How do you keep the mundanity out of the Shonen fighting genre? By making fights the spice, not the meal. What They Say:
Zebra and Toriko finally reunite with Komatsu, but their troubles are only just beginning. To acquire the Mellow Cola, they must defeat a ferocious Salamander Sphinx, but they have no idea how to kill it!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With both Zebra and Toriko’s strength back to their maximum levels, they take a shortcut to arrive at Komatsu’s location and face the Salamander Sphinx. What follows is what every Shonen fighting show has in abundance: action. However, what Toriko adds to the mixture is an element we don’t see too much of: intelligence. These two episodes would have been so boring and run of the mill if they followed the Shonen action formula to the tee. Fight the big bad with all our strength, get beaten down, find the trick and some final resolve, and then defeat the big bad. The most we can hope for in that scenario is good animation and really cool looking moves that make the fight exciting.
Toriko has shown its strengths throughout the whole series and it really shines here. It follows the standard formula, uses elements from the most popular shows of the genre, and then adds that little extra something to make it stand out. With this confrontation, that little extra something is intelligence and “non-fighting”. While Toriko and Zebra try desperately to defeat the massive beast with a capture level of 92, Komatsu discovers that the book he found is actually an ancient cookbook and he is able to decipher its recipes based on his basic cooking knowledge and the pictures in the book. Once Komatsu announces this discovery, and the fact that the Mellow Cola is the beast’s tears, the gears switch from fighting to win and defeat the monster to strength enhanced food preparation. That’s a really nice touch! It’s still all about fighting and strength because Toriko and Zebra have to beat on the beast, but it isn’t about killing it for the ingredient or to save their lives, it’s just preparing the ingredient. This whole scenario also shows how important Komatsu really is. The show is called Toriko and we have been led down the path that it’s all about Toriko. By showing that brute strength isn’t all that matters and having Komatsu step, we see that maybe it isn’t all about Toriko; that maybe it’s about the art of food, and all the steps involved with that process. Komatsu is the centerpiece for this direction, he is the cook and the kind-hearted “normal” person. By shifting the focus away from Toriko for a bit but still having him be involved is tremendous in broadening the overall scope of the show.
This change makes these episodes so much more enjoyable. It makes it fun and kind of cool to see how you prepare the Mellow Cola. This is how Toriko continues to stand out from the pack; its flashes of style to make it not become redundant and all about the Shonen tropes (*cough* Bleach *cough*). The only other show I can think of that does this balancing act as well (if not better still) is One Piece. That is the heights of ambition that Toriko seems to have and it has the right stuff to do it.
Based on the final scenes of the episode, we get emotional stakes raised and a huge throw down is about to ensue. Here’s hoping it is as original and refreshing as this fight has been.
In Summary:
On the surface, Toriko doesn’t really ever deserve high marks or praise. It’s another Shonen fighting show amidst a sea of fighting shows that range from terrible to the best show on Japanese TV. But 64 episodes in, Toriko continues to do everything right. It does everything that all the extremely popular and successful shows have done in the past but adds its own flavor. It’s this flavor that keeps me coming back for more, it’s why I read the manga and watch the anime, and it’s why I believe it is the second best currently running Shonen fighting anime.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Funimation
Review Equipment:
Sony BRAVIA KDL55EX720 55-Inch 1080p 3D LED HDTV, Built-in Hulu Plus app
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