Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

BEFORE YOU READ: I am fully aware that Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, the mangaka of Toriko, is an awful person. You can Google their crime if you’re unaware but just know that I do not support or plan to support Shimabukuro by purchasing any of his works or wish to grant esteem to Shimabukuro as a person. Any praise is towards the work that Shimabukuro has produced and does not reflect acceptance or approval to his past crimes and offenses. I do my best to try and separate the art from the artist in my media consumption but I don’t expect any readers to do the same if they are uncomfortable. Thank you for understanding. 💛

Do you remember J-Stars Victory VS+? I sure do! It was an utterly kuso crappy no balance at all arena fighter where any obscure Shonen Jump series had a chance of getting a fighter or support character! It’s basically if Jump Force didn’t have obscene particle effects and half the roster wasn’t from THE BIG THREE, Hallowed by Their Names. It’s how I discovered SKET Dance, one of my now favorite anime, and became familiar with a few other franchises including Toriko! Oh, Toriko how I absolutely didn’t give a single care about thee when I saw you in J-Stars. Your orange outfit and blue hair affixed no interest in me outside of an interest in what manages to be popular in Japan and why because damn did you look really stupid Toriko. I’m just being honest, my guy.

So I recently had to have an appendectomy because you can raise and care for an appendix but sometimes they just still turn out bad and leave you even after years of care and loving support. I was stuck lingering and bored in a hospital bed watching re-runs of Reba and hey! I have the Shonen Jump mobile app and there was no better time to just suddenly read Toriko. I have no other explanation for why I did it, I just did.

Toriko, if you don’t know, is a manga series written by a [REDACTED] and published in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump where the battle shonen reign supreme and dreams of aspiring mangaka are crushed just as soon as they are made. Toriko follows, get this, a guy named Toriko (but not really for the first part) who is a Gourmet Hunter which are essentially hunters (my god am I fucking verbose) who venture out into the dangerous Gourmet World to collect ingredients for use in food around the world. It is a mundanely boring premise in my opinion but it’s actually implemented in a hugely unique and fun way. It’s seemingly almost as if Toriko is adjacently connected to the world of One Piece with how grand and fantastic some of the structures that reside within are. Think huge corn stalks that are as tall as mountains or wooly mammoths with precious meat jewels inside that combine flavors of every cut within and you’re picking up what Toriko, the manga, is putting down. It’s a brilliantly fun world that manages to blend the levity of such a weird premise with dire situations as food can be a resource that nations compete against each other for in conflicts that can change the world at large. What makes Toriko so interesting with that premise is that Toriko, when we first see him, is not a greenhorn to hunting or even unfamiliar with his craft. Toriko is already revered as one of The Four Kings which are an elite set of hunters who possess world renown and esteem. It’s a refreshing start for a battle shonen where we don’t get a character who starts from the ground floor with more inexperience than they have plucky determination to win but rather A FUCKING MAN WHO HAS A CAREER. You might scoff at reading that but it’s really a big changer for this kind of story and it sets the action into overdrive at the first encounter because Toriko already has a repertoire of moves at his disposal. It really has helped manifest an interesting nuance to this story that is already apparent in the first 50 chapters. Toriko has connections and stake in the world already. He is a man who has a settled career dealing with other adults who already hold influence. It’s almost in a way starting a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with level 10 characters or something similar. Who knew that just having a protagonist in a shonen battle manga who wasn’t going through puberty would be such a huge boon? I imagine Buronson and Tetsuo Hara of Fist of the North Star acclaim knew already.

Speaking of Fist of the North Star, I don’t think I’m incorrect in thinking that Toriko is heavily inspired by it and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in a sense. Toriko utilizes a fair amount of brutal martial art combat against his foes and his allies often essentially use STANDO POWAH themselves when they’re in combat. One of my personal favorites, Sunny, has rainbow hair that they use to sense the world around them with each different color being able to sense different features of the environment around them. It’s basically Love Deluxe from JoJo Part 4 with extra steps but hey! The extra steps are more fun! Usually!

The thing about extra steps though is that Toriko is filled to the brim with them that help it provide a more lasting interest to me. I’ve noted in past discussions that I’m not a big battle shonen guy and it usually relates to how I’m just really not a big fight guy in my anime and manga. Don’t confuse that statement as absolute disdain because I do have a lot of fun with blood pumping fights in my anime but they often bore me with their lingering moments of lengthy exposition about the fight instead of, you know, actually fighting. Toriko still has my much loathed trope as a few fights in the first 50 chapters employ the “well this is how this technique worked and it also works this way and this way but only on Thursdays and sometimes Sundays and that’s what I did” and other such exhausting expounding. The thing is that Toriko gets so much more right for me that I overlook the faults that tire my shonen exhausted brain.

The big factor is that the main goal of Toriko isn’t to be the best or achieve some momentous dream of excelling in combat above all others. Toriko just wants to make his dream meal and assemble it by finding the ingredients and courses that will make up said meal. His adventures push him across the Gourmet World where his quest is just to find good food to add to this list and maybe not die in the process if he can avoid it. There is, after chapter 50, lore about the perfect food that quells conflicts and united the world way back when literally called GOD that Toriko is seeking out but, as of my current chapter, it hasn’t taken over the narrative in a distracting way. I’m hooked by the journey that Toriko is setting off on and I think it’s what has gripped me so tightly: this isn’t a “be the best journey” but just a “have fun and maybe achieve a dream if I can” quest.

At 50 chapters, I think Toriko has some solid legs to keep me invested. I keep turning to it in my times of boredom on Viz’s Shonen Jump app and usually binge through a solid chunk of chapters when I start to read. The art is very adjacent to One Piece by the way of the aforementioned Fist of the North Star as goofy character designs mix with buff muscular macho manly men and it can be hit or miss. My initial foray into Toriko had me recoiling in disgust at Komatsu as he felt so out of place in the land of seven foot tall men with pectoral muscles bigger than their head. I’ve since come to embrace Komatsu and some of the other goofier designs but good freaking Lord if Toriko never uses another chibi styled character then I’ll be perfectly content. It’s downright heinous to see mini Toriko try to be cute.

I’ve been enjoying Toriko since my stay at the hospital and I’ve kept up with chapters as I mentioned before. I’ve heard from others that shonen manga can be a readily disposable medium where you read a chapter and just as soon as forget it. I’m not one to agree but I can see how that might pertain to lesser series that don’t encourage imagination or a vivid world for you to keep immersed in. Toriko’s story hasn’t quite been up to the prestige of other shonen manga published within Weekly Shonen Jump but it’s been fun enough to keep me reading chapter after chapter which is big praise from me. I don’t know if I’ll keep Toriko in my mind banks for a long time when I finish but it’s doing what a good story should do: entertain and distract from the cruel hassle of the world. It’s certainly not a full seven course meal of a manga but rather a nice hearty premium cup of instant noodles: it’s filling and a real joy to eat in the moment. Just don’t mind that it’s probably all empty calories in the end.

You can check out Toriko (legally) on Viz’s Shonen Jump app if you’re so inclined or read it however you feel necessary to do so (wink wink)!

Thank you for reading my blog and interacting with me by liking it and commenting! I’ve not yet fully figured out how to use WordPress but I appreciate all of you so much for checking out my blog when you do! I promise that I’ll eventually follow all of you lovely anime and manga blogs that have interacted with me soon! You all are fantastic! As a reminder you can hear me talk anime and more on my podcast, the Anime Brothers Podcast, wherever you choose to listen! Thank you again! 💛