By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

When we last saw Toriko, he was dealing with both a mother and baby Battle Wolf, and a vicious killer robot. Sadly, the robot has just killed the mother wolf, leaving Toriko as angry as we’ve ever seen him. Because this is Jump, the motivations are spelled out so they’re easy for all to understand – Toriko will never get angry at an animal, as they act on their basic instincts, even the worst killers. But humans? Man, they can be nasty and horrible. And that gets Toriko mad. So we get a big ol’ battle between our hero and the supposedly invincible robot, which ends the way you’d expect a Jump battle to end.

The main thrust of this volume is the arrival of Sunny, who is another Japanese manga cliche, the gorgeous young man who only likes beautiful things. We’ve seen this effeminate type with Yumichika in Bleach as well. Even worse, his powers involve hair sensors that can instantly tell him everything about the others around him, and Toriko describes it as akin to being ‘licked’, complete with art demonstrating how Toriko views this. This sort of thing is not helping Jump’s image of catering more towards fujoshi now, but is still kind of amusing. More to the point, Sunny is one of the Four Kings, an equal to Toriko, and seriously badass… when he can be bothered, of course, as he doesn’t want to go after things that aren’t beautiful, or can’t be made that way.

And I continue to be fascinated with Komatsu, the comic sidekick character. Unlike a number of these types in Jump stories, Komatsu is not trying to get as strong as the hero, or even strong in general. Komatsu knows his limits, and is content to simply stand back and let others take on the hideously dangerous things. And of course, his talents as a chef are superb, causing even Sunny (who had ignored him previously as Komatsu is not ‘beautiful’) to sit up and take notice. I particularly liked Komatsu noting that he gets even happier when people praise his knife rather than himself, something that apparently comes up a lot in his character. In terms of using the non-powerful character, Shimabukuro continues to do a great job.

If there’s a fault in the manga, it’s that I continue to not care about any main overarching plot. We meet some bad guys here, but they’re typical ‘mid-level boss’ bad guys, with their leader maybe being a cut above. The fact that we get a ‘capture level’ panel next to each animal once it appears reminds you that this is very much a fighting manga meant to resemble a fighting game, with Toriko and company moving on to take on stronger and stronger opponents, no doubt while finding out about the conspiracy that haunts their world. It’s nothing you have not read in eighty other Jump mangas. But I’m not really sure that matters. Toriko is big dumb goofy fun, and you read it to see the heroes grin while punching things. It doesn’t have much of a goal beyond entertaining, and it succeeds in that regard.

By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

In re-reading my review of the 2nd volume of Toriko, I seemed to be rather grumpy about it, feeling that it had lost a lot of the qualities I liked in the first one. This 3rd volume seems to correct that balance a bit – Toriko still seems to be a hammy jerk, but we see more of the sharp mind behind it, and his defense of a mother wolf and her newborn shows his kinder side.

One thing I liked a great deal is how this manga deals with Komatsu, its normal character. Like a lot of Jump manga, it sometimes seems like he’s there to stand at the side of every battle and shout obvious commentary (see Beauty from Bobobo for the prime example). But this book reminds you that while Komatsu may be a complete weakling when it comes to capturing insanely dangerous food, he’s not called a master chef for no reason – put carving knives in his hands, and he’s a genius. He, rather than Toriko or Coco, is the one who saves the day and gets them their dish of puffer whale. More to the point, he *is* getting braver, if not stronger – when an entire arena flees from danger, Komatsu is asked why he’s not running, and he notes that after traveling with Toriko this just seems normal to him now.

I also like the way the manga handles the animals we see. They’re all super-special gene-crossed animal hybrids, but we have yet to find any cute talking rabbits or ferrets here. These are psychotically dangerous beasts, and they know it. And Shimabukuro’s art shows us this, as without any need for dialogue he shows us the animals’ smug ego, and their terror when meeting a fiercer predator. The shot of the newborn wolf on the 2nd to last page here is heartbreaking, and it’s great how well that comes across.

That said, I wasn’t especially pleased at seeing a fighting tournament when we’ve only got to Volume 3. Even if it was just animals fighting each other. It’s become such a cliche of Shonen Jump series that I had hoped that the series could have avoided it and gone on another couple of epic quests – especially as we even get one set up here, with the GT Robot’s devastation, but it’s handled rather obliquely. And, of course, much as I admired Komatsu’s development, this is at heart a bunch of muscular guys standing around going ‘grah!’. Toriko is about the fights and the insane animals, but lacks a true heart as of yet.

Still, it has intrigued me enough to get me to pick up the next volume. It even introduced a female character! …who’s a total cliche. Sigh. Well, if you license a Jump series, you have to be prepared to get what is basically a Jump series. Toriko will not be breaking any rules or setting new boundaries. But it’s pretty fun, especially for young teenage boys. And it’s a huge hit in Japan, being one of the two series in 2008 to really take off (Bakuman being the other). It’s even getting an anime this April. So definitely see if it’s your cup of tea.

By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

Though I did greatly enjoy reading this volume of Toriko, I will admit that as a manga, it’s not very filling. A light snack, something to whet the appetite, but I’ll be turning to series like One Piece or Gin Tama if I need a real meal.

OK, enough of the food metaphors. Toriko is, in many ways, a perfect Jump series. It is very much geared to boys. We see lots of fantastical creatures, lots of beating those creatures up, and lots of… well, that’s it, really. The entire volume consists of going on a quest to find this rare but delicious whale, the Toriko world’s equivalent of tiger blowfish, which is not only very easily poisonous but also in a cave surrounded by hideous predators. It’s not something Toriko can do with just Komatsu, so he secures the help of his friend/rival Coco, who is the milder and more sensible counterpart to Toriko’s loud and boisterous self.

The author continues to love drawing this insane, creature-filled world that the leads inhabit, and it’s here that we see his real strength. The creatures and things we see are imaginatively silly and/or dangerous as need be, and of course incredibly tasty as well. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the human cast. Toriko so far hasn’t really found much depth, Komatsu is still pretty much ‘useless cheerleader with no powers’, and Coco is rather dull.

There was also one bit that I found needlessly short-sighted. At one point the dorky sidekick, Komatsu, is literally killed by a ‘firecracker’ Toriko left him to scare off predators. The firecracker turns out to essentially be a bomb, as Komatsu later notes. We get very scary shots of his eardrums rupturing and his heart stopping. Of course, this is only Volume 2, and he’s a main character, so he is immediately resuscitated by a kindly old badass drunk. That’s not my problem. The problem is that Toriko’s reaction to all this is “Oh! A ha ha ha, well, you’re all right now!”. I know that this is meant to be the simple lunkhead shonen hero, but come on. Even Luffy would not give a friend a bomb, kill them by accident, and not feel some remorse.

I wasn’t as fond of the 2nd volume of Toriko as I was the first. But then I’m not exactly the target audience for this series. 10-12-year-old boys are, and I think they will just eat this up. No pun intended.