Toriko 353 Review: A Bunch'a Insane Animals

Toriko, Chapter 353: And Now For The Main Course

I was afraid that the Eight Kings would be just, well, wiped out. Especially after the (apparently mistranslated) dialogue last chapter about how the Neo meatball ate Moon. Well, turns out I didn't really have to worry. It's another hype-up chapter, and we don't exactly delve to the three big fights we see at the end of last chapter. No, we get a re-establishment of how there's one week left until the Gourmet Eclipse... and, well, I guess we kinda have to make our peace with the fact that we're probably not really going to see Team Zebra, Team Sani and Team Coco really do their shit. Maybe a couple chapters for each of them. If we did a Blue Grill style flashback for all four teams it would be overkill and completely derail this whole Neo crisis, so, yeah.

But anyway, we cut from one area to the next except for the ever-mysterious dragon king. Area 8, Horse King Hill... The meatball that landed there tried to puff itself up and try its best impression to look like that disgusting caterpillar monster from Berserk. But apparently Heracles just considers it to be a larger target that's easier to take aim at. Heracles did a 'Herac Breath'... and apparently a single sigh of relief from Heracles is enough to reduce everything into vacuum, and pointing it downwards is enough for it to cut through the Earth like a fucking laser. Because these Eight Kings are insane, yo.

In Area 7, Monkey Restaurant, Bambina is fighting his own meatball. And, well, the meatball he's fighting isn't in a good shape. If it's in a shape at all. Bambina is just really enjoying himself fighting against something that continuously regenerated and fought back, and is just so happy he wants it to go on forever. But apparently Bambina's punches hit like meteors and eventually the meatball just loses 'any semblance of shape, form or existence'. And Bambina cries.

We get a short scene of Zonge, free from all that sweet, sweet monkey loving, thinking of running away when the ground suddenly erupts because the Herac Breath just blows apart through it. Yeah. Meanwhile Bambina gets blown around by the force of the wind and... is happy. Because he realizes there's someone out there that can play with him.

Oh, man, drop everything and have Bambina fight Heracles. That would be fine with me.

Area 5, Food Region Forest. Apparently the Sky Deer's army of Level 4000 monsters are no match to the Neo meatball here and its ugly goblin nose, and has eaten around a hundred of the monsters on top of Sky Deer. And then suddenly the meatball finds itself in a weird void... because Sky Deer has simply stopped walking and is now angry... and apparently it created a space trapping the meatball, and it's a space that with the passing of a few seconds, it 'rots away as if hundreds of millions of years have gone by'. So, um, Sky Deer has time-controlling powers, or pocket dimension powers, or rotting powers or... well, shit, it's a fucking continent-sized deer in fucking Toriko, I can't really fathom just what powers it probably has.

Quinn's mother just broke Physics

Area 4, Gourmet Garden. The meatball here just looks so happy and cheerful and sad at the same time, gorging itself on pretty flowers... before realizing that it's dissolving in digestive fluids. The meatball then realizes that around it are ingredients not found on earth, stuff like Plum Stars, Moon-Shrooms and Meteor-Mold Fish from space. Yeah, really hinting at a possible space arc, isn't it. And the meatball realizes that it is, in fact, within the Mother Snake's stomach. And the Mother Snake can just extend its form like a damn stick jutting out of the Earth to catch extra-terrestrial space fish. Because all the insanity about the Mother Snake isn't enough already. And it's apparently 220,000 kilometers long. All righty then.

Area 3, with the Emperor Crow. The meatball has mutated into an honestly cool-looking six-winged thing with a crying face and stumpy little frog feet. It flew straight up to evade the Emperor Crow's Shadow of Death... which apparently is literal. Somehow the Emperor Crow's shadow also shot upwards, and the Emperor Crow has a sun beneath it... which doesn't make sense, until the next panel reveals that the Emperor King doesn't give shit about Physics either, and can vomit out a ball of light like the Sun to cast its Shadow of Death anywhere it wants to. And the shadow just, well, annihilates everything and all thought and just makes the meatball go pop.

Area 2, with Toriko, Starjun and Guinness. Toriko and Starjun kinda discuss a bit about getting "god", and Toriko's confident that the two of them can take down Guinness. Yeah, dream on, Toriko... you're awesome, but you survived Bambina and Heracles by luck. And look at the sheer insanity of the other eight kings... one is a 200K km snake that eats space stuff for snacks. One is a giant sun-spitting crow whose shadow incinerates all thought. One is a whale the size of a fucking moon that has a black hole for a mouth. One is a skyscraper-sized horse that can create a wind cannon cutting through the earth by simply sighing. One is a giant continent-sized deer with a forest filled with monsters and also has the ability to trap you in fucking hyperspace. One is motherfucking Bambina.

Ahem. Toriko and Starjun get ambushed by the meatball there with a gigantic wart nose, but we don't see them fight it. We cut away to Komatsu talking some shit about going to the other areas where Zebra, Sani and Coco have presumably obtained their respective ingredients. Despite Komatsu apparently finishing cooking the revival efforts in Blue Grill. Komatsu is confusing. And I don't care. I want to see Toriko and Starjun and Guinness fight the wart.

Also, Neo vs. Eight Kings? It's 7-0 so far, with the dragon king remaining elusive. Granted, those are just warts, but considering how the warts themselves have been built up by annihilating those noble blue nitros... yeah. Also, these Eight Kings just break all laws of Physics and they are awesome.