The series is about a famed young gourmet hunter (bishokuya) named Toriko, who is known as one of the Four Heavenly Kings, a group of four promising young hunters who do work for the IGO, a global organization dedicated to distributing food, maintaining order in the world , and protecting people from dangerous animals and world class criminals. Throughout his adventures he befriends a frail, aspiring young chef named Komatsu who wants to build a name for himself, while appearing somewhat cowardly he proves through his resolve that he is willing to stand up and risk his life for ingredients and for what he believes in his heart. As we follow Toriko and Komatsu on their adventures we see several examples of exotic beast and vegetation, we come across 2 of the other Heavenly Kings: Coco, the fortune teller and Sunny, a man with massively long hair who has an obsession with being beautiful. We also come across the bishokukai (gourmet corp in english) a group of superpowered villians who place no value in preservation and want to seize all the food in the world and keep it amongst themselves. They also seek to control the world by acquiring the most powerful food in the world called GOD. The series basically revolves around Toriko hunting the most desireable foods in the world either for IGO to preserve or as a hunter for hire, and his battles with the bishokukai that are constantly seeking these foods for there own evil intentions.
1. one of the things that makes Toriko interesting is possibly the things that make it unappealing to most people and that is its creativity. They took a major risk on making a series that revolves around food, and alot of people refuse to take it seriously, but in my opinion its no different than chakra, chi, energy and even magic. Food is just the medium for all these thing in this world. These exotic fruits and animals arent just exotic and magical based on just its rarity, the foods have special nutrients in them called "gourmet cells", these gourmet cells resonate in your body and can cause reactions that cure diseases and a multitude of sicknesses and even make your own cells stronger and give special abilities. Most of the hunters and leaders of the IGO and ALL of the members of the bishokukai have either eaten massives amounts of foods with gourmet cells or had them put i their body to the point where if they don't stay eating massive amounts of food or eat foods of high quality gourmet cells, the cells begin to eat the other cells in their body, then also eating each other, killing the host as well. Some hunters forcefully keep themselves near starvation while hunting for extremely high quality ingredients hoping that when they do encounter it and eat it, the gourmet cells in the body have a massive reaction to the food and causing cell evolution, giving them massive power boost. I thought it was an innovative way to do the same thing other series do when it comes to powers by not just making it about "concentrating energy or chakra" Toriko tips the scale when it comes to creativity.
2. the story of Toriko takes place in a world so massive that through the whole series up until the most recent chapter only took place on about 30% of the planet, everything outside of that radius is known as the "gourmet world", an uninhabited world where the most powerful beast resides. In the known world toriko inhabits, the creatures have a certain capture level to determine there strengths, and Toriko hits his first roadblock on strength with creatures of a capture level of around 40 or 50. It then again around 70, then 100, and so on. He steps into the gourmet world one time and even the lesser creatures of the gourmet world have a capture level above 500. The whole story so far with over 250 chapters has only taken place on the weak, human inhabited part of the planet. SO much more room left to grow as a series.
3. Alot of things in Toriko are pretty much fantasy creatures, it also keeps alot of lightheartedness because the writer was originally inspired by the story of One Piece which is argueably the most successful japanese manga of all time and has even has special cross over episodes where both the worlds are combined. All of the attacks in Toriko are named after random cooking techniques or utensils. Torikos main attacks, called fork (a piercing attack done with a straight hand that punctures its targets) and knife (basically a karate chop that can sever limbs) definitely sound silly, but its sillyness makes the series more enjoyable. It a constant reminder to me that these stories are supposed to make us laugh and be enjoyable, and I put Toriko in my top 10 of most enjoyable series i've read.
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