Toriko

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

A fair warning to anybody who wants to read this manga: It will make you want to eat. If it's not the art of the food itself, the character's descriptions of how and why every bit of food works, going into detail about what makes the food work, will get you. With that said, let's get right into this.

STORY:

Toriko takes place during the Gourmet Era, an era where food is highly revered and skilled chefs are given essentially celebrity status by an adoring public. Naturally, someone has to gather the food for everybody, and that's where the bishoku-ya come in. The series takes this setting and has fun with it, giving us strange and surreal, yet still appealing foods to be hunted and explores the idea of respecting all that it took for your food to get from the wild to your plate.

CHARACTER:

This manga follows the exploits of bishop-ya Toriko and his partner, the chef Komatsu. While these two provide a lot of enjoyment and a good chemistry between them, I would feel that I was failing at something if I didn't point out an actual flaw here. While Toriko is a good character, at times it can feel like his personality is limited to just the generic shonen hero personality and he doesn't really have a lot to set him apart from that. Still, the characters are enjoyable and even the side characters are still entertaining and fun to watch when they're on. As for the villains, they show how to best establish that a character is a villain using the world you've created and to set them up as a foil to the heroes. As mentioned before, much value is placed on respecting everything involved in getting food, and above all else respecting the animals who had to die to feed you, and this is best reflected in the heroes philosophy when it comes to hunting animals: Only kill if you plan to actually eat the meat; eat it all, without leaving anything leftover; and make sure that you don't take so much that you disrupt the environment. As such, the Bishoukukai, the villains of the story, show very little concern for the actual well-being of their prey or the environment and are only concerned with getting good food and keeping it to themselves.

OVERALL:

This series is a must read in the shonen genre, especially adventure stories such as One Piece or Dragon Ball and I encourage people to try it out as soon as they can.

I'm going to keep this sort and sweet. I read alot of manga and i know when ive come across something original. I found just about everything good in this manga. Ive got nothing bad to say about it. Toriko should be ranked alot higher than it is and im sure once people get over "its about food blah" it will become very liked. Give it a try and your see why! But a fair warning the art is good to the point it will make you hungry lol

Toriko is one of the best ongoing shonen manga. Many people disregard this series as typical shonen because they think it's just about cooking or have watched the awful anime series.But in reality,this is a top-tier shonen

The driving force behind the series is the immense world building and intense fights.There are rarely any asspull with characters relying on strategy and their immense strength.Unlike the anime,the fights are very gory with limbs flying off and characters not giving a shit pf whatever happens to them.Cool shit happens.The COOKING FESTIVAL arc is one of the best shonen arcs of all time with many people comparing it to the great MARINEFORD arc in One Piece.Although,Cooking Festival was slight better because of the fights

The GOURMET WORLD in Toriko straight up lives up to the hype the author created in the series.With wild beasts being as big as one huge mountain.The readers are always kept at the edge of their seat.

The characters are bit of a let down in the series.I still haven't found myself attached to any of the major characters but that doesn't stop me from loving this series

If you love ONE PIECE or HUNTER x HUNTER, you should definitely give this series a try.This is truly one of the gems of the shonen genre.

PLEASE AVOID THE ANIME,coz TOEIpieceofshit censored a lot of fights and made majors changes in the original story.

Hope you enjoy the greatness that is TORIKO

Toriko is a very, very AWESOME manga. If you like action, adventure and shounen, then Toriko is a perfect series for you! These are the two reasons why people don't give toriko a chance:

1. It's about food.
2. It's a copy of DBZ.

Both of these statements are dead wrong!! First of all when I read toriko, its not the food I think about, it's the awesome fast paced FIGHTS!!! Food is just an ongoing theme, that Toriko has, but when you read Toriko you will forget all about that, and get caught up in an awesome adventure!!... And when I mean caught up I mean caught up... you will sometimes find your self reading 30-40 chapters in one day!!!.

Toriko is NOT a rip off of DBZ... GOT THAT!! Please tell me ONE shounen manga where you do not see any similarities to DBZ where do you think Naruto got the ressangon!?!?!

Its an awesome adventure series, that any shounen fan can enjoy!!! Give it a chance, you wont regret it. Overall rating: 9/10 :D

I decided I would get down to writing about this now since I usually find it strange how people can review a whole story that's not finished yet. Toriko I find to be a surprisingly under appreciated battle shonen in comparison with other greats as its world building and usual comedy and good times you find in shounens is just as good in some aspects.

Before we get into the other parts of the story I'm going to first highlight the art style which at its best is one of my favorites. In a shonen that finds itself being in 300+ chapters the art has improved greatly from its beginnings. The style of the characters throughout the entirety of the series have a kind of smooth outlining which changes greatly in moments of intensity and action to a strong penciled art. The gore is used well and can to most people be seen as going overboard since it's used a lot to portray all the hardcore fight scenes and to me in that aspect more resembles seinen than shounen. "The muscles" my god, these muscles are the near perfect culmination of all the post apocalyptic venturing, space traveling heroes to come before. I would say the food is drawn very well if that's what your looking for, just in case anyone was wondering since it is a good manga. The environments of the world are drawn to a huge scale from the locations to the wildlife to give everything a sense of adventure and intrigue.

Now to get to what the author uses to tell the story and just things that I like about it and attempt to not spoil the story. The narrative style that Shimabukuro uses is what I can only classify as the definition of hype. He will often narrate very important actions of the characters and environment in great detail using a understandable fictional science that he creates arc by arc. At its best moments he uses this to execute near perfect description of the scale that always tops itself opponent after opponent.

The main characters are somewhat archetypal at times but that seems to usually be overshadowed by the world, which isn't always negative as they serve as good cast to enjoy the world with. This story also has a decent amount of straight up laugh out loud moments and almost all the characters little tropes and quirks will grow on you. The main cast members have a pretty cool bromance, but overall lacks in not having nearly any significant females.The world also presents itself with a reasonably good power leveling that keeps it going and doesn't break its own rules too often to keep developing characters and overpowered characters in believable fights for them.

Overall, and so far as the story has progressed I'm enjoying it and even if it turns out to have a boring or bad ending I will still remember how great it was.

Toriko is a highly unappreciated shounen manga it is in my opinion one of if not the best ongoing shounen manga.Toriko is very good but it just doesn't get the praise it deserves which i blame on the horrendous anime.Anime tend to make or break manga series and its horrible anime clearly didn't do this manga justice.

Story:9 The story is the most amazing part of this series.The world building is one of no it is the best i have seen in a shounen manga.The author of toriko takes the time to build his world and gives details and feats.The author always takes the time to give numbers of the size of things.Mitsutoshi the author,never fails to deliver in the hype.If a character is hyped up to be able to do something which is always something crazy or mind blowing he delivers and even goes beyond the hype.The story however starts off slow but thats because he took the time to build the foundation.Once the foundation was laid this series keeps on delivering greatness.

Art: 8 For a weekly shounen the art in toriko is very good.

Character: 7 The characters are what i feel toriko lacks they are mostly bland and plain however this clearly isn't a character driven series but a story driven series and the story more than makes up for the characters.

Enjoyment: 8 I really enjoy this series i always look forward to reading this every week because you never what is gonna happen,the hype train never stops in toriko.

Overall: 8 Toriko excels in its story and its what i enjoy the most the action is good but it is more of a bonus than an integral part of the series the story is where it excels.

Well, I'm confused and full of mixed feelings.

There is a plot knife that cuts this series in half imo. I really don't think that the first half of the series really makes you ready for the other upcoming half of it. The plot is missing and full of holes in it. Ambitions, goals, and reasons are all flu and unrealistic to me.

The lack of clarity (both in terms of art and story) is the biggest problem. I really had a hard time with when Neo organization comes in and Gourmet Corp shaken by'em and they divided. I really read a couple of times. Also, the reasonings of Midora, Jiro, and Ichiryu about what are they're doing over the course of the story were blank to me.

And the ending was terrible.

But still, it's a unique battle shounen with a lot of old characters , great high fantasy creations such as civilizations, plant life, architectural constructs, monsters, animals, and so on.

Also epicness, manliness, and emotional tidal waves that coming from very memorable, lovable characters made this journey a special one for me.

But again during the last 100-150 chapters, it was tiring, bitter, and meaningless. I was really pissed off but I read all 396 chapters in 9 days. So it must be good enough to make me binge read it.

Ah, Toriko. One of the manga series that have actually made me want to eat more....and increase my stomach capacity.

Intro, intro!
Toriko is a manga that is all about food. I don't mean just cooking. I mean hunting and then eating the food! The art indeed makes the food in the manga that it has very juicy and very good looking that sometimes you'll be salivating to the picture!

Ugh, I'm hungry now, but lets move on to the story!

-STORY-
I have little to say about the story. It has a good concept with the whole "Gourmet Era" or should I say, the era where food is highly praised and you can practically eat anything you hunt. This juicy story brings us around a bishoku-ya or some kind of extreme monster hunter that hunts for food and is on a quest to make their own personal courses.

I like this story. Not just because it has food around every corner but because it has a nice concept that revolves around food and hunting. Nothing much here, except the more you go along the manga, the more you learn about the world of food.

-ART-
The art of Toriko indeed makes me hungry to the point of drooling and hungry for some fresh meat. The food looks very appetizing and I enjoy every look of it. Like one chapter for instance, there was a burger that looked absolutely delicious.

Time for characters. It's revolves around your old centric art, rather, the main character is very muscular and tall to the point of that he has to use a bucket as a regular wine cup. Several monsters look very, very nice designed, but there is a downside to this all.
That is the monsters to say. Despite how many ways they can cook them after they kill them, they look rather unappetizing when alive. Like a certain monster that is later introduced.

Overall, it's very nice art. Not overly shaded or over-toned. Feels very naturally drawn

-CHARACTER-
To let you all know, I'm just being lazy right now so don't expect an indepth character review.

As far as I have read, I have thoroughly enjoyed the antics of Toriko and his near unstoppable hunger and power.
Now the other character introduced in the beginning was a man named Komatsu. Is it Komatsu? I think it is...Well anyways, he's a chef of a top grade restaurant. He's your guy that follows the other main character. Annoying at first, but you get used to him later.

Later, we get introduced with several other characters and the concept of Four legendary kings of Gourmet.

-ENJOYMENT-
To keep it short. I have enjoyed this manga as much as Busou renkin. It's a really good read for those aiming for the shonen types

-OVERALL-
Again to keep it short, It is one good manga that is pretty much a must read if you enjoy shonen adventure stories like One Piece, Dragon Ball or Monster Hunter Orage. It's a type of manga that will get you hungry. A definite must read.

Toriko is one of those series that comes sprinting at you with one goal in mind, and that goal is to entertain you with as much crazy bull-crap as it can before you get exhausted of it.

The manga is a fuel-injected testosterone trip about big men fighting excessively big monsters in order to make drool-inducing meals out of them. You get a one-two punch of cool action and delicious looking food; expect anything more than that and you'll be sorely disappointed.

The characters are about as deep as puddle and they merely get by on their big personalities. Any attempt to add depth to most characters comes in the form of plot-twists and last-minute revelations that only serve to complicate their background rather than flesh it out. Most of the characters are left unexplored, though in some cases I'm fine with that as I didn't expect much depth in the first place.

The first two thirds of the series feature a fun variety of story arcs where Toriko and crew have to explore dangerous environments for ingredients, track down ferocious animals, or fight against other super-powered humans who are after the same things as they are. There are some legitimately great story arcs with action that had me wide awake reading way later than I should be, just because I couldn't pull my eyes from it.

Where Toriko started losing me however, was in the last 100 chapters or so. Dozens of chapters at a time are dedicated solely to exposition, and it is all extremely boring to read through. On top of that, my favourite characters, Sunny and Zebra, are bumped out of the story almost entirely. After a while I had to start skimming through chapters, only reading the bits that looked interesting to me. The final confrontation is at least as big and bombastic as I had hoped it would be, though having skimmed through much of the endless expository dumps, I was left confused by some details. My bad, I know.

The art starts pretty rough with some very questionable anatomy and perspective. As it goes on it becomes more polished, and the action carries a lot more motion and weight. The character designs are admittedly pretty weak for the most part, and I got many characters confused with one another as their designs looked so similar. There are definitely some gems here and there, like the insect-infested Tommyrod, or the intimidating Livebearer. The monster and creature designs on the other hand are a lot of fun, and were definitely the highlight of the series.

Toriko, at the end of the day, was at least a fun ride for most of its duration that I would happily recommend to anybody who loves over the top battle-shonen. It's outlandish, super macho, and made me pretty hungry on occasion.

I give Toriko a solid 7 out of 10.