Food Wars has a particular reputation for its flamboyant melodrama and hypersexualized food-gasms which may seem problematic, but its reality is a little deeper than that. Beyond this ecchi’s exploding clothing and unbelievable lore lies something really special that so many mediums of entertainment just can’t get right--its ability to tackle traumatic topics that would otherwise be considered taboo through its characters backstories.

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If you’re not already caught up with the latest season of Food Wars, we recommend stopping reading now. From this point forward, you’ll be getting a massive helping of spoilers for Food Wars: The Third Plate. This piece also contains open discussion about trauma and abuse. Reader discretion is advised.

“ We can see Azami’s conditioning reflected in Erina’s arrogance throughout the series.

“ Erina's friends can sense the storm that’s coming, and they’re trying to protect her the only way they possibly can.

“ Recovery doesn’t make everything magically better.

“ Erina wants to bring justice to her friends, but struggles knowing that she’s going to have to overcome her biggest fear.

Instead of having each character lie flat and boring with nothing on their mind than becoming the world’s greatest chef, each is developed delicately and thoughtfully throughout each season. Hiyama, the spice prodigy, is an orphan; Ryo, Alice’s aide, was essentially homeless and had to fight to survive as a chef in a pub in Denmark; Eishi, the first seat of Central’s Elite Ten, suffers from crippling anxiety. But Erina, the supporting protagonist and cold-hearted queen bee of Totsuki Academy, sticks out to me the most. She’s a recovering survivor of child abuse.Being a survivor of this kind of abuse myself, Erina’s character is one that speaks to me on a deeply personal level. Her father, Azami, reminds me so much of my own abuser. From the outside looking in, Azami appears to be quite cunning and collected, but in reality, he’s cold, controlling, and completely irrational. I see so much of myself from the last five years of my own recovery within Erina’s character. I’m shocked at how well and nuanced an ecchi, of all genres, is able to tackle such a deeply painful and sensitive topic without being massively offensive or triggering.See, the thing about recovering from child abuse is that you hardly realize what’s truly happened to you. It comes back in pieces. You grew up in a home with certain habits and rituals and behaviors, and as a child, it’s normal to you. With time, you realize those pieces probably shouldn’t have happened that way for one reason or another. Slowly weaving those injustices together becomes a nightmare.We can see Azami’s conditioning reflected in Erina’s arrogance throughout the series. Initially, she’s made out to be this stuffy, poignant young woman no one can get close to. But there’s something alluring about her shrill personality, and the series consistently brings us back to her. Just as slowly as she opens up to her friends in Polar Star, we see her character begin to unfold and blossom into this beautiful and complex, vulnerable character that eschews the tsundere tropes we usually take for granted.When you’ve gone through this sort of abuse, there’s a day when you wake up and you realize you’re not safe anymore, and the fear sinks into your bones. So you run. And once you’re able to get out, you still don’t feel safe. The walls are still up because you’ve been conditioned to believe that your vulnerability will be exploited. And then one day, after all the hard work you put in to take down those walls, you’re able to accept all the love and kindness others are trying to show you. Maybe you can’t admit what’s happened to you, but you’re able to start letting go. It feels like you’re finally moving forward without fear holding you down.Like any survivor of abuse, we see her feel guilt and shame that her friends have tried to help her. She tries to return to Nakiri Mansion so her friends don’t have to face the consequences of her father’s wrath. This behavior is very typical, as the National Domestic Violence Hotline says a survivor will return to their abuser an average of seven times before they actually leave for good.But once everything seems to be going smoothly, somehow, some way, your abuser manages to snake themselves back into your life. All the walls and red flags that you’ve been working on taking down get rebuilt in an instant, and we see that with Erina multiple times in the third season as she gets closer to the students of Polar Star as they take on Central.A brain’s natural reaction to danger is fight or flight, but what we often don’t hear being discussed about this state of hyperarousal is that the brain can also cause you to freeze. It’s like playing dead; you can’t move, breathe, or speak. Whatever happens next is going to happen, and because your brain says you’re not present, you most likely won’t remember most of the trauma. Erina exhibits this frozen behavior often in the Central arc because of how hypnotic her father’s influence is on her. We don’t just see this in her reactions to him, but even in the art--the light fades from her eyes, and Azami is frequently drawn with hypnotic swirls in his to represent this.In my own experience, each time my abuser has come in and out of my life since I left, my love for them has overruled everything. That love has made me hope that they’ve changed, or that they’re better this time. My abuser is intoxicating in that way, and it’s a relentless conflict of wanting to love this person who’s connected to me, and loathing them for how they’ve wronged me.I see this particular experience and conflict deeply seated in Erina. She’s often entranced and influenced by that soft spot in her heart for her father, and he uses that to his own advantage. She obeys him because she knows what will happen if she doesn’t, and it’s not until later in the season where we see her resolve to finally resist him.Erina is still dealing with the inner turmoil of understanding her trauma, learning to trust others, and managing triggers that surface. But she has begun the process of taking her life into her own hands for her own sake. This is especially evident in the Totsuki Train arc, where she and the other rebels are split off during the exams. She even says she will have to trust that her peers will succeed because she had done everything she could to protect and prepare them. In the end, only she and three others come out victorious.“Yes, we have to save everyone,” Erina says after Tadokoro encourages her in “Declaration of War.” We see her reverting inward as she thinks to herself, “And to think I haven’t strengthened my resolve to face my father yet.”In terms of discussing relationships surrounding survivors, Food Wars sets a realistic tone. We also see the dynamic of Erina’s grandfather wanting to save her from her father’s tyranny, but being helpless to do so. Saiba’s comments to him, “No matter what we do, it won’t be a fundamental solution. The only ones who can truly save your granddaughter will probably be the classmates whom she can fight alongside,” aren’t completely incorrect. You can’t save someone who does not want to be helped, even if you can see them being abused or in danger in some way. This exchange is polarizing to that of her friends actions, who know what’s happened to her, but have accepted that part of her regardless.This anime is no stranger to the shonen trope of friendship conquers all, but it also doesn’t fall flat because of it. Instead of whisking each other off their feet at all times, the friendships each character has with one another empowers each character to work hard for themselves. This is one of the most impressive parts of the discussion being had in relation to Erina’s childhood, because again, you can’t save anyone. Her friends don’t attempt to do this; they’re themselves and support her in the ways that they know how. So instead of the message being “we are going to save you from this horrible thing that happened to you,” it becomes “through her friends, Erina have to learn how to save herself.”Food Wars could have easily turned each of its characters into lifeless sex objects and approached the topic of abuse in a much more offensive way. Instead, it makes it digestible and realistic for everyone without having its primary protagonist, Soma, be the only solution. It may be harder to see the nuance of certain behaviors and actions if you aren’t looking for them or haven’t experienced abuse, but with that said, it doesn’t do so in a way that would cause a survivor to relive their trauma. Maybe an ecchi isn’t the obvious genre to have this sort of discussion within, though it’s certainly the most ironic because it makes it easier to discredit it, but Food Wars sets an example creators can and should learn from.

Aiden Strawhun suspects she was secretly born as the next Sailor Scout, but she'll settle for writing about games and anime until her time comes. Catch her winning love, fighting evil, and always sobbing @AStraww on Twitter