Original Air Date: August 21th, 2015
With only one month, all the selected students must research and prepare their dishes for the preliminariy round of the Fall Classic. When the day finally arrives, everyone displays incredible skills in front of the strict judges.
This episode provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: There are new scenes of Megumi at her hometown and Nao Sadatsuka's preparations before the Tournament.
- Attention Whore: Even from a distance, Urara can sense when her fanboys are looking at some other girl, like Miyoko Hojou.
- Cliffhanger: Everyone is shocked to find out that Soma fell asleep in front of his pot.
- Deadpan Snarker: When Natsume Sendawara arrives late to the Tournament and complains that she has a pretty busy schedule, Eizan only mumbles that she should just donate the money instead, only to handwave it as Natsume barely gets to hear him.
- Evolving Credits: In the Opening Rising Rainbow, Megumi's vegetables are cauliflowers, also Akira's name is finally shown on his title card. For the Ending Sacchan no Sexy Curry, Isami changes into his thin version.
- Formerly Fat: To the shock of everyone, the thin, Tall, Dark, and Handsome guy behind Takumi is none other than Isami. He explains that the summer heat makes him loose weight very fast.
- Hard-Work Montage: The first half of the episode shows how everyone is preparing their strategies for the Fall Classic:
- The Polar Star residents each go back to their hometowns to do more research, while Soma stayed with Isshiki and Fumio.
- Ikumi is planning her strategy in the Don RS, while Kanachi is cheering her on.
- Takumi returns to Italy, while Isami decided to delay his flight.
- Miyoko has a flashback of how the employees of her restaurant dismissed her because of her gender.
- Erina, not being able to participate in the Tournament, is so bored that she tries to be Hisako's aid, while Alice and Ryou are peeping on them.
- Nao is making her dish in her Stalker Shrine.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: The judges Natsume and Orie Sendawara are Identical Twins with many differences: Natsume is more bold with long blonde hair parted in two, and wears a sexier dress, while Orie has a softer voice, wears a cuter dress and has bangs.
- I'm Taking Him Home with Me!: Orie offers Satoshi to ditch Tootsuki to work for her, with a salary bonus as an added incentive; he declines. During the preparations, Orie requests all the flashy students like picking pets from a store.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: While the finished dishes are not ready yet, the preparations of some are enough to make the audience drool, like Yuuki, Akira and Shun.
- Mood Whiplash: Before making his grand opening speech, Senzaemon choked when taking a deep breath.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Many students like Akira, Ryou, Miyoko and Alice managed to grab the attention of the judges, since their work seemed impresive from the beginning, while the ones with a low profile were being ignored, like Megumi, Marui and Soma himself.
- Stalker Shrine: Nao Sadatsuka practices her dishes in a dark room covered with photos of Erina and a doddled-out one of Hisako.
- Tournament Arc: This is the first episode of the "Fall Classic" Tournament, where all the selected first years will compete to define who belong to the best of the best of this year's crop.
- Tsundere: When Soma cheered on Ikumi before the Tournament, her only response was to run away embarrased.
