Monday 1 June 2015

Toriko 325 Review: Snake Tornado Footprints

Toriko, Chapter 325: Furious Direct Hit


Funny how the chapter from Shonen Jump this week that's just setting up for an arc is a whole ton more interesting than Bleach and One Piece, both taking part in the middle of grand finales to long arcs. Really not much happened here other than some world-building, but damn if those world-building moments aren't interesting.

The chapter starts with Kuribou giving an introduction about the Black Triangle, which is a region like the Bermuda Triangle but big enough to eat an asteroid the size of the moon. Apparently Fish Treasure Another swims through the impassable Black Triangle, leaving this 'stardust river'. Apparently there are multiple stardust rivers created by Another's children (so it's an actual fish then?) and the only place where they can be sure that Another will show up is the center of the triangle.

Aimaru (hey, remember Aimaru? He exists!) borrows a drop of Pair and points out a 'Real Globe', which is a machine developed by the IGO that reproduces terrain based on images taken by satellites. Of course Real Globe isn't infallible, but Aimaru puts the drop of Pair in the middle of the Black Triangle, and uses his skill -- which is apparently the ability to cause this Gourmet Slime Mould to grow rapidly. They're apparently very picky about eating food despite being bacteria, and are able to weave through food mazes in laboratory settings. And since the route on Real Globe corresponds to the real world, Aimaru has managed to create this map of sorts.

Livebearer and Aimaru talk a bit about how appropriate the ability to control bacteria is for a member of the Gourmet Knights, and Aimaru talks about how bacteria can also be used to control minds, as well as a Dark Technique that uses bacteria to cook. Apparently Pukin brought along... Jiro? Teppei? One of them, anyway, it's hard to tell when it's from the back. Jiro-or-Teppei was the one who taught Aimaru the Dark Technique, it seems, and Chiyo seems kind of super-surprised by all this.

They're interrupted by these gigantic tornadoes that go sideways, which is your standard Toriko crazy-terrain fare. And these are apparently called Mother Tornadoes, which are created by the Mother Snake from Area 4 passing through. What kind of crazy giant snake creates tornadoes just by passing through? Though Heracles' footprints does cause the soil to be permanently barren and all that, so... they also elaborate that the tornadoes are specifically created when the Mother Snake was fighting the local King of the area, which we don't know what it is, so it's not all the time that the Mother Snake moves, but still, damn.

Also, 'snake footprints'. That makes me hurt to type.

Anyway that makes the air impassable, while the water is filled with conveyor belt islands -- the waves are so super-wild that the islands are just tossed around. They're then attacked by this gigantic blob of seawater called the Namibozu... which is immediately taken out by electricity and then set on fire. Buranchi and Starjun have arrived! A shit-ton more Namibozus appear, but before anyone -- including the new arrivals -- can do anything, they all get headshotted to death. How do you even headshot a giant monster made out of water?

But apparently this Gunman Sunfish creature, which looks really pained, was the one responsible for shooting down all the Namibozus. It's a safety beast that's 200 levels higher than the Namibozus, and it's accompanying the third Gourmet Hermit, Jiji... who kind of feels too much like Muten Roushi to be a coincidence. Except, y'know, more hair.

So yeah overall not much happened beyond introducing all the crazy aspects of this area, but we do get a bunch of backstory about Another, we get Buranchi, Starjun and Jiji meeting up with the main group, and we get Aimaru showing off his abilities and hinting on some Dark Technique things. Yeah, it's definitely the better of the three main Shonen Jump chapters this week. 

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