Quote Originally Posted by shinta|hikari View Post
Like I said, what steps? What's a pseudo improv? You either improvise or you plan. Those are mutually exclusive. And no, "planning to improvise" doesn't count. I'll give you that Souma had prepared ingredients (which I wanna repeat Mimasaka knew about), so it wasn't completely out of inspiration, but the preparation part and thus the final dish is a product of improvisation.

What Souma did is nothing special. It's only natural to bring your best to the table. It's only natural to hide info and improvise if your opponent profiles and copies you. It's only natural to learn about the enemy before facing them, especially with valuable tools on the line. Are you saying none of the other people who defeated Mimasaka did any of this? Now that's unbelievable.

I never said (aside from that joke) that Souma would've won without knowing what he faced. What I did say is that I'm surprised no one else apparently knew what they were facing, or took measures against it. Except we know that's not true because Mimasaka explicitly stated that people do know about his trace and do take measures against it, 2 types of counters, to be exact.

Souma took the 2nd one. The show just disguised it as something else, namely experience ejaculation. I called that bullshit in my first post about it, and it still is many down the line. Souma didn't think of a way to get past the trace ability. He simply came up with an awesome dish which apparently Mimasaka failed to copy because of... reasons...

I like Buff's explanation. Mimasaka is small fry, and everyone else he defeated is small fry, including Aldini, who I'm pretty sure is well behind Souma's current self now. If Mimasaka faced one of the elite ten or even the other finalists in this contest, he would've been obliterated.
Ah, so you arbitrarily remove "plan to improvise" from the table because it doesn't fit your narrative? OK. I call it pseudo improv because what he did was really an improv in many regards, the anime is simply giving a BS about why it's not called improv. What's not clear is WHAT part was actually improvised or not. That's what is most unclear about this, but there was no doubt that he brought elements of both foresight and planning while doing some improv as well. Whatever.

As for the other point about why no one took these steps, or why no one seemed to really know who they were facing, yes that's a complete flaw and dumb. But it's also true that Aldini was ignorant to it, and that Souma was ignorant to it, until the plot decided to introduce it... and then suddenly EVERYONE apparently knows. Also, you're ignoring the point that Mimasaka's MO was from ambushing people, not always on tournaments with set schedules and what not, probably outside of them. In any case, that's not what I'm arguing against, feel free to complain about it to your heart's content, since I agree it's a dumb way to come about it. It's pretty much the same shit that most shounen shows do when a new opponent comes and everyone acts surprised about some shit the opponent has been notorious for doing.

I agree with the part of the BS about calling it improv or not, but that's besides the point, it's simply a term. I just disagree with your characterization that he did nothing to take measures to get past the trace ability because he did. You don't want to buy them, that's fine. I'll still hold that Souma would've lost without those steps, else he would've faced Mimasaka straight on and produced the very same dish he was going to do and beat him that way, let him copy his dish.

As for the rest, it's irrelevant to what's being discussed.


Quote Originally Posted by MFauli View Post
Munsu, you can keep explaining it all you want. At the end of the day, Soma won because the plot demanded it. Not because of what he actually did.
That's a copout argument... everything is explained because the plot demanded it. That applies to all.

We had learned that this guy´s copy ability is above anyone. He WILL know what you´re cooking, he WILL know how you´ll try and one-up him, and he WILL go one step beyond your expectations. That´s what we´ve been shown.

Then Some beat him because he couldn´t be predicted. Just because.

It´s not satisfying.
Yet he himself allows for the possibility that people can improvise against him, they simply haven't managed it for whatever reason (shitty cook, not enough tools/ingredients to come up with something new, etc., etc.)

He couldn't be predicted because profile all you want, it'd be impossible to take into account every single experience Souma has gone through in his whole life, in addition to Souma taking steps to make sure many of those factors where kept hidden from Mimasaka. Yes, that applies to everyone in some regard, just the same not everyone has the cooking experience, professional and not, that Souma has. Just the opposite.

No one said it had to be satisfying, I'm not trying to convince anyone that it was. I'm simply arguing against the flawed premise you guys are using of what actually occurred. Whether you want to buy them or not, whether you found them satisfactory or not, is not my concern.

What was true of what went on, is that Souma chickened out.