Iron Wok Jan! ‒ Episode 10

Episode 10 of Iron Wok Jan! is one in which our titular lead faces a single setback and has a normal one about it.

This outcome was not surprising at all based on last week’s signals. Jan has been giving everyone hell and touting his incredible skills for weeks, with no signs of serious opposition. After he spent the prior episode going on about victory and domination and so on, it was clear he was going to lose. “Pride cometh before the fall” and so on.

What’s interesting is how this failure plays out. On the one hand, it’s cathartic. Akiyama Jan is so relentlessly sure of himself that it’s nice seeing his ego get checked for once. I’m sure we all have known at least one person in our lives who thought they were right about everything, and it’s beyond satisfying to watch them find out that they, too, are human. Akiyama himself is practically egging us on to enjoy this, as he’s berating the judges while they’re tasting his dish. Call it confidence, call it arrogance, call it cocky, whatever it is, it takes a lot of chutzpah to antagonize and talk down to the people judging you in a competition.

Then things take a dark turn real fast. The crowd throwing trash is honestly wild, and the Otani egging it on… to quote the great philosopher Marge Bouvier, “It’s true, but he shouldn’t say it.” Jan has been an over-the-top heel personality from the jump, and has made this competition about an almost existential level of self-worth through cooking as a craft. Akiyama Jan has made his bed, and while it’s nice to see him lie in it, it’s hard to watch the crowd tuck him in that tight, so to speak. Jan descends into a deep well of self-loathing and self-harm. This is not to take away from his own responsibility regarding his actions, but it does remind us that he is not a product of traditional culinary training and is instead a young man who was repeatedly abused. Jan’s bloody wallowing is so upsetting and personal that even Okonogi and Kiriko are unable to provide some measure of comfort – instead leaving him to sit in a pool of his own bloody remorse.

And in true Akiyama fashion, this takes away from the humble brilliance of Kiriko’s cooking! She really did exhibit one of the best qualities of a chef, which is to look at what someone wants and find a way to provide for them. It’s a simple thing, really, but Kiriko applies a touch of the scientific method to a universal human concern (namely that kids don’t like vegetables) to create something wholly new out of the old. It’s great to see her win and do so commandingly without any room for qualification, asterisks, or what-ifs. We’ll see how that continues in the desserts round, of course, but for now I’m glad Kiriko got her flowers.

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Iron Wok Jan! is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.

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