Toriko 349 Review: Trippy Space Cruise Restaurant World

Toriko, Chapter 349: Our Memory

Well that was a weird chapter. It's like Komatsu ate some really weird drugs, which kinda describes an out-of-world experience. Which isn't a bad thing, because the past two or three chapters when it's not giving gigantic introdumps about Another and time-space and warp space it's just showing the progression of things that kinda isn't as interesting as before.

We start off relatively normal. Komatsu enters the soul world and his food spirit thing activates and whatnot. Don Slime starts transforming into the big bearded form we saw in the previous chapter that shows the 'later...' portion, and Slime notes how the food spirits in the underworld is absolutely not as well-behaved as Komatsu, and we get the normal group of grotesque things. There's this one thing with floating hands stretching his own face, something that's just so toothy, something with a mouth within a mouth... yeah, this is like Berserk-lite in terms of designing its monsters.

In the real world, Jiji and Rin are panicking over the fact that all the bodies are basically dead since their appetite is gone. And appetite in Toriko-world is every fiber of your being and heart and soul and everything important in life. They put the bodies in the urchin garlic thing from waaaaay back during this arc's introduction.

They meet King of the Underworld Cthulhu Hades Ika, who apparently is a Soul Saiseya, so yay all the souls will be returned to life.

And then, well, Komatsu starts having an acid trip. He keeps thinking how there's no sense of time or space or anything beyond him being a chef. Slime does a bit of an exposition about how this place is connected with Moon's stomach and anything he eats gets ejected there and transformed into food spirits, and the appetite demons gather there, desiring to eat. Slime also says how a normal human with no gourmet cells will turn into these tiny will-o-wisps and eventually lose every memory other than food. That sucks.

And, well, the acid kicks in and Komatsu starts going 'who what am I why am I here' and he's suddenly IN SPACE! And there's a fucking cruise liner in space! And on that cruise liner appetite demons are eating, and that includes Toriko's red and blue oni... on a table with some dude with wings whose face keeps being covered by speech bubbles because fuck you I guess. Does Toriko have a third dude inside him? Is that Urouge from One Piece? Kaka shows up, but Komatsu doesn't even remember who she is. Some tripping thing seeing the big warty Neo. Damala Sky cooking. Chiyo presumably meeting her son.

And then Toriko-Komatsu bromance saves the day, because red oni Toriko speaks and Komatsu blubbers down because of BRO LOVE, and starts cooking for the appetite spirits.

Hello, Tommyrod's spirit! You apparently survived Don Slime's mega kamehameha attack.

Meanwhile, Don Slime sees Another show up.

What a fucking weird chapter! Par for the course as far as Toriko chapters go, of course, but man.