“Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma” vol. 5 features Soma taking on a buffet and fried chicken challenge! Another exciting, fun and enjoyable volume of “Food Wars!”
© 2012 by Yuto Tsukuda, Shun Saeki. All Rights Reserved.
MANGA TITLE: Food Wars – Shokugeki no Soma Vol. 5
STORY AND ART BY: Story by Yuto Tsukuda and Art by Shun Saeki
FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: SHUEISHA, Inc.
PUBLISHED IN USA BY: VIZ Media, LLC/Shonen Jump Manga
RATED: T for Older Teen
RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2015
The assignment is to invent a new dish worthy of appearing on the high-class Totsuki Resort’s breakfast menu. To create their dishes, Soma and his friends use the combined knowledge and confidence they’ve gained while at the cooking camp to individually pass the challenge – everyone, that is, except for Soma! Having made a critical error, he finds himself behind with little time left. What can he do to overcome his biggest hurdle yet?!
Soma and his friends are participating in cooking pant, but to their surprise, they must figure out how to sell 200 dishes in a buffet location. That means creating food that will last and become tasty for a longer time. Can Soma figure out how to make meals that last instead of a meal that is meant to be eaten right away?
Meanwhile, during a visit back to his family restaurant, Soma finds out that business on Market St. is not going that well. How can he help to bring people back to the area?
Find out in volume 5 of “Food Wars! -Shokugeki no Soma”!
What is “Food Wars! – Shokugeki no Soma” about?
In 2012, writer Yuto Tsukuda and artist Shun Saeki created their manga series “Shokugeki no Soma” which continues to be serialized in “Weekly Shonen Jump”.
The manga was voted #3 in the Nationwide Bookstore Employees “Recommend Comics of 2014” in Japan and voted #12 in the 2014 “Kono Manga ga Sugoi!” Top 20 Manga for Male Readers survey and continues to be a popular series in Japan.
With a total of eight tankobon volumes released in the U.S., Viz Media will be releasing the first manga volume titled “Food Wars! – Shokugeki no Soma” in North America in August 2014.
The series revolves around a young teen named Soma Yukihara who works for his father, chef Joichiro Yukihira, at their local restaurant.
Trained to cook at an early age and known for trying to combine various foods together as experiments, Soma has been known to cook dishes that make people feel they have tasted the best food ever to touch their tastebuds. But his goal is to someday beat his father in cooking.
But with landsharks trying to get control of the land to build condo units where the restaurant is located, one day while returning to the restaurant, everything inside is removed.
While Soma wants to rebuild, his father tells him that he will be closing the restaurant for two or three years to travel and as for Soma, he is enlisted in Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute where the elite of the elite attend and less than 10% of its students ever graduated.
But his father gives Soma a stern message, if he can’t make it at Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute, he will never beat him.
Determined to prove to his father that he can graduate as an elite cook, Soma is still looked down by his fellow students and faculty because unlike them, he is not wealthy and his family did not own a four or five star restaurant.
But Soma is determined to prove them wrong.
In volume 5, Soma and friends are participating in a cooking camp in which they only have four hours of rest and must continue to make meals in a short duration. The next challenge is to create food that will last in a buffet and is not meant to be eaten immediately.
As Soma tries to adapt, he meets another Nakiri…Erina’s cousin Alice who wants nothing but to beat her cousin but now, wants to be at Soma as well.
Meanwhile, Soma returns back home to air out the restaurant and finds out that business at Market St. has not been the same in the last two months due to a fried chicken restaurant that has opened near the station.
Can Soma and friends bring business back to the area?
As a big fan of manga series about food and the culinary industry, “Food Wars! -Shokugeki no Soma” is a series that I absolutely enjoy.
For one, you have an antagonist that was cooking since he was young, often experimenting on different foods, even know that all his combinations are not always successful. But he also was brought up in a family restaurant and has to attend a school of elitist who think their food is the greatest and that they are more refined because they are wealthy.
So, it’s pretty awesome to see how far these people will put him down and until they eat his food, their reaction, and probably this may be the best word to describe their reaction to his food as “orgasmic”.
With the fifth volume of “Food Wars – Shokugeki no Soma”, Soma is now feeling the pressure of having to cook for a buffet.
Unlike a regular restaurant, where the meal is cooked and served immediately, for a buffet, the food can sit for a longer duration. And at first, Soma’s original dishes aren’t doing well after sitting out. So, he has to plan and do things differently. But what strategy will Soma employ, especially with everyone competing to sell 200 food items?
Meanwhile, as Soma returns back home to air out the family restaurant, he receives news from the locals that business is not doing so well thanks to a major fried chicken restaurant opening at the station. As people are flocking to the station, they are bypassing the market street.
Willing to help out the fellow business owners, Soma tries to come up with a plan with his old classmate Mayumi Kurasa (who has always had a crush on Soma but is too shy) and Nikumi to create the ultimate fried chicken dish in order to entice people to visit the market.
For volume five, the storyline by Yuto Tsukuda has been nothing short of enjoyable. This is a fun manga that left me craving for more and Shun Saeki’s artwork is energetic, fun and the more suggestive artwork that was seen in earlier volumes are not too extreme for volume 5.
Overall, “Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma” vol. 5 has turned out to be one of my favorite manga releases of late and I look forward to volume 6!