Soda spewing watermelons only serves to make my stomach churn.
What They Say:
Toriko and Terry finally find the deliciously elusive BB Corn, and Komatsu must depend on a special blend of spices to survive an encounter with a giant lizard!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the past couple of episodes and the focus on this very unexplored land that’s outside of the known world, Toriko is going back to what made the early episodes interesting with one-off adventures involving strange beasts and a sense of wonder about things. Toriko’s not a character that you want to see spending time inside of an arena or spending a ton of time inside the belly of a beast for a few episodes. With Komatsu and the gang heading after Toriko and Terry, it offers up a chance to see a lot more variety in that space of time since there’s some distance between them already.
With Toriko after the BB Corn, he does manage to find it fairly easily when you look at the big picture, but it’s not what he expects. The field of it he finds is proving difficult to deal with, but leave it to Terry to point out that there’s a skyscraper sized piece of BB Corn just beyond where they are that’s far more appealing and actually seems to make Toriko’s eyes bug out. There’s a good bit of fun to be had with this side of the story, especially when he really gets going with the BB Corn and figures out how to get it open in an attempt to move it and enjoy it. Having it start to pop, with pieces that are bigger than Toriko by the look of it, you have the potential for one hell of a bowl of popcorn for a party.
When it comes to Komatsu’s story, he’s having less fun than Toriko as he and the gang that includes Sunny are just trying to survive what’s going on. The scale of the creatures there are comical to be sure and unlike other areas they’ve been to on the main content, they’re more aggressive in general and seem like they’re going after the group. Sunny’s amusing in how he tries to brush it all off and play it cool, but the way it feels like all they’re doing is running away is even starting to get to him as his composure cracks. Between this and watching Toriko’s popcorn fun, you can’t help but to smile over the events that unfold here.
In Summary:
Considering I’m a huge popcorn junkie, there’s something very fun about the oversized BB Corn here and what Toriko and Terry experience with it. The scale is one of the things that Toriko as a series tries to play up with creatures and foods so it’s no surprise that this particular one is massive and leads to a whole valley being filled with popcorn. Komatsu’s story gets the short end of the stick here as he and the gang are on the run, but that’s pretty welcome as I’m definitely enjoying the story that’s going on elsewhere that has just Terry and Toriko running around together. It’s not deep or hugely interesting, but it’s the perfect kind of fluff that has a surreal side to it yet manages to work well.
Grade: B-
Streamed 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.
