‘Food Wars’ Third Season is Way Shorter Than You Think

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma is one of the more popular titles in Weekly Shonen Jump though it’s often not paid attention to in the same way its bigger series often net attention.

Fans had been eagerly awaiting the third season of the series, and have been enjoying it so far, though its end is coming a lot sooner that fans ever expected.

While the first two seasons of the series each ran for 24 episodes a piece, it seems the upcoming Winter finale of the third season has taken fans by surprise as it’s the first season in the series to end at Episode 12.

Spotted by LiveChart.me, Japanese television station TokyoMX has indicated that the upcoming twelfth episode of the The Third Plate is indeed the final one. To compound on this, Chinese streaming site iQYMI — which once listed the number of episodes at 24 — has now removed the episode count.

The abrupt end will surely hit fans like a ton of bricks as the series just introduced the series’ most crucial arc as Erina Nakiri’s father Azami and his “Central” coalition of chefs have taken over Totsuki and are beginning to dismantle Totsuki’s various groups. Though the season will have a seemingly natural end, it’ll mean the start of the series’ longest running arc has a delayed anime adaptation.

Fans of the series will recognize this abrupt end from the ending of the first season, which ended right as the Autumn Elections, another fan-favorite arc, were just beginning.

For those unfamiliar with Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma, the series was originally created by Yuto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki. The story follows Soma Yukihira, a young chef who one days wants to get good enough at cooking to take over his family diner from his father. But when graduates from middle school, his father shuts down his diner and tells Soma to enroll into Totsuki Academy, an elite cooking school where only one percent of students who enroll actually graduate. In order to survive in school and avoid being expelled, Soma eventually has to challenge and defeat any other chef that stands in his way.

The series was first published in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 2012, and has been collected in 26 volumes. The manga has been licensed for an English language release by Viz Media. It was adapted into an anime series by J.C. staff has has run for 48 episodes across two seasons.