Anime: Shokugeki no Souma: San no Sara 3e3oc

Review
Shokugeki no Souma was in a desperate need of renewal by the end of its second season. The shounen formula got weary with so many cooking duels and when combined with the first season we already got enough knowledge to basically preview outcomes with a high degree of success. The insanity was there though. This is, let remind us, a show about teenage cooks capable of giving people orgasms and making them feel as if naked in heaven by simply tasting some food. It's got to get around the repetition.

This third season starts after the wrap up of the tournament between first year students and already give us a massive splash of flesh meat: the ten most skilled students of Totsuki, the Elite Ten. From there it gets clear which is the path our protagonist, Souma, needs to take to become the best of the best. And yes, there is a lot of changes in the show's formula this time around, giving us a much better and refreshing shounen experience than before.

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1. Off with tournaments
   Instead of simply dueling against the Elite Ten, the show smartly introduce us to these overpowered cooks by different means. There are school festivals where the objective is selling more food, internship periods where the students face some real-life-like problems of restaurants, a coup completely changing the direction of Totsuki, some sort of student rebellion, and even a quick taste of our possibly final combat of the series.
   
   It's a lot, yeah
   Good. Very good. The tournament was ditched and in its place there is a fucking lot of things going on. Past characters are smartly used, the events happening all have a good deal of maturity to mix with the cooking insanity, and the gradual introduction to the Elite Ten makes the pace simply thrilling. The good old shounen formula is put to test and completely delivers it.
   
   Souma
   It's intriguing how the protagonist is still standing by now in of quality. Souma is ready for everything and never gives up, but like some modern sports shounen, he faces failure and frustration and manages to build up from that. Despite a horde of cute girls, boobs, and plenty of pantsu shots, he is a bastion of shounen-focus and willpower, never ever derailing to demented ecchiness as many of his kin had done in the past few years. Every duel and interaction of this show serves to give him a boost in cooking skill, and at a rate that can certainly serve the series for plenty more episodes to come.
   
   An bizarrely complex plot
   If the insanity of tasting reactions have been reduced in this third season, much of it can be blamed on the insanity of the plot growing on. The school proves to be a battleground of insanity with family feuds giving room to coup and student rebellion. Yeah. This is a show about food yet we have an evil dictator plotting with cunning students in order to implement his naz... err, gourmet ideas. Such a completely unexpected series of events sets the show to a much needed refreshment and also give everything that is happening a confusing, yet needed, reason.
   
   Of course, it's damn forced
   Any normal being attending to a renowned school that completely changes its curriculum would simply quit and find something else. But yeah, this is a shounen tale and for some bizarre reason the duels are still capable of overruling everything, so let's get on with it! It's a forced thing to happen, but it still matches with the insane premise of this show.
   

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Comments
Yeah, keep on surprising me guys. Shokugeki no Souma seemed running out of its idea and impact after the last season, but the bang came out here and the weirdness is changed from tasting reactions to family feud and a rising "gourmet dictator" (something like that). New characters are slowly presented, old ones get forgotten, yet everything is here for future use given the exact reason.

What amazes me is how the show uses so much nonsensical stuff without feeling forced. It even gets the deal of ecchiness with the cast while magically keeping the pants on. Considering the modern shows, such a number of cute girls as in here would certainly made the tale derail to a completely retarded soft porn, which seems far from happening in here.