A perfectly over the top finale!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
Translation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
The battle for the fate of the world quickly approaches its climax. The Earth struggles to keep itself from falling apart with Center violently erupting under its crust. Toriko already has the power he needs to defeat Acacia and Neo, but even with Starjun and Midora helping him, will it be enough to put an end to this earth-shattering battle? Find out in this final volume!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we enter into this final volume, we find ourselves still in the midst of the last fight of the series. And honestly, it’s every bit as stupid as you’d want if you’ve been a fan of the series. The attacks literally slap the damn planet itself around so hard that by the end you can’t help but feel bad for it. People straight up get sliced in half and still cheer out to our hero, and make it out okay in the end. Hell, Midora loses big old chunks of his body and just casually stays in the fight like it’s a minor inconvenience. It’s incredibly over the top and ridiculous, and I mean… that’s exactly what I wanted, so I came away from the battle thoroughly satisfied.
Once the fight itself is over, though… well, I’m not quite as onboard with what happens then. In other words, the time finally comes to flesh out Acacia’s motivations and it just really doesn’t work. The idea is ultimately that he did all this and let Neo take charge in the hope that these exact circumstances essentially would occur and he’d be beaten, which would satisfy Neo and set free all the Blue Nitro and Blue Ingredients and the like that monster devoured from across the cosmos. But I mean… that’s kind of confusing as to exactly what the logistics are of why things need to happen that way, and regardless, the book just spent multiple volumes of showing Acacia as some kind of massive monster ready to destroy the planet. Which is also further muddled by the way it’s hard to tell just what was Acacia in control (acting I guess?) and what was Neo taking the reins.
Fortunately, though, that’s not the note we end on. Instead, we get to see Toriko and Rin’s wedding. And honestly, though that’s the main event in theory, really the star of the show is Toriko’s full course meal being served for the occasion. It really does make for the perfect farewell, flashing back to the journey the characters have undergone as each dish comes out one by one, making for likely the best scene of the series. And then finally we get one last tease, showing the theoretical next journey for our heroes, sending them off to explore the gourmet wonders of outer space.
In Summary
For the most part, this volume is everything you’d want from the finale of a series like Toriko. The final battle is ridiculously over the top in a way that eclipses even the crazy stuff that the series has done in the past. And it works for one big old dumb spectacle that’s just a lot of fun to take in. Admittedly, there’s a rough part in the middle where the motivations of the villain play out, and frankly that’s pretty weak and just didn’t work at all for me. But then, the series goes and ends things with an absolutely fantastic epilogue that’s just plain perfect. It’s certainly not the best ending a series has ever had, but at the same time it’s one that fits Toriko like a glove, and I don’t think I really could have asked for much more.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: August 7th, 2018
MSRP: $9.99
