Toriko 359 Review: Eating Beans

Toriko, Chapter 359: His Name Is Don Slime

Not a lot happened, really. Toriko's always interesting, of course, but the insane breakneck pace really makes it hard to care about some of the things that go on in the story. Like the big Don Slime flashback we got here. It definitely would've made more impact as part of the whole Blue Grill arc to tell us who the fuck Don Slime is instead of building up the badassery and the mystery of Don Slime, then sit on the mystery and move on to the Eight Kings and Neo and Meatball fights and whatnot... and then randomly drop this chapter-long flashback about Don Slime and Ichiryu's backstory. Honestly Toriko's still got a lot of great stories in it, it's  still got great interesting characters... but it is a far cry from the quality of writing that it used to be. I don't know how much of it is the author just dropping the ball or the editors forcing the manga to end like in the next 50-100 chapters or whatever, but as much as I like knowing more about Don Slime and Ichiryu it really felt like it came at a really poor time considering the past few chapters.

Ichiryu basically showed Don Slime that getting stronger is nowhere as important as sharing meals with his family, and we saw a couple of nice scenes between the two, how Ichiryu basically befriended the arrogant Don Slime by simply refusing to get stronger or unleashing Don Slime's power, even when he was fighting Midora... Don Slime is super-proud of the name that Ichiryu gave him, which is nice and all, but, again, it's really not that interesting, considering that the manga has been building up all the fights taking place for nearly half a year or more now and it just keeps getting interrupted by flashbacks that are interesting... but it isn't the right place or time to tell it.

Oh, and Don Slime fights with Knife and Fork, and Acacia's will comes out of Neo in this chapter. Acacia's insane. And he's all like insulting Don Slime for valuing Ichiryu's ideals instead of just focusing on hunger or whatever, and Acacia was chosen instead of Ichiryu for... something. Merging with Neo? Whatever the case, as much as this chapter would've been interesting if it was placed in the middle of the Blue Grill arc or somewhere else where it would've been more relevant, it just feels out of place like a forced HEY LOOK AT THIS RANDOM FLASHBACK. I might be too harsh on this chapter, but I really just rolled my eyes when it suddenly went into flashback mode.

Also Don Slime's totally going to die, isn't he? It felt obvious.