@Purple:
Forgot to respond to this but my man, thank you for being the voice of reason that this whole thing is absurd. Writing in that "this was all planned along" does not make this a good plot, same as when Grampa Nakiri handpicked Soma's crew
Even if you were to look at it purely from the perspective of a rom com, it's still in shambles considering that Erina and Soma have zero chemistry. It's a testament to where we are when you need to write in a guy just to shoehorn in the idea to Soma that "Hey man, maybe you should spice up your life."
Gotta contribute to the forum in some way once in a blue moon. It's unfortunate, but food wars has become the current series where most of my enjoyment comes from dissecting it and seeing why it doesn't work and what could've been done better. I would say it's like Bleach in that regard, but Bleach had an absurdness to enjoy where here outside of an occasional good reaction shot, it doesn't have much to enjoy.
The biggest problem is that at this time the series doesn't have any foundation left to build off of, so really any arc is going to be hard to get invested in properly. Sure, there's that blue competition but with pretty much all the main goals having been achieved, investment in characters is pretty much out the window. If this was a plan to help Soma reach further heights after reaching a plateau and wasn't such a insanely stupid plot, it could've been something.
@Nekketsu:
The name Suzuki, as well as his foreign origins, were dropped much earlier than you think. If you don't believe me, look up ch. 137. You'll be surprised.
Finally got around to seeing what you were talking about, and I feel like this could potentially by an instance like with Oda, where perhaps it could've been foreshadowing, but more likely it was something Oda remembered putting in and wanted to connect the dots. I guess it's technically foreshadowing, but saying it was planned at that time is a stretch.
Technicalities aside, as with other series I've seen, foreshadowing does not instantly make something good, or even properly planned out. In a well executed story those little tidbits can enhance the story on another reread, but as it stands the current arc does not look good writing wise. Even if a new reveal happens, most likely it will just question why the author didn't go a different direction, and I am highly doubtful anything will make the whole "Erina is mine" part in any way palatable.
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