#Shokugeki no Souma: ni no sara | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justminawrites · 2 years

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Why Souma and Erina make Great Foils but Terrible Lovers (ft. EiRin)

See, there’s a very simply explanation for this: they never got to be friends. And with the way the series has progressed, it’s hard to imagine that they ever will, even in the future. Let me tell you why.

Souma’s character development is fairly standard throughout seasons 1 and 2, but starts to get worse halfway through season 3, when the story becomes heavily Erina-centric.

He wants to be the best, he wants to prove everyone in this uppity school wrong for looking down on diners and small scale restaurants, especially one of the first people he ever meets there, his examiner Nakiri Erina, who fails him just because he presents her with a low class dish. Along the way we meet multiple side characters who help him grow on his journey, notably: Tadokoro Megumi, Isshiki Satoshi, Shinomiya Kojiro, Mimasaka Subaru, Hayama Akira, and Arato Hisako, who teach him various lessons that help expand his world view. There may be a few others but these are all the main ones that I could think of.

He goes from no small scale is The Best Way to Hold Up maybe these weird rich people are onto something after all. His interactions with these characters put him in difficult positions from where he always learns something, and we as an audience get to explore Souma’s personality through the way he reacts.

With Isshiki we see his willingness to fight and since Isshiki is one of the first people he comes to respect in the academy, the first person who’s cooking skill absolutely floors him, we see Souma immediately humbled but still eager to learn from his gifted senior. Isshiki becomes a sort of standard here, not a real rival.

With Megumi we see his protectiveness, his courage that borders on recklessness and when he’s put into a situation where he has to let her take the lead and just support (during the Shokugeki at camp) we see him finally come to terms with the consequences of that reckless behaviour.

With Hayama we see his deep competitive streak, and his willingness to put aside his pride so that he can learn from someone who he considers his rival (Takumi doesn’t count because Souma doesn’t take him seriously 90% of the time). This is actually one of his more emotionally intelligent moments, which is rare to see in a character with such a one track state of mind.

With Mimasaka we see him start to question what really defines his own cooking; although this plot point is explored further in later seasons, the shokugeki with Mimasaka is where the seeds are sown because he has to compete with someone who is essentially a perfected copy of him. We even get IMO one of his best lines here: “It’s almost like I’m chasing myself.”

With Arato Hisako we see him come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t trying to surpass his father all this time, but just chase after him, content to remain one step behind like Hisako had so often done for Erina.

With Shinomiya Kojiro we really really see him humbled (during the stagiaire) as he finally gets the feel of what it’s like being in a gourmet restaurant, where he’s completely out of his depth in every possible way, but doesn’t let it stop him from pouring his heart and soul into ingraining such an experience. Here, we really get to see his passion for cooking and how devoted he is to his craft. We also get to see his first speciality.

So all the way through your the first few seasons not only do we see how brave, smart, eager and persistent Souma is, we also see by contrast how Erina is none of these things.

Blessed with her God Tongue ability and trained in Totsuki curriculum since she could walk, Erina has a kind of overpowered superhero energy- she never really has to work for any of her victories, making her the exact opposite of Souma. She wins everything with incredible speed, barely breaks a sweat during hell camp and to top it all off, she’s the only freshman who’s considered a part of the Elite 10, essentially one of the best students in this entire school.

Even during her Stagiaire arc we see that Erina has no intention of adapting or learning anything from the industry professionals, (technically failing the second intention of the exercise but I digress), preferring to run the kitchen herself like a queen and deliver results- but she does notably learn something from Megumi here.

Souma and Erina don’t really have a good relationship in these first few seasons, what with her general dislike of any food she considers not gourmet, the clubs she closes down, and with his constant struggle to prove her wrong but there’s something lacking in this dynamic that really hits home once we get into the third season.

It’s clear in nearly every situation they’re put into, Souma at the very least respects Erina as a chef. She, however, does not. No matter who he wins against, Erina refuses to acknowledge his cooking, actively being against him competing in the Autumn elections and expecting him to fail at camp. Her opinion of him is so low that she subsequently loses respect for people who fail to beat him, i.e. the way she abandoned Mito Ikumi after her Shokugeki.

All of this comes to a head when, during the third season, Erina is forced to accept Souma’s help by hiding out in the Polar Star Dormitory when she “runs away” from home. This is the beginning of her redemption arc, and the beginning of Souma’s really bad character development.

Once we learn about her backstory, Erina’s behaviour is a bit more explainable, bad parenting and brainwashing takes a heavy toll on a teenager indeed and while everyone else is immediately sympathetic towards our main heroine, Souma is not.

When Senazaemon straight up BEGS for his help, the LITERAL DIRECTOR of Totsuki begs for his help, he responds with an indeterminate way of handling things which was along the lines of: “...their family situation seems pretty wack but that’s none of my business. But at the same time I’m not going to abandon her either so dw.”

He basically leaves her in the care of the dorm, and let’s not forget that at this point he barely knows anything about Erina except for the fact that she’s really pretentious and a stickler for that gourmet life. There’s no friendship here, there’s a borderline truce at best.

During the advancement exams we see Erina take front and centre stage as she coaches the other PSD students and friends alike on how to pass it, and while it does seem that Souma is also benefiting from this exercise, their relationship doesn’t progress much. So we can assume their truce is in effect. We don’t see her outright respect him as a chef, but we don’t see her put him down either.

Once they go up against the elite 10 and everyone fails however, the focus shifts entirely. Here we see Souma’s confrontation with the latest member of the Elite 10, Hayama Akira, and this is where we start drawing parallels to the fifth season.

Souma and Hayama’s relationship during the Bear meat arc is very similar to his relationship with Erina during the BLUE tournament, albeit for different reasons.

When Souma finds out how Hayama lost his home and fell into Azami’s clutches, his first reaction is to yell at him about focusing on the match. Similarly, when he finds out Erina’s reasons for participating under duress in BLUE, her mother, he comes off as extremely cynical and just mean about the whole thing.

This behaviour is extremely tone deaf from a guy who we know has the ability to be kind and sympathetic when the situation calls for it. He’s been kind with Megumi, with Takumi, even with Hisako on occasion. So why is he being so insufferable here?

Why is his character taking such a downward turn from the original arc?

Most of it can be attributed to really bad writing, tension for tension’s sake and all that but I can argue that isn’t really out of left field for him to be so unbothered. This is because of his relationship between the two people in question. Hayama Akira and Nakiri Erina are arguably the only two people in the whole series that Souma genuinely considers his Rivals, i.e, the only two people he’s hell bent on proving wrong or showing up.

They are in his opinion, everything wrong with Totsuki; both extreme purists when it comes to cooking, while Hayama does creatively make use of fragrance, both with Hypersensitive Gifts that give them an enormous advantage in their respective fields, and both who fail to acknowledge him as a chef. Hell, the two even say really similar things when they first meet him: “You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of surpassing me.”

In Hayama’s arc, he doesn’t take Souma seriously even after the autumn elections, relegating himself to top of the pyramid in line for the tenth seat after Erina, and sidelining the other two contenders: a fact that drives both Ryō and Souma quite mad. Even after he suffers crushing defeat during the Bear meat duel, he’s still completely unable to comprehend why Souma would go to such lengths, only for the other boy to turn around and tell him to his face that it was all for him. To beat him. For him to actually stop and recognise Souma as his equal, as his contender.

This is one of the only two times where Souma goes out of his way to cool for a specific person, like his dad has been saying all along.

We see this parallel drawn again in the fifth season where Erina, a chef he definitely respects, is pinning all her hopes on some magical dude who’s skill literally makes no sense (but I don’t want to talk about that), instead of trusting her own abilities which can definitely beat him. She’s undermining herself and by extension, him, and it irritates him because even After he beat Asahi, she doesn’t change.

Obviously this is because she’s going through her own self doubt and abandonment issues but Souma doesn’t consider any of that, the same way he didn’t think about how losing the Shiomi seminar would affect Hayama either.

So the second time he makes a dish for another person, to once again remind them of who they are (note: he used Hayama’s own subtract and emphasise technique in the bear meat), he uses Erina’s very first dish, the Eggs Benedict that she made at camp. This works, bringing Erina’s character development in full circle, she went from snooty elitist to bearable rich kid to someone so lost in herself that she’s forgotten what the core of her personality was: the actual culinary queen.

Souma was always essential to Erina’s growth as a character, she wouldn’t have changed if it wasn’t for him- but Erina is only useful as a foil to him. There are lots of moments where instead of helping or giving any actually advice, she works as an instigator instead (note: Mimasaka’s Beef Stew arc) which doesn’t teach him anything on its own, but pushes him to learn from elsewhere.

By sacrificing any possible harmony between these two, the story has continually driven the plot further than before; in fact, the show itself addresses this during the final Team Shokugeki battle between Souma and Erina against Rindou and Tsukasa, in season four.

All throughout the season we saw what Rindou gives up for Tsukasa, so she doesn’t lose him: She votes for Azami despite deeply disagreeing with his views, she enforces the new curriculum even though she thinks it’s stupid, in the manga she even gives up the possibility of first seat just so she doesn’t get in the way of Tsukasa’s dreams! We never see her compete with him once, not even through booths during the Moon Banquet festival!

But Rindou is an important part of his character arc nevertheless. She pushes him to grow as a person, to be more confident, to put more of himself in his food while he helps temper her otherwise fiery and impulsive nature. They compliment, not just challenge one another- there is a natural balance between them, which isn’t there for SouEri.

That’s not to say they don’t have their faults too. Their relationship scales have been tipped with the introduction of Azami and we can see this clearly with the first and last meal Rindou is asked to make during the season.

Her first match against Megishima had her make something that was 100% show stopper of a main dish, but when she was tasked to work with Tsukasa, Rindou was assigned the appetiser. Even though it was just an appetiser she still managed to add her own little signature twist (ants!), showing how even if she has to play second fiddle, she’s able to do it for Tsukasa.

(This pairing was very well handled in season 5, where Tsukasa was relegated to the decoy as Rindou went and put an end to the Noir chef’s plans, but since we still got more screen time of Tsukasa it felt kinda like a cop out ngl.)

Relationships, like Set Meals, require understanding and compromise. In contrast Souma and Erina were a wreck of a team.

I was actually very invested in this because this is the first time we see Souma actively not wanting to work with someone throughout the whole series. During the prior team battle, we see him, Takumi and Megumi flawlessly execute their respective dishes under due pressure without breaking a sweat, even borrowing one another ideas, so we know Souma isn’t disagreeable or anything. He’s perfectly fine working in a team or solo- but he particularly doesn’t want to work in a team with Erina.

Souma even goes so far as to spell it out for the audience when he says, “How can there be any teamwork between us?”, and “This is a Shokugeki between me and You.” And for that most part that was true. They completely disregarded the aim, which was to create a Set Meal, and opted to instead create individual masterpieces- obviously they won because the food was just excellent, but it doesn’t change the fact that they were never a team. And it certainly doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t want them to be.

He doesn’t want any kind of cohesion between them; she is his rival and that’s all there is to it. During the BLUE tournament this happens again, every time she seeks sympathy or understanding, that the others give her readily, Souma refuses to sympathise with or understand her. It’s not because he can’t- sure, he’s not great at comforting people, but he comforted Megumi to the best of his ability in season 1- but because he doesn’t want to.

This hurts her. There’s no two ways about it. Erina almost never opens up. She never makes excuses for herself and always holds her food to the highest of standards, and the only few times she’s sought help are under extreme pressure situations but he still refuses to give up his prejudice.

It sounds pretty bad at first but you have to remember that Souma tried to befriend her. In the beginning during the second season he admits that he can’t really get along with Erina because of her prickly personality and the awkwardness between them. While his relationship with Hayama improved marginally, Erina still continued to tsundere her way into distancing him from her quite a bit until her dad came along and flipped tables.

So for Souma it’s probably just flat out weird seeing Erina make such a drastic shift between how she normally is and her trauma response, and he straight up doesn’t want to get into why. He just wants her to go back to normal, all smug and critical so he can wipe the smile off her face with one of his dishes.

He cares about her as any normal person would but he doesn’t care about her feelings and she’s never really cared about his either.

Souma’s chosen method of communication is FOOD. It’s his cooking that speaks for him 90% of the time, because that’s the only language he’s become fluent in under his Dad’s tutelage. If Erina understands this about him (doubtful), she doesn’t show it even once; she puts her pride above complimenting his food, even if it’s well deserved, and comes off as ungrateful solely so she doesn’t admit defeat.

To be fair, she’s like this with everyone in PSD, so it’s safe to assume it’s just her personality- possibly even her way of showing affection, giving critique freely when it’s been something she’s paid to do. But with Souma it’s turned up to 100 and there’s barely any critique and a whole lot of pettiness.

The way these two communicate is at such extreme odds of the spectrum that quite frankly it’s like they’ve been built to compete. Built to one up the other, but not really built to understand each other at all. It’s Pride and Prejudice forever. No middle ground between the two of them, which is ridiculous because the way to solve their problem is right there.

In Souma’s mom.

People who haven’t read the manga probably have no idea but Yukihira Tamako passed away from a terminal disease that was hereditary, leaving Souma and his dad all alone when he was around 5 ish. TERMINAL DISEASE. Literally similar to how Mana wasted away because of the God Tongue until she picked up and abandoned Erina and her father too. The answer was RIGHT THERE bro.

If SnS had just had these two bond over their parents and going through similar experiences during season 5, the transition between rivals to begrudging friends to ohmygod-this-person-actually-understands-me-more-than-I-first-thought would have been iconic. It would’ve been a Zuko/Katara moment: the true enemies to lovers trope.

But the author sacrificed all of that for the sake of the plot (and Asahi ig idk I hate him.) so the story just chugged on like it always did before a six month time skip and suddenly Erina admitting she loves him or something? How? From where??? When did that happen??? Did you just realise one day when you woke up??

How did Erina win BLUE in the first place- didn’t the castle explode??? What is even going on???

It would have been so EASY to fix the writing in season 5, because all you had to do was have them realise that they have more in common than they thought, and then have Erina act like a slightly more petty version of Ikumi (MY QUEEN) and you have yourself a solid foundation for a romance at least.

Okay it doesn’t fix ALL the problems in their dynamic but it gives them a starting point to work with for sure. It’s not a relationship, but it’s not whatever the hell it was after the BLUE tournament either. I can even live with the fact that they basically threatened chefs with eating good food, so that they could report them to the police. I can live with that.

TLDR: Anyway long story short, canon SouEri ain’t it. Have a nice day everyone.

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