The manga series Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma was created by Yuto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki. The series follows the cooking journey of the protagonist, Soma Yukihira, a transfer student at the fictional Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute. Totsuki Institute is an extremely competitive culinary school. Students are judged on their cooking in events such as shokugeki (food war), a cooking duel.
Development When asked at Anime Expo about the diversity of characters, series creator Yuto Tsukuda said, "That was very important to me. I wanted the younger readers experiencing this manga to learn about different types of food and culture from different countries. I thought it would be great if kids reading the manga could grow up, travel the world, see unique dishes and remember, 'I saw that in Food Wars! when I was a kid.
The concept of the clothes falling off originated from "the idea of a girl eating food, and she expresses herself about the food with 'ecstasy'", but Tsukuda also realized early on that it meant they could also portray the male characters with clothes removed.
At Crunchyroll Expo 2019, Tsukuda said that he originally wanted to end the series soon after the central arc, since it had shown the growth of the key characters, citing "Soma's mental growth, Megumi's achievement of independence and Erina's development." However, he had doubts with have to resolve the relationship between Soma and Erina, so he rewrote the epilogue chapter for that several times before settling with the final.
Main characters Soma Yukihira
is a 15-year-old chef who has been working at the family Joichiro's diner, Yukihira Family Restaurant, since he was a young child. When his father closes the diner to work overseas, Soma enrolls in the Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute.Chapter 1
Erina Nakiri
is a first-year student at Totsuki and the granddaughter of the school's director Senzaemon. She was the valedictorian of Totsuki's junior high and is the youngest student to join the school's Council of Ten Masters. She was abused by her father Azami as a child when he was molding her Divine Tongue.
Megumi Tadokoro
is Soma's best friend and classmate at Totsuki and next-door dormmate at Polaris. Her shyness and stage fright causes her to perform poorly. Tsukuda said that "Megumi Tadokoro is probably from some area in Tohoku Prefecture and has a slight Tohoku dialect, but I purposefully obscured it. This is because I don't necessarily want her to be seen as a stereotype. I actually got a comment from someone living in Tohoku who mentioned that her Aomori dialect is not right."
Supporting characters Polar Star Dormitory Polar Star Dormitory is a student residence within Totsuki, intended to house less affluent students. In order to become a resident, students must first cook a dish to the satisfaction of the dormitory manager Fumio.
Fumio Daimido
, who goes by Miss Fumio, is the caretaker and dorm matron of Polaris. As the "Maria of Polaris", she administers a cooking test that students must pass to become residents.
Satoshi Isshiki
is a second-year student who occupies the seventh seat of the Council of Ten. He has a few quirks, often appearing half-naked, wearing nothing but an apron and sometimes a fundoshi..
Yuki Yoshino
is an energetic girl and a first-year resident in room 116. Her specialty is cooking wild game.
Shun Ibusaki
is a first-year resident whose specialty is smoked food,.
Zenji Marui
is a first-year student. Quiet and studious, he is the star pupil of Professor Takao Miyazato's Seminar. His peers in the club call him "The Professor of Taste".
Ryoko Sakaki
is a first-year student. Her specialty is shio koji (rice malt). She has a warehouse near the dorm where she does fermentation processing. She also provides "fermented rice drink" at dork celebrations which Soma suspects is illegally brewed sake.
Daigo Aoki and Shoji Sato (Daigo) (Shōji)
and are two muscular dorm mates who tend to fight over everything, but are united when it comes to defending the honor of the dormitory and its members. They have a background role in the story.
Totsuki 92nd Generation students The following students enrolled in Totsuki at the same year as Soma.
Hisako Arato
is Erika's aide. She retained her position in her second year of junior high by defeating rival student Nao Sadatsuka in a shokugeki. Inspired by her family, she specializes in medicinal cooking, which is based on natural remedies and Chinese medicine to improve health.
Ikumi Mito
is a first-year student. Known as the "Master of Meat", she is among the top students of her year, with her meat-based dishes always scoring A's. She strongly dislikes the nickname "Nikumi", a portmanteau of the Japanese word for "meat" and her given name. She is the heiress to a large meat distributor and conglomerate.
Takumi Aldini
is a transfer student from Florence, Italy; His mother is Italian and his father Japanese. He initiates a rivalry with Soma, viewing him as someone similar to himself. His twin brother is Isami. Takumi's specialty is Italian cuisine.
Isami Aldini
is Takumi's younger twin brother. The spin-off manga Shokugeki no Soma – Fratelli Aldini focuses on the brothers' time in Italy. He and Takumi transfer to Totsuki's junior high program in their second year.
Alice Nakiri
is Erina Nakiri's cousin, introduced in the first-year cooking camp. Her mother is Danish and her father is Japanese. She specializes in molecular gastronomy, a scientific approach to cooking.
Ryo Kurokiba
is Alice's aide. He is the former head chef of a pub on the coast of Denmark. He considers the kitchen to be a battlefield. Ryo's specialty is seafood dishes.
Nao Sadatsuka
is a girl with long dark hair covering her face who is obsessed with Erina. She despises Hisako, after losing a shokugeki to her in junior high over who gets to be Erina's aide. She is then required to stay at least 50 meters from Erina at all times, but Nao still stalks Erina from afar and writes her 30 letters per day. She is known as the Cauldron Witch, and specializes in dishes that involve boiling and simmering with ingredients that generate hideous smells.
Miyoko Hojo
is the heir of a Chinese cuisine restaurant in Yokohama's Chinatown, Her specialty is Chinese techniques and wok maneuvers. Because she was looked down upon by the cooks at her father's restaurant because of her sex, she has a low opinion of men in general.
Akira Hayama
is a first-year student and the assistant for Professor Jun Shiomi. He looks after Shiomi. Akira specializes in curry dishes, with a wide knowledge of spices and aromas. He can detect different kinds of spices by smell alone.
Subaru Mimasaka
The chef who secures the fourth spot in his block at the Fall Classic preliminaries, is a heavily built student with hair styled in a braided mohawk. He provokes his opponents into shokugeki challenges in which they stake their best cooking knife and soundly defeats them. He has no specialty, but it is soon revealed that he painstakingly stalks his opponents, learning the dishes they plan to make, and then makes the identical dish with improvements.
Other Totsuki students Kanichi Konishi
is the second-year student and president of the Donburi Bowl Research Society. He has a pompadour hair style.
Urara Kawashima
is the master of ceremonies for the shokugeki competitions and other events at Totsuki. She greatly enjoys the attention she gets from her male fans and audience, and greatly dislikes it when other women take this attention from her.
Yua Sasaki
is the other Master of Ceremonies at the Fall Classic during the preliminary round when the event is split into two blocks.
Mitsuru Sotsuda
is a third-year student at Totsuki Junior High and a member of the Journalism Club. He worships Soma and follows him with his reporter equipment.
Tetsuji Kabutoyama
is a second-year student known as "The Iron Skewer" for his skewer-cooking techniques. He has a shokugeki winning rate of 80%. He takes an interest in Soma after seeing his cooking during the Fall Classics, and is the first student to challenge Soma to a shokugeki after the latter was done with his stagiaire.
Tōtsuki staff Senzaemon Nakiri
is Erina's grandfather, the patriarch of the Nakiri family, and the Dean of Tōtsuki Saryo Culinary Institute. He is known as the "Gastric Godfather" in the culinary world. He has the tendency of stripping his upper body clothing when he eats a good dish.
Roland Chapelle
Roland Chapelle is a French chef and lecturer at Totsuki, head of its French Cuisine Division. He is nicknamed "The Chef Who Doesn't Smile" due to his high standards and stern demeanor.
Jun Shiomi
, age 34, is a professor at Totsuki who teaches second-year general classes and a seminar specializing in spices. An alumna of the 73rd graduating class and a former resident of Polaris during the dorm's golden age, she taste-tested many of Joichiro's cooking experiments, which left her traumatized enough to hate anything to do with him. Her petite stature and style makes her appear like a junior high school student. She grows spices from all over the world in her lab. She is a very timid and reserved person, and klutzy. While researching spices overseas at age 26, Jun meets Akira Hayama and, recognizing his talent, brings him to Japan to mentor and take care of him.
Takao Miyazato
is the president of the Shokugeki Administration Bureau. He runs a seminar that focuses on the academic knowledge of culinary and gastronomical topics. Zenji Marui attends as a first-year and is one of his top students.
Totsuki alumni
Jōichirō Yukihira
, born , is Soma's father and owner of Yukihira Family Restaurant. in the Sumire Shopping District. He teaches Soma the family business and challenges him to many cook-offs that have always ended in Jōichirō's victory.
Gin Dojima
is the head chef and company director of the Totsuki Resorts, first appearing in the camp event for the first-year students. A graduate of Totsuki's 69th class, he holds the record of the highest marks in the entire school, and has turned down offers to work for over 800 restaurants.
Tsukuda said that he originally intended only for Gin Dojima to transform Sailor Moon magical girl style in the magical cabbage story.
Kojiro Shinomiya
is the owner of a French haute cuisine restaurant called Shino's. After graduating at the top of the 79th class, he moves to Paris, earning the moniker "Le magicien de légume" (The Vegetable Magician) for emphasizing vegetables and having a Japanese approach to a cuisine that has been mostly meat dishes.
Hinako Inui
, of the 80th graduating class, heads the Japanese-cuisine restaurant Kiri No Ya. She is a bit absent-minded. She takes a liking towards Megumi Tadokoro. She is also fond of teasing Kojiro Shinomiya, which often results in the latter comically punishing her.
Fuyumi Mizuhara
, of the 79th graduating class and second seat on the Council, is the owner of the Italian restaurant Ristorante F. She is often irritated with Shinomiya, but respects him as a chef. She is often deadpan, and serious compared to her light-hearted schoolmate Hinako Inui. She tried but failed to recruit the Aldini brothers and Soma for her restaurant at the conclusion of the first-year's summer camp.
Taki Tsunozaki
, an 88th-generation graduate who held the second seat in the Council, she owns the Spanish restaurant Taki Amarillo which she opened a year after graduating. She first appears as a judge in the Fall Classic semifinals.
Sonoka Kikuchi
, a graduate of the 89th class and the second seat on the Council, owns a Western cuisine restaurant Shunkatei in which she opened within a year after graduating. She first appeared in the Fall Classic semifinals.
Council of Ten Masters