Another middling entry in a previously excellent series. Soma takes center stage in a competition about cooking bear meat, which is fine unto itself, but all the interesting supporting characters are elsewhere and seem to have taken a lot of the energy with them.

And once again, the extended story arc about the new villainous head of the cooking school trying to drive our hero and his friends out of the school is proving to be the downfall of this series. I get depressed every time I look at the map of the current tournament and its many levels of competition and realize how much longer this is going to be dragged out. ( )