Second episode of Shokugeki no Soma was pretty solid. It still felt a little rushed, but it established some backstory for one of the less focused on characters and left a cliffhanger ending instead of deciding the victor in a single episode. I can understand why these matches ultimately aren't taking as long though.
It's a series of one on one matches that would take the entire season if multiple episodes were spent on each one. It's a smarter play than it seems like at first glance to power through this phase of the Autumn elections, especially since strengths and struggles of the majority of the involved characters were covered throughout the first two cours, and the dish choices for this part of the competition are a bit more simple overall.
I'm hoping once we hit the next phase that things slow down just a hair to establish tension, drama, and ridiculous overreactions to eating food that made season one so good.
