It’s time for some high stakes Gourmet Gambling!
Creative Staff
Story: Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
Art: Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
Translation/Adaptation: Christine Dashiell/Hope Donovan
What They Say
Toriko and friends face off against the gruesome head chef of the Underground Cooking World, Livebearer, who wants nothing more than to eat their memories of food. In order to keep the contents of their brains from being scarfed down, Toriko will have to eat the grossest, squirmiest, biggest and most explosive foods ever to win a high-stakes game of “Gourmet Tasting”!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
At the very end of the last volume, our team of Toriko, Komatsu, Coco, and Match were invited to the VIP area of the Gourmet Casino and met the owner and leader of the Underground Cooking World, Livebearer. We were initially shocked with the life and death games that are seen taking place on the VIP floor, but knowing how strong and skilled our team was we weren’t exactly convinced these games would be too much of a challenge. Thankfully, our team is not going to continue gambling in the VIP area, they have been invited to “beyond the VIP area”. Here we learn that the extremely privileged gamblers stake their food memories as the bet. We glimpse a room filled with strange machines shaped like brains that hook up to people via the hippocampus and one participant squirming with joy as he downloads a food memory and another in excruciating pain as his memories are extracted.
Never one to back down, especially when it’s his only hope of finding an ingredient, Toriko quickly signs up for Livebearer’s, obviously rigged, game of chance. The game is Gourmet Tasting. It’s basically a game of Memory with the cards being various rare foods with points attached. If a match is made the player must then prepare and eat the food within the time limit allotted by the points on the card. However, mixed in are poisonous foods, extremely violent foods with high capture levels, and more tricks to make the difficulty level quite high. What follows throughout the rest of the volume is the game as it’s played out.
I have to say, the way the series shifts to a serious, high-stakes gamble from the previously seen fun gambling is terrific! Very quickly we understand just how fixed the game is and how dire the situation our heroes face. Yet, not once during the course of the game is it not entertaining. With each turn we get to see either Toriko battle a beast or eating, and quite enjoying, some rare food, Komatsu using his expert chef skills to make the foods as best as they can so Toriko can actually eat all the food, or Coco being super devious in his secret plan to beat Livebearer. One thing these chapter lack however is suspense. Everything moves by at an extremely fast pace, and while entertaining, we never truly feel the urgency. Only once we reach the end of the game does the urgency transfer to the reader. As the game nears its end, Livebearer has an extremely overwhelming lead and hope seems lost for our team. It is at this point where Coco begins to execute his plan and we begin to see just how brilliant this plan is in execution. Twist after twist starts rolling in the final pair of chapters and it really makes everything so fun and interesting. You feel the suspense and begin to quietly cheer to yourself with each minor victory. The journey to these final chapters just lacks the depth needed to make this whole arc standout. Once the game completes, we cut away to Ichiryu, the IGO President, as he travels to the Gourmet World to meet with the leader of the Gourmet Corp. Not a lot happens but a small shiver of excitement is sent down the spine as we get a glimpse of the Gourmet Corp. leader and another hint of the big things that await us.
In Summary
Honestly, I was pretty disappointed by this volume. Not because it is not good, not enjoyable, not fun, not the Toriko I know and love; but because I’ve seen these chapters presented in the anime first. This is the first time in the history of this series that the anime adaptation actually bests the manga. The anime takes place over quite a few episodes and is just soaked with suspense; and for once having the material stretched out a bit works to its benefit. In this volume, everything just moves by a bit too quickly. Whole scenes occur in a single panel and it just moves. Don’t get me wrong, I really loved this book and it is some of the best stuff the series has done so far, it’s just so incredibly different from what we see in these types of series that Toriko continues to show that it really can handle any type of scenario with expert skill. Even if the results aren’t consistently amazing it’s always interesting to read and worth the experience. For further thoughts on this arc, please check out my review of the anime portion here and <here.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: December 3rd, 2013
MSRP: $9.99