Chili Chili Shrimpbeach, oh my!
What They Say:
Toriko’s daring attempt to navigate the Devils’ Playground brings him face-to-face with a Soldier Frog, an Axeox, and an Avian Beast with hallucinogenic breath! Meanwhile, a GT Robot stalks the Regal Mammoth!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
A lot’s been going on in the world of Toriko as it works its bigger arc as we can tell by the recap we get at the start of the episode that makes it feel like we’re hundreds of episodes into the series like One Piece. Which is comical since we’re now eleven episodes into it. It is useful though as a reminder of what happened since so much of Toriko in the last couple of episode shave felt like it’s just washing over you with a series of events that aren’t connecting all that well. With the group split, having Sunny and Komatsu on their journey while Toriko and the woman he’s with make their progress riding their beast, there’s a lot going on but it continues to feel a bit empty. It’s also bringing in some less than believable things, like the Candy Tree. Toriko asks you to suspend disbelief a lot, but this takes the cake. Literally.
Not surprisingly, a lot of the episode is focused on just the action itself as Toriko pretty much pushes through by force to get to his destination. With the variety of critters and his own brute strength and bravado, it can be fun to watch as he goes through it. But as noted, he’s not up to his full potential because of recent events so he’s struggling a bit with some of what he has to deal with. It doesn’t really weaken him in a sense though because he does get through his challenges, but it’s nice to see him not do it all so effortlessly since it just makes him seem all the more incredible. And with what he his having to face, he’s starting to think he chose the wrong route, which again helps to show that he’s not just the best at everything out there.
When you get back to one of the main things that’s supposed to be going on here with the hunt for the Regal Mammoth, we do get a little progress but it also includes those awful GT Robots. They’re still out there going after them and there is a comical segment where one apparently did, only to be utterly crushed by it. It does highlight just how much of those things can survive after taking a beating and still regenerate itself, but they’re still terrible things for villains since there is no real there, there. With them all being remote controlled devices, there’s no sense of threat or personality to it all. The more I see of the apparent bad guys of the series, the more I dislike them and find them to be an uninteresting addition to the show.
In Summary:
Toriko basically has a lot of forward momentum here but it’s unclear where it’s all really heading to. Sunny and Komatsu don’t get all that much time here and the first part of their appearance deals with a candy tree that had me rolling my eyes. They’ve had some wacky stuff, but this one just felt like it was too much. They continue to be the mellow part of the show while Toriko and his growing gang of women and the wolf deal with all manner of nasty and violent creatures as they push on towards the Regal Mammoth’s hopeful location. It all continues to be just too big in scale, too epic for what we’ve seen so far, to really work effectively. It’s building its own world to be sure, but it’s coming up with such a disconnect at times and makes such huge leaps at other times that you can’t imagine how all this would work as a really cohesive world. And that’s part of the problem since you’re not supposed to think that way, but the show goes so big that you can’t help it.
Grade:
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.
