Discussion Character Development Speculation Thread

[NyoiToy]

Hmm... I think it would be very trite for her to have special of the day shop. Maybe just temporarily just to know how it feels like and to gain extra skills, but I'd like her to OWN that Nakiri name. Be the head of the family and control the Tootsuki group better than her grandpa would ever have. In short, the treatment she'd have gotten if only she's a guy main rival in Shonen Jump manga. Maybe Soma will kinda reach her level, and they will beat each other and win and lose back and forth. Something like Touya Akira in Hikaru no Go (which btw have kinda similar background to Erina) or Niizuma Eiji in Bakuman.

That'd be great if she could grow into the Touya Akira... Though Touya was much more likable because as much pedigree as he had, he still never tried to sabotage anyone or look down on them in a malicious way.

One also has to wonder just how connected to the nakiri family soma is... Why was it that erina's grandfather happened to be around to test soma's dish when he was first tested by erina? Did joichiro call the gramps ahead of time (we know joichiro was employed by the nakiri family for a while and some believe maybe he had married a nakiri) and tell him to keep an eye on soma for him?

 

[AlexisMeade]

Hmm Erina as a male does sound interesting. It sounds like she would've run the Nakiri family well enough as a side character. There's little development and, as the female protagonist I would expect something big to happen.

Because she starts near the top doesn't mean there's little development. We can see her struggle to climb up the top 10 rank. She can fail against the ones higher than her. Just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean she doesn't work hard. She's been fed various things from childhood so she can recognize various things. Her schedule is very packed also. Before autumn election we can also see that she finished 50 meals way faster than Soma did. That takes training.

Idk what is it with storyteller that if it's female rival/protagonist they have to be taken down/humiliated first and then makes them 'softer' to build them up. That's kinda gross. Soma doesn't learn 'humility' after being smacked down by Shinomiya, btw. Nor did Takumi. BUT I have high hopes that they wouldn't use this route with Erina because it's been used with Takumi.

 

[Goldsun]

Minor spoiler maybe? But this will be all over every Shokugeki no soma forum soon enough

After reading through Tsukuda-sensei's answers to some twitter questions it seems like Erina WILL develop romantic feelings for Soma "soon". This may not be so unexpected since she has during the manga often been involved in some sort of "love" discussion. Love manga, what love really is etc. It's been hinting at it quite often and built up some questions around it.

I also stumbled upon something that the heroine of the manga is uncertain and that something(?) could happen soon. Although I'm not the best at Japanese and might have misunderstood his tweet. It did say that the heroine is secret or something like that though, in the end it seems like he has something BIG coming up for Erina soon. And he seems to repping Erina on his profile picture too.

This is quite interesting as I would live to see how this would develop in the manga, and that it would be more interesting rather then having it develop with Megumi since the two already has such a fantastic relationship with eachother to begin with.

 

[Msrito]

With that father of hers we start to understand her more, like when she said that 'failure is not acceptable' or to Alice after her lost vs Soma 'it's nice that you can cry like this'. I think her father is like Akashi from Kuroko no Basuke, 'win is like breath for me, my words are the absolute' and shits like that. Pure Erina she must had hard childhood. I always loved her and i knew she wasn't bad, but now i love her even more! I wonder Soma will take notice of Erina as a woman when he taste her food?

 

[Chingaruna517]

Ladies and gents of the forum, welcome to the characters . In this post lets talk about Erina's father, Azami Nakiri. Unlike other Nakiri members, this one is the exile whose infamy is scorned by many, even among the judges outside the academy grounds. His abrupt return displays Erina's vulnerability for the first time, and to make matter worst he has other ideas about gourmet philosophy, until Soma knocks Erina's cafe's door. So here is a question for today, how would Soma going to face the Exiled One?

 

[Sefirosu]

Are spoilers allowed here before English scans are out?

 

[seizzoverow]

It would be interisting IMO if soma changing side to join him or some of polar star member
then they will have school vs school tournament XD

 

[Unnamed]

I think its way too soon for Souma to challenge him. At most this Arc will just bring Souma into his field of view. For me it will be until 3rd year or later when Souma will take care of Erina's dad.

 

[Wookitake]

I believe this is the right place to quote the post I made at the 133 thread

I believe we can achieve a nice theory without taking some stuff for granted, some debatable ones. Don't hypothesize that much.

What do we know about him?

1) Erina is incredibly afraid of her father, to traumatized levels;
2) He's an elitist, segragationist dick;
3) He's so much of a shitty person that the AE judges think that he should have been banished from Tootsuki;
4) He had not been banished until now, even though...
5) He's not Erina's guardian;
6) Every trace of him had been erased from the academy;
7) By the time Hisako was 6~9 (personal guess of her age), he was already out of Tootsuki;
8) He started lecturing Erina by the time she was 6;
9) We have no indication of his age.

So, trying to explain each of those points. This post's going to be huge, just a warning:

1) What could have made Erina so afraid of her father? We're still talking about a shonen and he was not arrested, so no physical punish or anything like that. W know that from an early age she had shown signs of her amazing tasting skill. He was an already acomplished cook with a gold mine as a child, he could achieve perfection using her. That's where it probably started.
So, to start what IMO makes sense: since Erina began to talk and showed signs of her God Tongue, Azami has been making her somekind of a "slave-judge", making her taste every dish he creates. That makes Erina anxious, tired, stressed. Senzaemon gets pissed with his son. Not only that, but probably just after she turns able to handle knifes and etc. (here we're using info 8 from the above list), and seeing her unlimited potential, he starts to teach her. He is then even more demanding of her. Senzaemon get's more pissed.

Now, getting to 3~7) from above
We don't know when Erina's mother died. Based on 7), before Hisako was 6~9. So, by the time Erina starts to cook, her mother had already died. Did Azami have anything with that? Probably not.
Following what I've said at the previous paragraph up there, Azami's rigid training with Erina crosses the limit completely (I won't try to guess it). Senzaemon "banishes" Azami from Erina's life (protecting her from him even by erasing his traces from the mansion), but since he's his son and deeply talented, doesn't ban him from Tootsuki, since it would taint his career and a possibility of a 2nd chance (that's reasonable, more from it up next). That explains 5 and 6. That accomodates Erina knowing how to cook by the time Jou was the Nakiri's personal chef (she wants him to taste her food).

So, we're already jumping to the conclusion that he was Jouichirou's nemesis and 3rd seat. But, since 9) and the info that Jouichirou had Souma in a young age (23, since he's from the 69th gen), isn't resonable to think that Azami is older than Jouichirou, by, like, 5 years? In terms of his relationship with Jou, can't we make it something else? We can't close our eyes to other possibilities. Now it's my turn to hypothesize:

What if his relationship with him was more like a Soma vs. Shinomiya? Of course, Shino's a nice dude. But, considering this age gape (5 years), couldn't Jou and Gin's stint at the Elite 10, given their mentality and ideals, and how it clashed with Azami's, a probable instructor/teacher at the academy, made them rivals? We know that the Elite 10 have a huge voice in the Academy's business, something that could have rotten Azami and Senzaemon's relationship from an early time. And since he's a Nakiri and, at the time, the heir to the Academy, isn't it probable that he became a teacher right after graduation? We sure want some kind of rivalry between Jou and Azami, but there's a nice chance they don't have the same age. As I've said, we don't know anything about his age, that's a huge problem to make any prediction. He does have the same level of expression marks as Gin. The "Azami was at the same council as Jou and Gin" solves the question as well, for sure, but it's nice to have some other routes to follow.

So, the post ends here. What I really wanted to say was at the beggining, we can't make too much of what has been shown to us. We should construct the scenarios in small steps (I tried to, maybe I'v failed to do so and jumped some steps too).

 

[AAM1232]

Azami is starting to become really creepy and scary, wonder if they are going to make him some sort of child abuser 'cause he's really giving off that vibe.

 

[Wookitake]

(disclaimer: although this may not help us theorize about what's going to happen right now in this arc, being much of a reach, I'm going to post this anyway. I've written it before last chapter)

I'll try to be the most direct I can to explain this crackpot theory of mine. That should have already been discussed at some point in time but I'll bring it to life again, with modifications given the recent events. First, let's follow some simple steps.

Right of the bat, in the first few chapters, we learn that almost all Tootsuki studets have a restaurant or food industry background, including our guy Souma. Many of them are heirs to long established restaurants.

Then, not long after that, we learned that Jouichirou himself studied at Tootsuki. There's an obvious sequence of thought going on here:

Tootsuki students have food background -> Jouichirou studied at Tootsuki -> Jouichirou have a food background.

Since we know that he's not a Yukihira, opening this restaurant or at least leading it just after getting married with Souma's mom (that's not really clear imo), we know his background comes from something/someone else.

Then, during the Autunm Elections, during Souma vs. Alice, we are presented a curious flashback

http://www.mangareader.net/shokugeki-no-soma/65/14

I trust in Casanova Scans. So, the use of "does" means that Jou's mom (or Yukihira's grandma by his mother's side) is still alive, otherwise he would have used "didn't knew his real grandmother", for example. Using the above's conclusion, there's another logical thread to follow:

Jouichirou has a food background -> Jouichirou's mom is alive -> Jou's family has a food-related business.

Well, things got interesting. Why hasn't Souma got in touch with more of this family? Intriguing. And since the characters' names are related to their personalities/background, his name hints at something important (from the Wikia: Castle (Jou), One (Ichi), and Son (Rou) which could mean "son of the first castle". His original last name, Saiba, uses the kanji for Aptitude or Talent (Sai) and Wave (Ba, an alternate pronunciation for Nami))

That's enough for one thread, but I'm not stoping here. What follows is a bit of nonsense. I'm even going to post it inside a spoiler tag:

Spoiler

There are other aspects of Jou's personality and history that were presented to us. He has a stry cat personality, not really being attached to one place, something that translated to his professional life. He's a wonderer by nature and known worldwide (although with some kind of underground status) for his vast knowledge and freelance cooking. With this and the above conclusions, here comes the crackpot:

Jou's family's background is food-related -> If he was the heir to someone restaurant he chose not to, preferring to wonder the world and opening a restaurant in his wife's name/leading his wife's restaurant -> He's never introduced Souma to them -> He's lost touch with his family, maybe even a rift between them (??)

And then, given that we're talking about a shounen, the recent plot developments and the potential of this perspective, what if Jou's family is relatively important and side with Azami?

There's just too much to it. This arc, that should be a long one (maybe even going deep into Souma's 2nd year), could not only develop Nakiri's past story but Jou and Souma's too (since he's the protagonist and not her, that's fair to expect). They don't even need to side with Azami, but introducing Jou's backstory in the next ~80 chapters or so (maybe more if this development is really what is looking to be) seems possible and the way I presented would be a fun one.

 

[TotalEconomist]

This thread is now about how the author plans to develop characters in the future, such as Erina Nakiri, Azami Nakiri, Soma, etc.