Toriko

[DiscipleofBob]

I started searching for manga to fill the void left by Naruto finally ending, and this seemed to be the obvious choice. I wasn't a huge fan of the art style at first, but if there's one thing One Piece taught me it's that these series can be a lot better than they first appear. I've finally caught up with the manga, and I have to say I like what I see. I didn't think they'd be able to do much with the cast, setting, or plot, but everything keeps building wonderfully.

For those who don't know the series, it's almost your standard Shounen manga, only instead of ninjas in Naruto, pirates in One Piece, shinigami in Bleach, or wizards in Fairy Tail, Toriko has gourmet hunters, badasses who scour the world in search of delicious ingredients, fighting impossibly tough animals and braving ridiculous natural hazards to find the perfect food. A more accurate comparison would probably be Hunter X Hunter, only this is just about the hunters that go after ingredients. It's a lot better than it sounds, I promise.

Like other Shounen manga, the fictional world as presented is ridiculous as first, but it's surprisingly internally consistent with a lot of hidden depth and lore.

I'm wondering where Toriko stacks in comparison with Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, and other shounen manga. Both in terms of power scale (how does Toriko compare to Naruto, Luffy, Ichigo, etc.) and in terms of quality?

[LaZodiac]

I really like Toriko, but it's kind of absurd. The power scale is completely bonkers, and a series about hunting and eating good food now involves Food Lavos.

But I do so love it for how silly it is.

[Zaydos]

Toriko is wondrously silly.

There is a movie crossover with One Piece and DBZ, so that's the lineage it's coming from. Power wise when I saw that film Toriko was probably the weakling of the three despite all they did to equalize it for the film. It's gone beyond One Piece power level now, I'd say, with lots of world breakers having fights, and people being noted as being able to accidentally destroy continents not being "this is a high level bad" any longer. Let's put it this way, it originally had a 0-100 Capture Level scale for animal power. It left that far behind and has just been adding 0s for a while.

If you enjoy silly it's good. I have personally probably enjoyed it more than Naruto, Bleach, or at this point Fairy Tail (less than One Piece). Plot wise... it really reminds me of nothing more than Dragon Ball (Z).

[DiscipleofBob]

I do like how the setting, in all its ridiculous glory, is still internally consistent and actually makes a strange amount of sense from what I've read so far.

The entire world revolves around cooking and taste because the world itself was taken over by a giant space parasite that's been 'cooking' the Earth for thousands of years.

This is one of the few mangas I've seen where the wild beasts are just as prominent characters and just as dangerous if not more so than the actual protagonists and antagonists.

So the Eight Kings versus Acacia's demon spawns. They remind me of Final Fantasy Malboros.

[LaZodiac]

I do like how the setting, in all its ridiculous glory, is still internally consistent and actually makes a strange amount of sense from what I've read so far.

The entire world revolves around cooking and taste because the world itself was taken over by a giant space parasite that's been 'cooking' the Earth for thousands of years.

This is one of the few mangas I've seen where the wild beasts are just as prominent characters and just as dangerous if not more so than the actual protagonists and antagonists.

So the Eight Kings versus Acacia's demon spawns. They remind me of Final Fantasy Malboros.

This is the story of Food Trigger, where our hero Food Chrono has to defeat Food Lavos. That is basically Toriko.

A thing to note about this weeks chapter is: The implication that uh...Toriko is one of Acacia's spawn.

[DiscipleofBob]

This is the story of Food Trigger, where our hero Food Chrono has to defeat Food Lavos. That is basically Toriko.

A thing to note about this weeks chapter is: The implication that uh...Toriko is one of Acacia's spawn.

I didn't catch that. Maybe because translations can sometimes be misleading or confusing, but it would make a certain amount of sense given how absolutely little we know about Toriko's real background. Would the same apply to the other Kings as well?

[LaZodiac]

I didn't catch that. Maybe because translations can sometimes be misleading or confusing, but it would make a certain amount of sense given how absolutely little we know about Toriko's real background. Would the same apply to the other Kings as well?

No, just Toriko. The scene in question talks about all the various parts of Acacia's demon that went everywhere, detailing what they did. For the one that seems to be talking about Toriko, it said it "used it's great scent to hunt out it's prey" or some such, and Toriko's always had his god tier nose.

[Radar]

Toriko is still on my "to watch" list, but I'd like to point everyone toward another food-based series, which is another proof that absolutely everything can become serious buisness: Ben-To (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8N9J42FJq0). The series revolves around people fighting for half-priced bento boxes at a completly regular grocery store.