Creative Staff
Story: Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
Art: Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
Translation/Adaptation: Christine Dashiell/Hope Donovan
What They Say
Toriko enlists the help of Zebra, the ravenous monster of the Four Kings, to capture Mellow Cola. With Coco and Sunny refusing to help, it’s up to Toriko and Komatsu to spring Zebra from jail and keep him from killing and eating his way through a vast and treacherous sea of sand to Gourmet Pyramid where Mellow Cola awaits.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This volume starts off with Toriko and Komatsu meeting up with Coco and Sunny aboard the Gourmet Carriage. The carriage is a gigantic ship that is horse drawn by absolutely massive GigaHorses and caravans around the world over the course of two years. Each our heroes has a different destination and agenda; so after only a few short pages giving us a montage of some of the fun being had aboard the carriage, Toriko and Komatsu depart the carriage at the Gates of the Underworld. See, our heroes’ destination is the Gourmet Pyramid, one of the Seven Gourmet Mysteries and a place that no Gourmet Hunter has supposedly ever travelled to and returned; all in order to obtain the ingredient, Mellow Cola. This place is so dangerous that Toriko needs to make a pitstop first; for beyond the Gates of the Underworld lies Honey Prison…and the fourth Heavenly King, Zebra!
The first four chapters in the book introduce us to Zebra, the Honey Prison, and all the strange inhabitants and peculiarities of the prison. To say that it feels like Shimabukuro is mimicking Impel Down from One Piece is putting it lightly. The structure of the prison and the way it is both comical and terrifying feels pulled directly from Impel Down, just adjusted to fit in the Toriko universe. It is strange to read these chapters and feel this way while also having an absolute blast. Shimabukuro’s personal touches make Honey Prison stand apart from Impel Down in extremely memorable ways. This prevents it from getting stale. The fact that the prison is exactly as intended, a pitstop, allows it to not overstay its welcome and continue with the story.
Zebra is immediately an interesting character. He is a mountain of a man that is actually much more muscular than the other beefy characters we’ve seen so far but in a much more grotesque manner that keeps us removed from him enough to be wary. His most defining characteristic is his half Glasgow Smile (where the cheek is sliced open and healed allowing his mouth to open very wide and showing his gums and teeth; a famous example of a Glasgow Smile is Kakihara from the film Ichi The Killer). It is revealed that Zebra is the strongest and most fearsome of the Four Heavenly Kings, imprisoned within Honey Prison for life for the severe crime of eating 26 different species to extinction.
After business is done at the Honey Prison, we quickly move to the trio crossing the vast deserts that will lead them to the Gourmet Pyramid. There are various side adventures here and there that help expand the character profile of Zebra and the impact of his release on the world. The big saving grace here is that each of these tidbits only last but a few pages. The story never lingers on one moment for too long and as a result we get a ton of story and action without the book’s pace ever getting bogged down. You begin reading each chapter at lightning pace due to the quick movements of the story and because there aren’t any big events happening it never feels cheap or rushed.
The volume ends with the trio arriving at the Gourmet Pyramid. I’ve skipped a bunch of the finer details because the experience is much more rewarding than the details, but the final chapter ends on a terrific cliffhanger! At this point everything is still wide open as to what is going on and how it will play out but for fans that have been reading along so far, the sight of a mysterious footprint that could either be that of a GT Robo or the mysterious creature Toriko and Komatsu encountered in Vegetable Sky alongside strange cave drawings mean that there is going to be more to this arc than just the standard hunt and capture.
In Summary
I really enjoyed this volume. Its quick pace and plethora of highly entertaining events made for a good read but the lack of anything substantial aside from meeting Zebra and getting to know him has a negative effect. A lot of stuff was covered but it feels too stagnant. When I watched these episodes of the anime, the material here was covered in about two episodes. A very brisk pace that seemed to move fast enough to not get me too down due to the lack of…anything. With this whole volume consuming the material it just halts the extreme forward momentum the manga has had over the last couple of books. It’s a really weird place for me to be both pleased and discouraged at the same time, like highly enjoyable filler. You want it to hurry and get on with it but you’re never bored and enjoying every second. Weird.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: April 2nd, 2013
MSRP: $9.99
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