Toriko 341 Review: KINGS VS PIMPLES WOOOOO

Toriko, Chapter 341: The Strongest Predators Preying On Each Other

How the fuck does Toriko keep cutting away from super-interesting things like Midora-vs-Joie, the Acacia Demon, NEO, Blue Nitro and every single thing to something else, but still manages to be awesome nonetheless? Not much actually happened but this chapter is just pure hype and holy shit and why the fuck does Toriko be able to just hype everything up every single week?

First up we see Pimple Meatball which the narrator dubs "A" (boo, a real name), which starts mutating and growing eyes and horrifying maws and tentacles and whatnot and it's facing off a small monkey army of masters and assistant masters who aren't even bothering nobody. A doesn't recognize the monkeys as enemies, but as food and we get a two-page splash of utter brutality and holy shit, it's a good thing none of the monkeys we actually know like the Gorilataurus or whatever are around. We are told (and see) that the Acacia pimples can predate on food any way it wishes to -- biting, slicing, even melting... and then as it bears down on the one monkey we do know, poor Iai Aye, we are told that it has a way of eating that it preferred -- making its prey afraid and eating it after the fear has peaked. 

And we see Iai-Aye's fucking terrified face as it tries to make a stand, runs away and holy shit poor monkey's just horrified and the panel where A's tentacles wrap around him and he's just struggling for his poor life waving his arms and his eyes are bulging out, and the next panel is blood spurting out...

And thankfully poor Iai-Aye isn't a casualty, as Terry motherfucking Cloth zooms in all awesome-like and slices off A's tendrils. We get a narration that A, weird tumour thing that he is, cannot sense fear from Terry's eyes, or from Kiss and Quinn who show up. But it's not because of training with the Monkey King... but simply because they remember that the strongest blood runs through their veins. And then we get a short but effective buildup of Bambina, the Monkey King, a creature that doesn't even have the word 'fear'...

AND BOOM! One page of Bambina just kneeing this meatball motherfucker in the face so hard its body bursts apart. All with that dopey-ass smile on his face, and he hasn't even lifted his power limiter webs or anything yet. Bambina? Bambina is boss. And we see that the Neo-Acacia pimple realize that Bambina isn't food... it's an enemy. And I do like the little opening and closing about how he sees things not as enemies, but as food, but Bambina is the exact opposite.

We cut away to Area 8, Horse King Hill, where the meatball that landed has expanded to a huge size, so these things can just instantly adapt. It looks gross as fuck, with an all-too-human face where its crotch would be... but Horse King Heracles absolutely still towers over this 'expanded-to-huge-size' meatball. 

In Area 6, Another the dish somehow surpassed the speed of light and disappeared into the back world, and the meatball seeking it (which has an angry face) also disappeared, presumably also into the back channel. Well I guess Team Komatsu will have to deal with this, then, when they do reach the back channel if/when we get back to them. But I don't wanna. We also get to see Whale King Moon, whose stomach apparently connected to the back channel or something. Or maybe it ate the meatball? Dunno. The translation's a little goofy.

In Area 5, we get to see Acacia's meat dish News, which is apparently a taste incomprehensible without first consuming Another, and it apparently is like a mist that floats around the entire area. The meatball here sprouted like a goblin nose and three tongues, but has to face off against a shit-ton of enemies. We see Sky Deer Bambi in his full glory, and, well, it's apparently not your regular deer but has like at least eight pairs of legs and it's just walking over mountains being literally a walking continent or some shit (Sky Deer should hang out with Zo from One Piece) and apparently the Sky Deer's horn-forest has a really large amount of powerful beasts -- like, level 4000 tier -- that fight in its stead simply to stop the Sky Deer from getting enraged and rampaging and presumably causing deer apocalypse.

Meanwhile, Area 4. We get to see Acacia's dessert Earth, and it's kind of looking like softserve ice cream or some shit. The meatball that landed there had a sad blob, because it landed right in front of the Mother Snake, who looks terrifying and awesome and totally deserves that two-page spread. And it's just quietly looking in the direction of meatball over here.

On Area 3, Acacia's drink, Atom, is apparently a deadly poison waterfall. Er, yeah, good thing Coco and Tyran were the ones that came here. The meatball here grew like a shit-ton of wings like the Seven-Tails from Naruto, and it grew wings to avoid death because anything caught in the shadow of the Emperor Crow apparently cease thinking and slowly die. We get a rattling off of the titles that the Emperor Crow has (apparently it can create poison waterspouts by flapping its wings, too) and, well, the winged meatball just looks so tiny next to Kiss-Papa.

And then we cut away to someone who can 'smell all these waves', and we think it's wolf king, right? No, it's apparently Toriko, who's banged up. Starjun apparently notes that this is something Midora suspected would happen, and Toriko does note that he could 'learn it all by smell'. And apparently the two of them are taking on a Battle Wolf. Wolf King Guinness? We're not sure. But apparently Toriko gets a call from Komatsu but who the fuck cares? Get back to Bambina and Team Terry! Or Midora! Or Heracles! Or motherfucking Mother Snake and Emperor Crow and the Sky Deer's army of octopus mammoths and all that shit!