Toriko

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This manga is a classic example of Jump axeing their good manga line of battle shonen , its a shame too the anime got canceled so there was no point in keeping the manga alive , Toriko is about Toriko who wants to complete his full course meal , aka his favorite food list its also got Komasu too , the Toei anime really ruined this series greatness , the manga is better than the anime that for sure , the ending is rush as its was a manga facing cancellation , the series art and world building was amazing ... , the action was super bloody , and feels like a horror manga at times , R.I.P Toriko you totally did not get the respect you rightfully deserved

Toriko


I saw the anime about 2 years ago and was mostly disappointed due to the lack of quality and the use of almost all Shounen clichés.
Some people recommended that I read the manga, claiming -it is much better than the anime adaptation-
Was it like that? Was he really better? The answer is "yes", the manga is better, but this sense of achievement is also limited. Despite everything, the manga could only fight for a barely average result until the end, no matter what happened.

One thing cannot be denied, however, and I really have to say that. The world-building in Toriko and the fantasy of the ... author are stunning. The approach of the world of Toriko, all the different animals and species, the different rules and perspectives of this world (especially in the later Gourmet World Arc), in addition, the most diverse variations of food preparation and associated explanations. They made this manga amazingly tasty, I can hardly tell how often I was hungry.

And I really wish the author was just as creative in other areas of implementation as here, but it wasn't the case.

As a reader, on the other hand, you got a rather monotonous and long-lasting story that goes up to Chapter 240 + without twists and turns. Toriko goes looking for food, finds new ingredients that he wants to put on his menu, and fights the bad guys on the way. Not much has changed in the Final Arc, but at least it got more serious there. However, the backstory of the Toriko universe and the world was quite subtle, I liked this one.

The characters were arguably the biggest disaster in the manga. They are monotonous and have hardly any real personality and no depth of character. Toriko is the glutton and has his smug face all the time from Chapter 1 to the end unless he gets angry. Sunny the handsome don't like ugly things. Coco is ... he has no personality. Zebra is a failure to create a "cool badass" character, what you got was a cringe complication as soon as it had screen time and kept saying "there is someone cocky" 24/7
The main antagonists are typical stereotypes of villains as we know them. One and only the leader of the Bishoukai and the main antagonist had a subtle depth of character and ambition.
And the worst character in the whole manga was undoubted "Komatsu" as one would have expected. I had my doubts from the start. He was an annoying and uncomfortable figure to the bitter end. All his screen time almost made me skip the chapters, but I stayed strong and endured it. No matter how many times I had to read the sentence "I talk to the ingredients and I hear their voices". And apart from that, he just screamed the name Toriko and snot flowed from his nose.
Almost forgot, but one character actually surpasses even Komatsu. In fact, it is about "Zhonge" the typical "Mr. Satan (Dragon Ball)" or more recently also "King (One Punch Man)" which had the same role as these two. But compared to them, each of his moments was the total opposite of funny.

The manga already had a very big weakness in terms of humor in this regard. Most of the jokes were almost sad.

Another interesting aspect of the manga is that it always manages to create huge and detailed explanations for different settings and concepts. I read it through with care and curiosity and was almost impressed. And what do you get then? The characters can't even speak 3 sentences to each other without the conversation feeling like between 2 NPCs who have just crossed paths.

The drawing style was almost impressive if it had to be. The fighting and destruction were mediocre. However, the presentation of the ingredients, preparation, and food was almost divine. The author knew exactly how to get the reader's attention in this area.



Conclusion

Toriko is a manga that can be read, but hopes shouldn't be too high. It is enormously monotonous and will drag on until the end if you wait for something interesting.


Story - 4
Art - 7
Character - 2
Enjoyment - 5
Overall - 5

I bet you’re wondering “how can a shounen about food be interesting?”. I thought the same thing until I read it, and honestly it completely blew my expectations away... at first. I’ll explain what I mean later

Pros:
- Unique concept and setting (Can you name another battle manga about food?)
- Godly world building. Seriously, it’s one of the best in manga
- Amazing art, with brutal action sequences
- The hype is over 9000!!

These are the only pros I can think of for Toriko unfortunately, because i felt this series had a lot more flaws.

... Plot (3/10):
The story takes place in the Gourmet age, a world where people live and explore various delicious food to eat. Our main protagonist Toriko, and his partner Komatsu explore the world to find rare and exquisite ingredients, to accomplish Toriko’s dream of creating the best full course meal. Toriko’s the gourmet hunter who searches for the food and defeats any opponents that comes their way, meanwhile Komatsu’s the chef who prepares the food.

The plot is simple and repetitive e.g. Toriko and co. go on a quest to find a food-> Toriko arrives and has to fight some monster who doesn’t actually give af about the food-> villains shows up, Toriko fights them and wins-> Toriko gets a powerup from eating said food, then decides if he’ll put it on his full course. Rinse and repeat for 300+ chapters and you have Toriko.

[Warning spoilers]

Characters (4/10):
There’s a diverse, large cast of characters, but they lack basic characterisation and meaningful character development. Our main characters, the four heavenly kings are just as bad in this aspect because they’re static and never really grow or change much throughout the course of the series.

Toriko is pretty much your typical shounen protagonist with nothing that really differentiates him to other shounen MCs. He will always do what’s right because of how righteous and kind hearted he is. Toriko shares too many similarities to Goku e.g. Toriko loves fighting, he’s a glutton, he’s dumb but a genius at fighting and he even wears a knockoff gi outfit. Toriko is essentially Goku with blue hair.

Komatsu is our deuteragonist in the series, but we barely know much about his life. All we know is Komatsu is a weak coward who works as a chef in the famous Hotel Gourmet, that he went to chef school, he partners up with Toriko-san and goes on adventures with him and the rest of the heavenly kings.

That’s why the best written character in my opinion is Midora because he’s one of the few characters who’s: fleshed out really well, has interesting abilities, a clearly defined personality and motivation, gets a proper character arc and good character development. The rest of the villains are poorly written and generic.

This brings me to my next point, the main cast become less interesting and sidelined as time went on. There’s blatant writer favouritism with Toriko who’s revealed having 3 demons, yet they’re poorly explored. Before the timeskip, the 4 kings were around the same lvl, afterwards Toriko creates a large power gap and leaves them behind.

Komatsu becomes a gary sue chef e.g. any cooking competition, Komatsu’s able to prepare ingredients that would have taken 100+ yrs down to 30 mins. There’s no tension in his matches. He makes experienced chefs’ like Setsuna look like scrubs.

Enjoyment (5/10):
There’s a lot of nonsensical powerups our 4 heavenly kings recieve that become forgotten after the arc they’re introduced. The calories aspect to moves gets dropped too.

The timeskip was trash. The structure was atrocious e.g. the whole point of the timeskip got resolved during it- Komatsu got rescued. The 3 kings spent a year and couldn’t find air, yet Toriko comes back from training and finds it in less than 5 mins 🤦‍♂️

Everything goes downhill after the Pair arc. Sunny, Coco and Zebra’s journey for the main food that pertained to their dream got offscreened. That’s 3 wasted arcs. Zebra, Coco & Zebra Vs Joie got offscreened too.

There’s overused plot devices e.g. back channels, food luck. Food luck is the most nonsensical, broken ability I’ve seen in any shounen. It went from simple precognition to search for food, to characters spamming it in fights when food wasn't even relevant. I broke down in laughter when it was revealed astral spirits was what was helping them.

Furthermore, there’s the convulted drama with Accia, the talk no jutsu turning NEO into a good ‘thing’. Many plot points were never resolved. There’s a poorly written, one sided relationship with Toriko & Rin (which made their wedding look like a joke) and missed potential with space.

Overall (4/10):
Overall, I enjoyed Toriko for what it is, which is a “fun, hype fuelled adventure story about food”. There’s not many manga where I’ve felt immersed into it’s world like Toriko. However, I won’t deny it went downhill after the timeskip and became worse as it went on. Toriko turned into DBZ so bad with a ridiculous power escalation. It went from "Toriko and Co. are going to hunt this rare ingredient and make a dish that will make you reader's mouth drool" to fighting some retarded Majin buu like blob that was going to destroy the planet because “he wants to eat it”.

Once you’ve gotten over the hype and start to analyse the story deeper, it isn’t that great. Toriko’s a mediocre shounen