David Lim
And the siege of the capital gets underway, with Minister Honest revealing all (probably?) of this trump cards as the rebel army and Night Raid gets pushed to their limits trying to hold the empire in check.
One of the more iconic of sports manga. It's the first series where I actually both read the manga and watched the anime. It has flawed protagonists, growing up pains, colourful characters, and beautiful meaningful relationships, all neatly wrapped around the context of college basketball.
Things are getting set up for a confrontation between the Jaegars and Night Raid. Tatsumi gets another “date” with Esdeath, where we get to see some backstory for Esdeath.
And the intensity doesn't let up from the previous volume. Lots of emotional and confrontational moments occur, with yet another tragic loss on one side, and a well-deserved loss on the other. Surprisingly good amount of character development despite it leaning heavily on confrontations. And oh, the volume ends in somewhat of a cliffhanger of a fight (which doesn't really matter if you already have the next volume to pick up right after).
Everyone has finished healing at the country named “Life”, including a really incredible “healing” sequence for Toriko. It's ridiculous but it has its charms, just like all the “natural healing” ideas presented. I guess it was also a necessary time-skip of sorts to give Komatsu the time he needs to do his thing. This was one of funnier and lighter moments in the anime that I remember enjoying. Especially with the follow-up arc of the Ozone Herb. This is also the beginning of Toriko's “training regime” as laid out by the IGO president, who gets introduced in this volume, along with the leader of the bishoukukai. And a bit more is revealed that there is an overarching plot surrounding the “God” ingredient.
One of the more iconic of sports manga. It's the first series where I actually both read the manga and watched the anime. It has flawed protagonists, growing up pains, colourful characters, and beautiful meaningful relationships, all neatly wrapped around the context of college basketball.
Oh wow! I can totally understand why the anime skipped the entire Wild Hunt arc. “Disturbing”doesn't quite describe the new characters that comprise the so-called “secret police” established under the command of Minister Honest's son. Confrontations galore and a surprising death and character development. In other news... the rebellion has officially started making a push to the capital, sending things rolling onto the finale.
One of the more iconic of sports manga. It's the first series where I actually both read the manga and watched the anime. It has flawed protagonists, growing up pains, colourful characters, and beautiful meaningful relationships, all neatly wrapped around the context of college basketball.
So we finally get to the aftermath of how the “survivors” deal with the aftermath. There's actually a potentially deep topic here as the love interest of the protagonists gets a revelation about just what had happened after she killed herself - too bad the plot doesn't actually delve much into it (maybe it will later on?). She basically took advantage of Kurono Kei here (not that he didn't return the “taking advantage” with the pretty predictable T&A moments), she's not a particularly likeable character either. Well, same as with the boys, they're all not particularly likeable, but they're quite believeable your average/typical young adult I guess. They just got dealt pretty bad hands.
One of the more iconic of sports manga. It's the first series where I actually both read the manga and watched the anime. It has flawed protagonists, growing up pains, colourful characters, and beautiful meaningful relationships, all neatly wrapped around the context of college basketball.
It's getting... boring. I guess the highlights of this volume are the fights of the “superpowers” (Jirou, Midora, Don Slime), and the revelation of the “God” ingredient. There's also a moment of “plot twist” with Starjun, but it's so out of left field, with completely zero foreshadowing, that it just feels like a retcon setup for something to be introduced further down the line. Side note: Teppei, who was in the middle of a rescue operation, appears to have been completely forgotten and left hanging.
The fights are kinda awesome on the surface but actually kinda lame. It's silly to emphasize how these combatants are all world-destroyers, yet they completely fail at destroying this one world, despite unleashing “100%”. And all three fights follow the exact same formula: the one side unleashes incredible attacks, the other side takes them or absorbs them. In a "twist", the "bad" side wins. The author better seriously explain how you "eat" explosions and how that "golden can" works because as it is, they are plainly just deus ex machina.
Then there's the “God” reveal, which was rather utterly underwhelming. Turns out "God" is just another big ol' monster, a ... giant frog, that was formed by dozens of tadpole-looking things which ... burst out of the ground... I guess I'd be less annoyed if it was hatched from a gigantic egg or womb being incubated within the earth. Things are purely within the realm of “arbitrary” now, without any attempt at rhyme or reason (however silly). It used to be used for comedic effect, but now, it's “just because”.
Komatsu was rescued by Toriko, they saved the Human World, and they head off into the Gourmet World. That's the gist of this volume. I kinda like how Ichiryuu's full course can save the Human World, but I don't like the fact that there was a cop-out of a time skip.
The whole meeting between Midora and Toriko and rescuing Komatsu was basically done off-panel. I also don't see why it needed a full year of a time skip. Basically, Human World went into the dumps, and IGO and the remaining three Heavenly Kings and all the surviving chefs couldn't do a single thing until Toriko got back and kickstarted Human World recovery in just a couple of days. What a bad way to do a time skip.Other things done haphazardly include bringing out another "old-timer" out of left field just for the sake of providing plot narrative, how Rin's on-going gag with Toriko was "resolved", and how Yun finally makes an appearance after going missing for almost 2 volumes worth of chapters.
Right now, I think the anime had done it better by ending it at the Cooking Fest competition. This was a rocky start to the Gourmet World. Sure, some sentimental moments was played up, but overall, it was essentially on fast-forward.
Well, as if Grinpatch was not weird enough, the newly-introduced Bishoukukai Vice Chef Tommyrod is downright disgusting (and has very poor fashion sense). More deviations from the anime are spotted here, as the dark and violent nature of the Bishoukukai are made the highlight of this volume. While Tommyrod has perhaps an understandable ability, it really defies belief. I'm not about denying the possibility, but sheer quantity is just quite ridiculous. But other than that, a mysterious character has made an appearance, running into Zonge's group (seriously, what is the point of this guy? The running gag about his name and RPG references got old really fast) and also Komatsu.
The gang finally entered the crazy first continent of the Gourmet World. And it seems like they have to proceed through each of the continents one by one. It's nice to see them travel as a group. And their “transport” kinda reminds me of the kraken in One Piece. We get more lore dump on the history of this part of the Gourmet World, and the gang reaches Buranchi's home. The series goes back to its roots for a while as we get to see more weird foods in this Bewitching Food World. Some survivors of the 0th Biotope make an appearance, and the gang is sadly split up again. A reason is given, but I think it's just an excuse to draw extra scenes of weirdness and to reduce their offensive power so that each has more time to shine a bit. On another plus side, we get to meet the first of the Eight Kings and find out more about the first of Acacia's legendary full course menu.
Finally got to the point where the story is starting to diverge from what I remembered from the anime. This volume is where the assassination of Bolic goes into full gear and the remaining members of Night Raid clash with Esdeath herself - and we see the huge power gap between them. Too bad some of the fight scenes are not very clearly drawn to show what exactly happened.
This volume really amps up the action. The conclusion of the Bubble Fruit arc showcases Toriko's power-up, but also shows how much he still needs to go to catch up to the Bishokukai, who aren't sitting still and waiting for him to catch up. Right after that, we finally see IGO taking an active effort to confront the Bishokukai, which then segues directly into the last training ingredient for all four Heavenly Gourmet Kings - the oh-so-conveniently numbered Four Beasts. Those fights are pretty awesome, except that it's marred by the depiction of the military trying to take on the Four Beasts - it's kind of silly because it implies that each of the four Heavenly Gourmet Kings can basically wipe out humanity's armies... and so can the IGO and the Bishokukai. Basically... human civilisations are pretty much like ants.
Night Raid gets the fight brought to them and an all-out fight ensues. Two new friendlies show up as interesting new characters.
One of the more iconic of sports manga. It's the first series where I actually both read the manga and watched the anime. It has flawed protagonists, growing up pains, colourful characters, and beautiful meaningful relationships, all neatly wrapped around the context of college basketball.
Enter General Esdeath, the bloodthirsty badass of the empire. Here we get some character bonding as a result of the previous tragedy, and a “levelling-up” of the antagonists that the Night Raid go against, and the cost that comes with it.
Enter the four Rakshasas - top martial artists - under the minister's command. Not very impressed with them and they just seemed to delay the confrontation with Jaegers. Two fights with Jaegers, but one death this time, one who's very much deserving of it.
This volume encompasses the beginning or prelude to one of the longer arcs in Toriko - the Bubble Fruit arc. It's another training ingredient. Before they can seek it out, Toriko has to gather ingredients for a “gourmet fortune teller” to divine the location of what they seek. These are funny and lighthearted adventures that see the four heavenly kings united for the first time in the series. At the end of the volume, they have finally set off to find the Bubble Fruit and chance upon a restaurant with really-difficult-to-eat food run by the fifth female character to make an appearance in the series.
Wow, it's a way more powerful (and brutal) ending than the anime. I definitely enjoy Tatsumi's fight against the supreme teigu and Akame vs Esdeath. If I had to nitpick, I'd say the Esdeath fight painted her more godlike than mere “empire's strongest”. Just seemed like she's only made so strong just for the theatrics. But aside from the feeling that the fight dragged on more than necessary, I did find the somewhat tragic end to be both a poignant and satisfying conclusion to the series.
Mixed feelings about volume 2. On the one hand, I enjoyed all the action - things are heating up (read: all hell breaking loose) simultaneously, focusing on Inez, AD Tominaga with Mayu, and Laura with Brown. Some little bits of character development here and a couple cliché/expected “I got bitten”, “I don't want to get bitten” scenes there, but overall rather tense scenes (just imagine them in a Resident Evil game/movie). What I'm gonna nitpick about it is that there are way too many bikini-clad zombies. I get it, it's a gravure reality TV, but there be like 20 contestants, or 30 tops. If they drew more filming crew zombies, it would have made more sense, but yeah I get it, zombie chicks, it's unavoidable for an ecchi manga.
The anime really lost of lot with the content that was not shown. As things ramp up to a finale, the focus shifts to Kurome, Wave, Akame, and Tatsumi. The relationship between the sisters was expanded on and built upon. And from the dialogue, there's a lot of foreshadowing about what's probably going to happen to Tatsumi.
More familiar faces show up (if you're familiar with Resident Evil lore) to join in on the action. The action turns from regular zombies to the two special B.O.W.s, both whose origins still remain in the dark (although I can probably take a guess already, given the hints). The BSAA showing up in force this early turned out to be less than impressive, but the plot is moving along quite nicely.