Toriko 339 Review: More Revelations

Toriko, Chapter 339: Midora VS Joie

Good lord that first page with Midora’s angry face though.

Midora’s super-awesome Meteor Spice apparently knocks Zaus back to his senses, which in itself is interesting – so unlike what Toriko thought, Joie’s brainwashing by bacteria can be broken. You just have to Meteor Spice someone to do it. Teppei takes Zaus and runs off from the base before Midora kills everyone, but before he does so he and Zaus wants to steal the golden cookware that Joie is using – something I’m sure we’ve heard about before in both the Bambina and Blue Grill arcs. Plus those golden plates Alfaro used a couple chapters back... are they part of the golden cookware set?

While he’s doing this, Midora is just launching a gigantic hungry tongue in all its disgusting glory at Joie and eats a gigantic chunk of the mountain the NEO base is at… but Joie is faster with her Tokage beast and basically teleports Midora away to this ‘Land Sea Island’ at Area 2, telling Midora that she can’t let him destroy her ship. Midora basically makes the claim that he can do this destruction thing anywhere Joie is on Earth… and Joie doesn’t deny it, knowing that all three of Acacia’s disciples have the ability to destroy the planet – though only Midora, the weakest of the three (SHOTS FIRED) is petty enough to actually go through with it.

Joie uses this Warp Kitchen technique that, uh, Condor or whoever from the cooking competition used, so that's another tie-in to the Blue Grill arc. And apparently Joie’s Warp Kitchen is something brought to life by Pair and Another, a place where time move exceedingly slowly. And the Warp Kitchen is something that is retained by the Gourmet Cells in order to facilitate the cooking of ingredients in Acacia’s full course that would’ve normally taken hundreds or thousands of years… and then Joie’s food appetite demon comes out and basically tells Midora and his short lifespan to fuck off since time is immaterial to the appetite demons.

Midora then gives his own badass boast that while his anger is transient, he will etch such a deep memory of fear into the appetite demon’s cells that will never ever disappear. Midora is awesome. Midora and Joie prepare to fight in that mysterious space of slowed time… but we cut away…

To what appears to be Bob the Tumour grown to a size that rivals the Earth. And holy shit it does look terribly disgusting. But Jiro apparently simply just blasted the Tumour creature into space… at the cost of his own hand. Setsuno heals Jiro’s hand with Cure Water, and Chichi explains that the creature is ‘Neo’, which is apparently written in a different way than NEO the organization… and Neo the creature is something that has existed and revived several times over the course of history, and the Nitro have been cooking for the sake of Neo the creature… and Neo’s main body is the Gourmet Cell Demon within Acacia…

And we cut away to Acacia the hideous monster creature alive and eating the blue nitros. And, well, no cheat life orbs are going to save them now, they’re already in pieces and being eaten by Acacia and his three gross tongues and fourteen abs and holy hell Acacia is up and running!

Is it because of Midora’s Meteor Spice? Eh. Sucks to be the Nitro.

Chichi explains that despite the Solar Eclipse being some time away, the revived Acacia may have been planning to just go to every continent to hunt. Is Toriko being rushed to a conclusion without us seeing the individual continents where the full course ingredients are at? That freaking sucks balls! But this is interesting too, really, as Jiro prepares to undo his knocking, Chichi prepares to consume some drugs… and mentions that the only thing that has a chance of stopping the Acacia Neo is the demon that once lurked within Ichiryu… DON SLIME. Well so that was what Don Slime is all about.

Overall it still really feels like it's being rushed to enter its final or penultimate arc, and while I really would've liked a better, slower pacing I am not exactly complaining so long as we don't skip the deliberations of every single ingredient and Eight King. I mean, this certainly is far more interesting than the Dressrosa clone that is Blue Grill and whatnot, but on the other hand I'm not a fan of rushing this series to its end.