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A 2012 manga.
Yukihira Souma is a 15-year old boy obsessed in being a best chef than his father. After being defeated 489 times in cooking duels with his father, he isn't that DAMN good yet. To make matters worse, his father decides to close his shop to cook overseas for two to three years. To compensate for the fact that his son will not be able to measure his abilities against him for all this time, his father decides to put him in a elite cooking school where less than 10% of the students graduate. He also tries to tell his son what the secret behind becoming a good chief, but his son hungs up before he can hear: "to meet a woman that will make you want to give all the food you make to her".
Written by Yūto Tsukuda. Illustrated by Shun Saeki. Published on Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump.
Tropes used in Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma include:
- Adorkable: Sort of desconstructed with Megumi. Being clumsy makes her adorable but it's also a flaw she must overcome to not be kicked out of cooking school.
- Ambiguously Gay: Chapter 2. When Erina offers Hisako a dish she made, roses suddenly appears on the panel where she is touching the girl, implying some kind...of affection from Hisako'a part.
- Ambiguous Ending: Chapter 315.It ends with Souma promising one day he will make food that Erina will praise out loud, leaving that thread open on that point.
- Betty and Veronica: Of the two main women in Souma's life, timid, sweet Megumi is the Betty to Erina's abrasive, confident Veronica.
- Blessed with Suck: How Erina's grandpa see her special ability of "God's Tongue". It ensures that almost all food she tastes will taste awful to her.
- Break The Haughty: Erina's snobbish behavior rubs off on her assistant, Hisako, who gets a reality check that she's nowhere near the chef Erina is when she gets roundly beaten by Akira who tells her he wouldn't be beaten by someone content to settle for being someone's second-in-command, and later on Hisako is forced to work with Souma, Erina's arch-nemesis.
- Erina gets a taste of this herself after her abusive and controlling dad comes back into the picture and tries to force her into marrying Asahi.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Though this show is famous for fanservice and big-breasted women, the men are nothing to sneeze at either, especially Souma, Isshiki, Shun, Takumi, Koujirou, Akira, Ryu...
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: Ironically, Souma's mother and Jouchiro's late wife couldn't cook at all.
- Defeat Means Friendship: This is how Souma befriends basically all of the students outside of his dorm at Totsuki, most notable Ikumi, who develops a one-sided crush on him.
- Dope Slap: Koujirou isn't above smacking Hinako around the head when she's being particularly annoying.
- The Dreaded: Cooking students cower in fear at vision of Erina's grandfather, solely because he is such a powerful figure in the japanese cooking industry.
- The Faceless: We don't see Souma's mother's eyes on the family picture.
- Five Second Foreshadowing: In the panel just after Souma's father hints at what Souma's future wife will probably be(since he is obviously referring to Souma's mother and himself), the audience is introduced to Erina Nakiri (though she is only referred as "Oujou-Sama" in the first chapter).
- The Gadfly: Alice Nakiri likes to tease Erina for the latter's uptight and socially awkward personality.
- Hands Off Parenting: Jouchiro often leaves his fifteen-year-old son on his own and the whole Yaeko incident happens completely without any supervision from Jouchiro.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Akira and Jun, though to be fair, Jun is tiny compared to everyone to the point people think she's a middle-schooler.
- Jerkass: Erina is too rude with people that fail to suit her tastes.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Kojiro Shinomiya is an abrasive, rude chef with exacting standards, but he's not wrong when he points out that Megumi is too much of a doormat and when he expels her for producing a substandard dish, Souma challenges him to a food war. Kojiro accepts but makes it clear Megumi has to be the one to cook it because she cannot expect to ride Souma's coat tails forever.
- Perpetual Frowner: Roland Chapelle is said to never smile. Souma finally manages to make food that makes him smile of happiness in Chapter 5.
- Regal Ringlets: A unnamed female character in chapter 4 have this hairstyle.
- Red Oni Blue Oni: Takumi is the red to his brother Isami's blue.
- Savvy Guy Energetic Girl: Ryou and Alice's relationship in a nutshell, though Ryou can get hot-blooded if he's the one competing.
- Ship Tease: This manga probably deserves an award for ship-teasing a ship not only before she exists, but before we were even introduced to one of the characters! Souma's father Jouichirou hints who Souma's wife will be and just after we're introduced to Erina, who isn't even named.
- It's hinted numerous times Megumi has a crush on Souma and Kojiro even mockingly refers to her as his girlfriend.
- Shun and Ryoko are hinted to like each other, with Ryoko being one of the only people able to tell what Shun is thinking.
- Stalker Without a Crush: This is how Subaru wins his cooking wars, stalking his opponents and learning everything about them so he can copy their recipes exactly and outdo them at their own dish.
- Stalker With a Crush: Nao Sadatsuka is obsessed with Erina and stalks her everywhere until Hisako gave her a restraining order, earning her ire. Later when Hisako beat Nao in the preliminaries, Nao started stalking Hisako as well.
- The Red Baron: Many of the students and alumni of Totsuki have their own nickname. For instance, Erina is known as the God Tongue.
- Tsundere: Erina is a classic Type A. Alice tries to be one but her goofier side tends to undercut when she's trying to be haughty.
- Ikumi is one as well, where she's dere-dere to Souma and tsun-tsun to everyone else.
- Who Wears Short Shorts?: Ikumi Mito in her cooking attire.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Erina wears a grade B in her school uniform.