David Lim

Things are all kicking into high gear - including time-skips. If you had imagined how the other three Heavenly Kings could've obtained their tasked ingredients, or even what exactly those generic-sounding ingredients look like, well... you'll have to keep imagining it, because the author didn't show it (it's likely the author couldn't imagine them either). At least we got to see some panels (a very few) of the other Eight Kings in action. Basically, this volume is a series of chapters of consolidation chapters - the good guys are regrouping, and the “superpowers” (Jirou, Midora, Don Slime) are facing off their opponents.

So a bit of time-skip occurs at the competition behind the human world chefs and the Blue Grill chefs. I guess in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that important, but it's kind of annoying to skip things like that without even a panel. As for the the rest of the volume, this is where we see the “secret” behind Blue Grill's “Eternity Kitchen” - just what it is they're trying to cook. I do like how the plot is unfolding, but I really dislike the use of “time” (or more specifically, “duration”) as the way to increase “difficulty”. It feels a bit lame to me. Because if it really takes such a ridiculous amount of time, how would you even “discover” the recipe in the first place? The whole “voice of the ingredients” was now kind of retconned into “voice of the food spirits” (cheating, basically, since it's literally someone else giving you the answers), so it means the very first individual to cook something had absolutely no one to give them any hint on cooking those ridiculous ingredients - it all just breaks down from there. Oh well, it's not bad, it's just not satisfying. Anyway, at the end of this volume, the cooking of Another is completed by Komatsu (as you'd expect by now), and one specific food spirit (and you should've guessed just who this individual is by now too).

Ok, there are two “parts” to this volume. The first half deals with with Komatsu and the rest of the chefs in Blue Grill, the ancient civilisation in Area 6. As the explore this apparently Gourmet haven, they began to realise that things are not what they seem. It's actually somewhat leisurely, reminiscent of Cooking Festival. The second half of this volume is where the pace suddenly picks up. The two remaining disciples of Acacia comes into the picture, Teppei's motives are revealed (I guessed right in a previous review), the real goals of Joa and also the Blue Nitro are finally revealed, and the biggest legendary figure of Acacia apparently has a part to play as well. Things seem to speed up quite a bit as it seems to be barreling towards titanic fights that puts the world itself in danger.

I'm certainly enjoying this volume much more than I did the Area 7 arc. There's a glimpse of things in the earlier days that made Toriko enjoyable. So while they're partying over at the Birth Cry Tree, the two groups of “supporters” (chefs and other characters who've appeared throughout the series) caught up with them. A bonus scene that I loved was that we finally get to see Zonge's true purpose. That was fun.

So after they're all caught up, they head into Area 6, the “Ocean World” basically. It's interesting that it's actually this area that contains the toughest of the Eight Kings. I had expected that to be Area 1? But without spoiling too much, there's a bunch of crazy weather and crazy ocean conditions, as you can expect from this series. And then the entire party gets split into Heavenly Kings paired up with a chef each, while Komatsu stays with the rest of the cast. Each pair heads off into a different area, while the main group stays in area 6. All this because of new plot revelations that required them to speed things up.

Ok, so the cliché formula plot of the previous volumes ends with kind of a satisfactory twist. There's a sentimental secret behind the Monkey King's moves, and there's a somewhat typical not-what-they-seem twist. It's a fair way to conclude the plotline of getting Pair, although there's obviously zero explanations on why Pair would just drop off like that.

The after-effects of Pair seems to establish that, in the world of Toriko, there's no such thing as Heaven and Hell - only the world of the living, and the world of those who are not (and this was what Teppei did when he attacked Komatsu suddenly). And seeing how Komatsu being essentially dead is actually required for the plotline, you wonder if Teppei actually did it with this goal in mind.

Lastly, two more things that kinda irk me - one was the penguin Yun's unmentioned-until-now hidden talent (obviously a retcon), and the idea that just because the Four Heavenly Kings had traveled a certain route, that route now becomes safe to less powerful people. It's just a way-too-convenient excuse. Oh well, it's a goofy series anyway. I didn't even blink at their new “transport” - it's kinda expected by now with this Monkey King arc.

Lots of things things happening in this volume that felt like rehashing the same formula and poor decision-making. The lost civilisation was found, another conveniently-placed hermit/ally saved them, a Dawn of the Planet of the Apes vibe, another expected “shock” at the power of the Monkey King, an expected initial defeat but miraculous survival, another mandatory power-up moment that just so happens to be taught to them by their convenient (if a bit suspicious) ally.

And yes, “Pair” is exactly what you'd expect it to be, although just why the “Birth Cry Tree” has “pseudo-Pair” up in this boughs is never explained. It's also a bit silly for Toriko to insist that the critically-wounded Komatsu be brought along into dangerous terrain - but it just so happens that their “transport” animal has just such an ability. Also, gravity just does not work that way, no matter how “cute” the concept of their power-up. All-in-all, I didn't really enjoy this volume. I just guess it's a just a bit too goofy.

And on to the next continent, “Area 7”, and the next member of the Eight Kings apparently. It's imaginative as always, and they conveniently get a “modern transport” to carry them to and across the continent, hunting for Acacia's soup. As you go through the chapters, you'll start getting an idea of what exactly “Pair” refers to... and it's a... soup? Wow. Is this like a secret fetish or something?

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.

Lots of impressive scenes of Toriko (and something else) versus the Horse King as well as Komatsu showing off his hidden potential (and something else). But I kinda feel like things are powering up way too fast. One thing I'm kinda impressed with is how this “Air” ingredient is woven and integrate into both the world and the story. What I don't really like is how the timeline is always “tens of thousands” or “hundreds of thousands” of years ago. Seriously, does everything need to be ancient history?

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.

What a great way to transition into what appears to be the final segment of the story. Following the disastrous Cooking Festival and the revelation of the hidden organisation Neo, we see how IGO and the Human World try to recover from the damage of the Meteor Spice. Coco (sporting a new look) presents a theory of how the world map became the way it is. Komatsu begins his days with the Bishoukukai, managing to show his how OP he is with his cooking skills that impress even Midora. And Toriko had touching scenes that draw him out of his despair of losing the fight to protect Komatsu. Oh, and the capture levels have gone up more than exponentially :D

Lots of awesome fight scenes here - Buranchi vs Elg, Sani vs Tommyrod, badass granny Setsuno, and Zebra finally getting into the fight. I was hoping the Toriko vs Starjun fight was a little less cringe-y with Komatsu but it was just the anime. The bromance is a just a bit too cringe-y for me. YMMV. Of course, Toriko's fight simply must involve him seemingly losing and dying and then for some reason or another, he just comes back up again.

The Bishoukukai invades the Cooking Fest! And an all-out war begins. Toriko, Coco, and Sani each face off against a nemesis that had fought Toriko before. The action sequences focused on the important fights, and doesn't have the long drawn-out and repetitive moments as in the anime. The pacing is much better this way. Also, Komatsu was way less whiny compared to the anime (which resulted in my rapidly diminishing regard of him). And during all this chaos, a hidden faction seems to have been behind all of this.

Wow, talk about speeding through the plot! Things start getting very noticeably different from the anime. After the celebrations of the victory over the Four Beasts, we enter the Olympics of this Gourmet World - the 50th Cooking Fest! Due to his exploits, Komatsu gets recognised with a rank and gains eligibility into the competition. In the anime, there were a couple of interludes where the Four Heavenly Kings are shown appreciating the results of their training and fight. There was only a very short moment with Toriko here in the manga, before the Cooking Fest arc begins proper. Lots of chefs were introduced, some not even named in the anime. After a similar opening and the introduction of Buranchi, the actual preliminaries were over in just a single page. The anime actually devoted some time to each preliminary round. That was better than just, “oh, there were these rounds that took place and Komatsu successfully passed them”. Maybe the author was on some sort of deadline so the pacing went up.

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.

The Four Beast arc draws to a close in this volume. I love the bit about Komatsu figuring out how to prepare the special ingredient, although the time limit was outrageously short The fight with the Four Beast was pretty intense, although I think the anime did a better job here in showcasing the fight a bit more. I liked the idea of a combination technique but... not quite how it turned out. Spoiler: Pac-Man makes an appearance. Lastly, Teppei encounters an ominous mysterious character at the end.

Side note: There's finally some random female civilians being depicted.

Toriko and Komatsu basically go through some specialised training of “honouring the food” at its own version of the Shaolin Temple and its version of “meditation” and “chi”. Basically, get ready for another power spike. The temple grounds being built out of special materials itself is pretty ridiculous. While it's kind of explained, the fact that we only see it happen to our pair of protagonists (and only at specific moments) just makes it poorly done. All the damage is pretty ridiculous as well. One the poorer arcs in my opinion, although it does have a rather well-done (in an ominous and horrific kind of way) towards the end.

So while the Cooking Fest stadium is engulfed in chaos, another epic fight was occurring between the IGO's 0-th biotope members and the Bushokukai executives. So far, we only see it focused on the two leaders. It'll be interesting to see if each subgroup facing off will get some limelight. A major part of this volume deals with the backstory of Acacia and his three disciples, of whom you all should know who they are by now. The lore is actually only a little bit more than what the anime had shown, but the trimmed bits were rather significant.

The “nemesis” fight between Toriko and Starjun finally comes to an end. I think it was a bit too dramatic and too drawn out. Basically, the sole reason for this fight is because Starjun just wouldn't kill Toriko earlier and had to wait until now to try, lol.

Good thing the latter half of the volume makes up for it - as we finally get to see two things: the mastermind chef behind the mysterious organisation “Neo”, and Knocking Master Jirou showing off why he's one of the three most powerful people in the world (yea, you guessed it, completely ridiculously overpowered, lol, and I can't even being to imagine just how much more powerful the enemy would have to be to top that).

Side note: Coco did not get much of a fight scene at all after dragging Grinpatch into that hole Grinpatch created.

The first book in “the Wizards” series... and it's quite bad. I've read the second book already, Bloodwalk, and that's much better than this one.

This book tells the story of Khelben, and a “next-generation” mage, Tsarra, who is one of his apprentices. It follows Khelben as he romps around Waterdeep and the High Moor, unraveling a conspiracy and a prophecy at the same time, of which he himself was the source of the conspiracy and also being a key element in the prophecy, and manipulating various powerful forces in order to bring the conspiracy to fruition in order to fulfill said prophecy.

Confused? Yeah, that's basically what reading the book feels like.

I think the main problem with the plot is that it's way too convoluted. And we're seeing it unfold from the point of view of Tsarra, who is basically carried along, pushed along, and dragged along by Khelben at various points - just because (i.e. prophecy, conspiracy, and all that). So essentially, the reader is just as confused and frustrated Tsarra is. It doesn't help Tsarra's character at all, as the early bits basically focus on her frustrations and her temper. She ends up being rather bland. There was an attempt at creating a mysterious backstory for her, but that subplot went nowhere beyond a couple of paragraphs.

So as one reads, the reader is also basically just getting carried along and watching Khelben's plans unfold. There's no possibility of predicting what's going to happen because Khelben himself noted that things are meant to be convoluted and obfuscated, to create misdirection and fake leads and throw out false information.

The whole plot ends up being boring because there's never any sense of danger or urgency, since most of the time, you don't really know what's happening - it's just something that's happening. The whole gathering of arcane energy for that finale event was probably meant to be impressive and touching, but it's quite difficult for the reader to become invested. Khelben was not a sympathetic character, and Tsarra is difficult to empathise with due to how she's, well, not really in any danger (and I find her mildly annoying).

And that leads to the other characters in the book - they're all pretty bland. The reason being... there's way, way, too many named characters in one novel. Just the prologue and opening chapter would name more than a dozen apprentices who end up completely forgotten later on. Several antagonists in the middle also disappear after they show up. And finally, the gathering of “big names” of the Realms at the end that's meant to be impressive ended up with the complete opposite effect. Unless you're a hardcore Forgotten Realms lore buff, you're unlikely to even recognise half of those dozens of names thrown at you. It's like reading some stranger's wedding invitation list with a bit of commentary on what they look like.

I've ranted enough about things I don't like about it. Oh, one more. The seemingly mandatory “love” relationship that Tsarra has feels so very forced. There was zero chemistry and zero reason why there would even be any chemistry between them.

The things that I did like were the much smaller-scaled fights. These are nice wizard-centric fights that involve spells and counterspells. Too bad there's not very many of them. I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more if it was from Khelben's point of view instead, as opposed to how Tsarra was looking at or through Khelben. I kind of get why this story needed to be told (major event in the history of Realms at the end), but watching it unfold from the eyes of a person who just gets swept along, has no idea what's happening, and has basically no input whatsoever is something I found to be not a good read at all.

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.

The card game with Livebearer drew to a close. The game itself was rather fun to follow through. Coco shows off his supernatural intellect. it ended rather abruptly. Again, this is yet another moment that the anime does much better. Padding it out a bit gave it a proper arc conclusion rather than it feeling rather sudden and abrupt.

And on another side of the world, a major confrontation seems to be brewing.

After the training adventure with Sani, Toriko and Komatsu jump right into another ingredient, this time with Coco.

But there were two interleaved interludes. One in which Toriko and Coco went off to hunt down IGO president's full course menu ingredients. The anime actually provided more backstory to this interlude and lengthened it out a bit. The manga just wrapped it up in a single issue. Komatsu's past was revealed a bit more in the other interlude, where he meets up with a friend that he had once trained with, and then parts with an obvious prelude to a later confrontation.

Coco, Toriko, and Komatsu travel to the Jidal Kingdom to seek out the Meteor Garlic. I think this is one of my favourtie arc, as it shows a darker side of the Gourmet Age and a different kind of creativity. The villain this time is Livebearer, an underground cooking chef, whose depiction is a bit different from the anime. He has full body tattoos in the manga. It's understandable why that wouldn't fly in anime targeted at a younger audience.

Hah, they had the Surprise Apples in canon as well, another thing I didn't expect. It's nice to have a couple of short 1-chapter adventures after the rather heavier chapters of the Gourmet Pyramid with Zebura. Also, side note, we got to see our fifth female in the series (though just for a few panels).

The next training ingredient is the Shining Gourami, where Toriko and Komatsu are accompanied by Sani and Sani's new “pet/friend” along the same vein as Terry and Coco's Kiss. I didn't quite like this one, primarily the attempt to over-exaggerate just how large an adult version could be - it's just way too much and goes beyond funnily ridiculous to being downright silly and nonsensical.

Their new training location are the Mors Mountains, specifically a cave system behind a titanic waterfall named Death Falls, where we basically see Toriko and Sani fight against water itself (and defying physics, as you'd expect). I think the anime did this part much better, particularly when Komatsu was doing his thing. The manga was actually rather brief about this and it was over rather quickly.

And lastly, a mysterious figure shows up at the end of the volume (someone whom will see again later).

I liked the closure of the Gourmet Pyramid and Mellow Cola arc, but not for the usual reasons of watching feast and celebrate the conclusion of an adventure or training, but rather for the revelation of more information regarding the greater overall plot arc involving the God ingredient. And now, more light is shed on the mysterious species that Toriko and Komatsu have encountered. Also, a bishoukukai nemesis makes a surprise appearance - and then followed up with a rather lame excuse of not wanting to fight. In the anime, I remember there was a specific dialogue that “inspired” Toriko, but in the manga, there was none of that, so that scene ended up being a bit pointless. And as an end to the volume, Toriko and Komatsu visit the Gourmet Temple, something I thought was a filler anime episode but apparently was not. The anime did change the sequence of events and padded it out a bit. Toriko had never been to the Gourmet Temple in the manga, same as Komatsu, but in the anime I recall that he had, only Komatsu had not.