Things keep heating up… in theory.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
Translation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
God has appeared and has taken on the form of…a giant frog?! Toriko and Neo must battle it out for a taste of this king of ingredients while God tries to destroy everyone and everything around him! Brunch and Aimaru escape in the confusion to go collect Center—an ingredient necessary to give Toriko the power he needs to defeat Neo. Meanwhile, its Food Luck vs. Food Luck when Starjun goes toe-to-toe with Joie. Can the Earth hold up through all of these intense fights, or will it crumble under the strain?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With God’s arrival on the scene, we’re pretty clearly right in the midst of the story’s climax! And… yeah, even once it starts doing stuff, it still just looks like a big dumb frog. I guess it has a thing going on where like, the “scale” things on its back are supposed to be like planets and hold all sorts of food memories or something, but that’s not enough to salvage the design for me. It DOES pull off the ridiculous feat of stretching it’s damn tongue around the entire planet though, so that’s something. Oh, and it’s really awkwardly written because it’s being shown as this massively powerful threat… but then everybody else is having their fights and interactions, and it’s like it’s not even there. Just seems like poor writing to put something like that down on the field of battle and then kind of sort of ignore it.
Now, there are definitely some other fights going on in the midst of all this chaos, but the biggest threat and the one who comes to the forefront is really Acacia/Neo. And I’ve got to say… he’s not really working for me, either. That’s mainly because he’s just being the full on big villain, which feels like a real mismatch with what we saw of the character in the past. I suppose the idea is the bottomless hunger that Neo represents drove him to extremes and made him crazy or something, but it’s not really spelled out well, and he just comes across as some sort of weird psychopathic monster here. It honestly makes me wonder if this was something that got cut out in the rush to wrap things up, as it straight up feels like it’s missing something, which is a shame.
With that said, though, eventually the Eight Kings reach the battlefield and just go off on Acacia, and it’s easily the highlight of the volume. They just go off on him full force, and it’s a damn impressive display of over the top action that makes for a sight to behold. It’s the kind of craziness that has come to define the series at its absolute best! Anyway, will even the monstrous Neo/Acacia be enough to take this onslaught, or has he finally met his match?
In Summary
Things continue to ramp up in this volume and… it’s kind of a mixed bag. The design of God just seems underwhelming and awkward, and it straight up feels like it’s implemented kind of poorly here. And Acacia is another key presence here, but his character feels like sort of a mess that needed a bit more of a push. The action surrounding these pieces is fine still, and there is some other stuff going, but they’re both so central to what’s going on that it definitely hurts the book pretty significantly. Fortunately, there is a pretty great bit near the end that perfectly captures the insanity the book has become and is exactly what I wanted out of this climax, but I’d still say it’s not enough to keep this volume from feeling a bit messy and awkward overall.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: February 6th, 2018
MSRP: $9.99
