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.

This Review is for those who are intending on reading toriko so its About time someone gave an honest objective reason as to why someone should read the Manga without any spoilers...
So let me give you Toriko's main Pros & Cons:

Pros
+ World Building
This is where Toriko has an obvious advantage over the typical battle shounens. The sheer scale and diversity of the planet in which the story is set is awesome!.

+ Battles
The fights in Toriko highlight the "battle" in being a battle shounen. More often than not, in head to head fights there are no holds barred. Characters just don't give a flying F about themselves during battle and risk it all - not going into any spoilers here, but manga readers will understand which greatly improves the intensity of each fight.

The added gore helps too, SO Much helpful than the anime version which never does it Justice Despite getting the push by the crossover with Dbz and One Piece in an anime special earlier.
Sometimes overlooked, but the author does manage to describe characters abilities and their concepts, giving a better understanding of the situation where things maybe seem a bit messy at first glance.

+Plot Twists
Admittedly Shima's story does deliver some impressive and unforeseeable events which leave the reader completely bemused.

+ Sheer Power
What I like a lot is The strength of some of the characters in this series can make the jaw drop...
Not to mention the creativity of some abilities are unique in its own way for a shounen its like a influence of Hokuto no ken, Dbz and Asura's wrath (Yes I mention Asura's wrath the video game in terms of all the Beasts and creatures called gohma that asura fights against,) Anyways what I will say is that The power scheme within this manga series is Damn Good.

Cons
- Slow Starter
The first 25-50 chapters of Toriko are rather vague as to what the series wants to achieve. The premise of being in a Gourmet Age where food (quality food) is the most valuable asset, and only capable hunters can procure the higher quality ingredients doesn't motivate the story until later on- where Acacia's full course is introduced. Only when all the heavenly King's are introduced fully does the story's momentum pick up.

- Story-telling
Throughout the manga, especially in the earlier chapters, the story seems a little inconsistent, jumping from an epic, well foreshadowed battle to consecutive chapters of extensive dialogue which serves little purpose. The latter has been rare as of late, and it does seem like Shima has improved in this area greatly.

- Lack-luster characters
Hate to admit it, but it's true. Some of the characters, relatively speaking, are as bland as a slice of bread despite how their personality come across. Not trying to be harsh but I think they could be better Just saiyan.

Overall: Major stuff happen much Later on and let me tell you It gets even more Crazier. The Manga has so much going for it than the anime itself. All-in-all, I'd say give it a go especially if you are keen on it, again it might not be for everyone but for a battle shounen its up there along side Hokuto No ken, Dbz, one piece, Jojo Bizarre adventure Etc.

Story: 6/10. Nothing special. Very fun in the moment but forgettable after a few days. The worldbuilding has the breadth of an ocean but the depth of a puddle.

HOWEVER, it is extremely fun. The creativity is up there with some of the best shounen. Even if a lot of it is superficial and just arc-specific fun, I appreciate the creative aspects and the adventure. It captures a charm few shounen can.

Art: 8/10. Decent, nothing amazing.

Character: 6/10. Honestly a weak point of the series. There isn't much diversity or complexity to the characters, but their interactions and goals can be interesting.

Enjoyment: 8/10. A fun read. Great to sit back and relax to.

Overall: 7/10. A flawed but decent series.

Toriko is pretty good. Please read it.

This series is something that I will always have fond memories of. I read this all the way through high school and it was possibly one of my favorite series ever. Bursting with character, creative ideas both by the SHIMABUKURO and his fans, and really AWESOME fights, Toriko is definitely something to behold.

Food is not just food in this series. SHIMABUKURO, throughout the series, shows the importance that food can have on society and the individuals that inhabit it. It is used not only to give sustenance, but it can be used to make economies thrive and helps us create deep, lasting relationships with others. Meals bring family's and friends together, and no matter how small or big the meal is, no matter how well it's cooked, it'll always be tastier when you and your loved ones are around the same table.

Though this series does have it's flaws (similar character designs, underdeveloped characters, a rushed final arc, etc.), I think it's still worth checking out.

From what I can recall, the story was pretty basic and got a little bit rushed near the end, but I really don't read manga for story and development. If I wanted to read for story and enjoyment, I would be reading Rothfuss.

The art was kinda rough at first, but I really like the style now.

What I really loved out of everything was the wacky food and slice of life some chapters had. There was this laid back feel that I really enjoyed throughout most of the story.

Most foods got its own description box that had its calories per serving, price in yen, etc. I dunno why but I really loved those.

Definitely one of the best Shonen battle series you can find. There are plenty of Shonen manga to read out there, so why Toriko? Here is why.

We are introduced to our title character Toriko, Bishokuya AKA Gourmet Hunter. Toriko is required to hunt down his target for his assignment. This is the how the story goes about at a basic level, Toriko finds an ingredient he wants to go after, and than goes to eat it to fulfill his full course menu. From this, you get the impression that the manga is just some dull story about eating.

We are introduced to "Capture Level" which is the ingredient that is determined by strength, environment, how hard it is to prep and cook, and even how hard it is to eat. This makes Toriko such a facinating great adventure manga, as you can see Toriko and his gang travel through series of insane environments, from massive freezing glaciers, to deadly canyons, raging jungles and rivers, to the oxygen depleted stratospheres and even higher. Shimabukuro is a so brilliant at going in depth with food and can make even cooking seem insanely dramatic, this along with the great special effects fortunately carry into the food, which makes the reward of them finally getting it all the more rewarding.

As for the art, this comes down to personal preference. Though Shimabukuro does a lot of stuff to polish his work, the beasts can look extremely intimidating, and some of the characters even more-so. The environment design is absolutely stunning and you can immerse yourself into the world and there aren't many series that can do this. As for the character and designs, it's different from a lot of current Shonen because the main characters aren't bunch of bishie teenagers. From the start of the series, Toriko is introduced as a massive manly guy in his mid-twenties with bulging muscles. I find it refreshing and soothing to my tastes, and it adds a touch of maturity and stylization. The supporting cast offers a wide range of personalities and their interactions with each other is cool to see.

Lastly, since it's a shonen battle manga, the fights are vital to the series. The battles are well orchestrated. Something that sets this aside from some standard Shonens are is that you will visibly see Toriko develop and grow stronger before your very eyes, adapting to his environment, and growing tougher during battles. The battles themselves can end up very intense; seeing two massive characters pound on each other while soaked in blood is nothing short of epicness. I suppose the general concept of a series that is built around food could be a turn off, but it is an adventure genre and the way Shimabukuro created such a vast world surely deserves a lot of recognition.

There are a lot of manga to read out there, so why pick up Toriko
I suppose the concept of a manga being based around food could be a turn off, but it's a lot more than that.

- Story -
It's about a hunter called Toriko who is out to complete the full course menu of his life.
He meets with a cook called Komatsu and from there travel together along with their friends Coco, Sani and Zebra to find "GOD" the ultimate ingredient which can save or end an era.

- Length-
Toriko has almost 400 chapters but it's easy read since the arcs have a fast pace and don't drag on however in the ladder half of the series it does rush the story a bit.
Nonetheless even with the fast pace everything still flows well and is not out of place, so you can finish one arc at a time at your own pace.

- Art -
Art is subjective.
The art has a wild gritty feeling to it just like nature and also has breathtaking beautiful moments as well.
The creature designs are amazing and really showcase each one's personality

- Adult main characters -
Different from a lot of current Shounen because the main characters aren't teenagers.
I find it refreshing, and it adds a touch of maturity.
The supporting cast offers a wide range of well developed personalities and are easy to grow attached to and their interactions with each other are interesting to see.

- Lot's of crazy and unique abilities
- Over the top fights
- The atmosphere and scenery
- THE WORLD BUILDING IS AMAZING
- Great monster and animal designs
- Food (hunting and cooking ingredients)
- Epic story with funny, tender and heart warming moments and surprises
- Philosophical sayings about food and life from time to time, makes you think what food really means in your everyday life

- Overall -
10/10
A must read fantasy series for all ages.

I wanna put toriko as one of my all time favorites manga, I really do, but it’s just not an amazing manga contrary to what other reviewers say. It has too many flaws to be considered great. OG Gatsu nailed it pretty well.


[Warning, this review containers quite a bit of spoilers, DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED]


Story: Pretty basic for a Shonen. Toriko and friends go to a new location to get a new food -> Monsters/Villain stands in their way to prevent Toriko and friends from reaching their goal -> the Monsters/Villains get defeated by Toriko and friends -> Toriko gets a new power up from said food, and decides on adding it to his full course -> Next Arc with these steps repeated.

It gets repetitive very quickly, and the overall structure doesn’t change much besides the Cooking Tournament Arc. Although, the ways the author goes about these steps are interesting, the best are the food pyramid and Meteor garlic arcs. But the rest are pretty much the same.


Characters: We have a large diverse cast of characters, the problem is that we barely have any of time to see the majority of them develop and after the arc their introduced in, their forgotten, barring exceptions like Match and Takimaru who appear as major characters in two separate arcs. But after that, they become irrelevant to the story.

The Gourmet Corps shows us a very large cast of villains with interesting designs, but they have the exact same problem, barely any of them are seen fighting, much less see them develop as characters. The only members that matter are Midora and The 3 sous chefs. Everyone else doesn’t matter. We are told that the head chefs are stronger then the sous chefs, but since we never seen them fight once, this point is moot.

Also on a side note on a thing that pisses me off, Tommyrod is said to have the strength to survive in the Gourmet World on his own, one of the few to be able to do so. Yet, he was defeated by a pre-Century Soup Toriko who couldn’t even get past the first area of it. Wtf is with the shitty sense of power scaling.

Later we are shown that a whole bunch of Gourmet Corp members have been brainwashed by Joie, but since we never seen these characters develop, who cares about them?

Now onto the main characters. Toriko is rather generic. He doesn’t have anything that really distinguishes him from other Shonen MCs. He always does what’s right because he’s supposed to be a righteous kind-hearted person. He’s a glutton. He loves fighting. He’s a genius at fighting, but stupid anywhere else. See where I’m going here? He has too many similarities with the most popular MCs like Luffy or Goku with nothing to call his own besides his blue hair.

Kamatsu is a Gary Stu chef in every cooking competition. He can cook ingredients that could take thousands of years (hint ANOTHER) and somehow reduce it 65 years. He makes the top best chefs like setsuno look like amateurs.

Alongside his bullshit cooking skills is his “food luck” ability, which is said he has one of the best food luck ever. E.G him getting dragged down the sand into the food pyramid EXACTLY at the level he needs to be at for the Mellow Cola, him somehow hitting the EXACT spot needed for PAIR to appear, him hitting the EXACT spot that is needed for AIR to fully ripen, etc. besides that, we don’t know much of Komatsu’s life other than the fact that he had two friends in the past.

Food luck is basically plot armor disguised as a precognition ability. Even then, this ability gets abused to the authors own needs whenever he wants. The reveal that astral sprits were the ones controlling food luck felt like a complete ass pull.

The other 3 Heavenly Kings are interesting in the beginning, but they get sidelined later on thanks to blatant author favoritism. Toriko gets 3 demons and they don’t? What the fuck? What makes toriko so special as too have 3 demons? Literally no one else has 3 demons, let alone 2. The 4 kings were equal in power pre-time skip, but after it Toriko easily bypasses them all and leaves them in the dust while he goes to save the world on his own. He only needed their help once in the pair Arc and that was it.


World Building: the world itself is interesting with unique locations. The problem? We don’t see enough of them! The world is like 4-5x larger then our world, yet we don’t even see 5% of the places it has. When we finally get to the Gourmet World after hundreds of chapters, it was a letdown. We only saw a couple of locations and that was it. Hell, we only saw a few parts of area 8, 7, 6, and 2! We have seen nothing of the other areas besides a few glimpses.

We don’t even see how the other items are gotten and how two people can acquire them by themselves when it took the whole group to acquire just one. And you know what puts the nail in the coffin? Zebra, Sunny, and CoCos dreams were to get the respective items of Acacia’s full course menu in these regions that we will never see. This would’ve been perfect to finally see them get their life long goal, but nope! Gotta rush to the end. 3 wasted arcs. This is just sad.

Toriko and crew also acquire a lot of nonsensical power ups that are forgotten after the Arc their introduced in. Enbu? The Martial arts style Toriko and gang needed to “defeat” Bambina and acquire PAIR? Well they used it in this Arc and never use it again. Food Honor? The system Toriko and gang needed to save calories for their attacks? Well they learn it, and it’s never brought up again. Heck, even the whole calorie system has been dropped. Many other examples exist. It’s as if the author forgets what he writes the previous chapters. The only things that stick are The strength boosts and Appetite demons.

The human world itself is pretty sinister if you look closely into it, if you don’t follow the worlds religion or don’t respect food the way they do, your ass is gonna land in the three harshest prisons or go to the chowlin temple and Ben forced to learn a mental discipline you probably never wanted to learn in the first place. Even as something as light as using a revitalizing kitchen knife is enough to be sent to the prison. Why? Don’t you realize the potential? If you used the rivitalizing knife, the food shortage after the Meteor Spice came wouldn’t have been as so impactful.

Food Honor encourages people to have fanatical levels of respectfulness me gratefulness towards for food. In return, they get more strength and speed. But, how are you supposed to to respect food 24/7 while your fighting and your daily life to keep your newly acquired power? I guess the author realized that and dropped the whole concept after that Arc. What hurts it more I see that there’s another concept called food pressure that does the exact same thing as food honor, but you don’t need to have the 24/7 food worship, you just need to have good intimidation skills and you’ll be granted the same power boost.

Why no one goes for the much easier alternative is beyond me, but probably because forcing food to do what you want is against the religions beliefs.

Now let’s go down to the capture levels, in the beginning they were rather tame and make sense. Level 100 was considered powerful enough to make Toriko go serious and a level 350 was considered a calamity like the Four Beast. After the timestop this system gets shat on and creates plotholes. In the timeskip, we get beasts that are in the 5000s, way stronger than anything the previous arcs showed us. That creates the question on how the four beast survived all of its battles against these creatures without getting owned.


It’s honestly sad how far toriko has fallen. Toriko was shown by toei to be the equal to one piece and dbz, but once the sales started failing, the threw it into the trash and immediately forgotten about it. It’s all due to them Andy their heavy censorship of the anime that caused the low sales Tom happen, but even then. The authors own flaws as a writer brung Toriko down.

Toriko is currently my favourite manga that I am caught up to and read weekly.

Introduction

Toriko is set in a world full of food, basically everything is food and to Gourmet Hunter and Chef duo, Toriko and Komatsu this is an amazing thing. Toriko is a Gourmet Hunter meaning he travels the very vast and amazing world in search of great foods to form his Full Course Menu. Komatsu is a young, talented chef that accompanies Toriko on his journey.

Story

For the most part Toriko's story is very simple. Go get food. That is the basis of Toriko to find and capture amazing foods but when Gourmet Corps get involved things do pick up especially where the manga is at now. Every chapter leaves me wanting more.

Battles

Toriko has amazing fights, unlike a lot of Shounen Battle Manga, Toriko doesn't rely on friendship and all that crap. The fights are man to man (sometimes beast or even robot) badass fights from beginning to end. A lot of the fights incorporate great strategies and are very well thought out and unlike some other Shounens the hero doesn't always win.

Characters

Toriko has a great set of characters all with unique abilities and personalities. When they aren't fighting and questing they can be very funny and always make me laugh and smile.

Art

The mangaka for Toriko does an excellent job with his art, every panel of every chapter looks amazing. The detail especially on the beast is phenomenal. Sometimes when reading it I would just stare at the page for a few minutes just to take in every detail.



Conclusion

If you are fed up with the shounen clichés, the talk no jutsu and the friendship nonsense then I highly recommend you check out Toriko. It has epicness on a scale that only DBZ has stood on before and in a few years I'd say Toriko's cast could stand up to the DBZ universe in terms of strength. Also I recommend eating before and after reading Toriko as it is sure to make you hungry.

First of all ladies and gentlemen this thing if I may is “ unique” .
How come ? Simply the author has combined two unrelated genres , action and cooking ! So let’s get to business .
In a world filled with wars a man called Acacia appeared and solved all conflicts with a single dish of food delivered to all leaders in the world . Many years has passed and the world still obsessed with the deliciousness of that dish, a young man named Toriko is trying to make his full course list of food lusting after all kinds of foods including Acacia’s dish plus making friendships along the way like any other decent (Shounen) protagonist. While you keep reading, the story begins to be more and more interesting with a decent action , character growth and everything that you would expect of a (Shounen jump) Series. However sometimes the story drifts into a cooking competitions (Shokugeki no Souma ?) which has nothing to do with fighting , and that is one of a few things I hate about Toriko.
On the other hand the story has a solid system of power’s hierarchy ,meaning that every Character has a certain amount of power from the smallest weakling to the strongest one .
Main characters get their full share of development , for example Toriko develops his skills regularly and so does Komatsu with his cooking skills .As for Sunny , Zebra and Coco they get their share but we don’t get to see them grow in fact they just disappear and the next time we see them they become stronger have more skills and stuff like that.
The artwork is fantastic every character is unique and recognizable so don’t worry about having a hard time guessing who is who !
Backgrounds are amazing to the degree that they drag you inside of the page metaphorically speaking .
In fighting scenes every action is clear and beautifully drawn .
Toriko was a good read I would give it a 8/10 because it could have done better , the author should have shortened the cooking scenes for the sake of prolonging the action scenes , and he should’ve made a better villains and some kind of rivalry maybe , another thing is when Toriko learns a new skill after a hard training the author tends to forget about that skill entirely after a few arcs .
Finally here is 3 reasons why you should read this Manga :
1- The insane battles and action .
2- Fantastic characters growth .
3- The magnificent adventures .