Shokugeki no Soma Episode 2: God’s Tongue

Erina-sama~! 

Impression

I still harbour reservations over blogging this. But I’ll do it for Erina-sama’s perfect voice! And for Hishoko too. Even though neither of them actually appear all that much in this story, contrary to what the plot so far has tried to make you think. Because in terms of standing, Soma and Erina are incredibly far apart from each other – Soma is a plucky transfer student, and Erina is quite literally all the way at the other end of Tootsuki’s hierarchy, as one of the Elite Ten (that will fully make sense in about two episodes). It’s precisely the reason why Soma was unfairly failed by her – she had the nerve to criticise her mother’s breast milk at three months old, and everyone else ran away at the mere thought of them examining her! And Hishoko looked far too turned on at the mere thought of even getting to try her food. So there’s no way Erina’s pride as a connoisseur of gourmet food will ever allow her to admit to liking a plain yet innovative dish like the ‘transforming’ furikake gohan. The recipe for that, by the way, can be found in one of the extra chapters for the manga! I wonder if it’s even possible to have someone make that expression when eating food in real life.

It’s still going really slowly. I thought they would have done a certain part of the opening ceremony by now, and instead they decided to give lots of screen time to a random high class brat who ends up crying at the sight of Erina anyway. All he was missing was a soup bowl on his head. I suppose they’re giving more priority to the process and explanation behind how each dish is cooked – it was really meticulous this week, and that will definitely be something recurring in future episodes. And of course, it’s a great opportunity for them to go all-out with the fanservice. I’m still not a fan of the jiggling. I would have actually preferred an extended Erina x Hishoko scene to watching lots of mini-Somas tickle her and pull her clothes off, but… well, the latter is what will sell best. You can start to see exactly why this is a shounen as well – all the cooking is really dramatic, and it’s twice now that Soma has ‘turned the tables’ and forced his opponent to admit defeat. Kind of. He’s still going to get in, though, so it worked out in the end.