Breakfast Isle. I’d never leave. Unless there’s a Pizza Isle.
What They Say:
Amidst the emergence of a horrifying new breed of evil, Toriko and Komatsu are hired by the IGO to track down the elusive and delicious Regal Mammoth and its priceless Jewel Meat!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Toriko continues to amuse in a lot of ways with the way it handles foods and the way the world is setup and designed and this episode starts off with the brief look at the beautiful Breakfast Isle, which is comical in its own right but oh so delicious with ham and egg pods and huge hills of delicious ham. While the show brings us plenty of action, interesting creatures and fun characters, it’s a show that can be pretty mouthwatering as well which can be good and bad. With the storyline that’s run so far, we’ve gotten to know the characters a little bit better and got a good feel for Coco, but also to see how Toriko interacts with others and we got to see Komatsu actually handle things fairly well when the stuff hits the fan.
The last episode of Toriko showed us something rather disturbing coming out of the water that had little to do with them, but it was unsettling and just a setup for things that appear to come later. Where the show goes is somewhere else completely, after a tasty burger stack, as the IGO wants to get Toriko and Komatsu to go after something else that’s pretty difficult like the Puffer Whale. What they’re after this time is the Regal Mammoth which is renowned for its Jewel Meat, but it’s located on an island where the IGO hasn’t fully mapped it out yet and they need someone with Toriko’s skills to do it and they’re getting to it in a kind of roundabout way with him. The time spent at IGO before this request comes in is a lot of fun as we get to see the expansive and high tech way the organization works and some of the amusing aspects of it with all the critters that it has in the various cages. It’s an impressive organization to be sure with some intriguing side paths down the realm of science when it comes to cloning extinct creatures.
With a lot of time spent in this place, it’s really quite a treat as we get to see a lot of neat creatures as there’s a bit of a tour for it all. The really surprising part is that there’s an arena match for the creatures that they have, which feels a little more bloodlust-like than the show has really given the impression of. Especially for Toriko who has a very distinct approach when it comes to hurting or killing the creatures he hunts as a Gourmet Hunter. There’s some real fascination to him though when the Battle Wolf is introduced in the arena and is set to go against a whole host of creatures. There’s an amusing call back to the recent critter that Komatsu had to face as well, which is nice to see since it ties things together a bit. The arena material kind of dominates the episode from this point, and it has just kind of an odd feel to it as it’s set up to carry into the next episode.
In Summary:
Toriko has a decent episode but it’s a setup piece that spends a whole lot of time with all the creatures and the arena. Prior to it getting there, there’s a lot to like as it gives us a good view of the place and how advanced yet different it is, and we get a nice little sendoff for Coco as well. I keep finding myself going back to that brief blurb at the beginning about the whole Breakfast Isle piece which was so short but so delicious. This episode has a lot going on and it’s pretty busy, but it ultimately feels like a light episode as there’s nothing significant going on, especially after the way events and action progressed over the past couple of episodes. Toriko still has its fun, but this episode isn’t about Toriko or Komatsu for the most part, it’s about the creatures themselves and where they are.
Grade: B
Simulcast By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
