Taka Ishizuka

**Taka Ishizuka** (石塚タカ, *Ishizuka Taka*?) is the main deuteragonist of Shokugeki no Soma. He is the son of Kenji Ishizuka, the owner of Restaurant Ishizuka. He is a 92nd Tōtsuki Generation student and a resident of Polar Star Dormitory.

## Appearance

Taka is a teenage boy of average height with short-medium black hair. His most prominent feature is his set of dead fish-eyes and a short strand of hair

## Personality

Taka is an apathetic gloomy and Lazy individual and has a very unfriendly and cold exterior he tends to very blunt and rude at times and sometimes lax as well he is normally calm and relaxed despite this he is kind and generous to other and is capable of recognizing people great capability to cook such as recognizing Megumi and Yuichi skills. Taka is also flexible and innovative, able to break away from ordinary procedures to cook dishes, thus allowing him to make his own solutions when he needs to find an edge. As such, he can create some of the most unorthodox, but also incredibly delicious dishes the school has never seen.

Taka usually ignores most thing people say or those around him but he can get annoyed when it enough to make him snap or physically punish them comically Taka is also fearless and doesn't hesitate taking challenges that could jeopardize his entire cooking career. For three Shokugekis, Taka risked being expelled from Tōtsuki if he lost, while in another Shokugeki he faced giving up being a chef in general forever. Because of his unknown humble origins, Taka is never the favorite to win most of his matches as he constantly faces fellow classmates of more noteworthy backgrounds, most of which do not consider him a threat because of their own advantages, however, Taka is aware how his classmates see him because of his background but usually ignore it stated that a chef personal background does not show a person true ability. Taka isn't arrogant as he wasn't afraid to admit that his opponent is better than him at that moment and that he is not perfect in fact he never gives up As such he is not afraid to examine his own deficiencies and learn whatever he needs to in order to overcome them. Even in Defeat he never let it Bother him he simply just express his frustration then learn from it and takes it as a sign that there is still much more for him to learn. Taka quite perceptive and is able to determine things clearly like People flaw belief or character and weakness or intention

Taka can sometimes act teasing and had a tendency to mock and make fun of other for his own amusement Even though many of his classmates had hostile feelings towards him, mainly due to his entrance speech and despite his unfriendly demeanor. He has struck up friendships with everyone in the Polar Star Dormitory within the first few hours in the dorm. He also has strong charisma, able to turn former rivals into allies and friends including Ikumi Mito Michiko Okumura, Takumi Aldini, Hiroshi Yamagata Alice Nakiri, Diana Watson Subaru Mimasaka, Yoji Ikenami and Hisako Arato. He is always willing to help out a friend, even at the risk of his place in Tōtsuki for them, and is more than willing to assist anyone in need. At the same time, Taka has a natural charm around him that causes people to believe in his ability to win even the most hopeless of duels. Even Hisako noted that Taka's ability to get people to believe in him in is astounding. Taka does not believe that one's background should dictate their skills, and thus, treats his classmates more as equals, and does say that he better than them something that was rarely reciprocated. While he is constantly belittled by others, namely Erina, either he responds to it or simply ignores it entirely, Either way, Taka never retorts when insulted and usually uses his cooking to do the talking for him.

## Relationship

### Family

#### Kenji Ishizuka

Kenji is Taka's father, who is a freelance world class chef and owner of Restaurant Ishizuka. Taka respects his father not just as a parental figure, but also as his mentor, friend and rival though Taka often gets annoyed when he makes fun of him. Taka aspires to become a great chef one day like his father and hopes to defeat him in a cooking duel, which he has yet to do. Though Kenji initially thought that Taka would give up after a few cooking duel losses as Taka was too lazy to devote himself to anything, however Taka's tenacity to try over and over convinced Kenji to give Taka some basic training, but still allowing Taka to mostly craft his version of the Ishizuka Style on his own.

### Polar Star Dormitory

#### Sōma Yukihira

Soma and Taka were close friends since childhood although they had different personality he often physical punish Soma for attempted to feed him his fail dishes while Taka also make fail dishes himself the two often duel each other both of them 500 Wins and Losses since the age of Seven

#### Megumi Tadokoro

Megumi was one of the first students of the 92nd Tōtsuki Generation whom Taka befriended. Due to Taka's grandiose declaration at the entrance ceremony, Megumi wanted to stay far away from him as possible. However, she and Taka became good friends and became one of Taka's closest friends and loyal allies as she greatly admires and respects him for his skills, innovation, spirit and maintaining cool and focus. However, she often displays distress whenever Taka is about getting into a situation that can cost him and others dearly, often acting as his voice of reasoning. Taka, in turn, believes Megumi has the potential to become a great chef because of how warm and caring she is towards others, stating that she belongs in the academy.

### Tōtsuki Culinary Academy: Allies and Rivals

#### Erina Nakiri

Renown for her "God's Tongue", Erina is Taka's main rival. As the current 10th seat of the Elite Ten Council and the only first year in the Elite Ten, Erina views herself as superior to all of her classmates. Erina sees Taka as an imperfection in her otherwise flawless world and looks down upon him mostly due to his humble, less prestigious background. In Taka's initial entrance exam in which she was the judge, she was impressed by Taka's dish, however, a mixture of her pride and Taka's cockiness caused her to reject him from the school along with Soma. Unbeknownst to Taka and Erina, her grandfather, Senzaemon Nakiri, would later taste Taka's dish and immediately accept him into the school.

At the entrance ceremony, Erina was present as Taka was introduced as one of the last minute entrants along with Soma. Though Erina tried to intimidate Taka by saying that everyone else has been in culinary education since middle school while he has not, Taka is unfazed since he has been cooking in a professional setting for 12 years, compared to the minimum 3 years of formal education training the others have. Since that day, Erina's main goal has been to make Taka's school life as miserable as possible or refute his skills such as vocally revoking Taka's participation in the Autumn Election, though the notion was overruled. Any mention of his name sends Erina into a spiral of frustration and anger. Erina also tries to make clear of their difference in status and skill, though with little success as Taka either simply taunt her or ignores it entirely and does not care about Erina's status Taka, on the other hand, is not hostile towards Erina, however, he was annoyed by the Fact that Erina called his food disgusting and it makes it his goal to make her admit his food is good and wanting Erina to take back what she said about his entry dish knowing full well that she really enjoyed his food.

## Cooking Style

* **Ishizuka Style** - Taka's main cooking style is a completely original style developed by his father, Kenji Ishizuka. The main feature of this style is that it borrows different styles, techniques, and cuisine types from around the world like the Yukihira Style but revolve around intelligence as well. To Sōma's end, he has spent at least twelve years developing his craft in this style and continues to evolve it as the story progresses. Taka has shown immense levels of Intelligence and creativity, taking inspirations from the most unexpected places to overcome roadblocks when making his dishes. While they appear and taste like extravagant dishes, they are very simple in concept and are designed mainly to appeal to the sort of patrons at Restaurant Ishizuka. Nevertheless, Taka has emerged out of almost every duel and assignment successfully when he is in control. However, it takes a lot of trial and error for Taka to make his end results.

### Skills

* **French Cooking** - Taka learned a French cooking technique called *Poêlé* from his father, working in Restaurant Ishizuka. It is used to remove the bad smell and fat released during the cooking process by constantly adding olive oil. Sōma used this technique to create his Revamped Salamon Onigiri. Taka became more adaptive in French cooking during his time at Shino's Tokyo, under the tutelage of Kojirō Shinomiya.

1. ↑  Shokugeki no Soma chapter 1, page 4
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `C73P17`
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