Toriko



Toriko is a Shonen manga series by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump since May 2008. The story revolves around the eponymous character's adventures as a Bishoku-ya, a hunter of rare food ingredients, scouring the world for more delicious things to eat. Joining his adventures is Komatsu, a chef working at the Gourmet Hotel, and a gallery of other characters with varying personalities that make the world of Toriko a lively and colorful place.

The series is filled with incredibly buff men reminiscent of older manga such as Fist of the North Star or the early parts of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure. Modern-day Shonen tropes like Muscles Are Meaningless, Idiot Hero, Kid Hero or Bishonen Jump Syndrome are mostly averted. This series also contains gratuitous amounts of Food Porn, so readers are advised to eat beforehand or have some snacks handy. There is also an OVA, a crossover with One Piece has aired, and an anime adaptation debuted in April 2011 (simulcast by FU Nimation).

Has a character sheet, which can be found here.

This series provides examples of:
"Zebra: *screams* Repeat the echo within, amplify it, now fall down... thunderbolt of sound!"
 * Absurdly Bright Light: Jewel meat and anyone who eats it.
 * Absurdly Sharp Blade: All Melk knives.
 * Don't forget about Toriko's Knife technique. He could chop and cut off limbs, with JUST HIS HAND.
 * Also Match's katana.
 * Zebra can do this with his voice!
 * The Ace: Teppei.
 * Achilles Heel:  In one chapter, this actually gave him extra energy, but this is only temporary. If his opponent managed to outlast him, he would be vulnerable.
 * Since Toriko has learned Food Immersion, this isn't a problem anymore.
 * Acquired Poison Immunity: Coco. His body can also secrete poison for attacks.
 * The Bishoku-ya in general normally acquire immunities for different kinds of poison, but Coco is the most extreme example.
 * Action Survivor: Komatsu.
 * Adaptation Expansion: The OVA is based on the Galala Crocodile arc. They made the fight sequence between the croc and Toriko a bit longer - Awesomeness Ensues.
 * After the End:
 * Agent Peacock: Sani is this Up to Eleven.
 * The Alcatraz: Three of them, the only one visited so far is the Honey Prison.
 * Already Done for You: Toriko and Komatsu go to the Gourmet Research Facility to capture the Regal Mammoth, but.
 * And then subverted when it turns out that.
 * Always a Bigger Fish: Unsurprisingly, considering the nature of this Manga.
 * Although it may be tough for any new creatures to trump the adult Regal Mammoth's size.
 * The giga horses certainly give them a run for their money though we don't have a measurement for them.
 * And those are the creatures living in the Human World, who knows what lurks in the Gourmet World.
 * And Your Reward Is Edible
 * Anti Hero: Believe it or not, Toriko, whose actions are usually motivated by his craving for food. It just so happens that he is a nice person and that he usually end up helping the other good guys.
 * Zebra has been revealed to be one of these, albeit one that really pushes the "hero" side. It turns out that the.
 * Art Major Biology: Pretty much any living thing in the series is subject to this.
 * Special mention goes to the water/wine storage camels who have faucets growing out of them!
 * Attack Its Weak Point: The GT Robo's core antenna.
 * Badass: Oh, where to start...
 * Bad Boss: Colonel Mokkoi, who abandons the Gourmet Hunters he hired in the frozen wasteland the minute he thinks they can't fulfill his request.
 * Also Tommyrod, who immediately tried to kill Barry and Bogey after seeing them incapacitated by their opponents.
 * Badass Grandpa: Basically, if you see anybody over sixty, assume that they can kick your ass at least ten times over before needing a hip replacement.
 * Balloon Belly: Happens after Toriko and Komatsu eat the entire Garara Gator
 * Bare Fisted Monk: Toriko.
 * Batman Gambit: Coco managed to win against a Bishoku-kai due to this and a little help from chemistry.
 * Beat Them At Their Own Game: Toriko, Komatsu, and Coco must obtain an ingredient this way. The game is like a match card game, where you must also eat the ingredient shown on the cards. The problem is that some ingredients are not healthy...
 * Berserk Button: God help you if you kill something you don't intend to eat while in Toriko's presence.
 * For the love of God don't let Zebra hear you being cocky... or rather don't be cocky at all he can hear you from tens of kilometres away.
 * And for the love of whatever you call holy, don't lie to his face.
 * BFS : Though more like BFKs, the knives in the heavy hole qualify.
 * Big Badass Wolf: Battle Wolf. Emphasis on the BIG.
 * Big Eater: Every. Single. Character. Whoisanactivecombatant.
 * Zebra, who  definitely takes the cake. On second thought, make that several cakes.
 * Justified in that the energy for the crazy, ultra-destructive techniques used require an insane amount of calories. Toriko's 3-Hit Nail Punch alone cost 90,000,000 calories.
 * Chin Chinchin
 * Bishie Sparkle: If you eat Jewel Meat you will spontaneously sparkle.
 * Bishounen: Sani, whose full-course menu is composed of food to make whoever eats it more and more Bishounen.
 * Several others may also count, such as Coco. And then there's
 * Bloodless Carnage: The anime.
 * Body Horror: Tommy and Bogey live on this trope. Also, there is.
 * Breather Chapter(s): After a very intense arc involving a surgery for a large mammoth, the next chapter is about the protagonists eating, then the next is about Toriko getting pet food. It Got Worse.
 * Played straight with both the Ozone Herb arc and the Melk Stardust arc. After the dramatic, long, gore fest that was Ice Hell, and the savage beatdown that was Gourmet World, the two aforementioned arcs were much more sedated.
 * Bring My Brown Pants: When Komatsu first sees Toriko enter 'battle-mode' before fighting the giant Garara Gator, the manga gives us a panel showing Komatsu's crotch staining.
 * Bullet Catch: Toriko does this with his fork technique when confronted by goons in Jidar, the goon shot at him because he was squeeing over getting into a fight with normal people.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: The Warden of Honey Prison, a hell on earth, is......
 * A lot of characters are this. Director Mansome of Biotope 1 is constantly drinking and assuming people called him "Handsome" (They aren't), Knocking Master Jiro is constantly plastered, Sani of the Four Kings is obsessed with beauty. When you can kick ass like they can, you can afford to be silly.
 * Canine Companion: Terry.
 * Canon Foreigner: Tina, the TV news reporter.
 * Can't Hold His Liquor: Zebra apparently gets drunk very quickly, in stark contrast to virtually everyone else.
 * Chekhov's Gun: That sad bug in Tommy's mouth.
 * While shopping in Gourmet Town Komatsu spots Melk carving knives, about a year later and we have a trip to visit Melk himself.
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Remember that ? Well, turns out he is a.
 * Or that baby penguin that followed Komatsu around during the Ice Hell arc?
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment: The Gourmet prison "Honey Prison" serves its prisoners a literal "full course" of food-related torment. Considering the nature of the series, and the kind of crimes the prisoners have committed, it's far worse than you would think.
 * Cool Old Guy: Ichiryu and Knocking Master Jiro would definitely qualify
 * Cowardly Lion: Komatsu will go into the worlds most dangerous known climates, a lot of the time he will be terrified and complain, however he still goes and his complaints are really minor to a normal person. He constantly goes into places and faces beasts that most would dare not tread.
 * Crossover: With One Piece. (See here)
 * Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro (the mangaka) is friends with Eiichiro Oda.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: the battle between the Battle Wolf and the Devil Serpent, stated multiple times to be rumoured enemies from ancient times, is over in all of 3 pages.
 * Death World: The Gourmet World. Two seconds after entering Toriko is . That was through the safest entrance.
 * Actually, the entire world of Toriko qualifies, since even in the "human" world, there are plenty of monsters that are carnivorous and ridiculously hard to kill. Any monster ranked level 5 or higher can't be hurt with conventional weaponry, and there are "low-level" monsters that can easily take on TANKS. It's a miracle humanity was able to last long enough to build a civilization on this world.
 * Degraded Boss: In the readers' perspective, this is what happened to the and . In the protagonists' perspective, they were more or less mooks in the first place.
 * A better example would be the Sea Devil Serpent, in its first appearance it takes two of the heavenly kings to put it down and is regarded as the rival of the legendary Battle Wolf. However it's revealed that Coco didn't use his more deadly poisons due to Toriko wanting to eat it later, and . Not to mention that later on Toriko takes on animals with much higher capture levels (Though capture levels aren't everything; it just lacks the punch it once had).
 * Did Not Do the Research: Moving closer to a planet's core decreases gravity, not increases it.
 * Magnetic fields do not increase the strength of gravity. Greater air pressure would not increase the strength of gravity (in fact, it would decrease it due to increased buoyancy force). Static electricity cannot oppose a magnetic field. A body cannot gain a net static charge just by having its cells rub up against each other. And that's all in one arc.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: The first thing Zebra does after being discharged is to murder every single other prisoner in Honey Prison, just because they insulted him.
 * Dissonant Serenity: Match's Exhaustion technique requires him to stay calm to prepare, no matter how angry he is.
 * Distracted By the Sexy: can, with her pheromones, cause this to pretty much everyone, including beasts.
 * Doting Parent:
 * Drunken Master: Chief Mansam. Even his full-course menu is composed of only foods that have alcohol in them.
 * Knocking Master Jirou as well, he seems to have considerable fondness for alcohol, since the first time we see him, he's trying to get a drink, and the second time we see him, he's just finished catching rare creatures to make whale fin sake.
 * Dumb Muscle: Subverted by Toriko. Though he seems to fit the type, he will actually use skill, deception or attacking weakpoints if he knows he can't use brute force alone against the opponent.
 * Everything's Worse With Penguins
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Match outright states that even the Yakuza doesn't kill without intending to eat the kill. is baffled by the idea.
 * When Match accuses Livebearer of cheating at his game, Livebearer acts insulted that such a thing would be suggested.
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin: Many of the foods and ingredients. For example, the Surprise Apple is an apple that gets tastier the more you suprise it.
 * It's other name is the "Human-Face Apple", which is also Exactly What It Says On the Tin.
 * Family Unfriendly Death: The poor sap who falls into the insect pit during the Puffer Whale arc.
 * Food Porn: The manga goes to great lengths to depict the tastiness of the food being enjoyed, often causing the ones eating to drool uncontrollably or cry tears of joy. At least one whole chapter is dedicated to the protagonists eating.
 * Footnote Fever: There's a lot of information (in real-world units) about the beasts and people in Toriko and how strong they are.
 * Four Is Death: Toriko, Coco, Sunny, and Zebra are collectively known as the Four Heavenly Kings, even though they are the good guys. In terms of destruction...
 * Game Face: All powerful fighters show a characteristic demonic aura when using "intimidation" or being Badass. Toriko's appears as a terrifying ogre.
 * Gender Blender Name: Toriko, since '-ko' is usually suffixed on girls' names. This might be justified if the name is actually written with masculine Kanji, but Toriko's name is all written in Katakana, so we have no idea what the author was thinking.
 * Gentle Giant: Melk the First, particularly
 * Giant Food: With all the giant monsters, giant food goes with it.
 * Gingerbread House: Toriko's home. Which he does eat.
 * Him eating the entire thing is actually a reoccurring problem, much to the architect's dismay.
 * Good Scars Evil Scars: Toriko has the good kind, as seen in the picture above. Though he is not the only one.
 * Zebra has evil scars, he's covered in them and has half of his lips missing.
 * Hammerspace: Thinking about how Tommyrod is able to hold that many bugs inside his body is not a pleasant thought...
 * It's stated during one issue that the insects that are secured in his body are in egg form until he releases them, at which point they hatch and mature to full size (not as enormous an exaggeration as it would be with other animals, as insects in general do mature quicker than most other species, due to their shorter lifespans), but even considering that 90% of the bugs inside are not much bigger than say, a tarantula, the ones that are giant sized would have gigantic eggs, and the biggest one would be unimaginably huge.
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * Hollywood Darkness: Characters can navigate underground caverns without bringing a light, though it's mentioned the darkness impedes Toriko's fighting ability somewhat. The giant mammoth is a subversion; it's mentioned afterwards that the "jewel meat" illuminates the whole body.
 * Hypocritical Humour: Always remember kids, talking so much makes you look stupid. Saying all kinds of stuff so very much so very often is something that isn't really advisable at all times, else you will just have the recipient of your speech ignore you. Or just stare at you.
 * I Know Mortal Kombat: Zonge apparently learned his "skills" from playing a lot of old school console RPG's.
 * Impossibly Delicious Food: Really the main point of the manga. Starts off with lots of impossible and then cranks the delicious all the way up. All the Badass and fight scenes are just the appetizers to the main course. (Literally, in most cases.)
 * Improbable Weapon User: How about using a Bendy Straw of Doom?
 * Is It Something You Eat: Zebra has no clue what the Warden Love of Honey Prison means when she complains that her pheromones do not affect him.
 * Jabba Table Manners: Toriko isn't evil, but he is rich (his credit card has NO LIMIT) and his table manners leave a lot to be desired. This becomes a problem at the Shokurin Temple, which is constructed of materials that will outright attack people who try to enter without the proper etiquette.
 * Kick the Dog:
 * This is a constant theme for the Bishokukai (Gourmetcorp in english). One member, when stealing rainbow fruit, wiped all but a few troll kongs guarding it.
 * Killer Robot: The GT Robo. Subverted in.
 * Knight of Cerebus: The series mostly involved fun (If occasionally gruesome) hunts for food and rare animals. And then the GT Robo arrives at the end of the Puffer Whale Arc. It's this and their subsequent appearances in the Regal Mammoth arc that introduce the reader to the Bishokokai.
 * Last Kiss: Hilariously subverted near the end of the Regal Mammoth arc.
 * Lecherous Licking: When Sani's introduced, his Prehensile Hair's secondary function (as virtually invisible probes that he spreads a fair distance around himself) is shown visually as him doing this to Toriko.
 * Macro Zone: Acacia's temple is roughly the size of Hokkaido....and that's just one example. Hell, the area estimates given for the places the characters visit are so gargantuan it can be inferred that the very planet the series is set on is one of these.
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Zebra to the nth degree.
 * This is a constant theme for the Bishokukai (Gourmetcorp in english). One member, when stealing rainbow fruit, wiped all but a few troll kongs guarding it.
 * Killer Robot: The GT Robo. Subverted in.
 * Knight of Cerebus: The series mostly involved fun (If occasionally gruesome) hunts for food and rare animals. And then the GT Robo arrives at the end of the Puffer Whale Arc. It's this and their subsequent appearances in the Regal Mammoth arc that introduce the reader to the Bishokokai.
 * Last Kiss: Hilariously subverted near the end of the Regal Mammoth arc.
 * Lecherous Licking: When Sani's introduced, his Prehensile Hair's secondary function (as virtually invisible probes that he spreads a fair distance around himself) is shown visually as him doing this to Toriko.
 * Macro Zone: Acacia's temple is roughly the size of Hokkaido....and that's just one example. Hell, the area estimates given for the places the characters visit are so gargantuan it can be inferred that the very planet the series is set on is one of these.
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Zebra to the nth degree.
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Zebra to the nth degree.


 * Apparently the frequency of the screams is even more dangerous than the sound itself.
 * Manga Artists Have No Sense Of Scale: See Macro Zone above. Also, even the creatures get more and more outrageous with time, a prime example being the Mother Snake, described as being long enough to circle the planet and as fast as a meteor.
 * Mass Oh Crap: Zebra getting released from jail made... the entire human world crap itself. A fortune teller told his Crystal Ball the word 'Zebra' and the ball wisely broke itself. The global economy nearly crashed. Predicted damages would be in the quadrillions of yen. A few small countries disappeared. This is just from the rumor that he would be released.
 * The Messiah: Acacia. He even has his own temple.
 * Mix and Match Critters: Some ingredients are this. The best example would be the appropriately named "Elephantsaurus", a faceless elephant with a dinosaur head for a trunk.
 * In the crossover with One Piece, Luffy and Toriko encounter a Pig that lives in the mouth of a Fox that lives in the mouth of a Tiger. Created by Eiichiro Oda, natch.
 * Monster Clown: Tommyrod.
 * Monster Is a Mommy:
 * My Name Is Not Durwood: Everyone refers to Zonge as "Zombie"... even the introductory text.
 * Everyone gets subjected to this at the hands of Chin Chinchin, Turtler.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The species of mysterious bird-men that Acacia named "Nitro" (as in nitro glycerin) because of their Hair Trigger Temper. Those who know of the Nitros' existence consider them to be one of the most dangerous species in the Human World and the Gourmet World.
 * Never Mess With Granny: Setsuno.
 * Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Coco's slightly more than humanly possible gambling skills are not exactly cheating, but not exactly fair either. But he gets away with it in the Gourmet Tasting because Livebearer has effectively cheated the whole game.
 * Nothing Is Scarier: The final challenge Toriko must face before reaching the Bubble Fruit is a simple path lined with bubbles. Toriko starts trembling when he realizes that there is absolutely nothing else on the path. No dangerous beasts, no deadly traps...and no food or water anywhere.
 * Number One Dime: Komatsu values more than his own life. Even.
 * Oh Crap: Both the characters and you will say this.
 * The entire world has one when Zebra is released.
 * Old Master: Knocking Master Jirou, who effortlessly collected a bucketful of depoisoned Puffer Whales while Toriko, Coco and Komatsu only managed to get one.
 * And he did it while being completely plastered.
 * He does everything completely plastered.
 * Except forays to the Gourmet World.
 * Party Scattering: Some irate rock monsters split the cast apart by sending them flying in all directions about 1/3 of the way through the regal mammoth arc.
 * Pet the Dog: Zebra, despite being the psycho he is, seems rather taken with Komatsu, using the vestiges of his energy to protect him in the Gourmet Pyramid.
 * Plucky Comic Relief: Zonge.
 * Poisonous Person: Coco. See above.
 * Police Are Useless: There's a Gourmet Police...and no, they've yet to make any arrests.
 * Power Levels: An ingredient's capture level specifies the difficulty of obtaining said ingredient.
 * Not always Power Levels more like Difficulty Levels, some ingredients have high capture levels because they live in places that are hard to reach, are surrounded by some very powerful creatures, are hard to get because of some of their traits like becoming toxic if they feel threatened. One ingredient is very hard to get because all the people who can reach it are so badass that the creature dies of shock and becomes inedible.
 * Over Nine Thousand: Capture level immeasurable.
 * Power Up Food: If Toriko eats a food that his Gourmet Cells crave, it'll lead to an immense power-up for Toriko.
 * Prehensile Hair: Sani.
 * Rated Mfor Manly: Think Fist of the North Star meets Chowder with a dash of One Piece.
 * Redshirt Army: In addition to the main characters, more than one hundred regular Gourmet Hunters were on the voyage to Ice Hell. made it back alive.
 * Rule of Cool
 * Samus Is a Girl:
 * Schmuck Bait: The Dodurian Bomb. Good Lord....
 * Serious Business: Serious Business gourmet. So serious, in fact, that an international organization was formed to control market prices on ingredients, do genetic experiments to revive extinct animals, and many other things. Justified since food.
 * Given some mention of what other ingredients (such as the recently mentioned drug snail) can do, very justified.
 * Several ingredients in Jidar have are highly toxic, some have been known to destroy entire nations.
 * There's even a jail dedicated to food related crimes, including eating and running at gourmet restaurants (at some of the more impressive ones, this can mean a bill the equivalent of millions, or even BILLIONS, of dollars being ducked out on), murdering people just to get food ingredients, wiping out entire species, or selling "illegal" foods, the same thing as illegal drugs.
 * In this world, eating rare and delicious foods literally can give people enough superpowers to destroy whole armies single-handedly. Of course it's Serious Business.
 * The IGO apparently has more influence on world affairs than the United Nations.
 * There is a giant temple dedicated to food and Acacia's Full Course. It's so big it would take months to walk around.
 * One's Full Course is Serious Business as well.
 * Food etiquette is this.
 * Shown Their Work: The herbivorous Death Gore's teeth. This grotesque animal actually has molars instead of fangs.
 * Single Specimen Species: Often played straight, sometimes subverted by another specimen of a singularly weird creature appearing. Judging by the characters' reactions the Parasite Emperor seems to be some kind of freak of nature and truly the only one of its kind.
 * Smoking Is Cool: But only if you're smoking a tree branch and you lit it with your bare hands.
 * We now have Pricom, who smokes an insect.
 * Spell My Name With an S: Sani/Sunny, Staajyun/Starjun, Bogeyuz/Bogie Woods.
 * Stay in The Kitchen: Averted. Cooking has never looked so manly, and Setsuno is one of the world's badasses.
 * The Stoic: Melk has a reputation for this.
 * Stripped to The Bone: Want to know how skilled  is with her knives? She can do this trope to people without them noticing..
 * Super Senses: Toriko has a nose that's "Better than a bloodhounds", Coco can see different electronic wavelengths and even in the dark, Sunny's hairs have different feelers that can be used to tell temperatures, and Zebra has 'Hell ears' capable of hearing a coin drop from over ten kilometers away.
 * If Komatsu gains some ability regarding taste, then the group has every sense super-ized.
 * Supreme Chef: Komatsu.
 * Setsuno is currently the top dog of the chefs. Of course, Komatsu shows his talents and seems to be getting to the old lady's level,
 * The Nitro are an entire species of these. Acacia was deeply impressed by a Nitro when he saw it eat a Poison Boar without letting the meat become poisonous. Observing and learning from the Nitro played a big part in Acacia discovering "GOD". Komatsu is both amazed and horrified when he finds an ancient cookbook left behind by the Nitro. He's amazed by all the knowledge of rare ingredients and preparation methods contained in the book, a testament to the Nitros' cooking prowess. He's horrified because, a testament to the Nitros' savagery.
 * Ted Baxter: Zonge, who has far more confidence in his 'skills' than he should.
 * Temporary Bulk Change: Meteor Garlic has this effect on people.
 * The Heart: Komatsu. While the Four Heavenly Kings sometimes do not get along (namely Sani and Zebra), all four have become rather taken with Komatsu (how much is up for debate). Toriko himself has stated that Komatsu is the key to uniting the Four Heavenly Kings.
 * The Unfettered:
 * This Is Gonna Suck: Chief Mansam's expression when.
 * Tiny Guy Huge Girl:
 * Took a Level In Badass: Komatsu is now capable of dishing some serious damage now that he's armed with.
 * As a rule, this will always happen when someone eats an ingredient that reacts to their gourmet cells.
 * Tranquil Fury: "Food Honor" once it's fully mastered.
 * Twisting the Words: Chief Mansam will always assume someone's calling him 'handsome'. They aren't.
 * Unstoppable Rage: This panel is one of the best examples, especially after the Tranquil Fury before it.
 * Zebra can power himself up by essentially entering an Unstoppable Rage.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: While Coco is generally bearable, the other three Heavenly Kings tend to disagree when they find themselves working together, due to Toriko's excitability, Sani's Narcissism, and Zebra's general aggression. Fortunately it is often portrayed comedically.
 * Well Done Son Guy : The second generation Melk idolizes the first generation Melk, but has insecurities over the quality of work because Melk the first never acknowledged Melk the second's skill. It's later revealed that
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome: It's a manga about a gluttonous Kenshiro Expy and his adventures catching game animals... Yay.
 * A Wizard Did It: Anytime someone does something beyond the human norm that can't be attributed to a Charles Atlas Superpower, you can bet it's because of Gourmet Cells.
 * World of Badass: Even the ingredients get more and more badass as the story goes on.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: Coco is a master-class player, as shown in the Livebearer Arc.
 * Yakuza: Specifically food Yakuza.
 * Yandere: Zebra, of all people, shows signs of this.
 * He could also be seen as a Tsundere.
 * You Are Already Dead: Creatures prepared by masters of Food Honor are this.
 * You Are Not Alone:
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Toriko.
 * Tommy has pink.
 * And Sani has Pink/Green/Blue/White hair, with each color being able to sense something different. (Heat, pressure, cold, and pain, respectively.)