Toriko

A manga about Toriko, a hunter who travels and battles his way across the gourmet world in search of delicious foods so he can complete his full-course meal.

Toriko was my absolute favorite shonen action manga when it started in 2008. Since I love food manga, it was the perfect fit to have a battle manga focused on capturing creative foods. This was a solid series until the last quarter of the story got real bizarre and strange with it’s concepts. It definitely fizzled out by the end but in it’s heyday Toriko even knocked out Bleach and took its place in the Jump trifecta with One Piece and Naruto.

Unfortunately I feel pretty discouraged about Toriko now that I know the artist Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro was arrested multiple times for soliciting underage prostitution. This happened in 2002 before he began Toriko but if I had known this I probably would have reconsidered buying every volume of this series. I’m glad Shimabukuro found success but it still feels wrong that he never served prison time for what he did. Similar to Nobuhiro Watsuki‘s meager child pornography fines, it’s sad to see how Japan weighs the child pornography charges against absolutely vilifying drug charges.

~dakazu