The story starts off with a boy named Peck searching for Toriko to request his aid to stop a beast from attacking his village. Toriko eventually caves in to help the village & along the way battles an Elephant Bear.
These ongoing shonen films tend to be about battle & nothing other than marketing for a new audience to be persuaded to watch the anime series. Honestly, it's an okay debut but the problem is that only Toriko is featured with no mention of the other Heavenly King. While the Toriko movie does follow a standard formula it does have its own charm to it.
There's just something about the character designs having this more intimidating look that gives this different tone than the anime. For example, Toriko constantly has this grin displaying his fangs giving this more tough & masculine design while in the anime his smiles tend to look more friendly. It's a subtle change but manages to maintain its presence in the whole film. To further elaborate on this slight change in tone, the few beasts featured in this movie seemed a bit more gritty with having their fangs fully exposed. Toriko as a character also comes off a bit more as a lone hunter where he initially was reluctant to help Peck's village & seems to be slightly hotblooded due to this facial expression. Not a big change in character but comes off as very appealing.
In short the film doesn't show any blood or very violent content, however the mood found in this movie seems "kid friendly" but not to the point where it feels watered down to a lower age group. It's difficult to explain, but there is something about this Toriko movie that feels closer to the tone expressed in the manga. The only negative aspects is Toriko is followed by the boy Peck which helps express Toriko's character, but I've always wondered how a movie would be if Toriko was completely solo on an adventure; will he be more stoic or aggressive?
Toriko 3D Gourmet Adventure is 40 minutes in length with the credits featuring new animation of the regal mammoth arc. Within those few clips, it seemed that it was being closer to the manga due to mimicking certain panels. Also the characters featured in credits seemed to have a more intimidating look much like the subtle Toriko design featured in this movie. The music for the film are tracks from the Toriko anime OST & from the first Tina CD. It's an alright movie for anyone, but to those who really like Toriko can appreciate this film for what it is.
