DangoSadge

"Cooking is as masculine as judo, kickboxing or tae kwan do. Anyone can fight but it takes a special man to craft the perfect Bolognese sauce" Quoted from a manly midget chef... You know the first thing that crossed my mind when I read that quote was covering a cow with ketchup then proceed to pound the cow into bolognese sauce. Im just kidding of course, that isn't call MANLY... that's called animal abuse... So chances are if you stumble upon this anime, you're not watching it just to fill up your boring life with some boring junk. No.. You hunt for exotic food on a daily basis.And you need an anime that teaches you the RIGHT way to do it... Well, introducing Toriko, the only anime currently airing that will not only satisfy that hunger urge but will also teach you how to be more MANLY than you were before. What would you say if I said that World Peace could be obtain if everyone in the world combined their powers to produced the most delicious full course menu in the universe? You would probably say "BURRRRRP!!" Cause that's how the end of World Hunger sounds like. Now all that's left is the homeless people. (Now people, feeding the homeless to the hungry would solve those two world problems, but we wouldn't want to resort to cannibalism now do we?) Let's see how this anime can be used to solve other problems? Problem (Art) So you just opened up an art gallery and you're not raking any cash because an art gallery is partially a public good. (No duh..) Solution: Open up a mini restaurant in your gallery. Watch Toriko (especially the one piece crossover) and get inspiration on drawing animals which apparently looks like it had sex with food and produced offspring. Make your visitors hungry and they'll pay a visit to your mini restaurant for brunch. Problem solved Toriko has a huge variety of animal species, though not as much as Pokemon which has a total of 600++ up to date, but at least some of them are edible and each is designed with it's own unique features. The artwork for Toriko is similar to One Piece. If you like One Piece, then you definitely would love this. If you like Two Piece then go to the toilet... *crickets* Yeah, yeah lame joke... pfft... Problem (Sound) So you work with a bunch of unmotivated voice actors who does english dubs for an anime. And they sound horrible (more than usual anyways) Solution: Get them to watch Toriko. The seiyuus for this anime are top notch. They portray their character well in the anime. It's like the directors forced the seiyuus to starve during the recording to make them sound like a bunch of hungry men. What can I say about the opening? One word... "GATSU!!" No seriously, it's like getting your guts punched with a thousand fists of manliness. Problem (Character) So you have a son, and he's a wimp. Nothing wrong about that, but he is due to national service soon. And you don't want the other kids to bully him. Solution: Get him to watch Toriko. Make him into a man. Toriko is an exampled role model.He says his prayers before and after eating his meal. How often do you see people say their grace before they eat? Not only that, Toriko only kills animals that he deems worthy to be eaten. He does not just willy nilly kill any of God's creation. Only a REAL man could do that. For every manly character, there will have to be a less manly guy to enhance the manliness of the main character. For Batman, there is Robin. For Sherlock Holmes, there is Dr. Watson. In this case, for Toriko, there is Komatsu. Komatsu has his own set of special culinary abilities that furthur compliments Toriko's manliness. If Toriko was the fork and spoon, Komatsu is probably the condiments. What about the wimpy son problem? Heck, just show the government his MAL profile that he is currently watching "Toriko" He'll be exempted for life. In fact, "Toriko" isn't really an anime. The German government classified "Toriko" as "Handbuch für Männlichkeit" Translation, Handbook for masculinity. Yeah, everything sounds manlier in German. The only problem about this anime is that it was further degraded from its masculinity compared to the manga due to a significant degree of censorship. Lower your hopes for gore and blood. On the bright side, with the absence of graphic violence, how kids who haven't hit puberty can watch the anime and start training the the path of manliness... Overall, as proven above, watching Toriko solves a whole tons of problems. I give this anime a rating of 8. Cause that's the number of packs you'll have after watching this anime. Yes, that's right, 8 packs! One more pack and you can play tick-tack-toe on your abs. How awesome is that? Not as awesome as Toriko though. Tough luck kiddo.

Pessoa

The story of Toriko takes place in the Gourmet Age. In that world people live to eat. Wars can erupt over delicious food. The main character Toriko and his partner Komatsu travel around the world to find exquisite ingredients. Toriko hunts, his partner cooks. This is the basic premise and I’ll be honest, it sounds stupid. Teenage heroes of other anime are trying to save humanity, planets, their family and friends from cool-looking edgy evil forces. But Toriko, a twenty five years old adult male, is chasing after food. It isn’t primarily a comedy anime to excuse the premise. Although soon it becomes clearthat evil people can use rare food for their evil ends, it still isn’t enough to make most viewers take Toriko seriously. I’d like people to watch it but I will be honest. Toriko is mediocre at best. Despite its simple and not-too-intelligent premise, the story unfolds itself and turns out to be very complicated. For the first time in the history of shounen anime, the main character’s voracious appetite has a convincing reason: some people in this world have gourmet cells which can evolve and ultimately level up as they consume high-quality food. Because these cells demand an immense amount of energy, characters usually eat a lot. This constant need for better food makes the story dynamic. Villains and heroes vie for the best food to become stronger which opens up possibilities of immense change. As they get stronger, they search for the ultimate food that can make one the most powerful. Thus, many different groups, both righteous and evil, clash with each other over food. As the story progresses it gets very complex but nothing is out of control, the anime preserves its integrity. In other words, the basic premise is nicely developed. The animation successfully creates its original world. There’s a lot of talk on food. The beast and plants of the world are an amalgamation of different species of ours. They often look childish. Moreover, the world is very colorful. Bright colors are preferred for animation. This adds to the childish aura of the anime. Nevertheless, the animation is well done. Colorful scenes make fight scenes more fluid and add an extra dimension. As it’s expected from all 100+ episodes anime series, the budget of each episode is low. But when it comes to major fights it does not disappoint. Nothing top notch, yet well done. The sound is not exceptional either. Voice acting is well done. It brings out what it aims to do. Music is not so great as to be memorable. It still fits the general mood of the anime. You don’t feel like songs are out of place. One positive side of Toriko is that it doesn’t have many filler episodes. The number of filler episodes is 18 (13% of total) which is significantly lower than almost all long-running anime. Toriko isn’t great at character department either. Though many characters are usual clichés, there are some positively peculiar ones among them. One positive thing is that they are older than 21. This is consciously chosen because they usually consume a lot of alcoholic beverages. However, it isn’t used in a meaningful way. They don’t differ much from younger shounen heroes. The main character Toriko is a nice lead. What he lacks, his partner Komatsu provides. They complete each other (sadly, this isn’t a love story). Toriko’s friends Sani, Coco shine in terms of power. The anime does not fall into the trap of overpowered main character standing alone against the enemy, reducing the rest to a bunch of useless spectators who are there only to get impressed by the main character. Also, female characters do not have overgrown breasts, an oddity in this age. Overall, I enjoyed Toriko. Unlike other shounen, it requires a little more patience to be immersed in its world. But it’s painfully mediocre.