I label him a selfish altruist. It's quite the oxymoron but it fits.Hell yeah, chapter on a thursday!
I liked that Soma now clearly specified he's doing it for himself, conform with my analysis of his character that he's actually quite selfish
I wond though how he's going to handle this. Putting aside the possibility that he might try to get impartial judges somehow, he has to make the judges want to eat his food. An extremely strong aroma perhaps? Just like the aroma bombs he and Hayama used during the Autumn Election.
He made a risotto three times now. First against his father, then his aroma bomb during the autumn selection where he also used eggs which nearly failed him during the camp and then again during the stagaire period.
Trying to convince people in another way than cooking does not sound like Soma at all.
Which lead the question of the week. How is souma going to win if the judges does not decide to taste his food? I wonder what the author is going to pull off this time.
It'd be counter productive/bad writing if they kept recycling the same techniques or general dishes for Yukihira. I'm not saying he hasn't used the same things prior, but he'd be better off doing something newer. For the sake of the entertainment quality of seeing an actual noticeable evolution in the character. Thus far we've really just counted on Soma to make a dish with some minor innovations based on his past experiences with no real concrete style to expect from him. You can argue that is his style, but if he were to keep going his route it'd become a bit stale.
I doubt Gin and Jouchiro are going to be playing an active role because it's simply 'too much'. Souma is still the MC after all and his goal is to surpass his dad, so that his dad and Gin then become the heroes doesn't really correspond well with the plot. Neither of them seem the types to be doing it either, though it's possible they pull some stuff behind the scenes all the way at the end.
