Shokugeki no Soma WAS a fun, exciting cooking manga where a hot-blooded young chef named Soma Yukihira attends a superelite cooking school. With his background as a diner chef, he’s at a disadvantage, but his willingness to take on allcomers and willingness to learn has shone through no matter what.
Shokugeki no Soma was fun.
And then fuckmothering Asahi Saiba showed up.
Asahi Saiba was a young boy with a horribly abusive mother who was taught how to cook by Jouchiro Yukihira, the best chef in the world. Asahi loved him, privately thinking of him as his real parent. When Jou left him, saying he had a legitimate son to raise now, Asahi became insanely jealous.
He eventually fell into a group of criminal chefs and offscreen became the king of them.
In his FIRST GODDAMN APPEARANCE, Asahi defeated Jouchiro, the strongest chef in the series, in a curbstomp.
EVERY MATCH HE’S BEEN IN IS A CURBSTOMP.
Eishi Tsukasa? Fuckin’ WORFED.
And the Dark Chefs? The only reason they exist, it seems, is to give Asahi quirky tools to play with. Three really interesting-looking Dark Chefs (a clown, a mad scientist, and a bunny-masked sadist) were beaten offscreen by Asahi and have never appeared again. One of his higher ranked minions (a Chinese assassin guy) was curbstomped by Megumi without any food being shown.
The strongest female chef in the series, possessor of the God Tongue… and she’s starting to want Asahi to win. For her mother, who has the cheap ass plot device of a God Tongue so strong she can’t eat at all. This motherfucker kidnapped her, her mother (who’s head booker of the current tournament arc) has been blatantly playing favorites with Asahi this ENTIRE GODDAMN TIME, and she’s starting to cowtow to Asahi.
Everyone has been verbally sucking Asahi’s dick because of his bullshit X-Men superhuman powers that let him instantly master shit that took ACTUAL CHEFS years to master.
I do not consider Asahi Saiba a chef. He’s a fucking X-Men character in the wrong fucking manga.
Asahi Saiba is a Villain Sue and the worst thing ever to happen to Shokugeki no Soma. I fucking hate him. And I don’t hate easily.
And let’s get one thing clear - I don’t give a flip flying fuck about ships. I don’t care who dates/fucks who. But Asahi Saiba is just a horribly written character! He’s a miserable arrogant shitbrain who sucks everything good about the manga out of it.
If you like Asahi (WHY!?!?), then fine. Whatever. You’re free to like who you like. I question your TASTE and your SANITY, but beyond that, I can’t stop you from liking him and won’t try.
But I hate him. I hate him so goddamn much. I don’t hate easily - hate is tiring. But I hate Asahi Saiba.
And the sooner Shokugeki no Soma is rid of him, the better the manga will be.
Because if this is the last arc of the manga, then fuck everything. This arc is an insult to the manga itself and an insult to the intelligence of the people reading it.