Cooking is his specialty, his passion, and his purpose.
Shiro, the older sister, will always support her little brother no matter what.
Sometimes Shiro too wishes she loved cooking as much as he does.
Well, she got work to do and problems seem to f...
Which brought me to wonder about the whole Nakiri family dynamic. Mana leaving her family behind for her pursuit of delicious food, Azami becomes a manipulative and abusive father, while somehow Soe doesn't really do much but just watches on the side.
I get that this is an anime and that things don't exactly have to connect or make sense in a realistic way, but I wanted to add components to make it more real.
I think what made me really question Senzaemon was when he asked an underaged high schooler to be the next Headmaster of a HUGE academy. Or when Mana could care less to marry off her UNDERAGE daughter to a creepy dude.
Like what. A literal girl, who has not lived her childhood other than being a critic, and literally never hang out with normal friends (besides Arato Hisako), to be the next headmaster or a bride to someone she literally just met.
Erina deserves better. Deserves a freer life where she could enjoy her childhood more now that she got herself a good friend group.
Ever since that moment, I began to think of Senzaemon and the Nakiri family differently. Why did he ask Erina to be the next headmaster? Why didn't he help Mana when there are so many chefs out there? Like if Soma and Asahi in the canon were able to please her (I know there was some plot armor here but-), can't people like Joichiro or Dojima or any of the previous alumni help? I just thought that there could have been more options instead of Mana leaving herself, leaving her family behind.
Because I find it hard that Mana and Azami, who have shown to be loving towards one another be broken so easily.
So I thought about Totsuki, and why the rules that are so harmful to students such as the Shokugeki, were something that stayed as a tradition.
Maybe Senzaemon wants to preserve their tradition, which then the Shokugeki can preserve their prestige, name, and power.
Because the Nakiri family has always been at the top, why not keep it at the top? Even if he had to lie to his family, even if he had to pull some strings, even if he had to hurt some people.
And voila! This idea became a big part of this fic.
Also, Azami should have gone to jail long ago, child abuse and manipulation are not okay.
About Asahi leaving the Nakiri family and becoming the adopted son of the McFly family: let's face it, going with Ikki and Chloe was a better option no matter what.
About the twins, Shiro and Soma, the OCs and the life at Totsuki
Okay, I did not expect to put so much effort into their sibling relationship.
Or the side characters of Food Wars. Or the life at Totsuki, just teenagers being teenagers.
But I did.
Ikki and Ringo were actually from book 1 "Specialty", so I wanted to bring them back.
Chloe came to be because we need a girl boss role model for Shiro, who has always wanted to pursue something other than cooking (because let's face it, her trauma stems from cooking).
And some parts felt slow because I wanted to really zoom in on the other characters like the Polar Star dorm, and bring them into the Regiment de Cuisine as active participants than bystanders. Because I think they could have done more instead of just waiting to be saved by the main protagonist.
The anime only showed Shokugeki after Shokugeki, but what about the student life? Social life? I wanted to show that the characters have more than just their cooking, whether that's playing games, getting drunk, meeting new friends, rebelling, dating, and more.
Also, don't forget about the struggles that high schoolers have to go through such as choosing what job or field to pursue. And that it's okay if you have career changes.
As I mentioned before, Totsuki had flaws, so it's not the ideal school for everyone.
Some people might be forced to go (Ikki) and some go because they haven't found what they wanted to do (Shiro and Ringo). Some might be influenced by family (Chloe).
But when they do find what they want to do, it's okay to change interest and leave. It's okay to shift to something different.
Because if it makes you happy in the long-term, I think it's worth it.
Thoughts before, during and after
Honestly, I never thought I would make a sequel to the first Food Wars fic until the sequel for my Magi fic came out. I just thought I had the ball rolling, so might as well keep it ROLLING.
It was harder than I thought.
Since this was based in the real world (modern life), I had to do research. That meant realistic (but with my own twist) recipes, laws (damn you Ikki and Azami), and how-to feelings manual.
Yeah, I wanted to make sure this fic made sense in the anime and the real world. (*cough, I am sorry to the readers who read the first book because I admit that the dishes that Shiro made aren't the most realistic or accurate. So sorry.)
So there were a lot of blocks for any chapters that had cooking in them. But we came through!
Now that the story is done, I feel a sense of relief that I actually completed the stories that I wanted to finish. It bugs me when I don't finish it since I too am one of those readers who have a hate/love relationship with super good and rare stories that are unfortunately discontinued! (Please repair my poor heart)
Overall, I am satisfied with this story and how it went.
That's the end of my Ted-Talk, thanks for chiming in! JK but in all seriousness, thank you to all the readers who read my fanfic, it motivates me to write more in the future.
Thank you, and hope you all have a great day!
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