The first 263 Chapters of Shokugeki no Soma are a phenomenal remix of the shonen battle manga structure. Throughout the course of the story, authors Tsukuda and Morisaki managed to form a stimulating web of characters and battles that had me both invested and interested. The system of the Shokugeki itself is a stroke of genius. It combines the idea of the Shonen battle and tournament arc into a structure of food and delectable description. Every battle takes the time to delve deeply into how the dish functions and how that contrasts with their opponent’s actions. What really makes that structure work is the web of archetypical yet charming characters that act as the fun supporting cast. Soma himself is also surprisingly interesting in his own right and gets a great deal of subtle growth throughout the series. Seeing him take on challenge after challenge, we always have a feeling of his strength as a cook.

Beyond just the story, the artwork is strong and does a great work of supporting the narrative and food explanations. Some of the shokugeki’s do tend to get a little bloated with dialogue and explanations, but I feel that is necessary considering the form and context. Overall, I feel that Shokugeki no Soma does a great job of creating a dynamic action oriented shonen story about food. At least for the first 263 chapters…

After Chapter 263, the manga moves into a new story arc that takes place 4 months later. After this point, the pacing takes a massive nosedive. The balanced writing present in the shokugeki matches is completely gone, replaced with a breakneck speed that lacks all of the nuance present earlier. By this point, I had lost all feeling of scale in terms of how the characters stood up to one another. Along with this, all of the characters grew largely out of character. Erina and Soma were the worst examples of this. The former regressed considerably in order to try and give the story momentum. The latter grew into a caricature of himself due to a lack of insight into his thoughts. What was once a passionate and energetic chef turned into a Messiah who could save us all from ourselves. Along with this, many side characters kept unnecessarily popping up, achieving little with their time on screen.

The whole thing felt like Food Wars fanfiction. The new villain is probably the worst example of it. A few of the characters had already shown off vaguely supernatural powers in the past, but this new villain takes it to a whole new level. It completely shatters any tangibility this story had. It may have worked better if it was doubled in length, but even then, the problems are still very apparent. It comes off nearly as bad as Psycho-Pass 2 or even Steins;Gate 0. It single handedly reduced my score for the series from a 9 to a 7.

That being said, everything after chapter 263 doesn’t actually need to be read. It leaves the series with a few lose ends, but I would very much recommend stopping there. Because of that fact, my score didn’t actually lower as much as it actually deserved. Still, being able to skip that ending doesn’t change the fact that it makes the story as a whole deeply flawed. Shokugeki no Soma was a powerful and well written shonen battle manga till it fell apart with its final arc. A massive shame, though still an interesting read in the end. I would highly recommend reading everything up to chapter 263.