Toriko 335 Review: The Kings!

Toriko, Chapter 335: Stirring

This chapter is just a big string of “HOLY FUCK” one after the other. It cuts away from the cooking tournament – and it’s rare that something that would seem so trivial starring a bunch of C-listers be something that I don’t want to cut away from… but it is something I don’t want to cut away from! Though the stuff we did get here is on a whole different quotient of Holy Shit-ness, so it’s not a bad thing either I guess?

We start off with a narration talking about how three great events may have caused a stirring – the birth of a new Herac, the dance of Bambina… and Toriko recovering after his fight with Starjun pre-timeskip.

Then we get a gigantic splash page of Whale King Moon… which looks like a moon replaced the front half of a whale, which isn’t something I didn’t expect. But apparently it resonated all around the world – we first cut to Area 5, where Zebra and Buranchi are like ‘oh no everything is shaking’, which seemed to imply that if Whale King Moon moved, it’ll cause earthquakes and shit (though considering it’s the size of a moon, I wouldn’t be surprised either). Zebra’s echolocation reveals that the forest they’re in… is not a forest.

And no, it’s not just any random freak natural phenomenon, because we cut to a two-page splash of the Deer King, Sky Deer! And holy fuck it’s awesome. Sky Deer has an entire forest on its back, and it looks more like an entire mountain formation just moved.

Meanwhile, in Area 4, Sani and Livebearer comes across what they thought was a wall, or a mountain… but, of course, is the god damned Mother Snake. Words cannot do justice how phenomenally awesomely gigantic the artwork make the Mother Snake and Sky Deer look like. The Mother Snake is likewise just freaking awesome.

In Area 3, Coco and Tyran sees that the sky grows dark – y’know, the Emperor Crow – and something falls down next to them and makes a gigantic impact… and it’s not the crow, but rather a detached feather. Yeah, the feather alone makes Coco and Tyran look tiny.

Meanwhile, in Area 2, Toriko and Starjuun comes across a ‘King Land Shark’, a gross-looking diseased shark with gigantic gums and a flower-tongue thing which appeared in one of the earlier chapters of this series, back as a showcase of the insane beasts in Gourmet World when Jiro talked about his full course. It’s a Capture Level 4450, and Toriko and Starjun discuss for a beat how it’s a monster that will attack one of the Eight Kings, and how Toriko alone won’t be able to handle it. Together, though, they think they can take down the King Land Shark, but not even Starjun wants to mess with…

The Battle Wolf. Who looks awesome.

Starjun brings up Terry Cloth,  remembering their earlier encounter, and then we get another two-page splash page of Bambina fighting with Terry, Kiss and Quinn. Which is holy fuck so awesome. I absolutely love that image of Bambina kicking Kiss which looks just great. Bambina seems to be having a ball! Zonge and his cronies are apparently still around, looking at some weird sci-fi space rift thing that apparently Bambina and company are training in. Zonge decides to escape, but of course, Zonge being Zonge I guess he’s doomed eternally to be Bambina’s bedside companion. Poor Zonge’s butt.

We then cut over to Area 2, Neo’s hideout, and we briefly see the weird-looking chef Apollo, before cutting away to Komatsu’s friend who was the non-jerk one that was kidnapped by Neo. He’s approached by Teppei, who note that they are the only two people not controlled by Joa’s “bacteria”, so he was of his sane mind when he, y’know, killed Komatsu. Which, as the characters themselves have pointed out, is too risky of a plan to be made of a sane mind and honestly a pretty damn dickish evil thing to do.

Teppei wants to know what Komatsu’s buddy (Umen, is he called?) saw in Area 1… and we do see it, which is this… well, man, who also happens to be a big tumour monster thing with six muscular arms, two gigantic bulbous tumours growing from his shoulders, and like two dozen abs. And he kinda sorta looks like Toriko. So is he connected to Toriko’s origin story somehow? Some people think it’s Acacia, which is rather likely too, so just what is it?

What is going on in this chapter I don’t even. It’s just a big series of grand reveals and I absolutely love it.