Original Air Date: November 16, 2019
The Third Bout reaches the last duel: Soma vs Soumei. Soumei remembers why he took his current path.
This episode provides examples of:
- All Your Powers Combined: Soma manages to win against Soumei because of all the techniques he learned from his friends and previous rivals, like Ryou, Akira, and so on, while using the ingredients his teammates prepared for him, like Takumi's cheese and Megumi's compound butter. The final battle is visually represented by Soma wielding all the weapons from his friends' Imagine Spots.
- Asleep in Class: Just as Alice and Erina remember that Erina gave a lecture about the history and different applications of butter, Shun and Marui don't dare to tell Erina that Soma was mostly napping in the middle of her masterclass.
- Call-Back: Nene recalls Soma's infamous speech in front of the entire school, realizing that it wasn't just cheap talk from him.
- Crazy Enough to Work: To the surprise of the audience, both Soumei and Soma use uncommon ingredients for their butter-based dishes. Soumei makes a lot of orange juice for his sushi bowl, while Soma finds a package of square mochi in the pantry and makes a thick white sauce with it.
- Everything's Better with Samurai: In the flashback, it's seen that Soumei was a big fan of Samurai Period dramas, which is why he took on the speech pattern during his duels, as he was inspired by them to perfect his skills and avenge his mother's honor. Of course, he doesn't realize that he started to talk like that even daily, as noted during the 2nd bout.
- Evil Counterpart: While not a villain and more of an antagonist, Soumei's backstory has similarities with Soma's background. They both hail from a small family restaurant, but unlike Soma's mother, who much later is revealed to be a terrible cook who had free range in her own business and everyone loved her because of her playful personality, Soumei's mom was good, but discriminated by the male sushi chefs, and both faced bullying from bigger sharks with raw talent. Soma didn't resent the bigger restaurants and instead wanted to improve Yukihira's on his own, while Soumei took it upon himself to squash them to avenge his mother.
- Freudian Excuse: Soumei grows resentful of the restaurant industry because of the sexism his mother suffered trying to be a sushi chef and believes that the system needs a radical change. Azami uses this as a hook to convince him to join Central, promising to fix the discrimination his mother suffered.
- Impossibly Delicious Food:
- Soumei's "Jewel Butter Seafood Bowl" is a Sushi Bowl that combines pan-fried salmon in butter, squid, and salmon roe, all united by the butter as a binding component. The rice was prepared with orange and lemon juice instead of vinegar, which acidity cuts the fat of the proteins and the sweetness of the oranges balances the saltiness of the seafood.
- On the other hand, Soma's "Yukihira Style Fragrant Butter Pilaf Inarizushi" takes advantage of the tofu skin wrapping the rice perfectly fried with butter and then rinsed with water, the rice pilaf is filled with the umami of different proteins, and mochi-soymilk white sauce as the main component, using the starch of the three kinds of rice to give it texture and depth, topped with cheese sauce that compliments the butter.
- Momma's Boy: Soumei's main motivation to excel at Tootsuki is to be good enough to carry the family sushi restaurant along with his mother. The mistreatment she receives from the big restaurants is what starts his path of revenge.
- Mr. Exposition: Isshiki is the one who explains Soumei's backstory to the rebels.
- Struggling Single Mother: Soumei's mother worked at a sushi place that only had her do backbreaking labor and never allowed her to step foot in the kitchen, to the point she eventually fell sick from exhaustion. There's no mention of Soumei's father.
- Training Montage: To further the extensive training the freshmen had with Senzaemon, Jouichirou, Doujima, and Shinomiya, Subaru also contributes by imitating each member of the Elite Ten to have mock battles against the three of them. Despite this physically exhausting Subaru, this prepares Soma for every single outcome.
