Shokugeki no Soma

[MFauli]

He won the match because it tasted better and was superior. What other hint do you need?

You´re missing the point. Soma´s opponent was there because he´s known as the copy-monster. Stealing any cook´s cooking and improving upon it.

Soma won because he broke he either broke the rules, or because he was unpredictable because ... BECAUSE!

I actually had hoped Soma would just cook whatever he planned to and not do anything special, then winning, because "it tastes better", showing his pure cooking prowess. But that didn´t happen.

[neflight86]

I actually had hoped Soma would just cook whatever he planned to and not do anything special, then winning, because "it tastes better", showing his pure cooking prowess. But that didn´t happen.

From how they described it, I assumed that what happened was: copycat took Soma's recipe, and improved it with a simple twist. Soma took his recipe and added a lifetime worth of experimentations and revisions to improve it. I believe he mentioned it wasn't even done being revised until that morning. You could argue no amount of profiling could capture the entirety of a person's cooking theology if brought to bear (copycat always cornered his opponents with a baited shokugeki to narrow their thinking under the pressure and make predictions easier), or that his profiling simply didn't account for that facet of his personality, the calm under pressure no matter what.

I doubt I've convinced you, and it is the author's job to garner buy in from the audience, but I wanted to share that I feel there is 'enough' there to conclude a deserved win with what we were given.