice's Molecular Gastronomy creations.
Beautifully drawn cover art, showcasing Isshiki Satoshi and Daimido Fumio. Volume 8 concludes the preliminaries for the Fall Classic (Autumn Election), and covers up most of the first round of the Quarter Finals, Yukihira Soma vs Nakiri Alice.
58. Holy Aroma 59. A Weapon for Each 60. Warrior's Feast 61. Put your Heart into It 62. Enter the Best 63. Plot 64. On the Edge 65. The Evolution of the Boxed Lunch Side Story- Erina's Summer Vacation.
World: The art is solid, the food looks amazing. The world building is good where it builds on the past of Alice and also tells stories that grow the character of Soma, which is always nice.
Story: A nice little pallet change after the really heavy and dense last book. I like the breather we get and the interaction with the characters outside of the context of cooking. There's still cooking but it's not one endless recipe after another. The section section with the bento competition is done well, it's the same stuff again but the two different styles and the backstory behind it is well done.
Characters: Alice gets a large dose of story and so does Erina in the bonus story. I like that we get more of Alice and the difference between her and Erina is nice. Soma is good, his story with the bento is well done with the grandmother.
Now that this series is in the middle of its first big tournament arc, the action picks up and it gets really exciting. Soma still gets his lion share of haters, but he might just score a huge win which of course is not revealed immediately because the main story chapters end in a cliffhanger. But the reader will get a pretty good feeling that Soma isn't sitting this one yet.
Still a great series, but this volume loses a little steam for me as Soma competes against one of his least impressive foes in bento boxes. The cliffhanger lacks drama as the outcome seems easily predictable.
The side story at the end offers little beyond putting much of the female cast into swimsuits. This is disappointing as the fan service usually serves as a hot spice accenting the main story instead of being the point of the story.
The interlude in the main story of Soma and Megumi subbing at a cooking school is charming and helps keep the rating of this volume high.
I really enjoyed seeing more of Isshiki in this one! Having him take Soma and Megumi to help teach some kids about cooking was such a fun and heartwarming scene.
The preliminary round of the 43rd Annual Totsuki Autumn Election comes to a close in the eighth volume of Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma. In it, we watch the final participants in the preliminary round present their dishes for judging, see what the quarterfinal qualifiers do to prepare for the quarterfinals, and experience the beginnings of the first quarterfinals match.
I am going to assume that anyone reading this review probably knows what happened in the last volume of this manga series. Ergo, you know that the final two participants in the preliminary round are Soma Yukihira and Akira Hayama. Though both students are technically not battling each other, it seems they are as they seem to want to one-up the other with their dishes presented to the judges.
At the end of the preliminary round, we have our eight quarterfinals participants. We then learn what they do to prepare for their upcoming matches against each other which leads up to the first quarterfinals round, one that begins but does not conclude until the upcoming volume.
This volume concentrated a lot on setting up the main tournament for the 43rd Annual Totsuki Autumn Election. The preparation for the quarterfinals chapters had some important details presented but were overall fillers. As for the first match of the quarterfinals, it was cut-off at just the right moment for fans to anticipate the next volume. However, we do learn that the quarterfinal matches will have a theme that the participants must utilize in their match against one another. We also know the matches will be four one-on-one matches.
The following volume will start to show who advances and who is cut from the 43rd Annual Totsuki Autumn Election. I will say that the first match "starts out big."
With the B Block finalists moving on the last of the A Block are finally presenting their dishes. Akira Hayama is finally presents his dish and it is revealed that he has baked naan bread on the top of his dish which allows the scent to explode when cracked open. Soma surprises everyone by revealing an omelet with risotto inside as his dish.
After the competition is over Tadokoro and Soma help out at a kids cooking class and seem to get the rowdy class under control in no time. Tadokoro says that if you think of the people you love while cooking it will turn out even tastier. The quarterfinals are about to start and Soma receives the category of bento which he finds to be pretty ordinary. While everyone is anticipating the quarterfinals they wonder who will be up again Soma and it turns out to be Alice Nakiri (molecular gastronomy genius). While Soma has a case with his tools Alice has a truck pull up with all of her supplies.
This series never ceases to amaze me with all of the different dishes that the author creates and the way each of the dishes are described are simply wonderful and you can image it in your head. Overall a great volume and I can't wait to see what happens in the battle of Soma vs. Alice.
I received this advanced copy from VIZ Media through Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.
Soma faces off against Alice during the first round of semi-finals. I always love it when everyone's like, totally blown away with jealousy and awe by Alice's weird foam and crazy cooking gadgets, and Soma's just all, "oh, that looks pretty good, will you make that for me sometime?" Just unfazed by everything. I also think it's funny that this one contest has already filled two (or three? I can't remember) whole volumes, and is spilling into a third (or fourth). And most of the food still sounds really unappealing to me, but I am still totally loving this ridiculous cooking drama! :)
This was a good edition. It gave us the outcome for the prelims for the Fall Classic then veered off slightly (some very nice foreshadowing there) and then went back to the next round of the Classic.
Plus a really cute backstory of a young Soma and making bento for an elderly customer. Super adorable.
This one was faster paced and more interesting than the previous volumes. Souma faces with the strongest opponent yet and still seems unfazed. Even though his experience with the main theme 'Bento' isn't much to write home about. I really like how he tries to tell that the main purpose of Bento is to transpire the love of your own to the one who is going to eat it.
Favorite book in the series so far. Many great cooking suggestions and several recipes related to Bento boxes. Also two-page spread of recipes from readers' contest.
I must admit that I'm learning so much about food and cooking from this series. That said, this volume had a little too much about the food and not enough about the characters.
Didn't care for the series at first but it's really becoming a favorite. Such drama. But the cliffhanger endings at the end of each volume is driving me crazy.
Este volumen nuevamente cambia el ritmo de la serie y nos regresan a la velocidad con la que se movía la serie en los primeros volúmenes. Tenemos la conclusión del desafío del volumen pasado (efectivamente, después de 3 volúmenes sabremos quién gana entre Hayama y Soma). Me gustó que al fin nos dieran resultados del concurso de Curry y debo de admitir que se resuelve de manera satisfactoria. No tengo quejas sobre la manera en la que el conflicto se resuelve porque ambos tenían posibilidad y aún con la experiencia de Hayama, Soma le da buena pelea así que realmente ambos podrían ganar. El resto del volumen nos ayuda a ver la evolución de los protagonistas y rápidamente se preparan para la siguiente ronda del desafío de otoño. Está etapa serán duelos de eliminación directa entre dos cocineros, un recurso muy utilizado en los distintos Shonen y que se conoce vulgarmente como el tropo del "Torneo". Aquí lo vemos y aunque me quejé un poco el primer enfrentamiento viene a toda velocidad entre dos personajes muy interesantes con estilos opuestos de cocina. El duelo se desenvuelve de manera muy interesante, astuta y novedosa como nos tenían acostumbrados en esta serie. Lamentablemente tendremos que esperar hasta el siguiente volumen para saber quién ganó ya que se queda en un deliberado cliff hanger. Me alegra que esta serie esté recuperando el ritmo y se esté moviendo como antes. No puedo quejarme del cliff hanger porque Bakuman, serie que disfruté mucho y que tiene una temática de peleas poco usuales también, hacía lo mismo constantemente.
Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma!, Vol. 8 continues where the previous tankōbon left off and contains the next eight chapters (58–65) of the on-going manga series with one bonus story.
The Fall Classics Preliminaries concludes as Akira Hayama's fish-head curry soupe en croute with a pot pie cover made of naan bread scores a 94. Sōma Yukihira's curry risotto omurice scores a 93, but three of the five individual scores were higher than Akira's. An unnamed student knocks Zenji Marui and Shun Ibusaki out of the competition.
Polaris Dorm celebrates the first-years success at the preliminaries with a party. Satoshi Isshiki takes Sōma and Megumi Tadokoro to help teach making fried pot stickers to a group of preschool-to-second grade kids.
Later, the first quarterfinals of The Fall Classics have Sōma challenging Alice Nakiri with the theme being a bentō. Alice presents temari (ball-shaped) sushi in her bento. Sōma presents a seaweed-based bentō, and is reminded of his past when he was helping deliver a bentō to an elderly woman. This tankōbon is written by Yūto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki. It concludes the Fall Classics Preliminaries and starts the quarterfinals with Sōma Yukihira vs. Alice Nakiri with bentō central to their challenge. There is a quaint and welcome break in-between where Satoshi Isshiki takes Sōma and Megumi Tadokoro to teach elementary school children to cook pot stickers.
All in all, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 8 is a wonderful continuation to a series that seems really intriguing and I can't wait to read more.