Toriko 343 Review: RIP Moon. No, not that Moon.

Toriko, Chapter 343: Direct Attack Don

Man, a weird chapter, this is. What's comforting is the addition of flashbacks. After doing a bit of a research and discussion, it might not actually be rushing through the manga's main plot and abandoning the whole seven-foods-of-Acacia arc series, but just inserting a lot more content into the Another arc, and adding so much content kind of means all the cooking competition stuff has to be pushed aside in favour of the (IMO far more interesting) Neo and Blue Nitro and Acacia things. A normal Toriko arc generally runs for 20-25 chapters, really, and us spending a wee bit too much time in building up Blue Grill, plus the slight jumping the gun with all the Kings and Neo and Acacia and whatnot leaves not much room in the 20-25 chapter format to conclude the Blue Grill stuff. And I guess part of it is indeed due to the slight waning interest thanks to the crapshit anime and the lack of the main character and whatnot during the whole Blue Grill stuff. 

But it is some weird-ass pacing. We've got the first half of the chapter with Don Slime's full form, which looks like he's covered in seaweed with like ten octopus leg things as a lower body, doing some Bambina level shit. He just jumps off the surface of the black ocean into the Moon (the one orbiting the Earth, not the Whale King) and then jumps off of it, absolutely destroying the Moon in the process, just to shoot downwards to battle Acacia!Neo, who's eating on some shit. Don Slime looks absolutely fucking nuts, and if nothing he does look cool and batshit crazy, as with everything that's going on in Toriko.

Toriko and Komatsu can feel the impact from Neo and Don Slime clashing together, and Komatsu randomly says that they've spent decades in Blue Grill. That's about all that happens with the present-day cast, though.

But apparently, yeah, Team Komatsu spent decades within Blue Grill. Where one hour passed when Toriko, Sani, Zebra and Coco split up at Area 6, apparently two days have already passed inside the giant shell. 

We see back when they first arrived, where the Saiseya Pukin (the lady with four arms) is researching Yun Yun, and apparently safety beasts emit some kind of unique space zone thing that emits an aura of non-appetite, comparable to how carnivores would feel when they see vegetation, possibly not dissimilar to the Warp Kitchen that Joa and Condor used before, so it's definitely foreshadowed before. And apparently Blue Grill the giant mollusc also causes time dilation within it. 

Then we see Moon (the Whale King Moon, this time) living up to its name as the Black Hole Whale, and its front has just opened up into a black hole and it's, like, sucking in the entire population of the sea or some shit like that. We still have no idea just how big Moon is compared to anything. It's felt in the Grill Stadium, where apparently we skipped through four of the matches (Condor Window's survival is oddly still unexplained) and we're in the midst of the final match between Chiru and Asarudy.

Random masked people report to Don Sime (in his funny midget state) about how a shit-ton of food spirits have shown up, and how Whale King Moon is on the move, basically causing an entire region of sea to disappear. Don Slime mentions how food is being discharged from the 'White Hole', which we have no idea what the fuck. Is it the secret Illuminati conspiracy thing they are making in Blue Grill? The stuff Neo is building? Something else? Whatever the case, Don Slime starts to have streaks run through his body and stops the cooking competition.

In the northernmost part of Blue Grill, a two-page splash of Food Spirits show up -- including, right in the forefront on the right side of the page, Tommyrod's appetite demon. The dude with the butt-chin and the creepy hollow eyes. We know Tommyrod's still stuck within Sani's Satan Hair, locked in all eternity within, uh, hair, but maybe his apetite demon got sent back into being independent or something? Regardless, the food spirits all look pretty suitably horrifying. Like this one dude next to Tommyrod's demon that's like a blob with a wide grin and a head filled with fucking fingers. 

Then Don Slime tells the humans how they're going to the Kitchen of Eternity... to resurrect Ichiryu, the strongest man and the only one to gain Don Slime's respect. Well. I do hope we're getting more and more flashbacks to explain what the fuck is going on, because I really do want to know.