Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma - The Fourth Plate is the fourth season based on the manga. It is 12 episodes long and as expected, it continues right from where the previous season ended. It gives us a quick recap of the current situation, where Soma and his team of “rebels” are now facing off against Central. The best part is that Soma’s team comprises of the core characters plus former Elite Ten members, against the traitor Elite Ten members plus new recruits. This type of matchup means that it is tough to get a feel on who has the advantage, and there is no clear cut winner.
The background of the story is that Soma is attending the famous culinary school Totsuki Academy. This school is also unique in that a group of ten students, known as the Elite Ten, pretty much holds all the powers of the school, surpassing even the Director. After a coup, the new organisation known as Central is trying to standardize all cooking into what they deem as appropriate, and anything that they consider inappropriate or not worthy of being called food, is rejected and cast away. This includes Soma and his friends, who does not subscribe to the same ideology. Thus they are labelled as rebels and through some manipulation and help from others, a team battle has been managed to set up where if Soma loses, they are all expelled, so the stakes are high.
With only twelve episodes to work with, the fast pacing remains and it zips past each of the matches in a blur. The fact that the matches are currently three on three means that it is even faster than normal, so while there’s still some build up, it’s not as intense as it was in the past. Nevertheless, we still get to see the sheer power of the ones at the top of the Elite Ten and how amazing there are at the culinary arts. As we were mostly shown the personalities of the characters up until now, for many of this, this is the first time that we see their cooking skills. The power gap is so wide that there are times where you doubt that Soma and his team can even hope to match, let alone overcome. However, we know that they will somehow persevere, otherwise there would be no story.
Despite Soma’s team being the perfect combination of early main cast characters plus former Elite Ten members plus a friend that Soma had converted through his own charisma, some of them must lose. It’s a shame when this happens given that they were so confident and righteous, but had to be crushed like this. While it’s not all in vain, it’s still sad to watch them having to go through this after putting in all that effort.
On the flipside, for the characters who win, especially the ones who are not ex-Elite Ten members, then it’s a satisfying feeling at trouncing their more experienced seniors. Characters who had lost in the past bounce back, having learnt from their mistakes. While most matches are straightforward, there are some where the strategy was fleshed out, leading it to become a sort of mind game. That makes the matches more interesting, given that we’re now starting to get into the burnt-out territory (even with the faster pacing), with each match having a similar structure. Even the over-the-top reactions aren’t as amusing now that we’re four seasons in, since we would have already seen a variation of it before.
There is a tendency for characters on the sidelines to declare that whatever the person cooking is doing to be blasphemy, how it shouldn’t work and how they shouldn’t do it. Then when the tasting begins, only for them to be proven wrong. It’s like they don’t even trust their own comrades, or even showing off how ignorant they are. While this has happened time and time again over the seasons, like several other aspects of the structure, it can be a bit tiresome by this point.
There is also the bias towards French cooking as a speciality for Soma, which is interesting. Given the characters, we see a lot of Italian and Japanese cuisine, so some of the more interesting scenes are when characters cook up a dish from a different part of the world. Learning about a dish you probably aren’t familiar with, from say Peru, is a whole lot more interesting that Soma mixing up Japanese and French techniques into one dish, but only because we’ve come to expect that from him so there’s less of a surprise.
As it reaches the season finale, and the climax of the current arc, the story manages to once again change things up a bit. However, while this is definitely a battle with the highest stakes yet, and the way it was resolved was very in line with the personality of Soma, it was satisfying and yet something still felt missing. It doesn’t quite reach the same peak as the earlier seasons did, like a key ingredient is missing. The ending itself could be easily mistaken for the ending of the series at a whole, since it gives us closure on a lot of the characters. It’s an idealistic ending, but one that is definitely heartwarming and doesn’t feel like a copout.
Overall, Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma - The Fourth Plate brings about a sense of closure to the story. While the four seasons up until now only chronicles the first year of the characters, in a way, they’ve reached a point where you feel that most of the story has been told. The whole season was dominated by the battle between Soma’s team and the current Elite Ten members, so there may not be a lot of variety, especially compared to the first and third seasons. However, this is also where Food Wars! is at its best, without all the fluff and distractions. Due to the fast pacing and the predictable outcome of several of the matches, it doesn’t quite have the same sense of anticipation and tension, which is probably why it can feel that a small piece that is lacking. Despite that, it’s still a great season and one that’s close to a fitting end to the characters (luckily there’s still another season after this).
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