Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 102 - Toriko Finally Defeated?! The Delicate and Dynamic Power of Honoring the Food!

The Story
Shu shows Toriko the Bubble Fruit in the courtyard, but Toriko's hunter's instincts disturb the fruit and cause it to pop. Shu has Toriko fight him to demonstrate what honoring the food can do even with very little energy. Toriko is worn down and unable to defeat the much weaker Shu. Shu then demonstrates how honoring food can help Komatsu by defeating him in a cabbage shredding competition.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 101 - People Without Gratitude Aren't Welcome! Terrifying Chowlin Temple!

The Story
Toriko and Komatsu learn about the vanishing forest disappearing when faced with threats. They reach the temple and discover that it is more violent than the forest, attacking those it feels aren't honoring the food. Criminals are brought here to be taught how to honor the food and rehabilitated. Chin Chin-Chin tells them they will learn from the assisstant instructor Shu.



Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 100 - Put Your Hands Together and Bow! National Treasure, Chin-Chin, Appears!

The Story
Toriko and follow the fortune roll where it falls, into the vanishing forest. However, before they reach their destination, they find that the roll has been broken where a huge chunk of the forest has been scooped out. They chase who they think is the thief to the ten star Vanishing Japanese Cuisine Restaurant. When they try to enter it disappears, but a voice tells them to clap their hands together and bow. The restaurant reappears and the owner Chiru serves them a meal. But the ingredients are so delicate that they are barely able to eat any of them. After their meal the only other customer in the restaurant, and the one that helped them enter in the first place, reveals himself to be the master of Chowlin Temple, Master Chin Chin-Chin.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 099 - Too Huge! The Giant Fortune Roll, Completed With a Pro Wrestling Move!

The Story
Toriko and Komatsu go to get some special seaweed, called eco nori, a kind of seaweed found only in one special place. They travel to the lands of Aimaru and his Gourmet Knights, who then take them to Eco Village, where the seaweed turns out to be the out layer of a certain kind of tortoise. After Toriko charges all the solar batteries for the tortoises, they return to Monchi with the seaweed. He then creatures the fortune roll, by wrestling the ingredients into submission.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 098 - Toriko Faints in Agony! Capture the World's Stinkiest Ingredient!

The Story
Toriko and Komatsu go to the Heavy Drinker Archipelago, to get the vinegar they need to make the fortune role. While there they come across many natural occurrences of alcohol and snacks that go well with alcohol. They meet Knocking Master Jiro, who Toriko thanks for helping him out in the Gourmet World.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 97 - The Four King's Assemble to Mark the 100th Episode!

The Story
The four kings gather together, and between them and Komatsu they compete to see who can catch the Madam Fish first. While the four kings use their special abilities to narrow down the Madam Fish's location, they all discover that Komatsu picked the right spot at the beginning, thanks to his food luck. Together they are able to catch the fish and defend it against an opportunistic predator.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 96 - Hidden Training Ingredient! Emergency Instructions From Ichiryu!

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The Story

Toriko defeats a rampaging beast, and frees the artisan village from its clutches. There he meets with Monchi, whose help he needs to find one of the training ingredients Ichiryu has assigned to him. Later, Komatsu goes to meet Toriko at Biotope 2, where the two meet to get dinner, and discuss the task Toriko has before him. He was thinking of getting some seafood from Biotope 2, for the fortune roll that Monchi would make for him. But nothing he has seen is sufficient. Right after this an IGO employee comes with a message from Ichiryu, saying that the stew pond has frozen over, and that the four kings have been called to capture the Madame Fish.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 95 - Showdown At The Summit! Ichiriyu Versus Midora Of The Gourmet Corp.!

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The Story
Ichiryu confronts the Gourmet Corp. in an attempt to make piece with their leader, Midora, another former pupil of Acacia. Unfortunately it is not to be, so Ichiryu is forced to leave, but not before impressing on the members of Gourmet Corp. exactly how powerful he really is. Once returned to his headquarters he has Setsuno cook him a massive feast to prepare his gourmet cells for the confrontation.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 94 - A Taste That's Out Of This World! Eating the Meteor Garlic!

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The Story
With Livebearer still knocked, Komatsu takes the Meteor Garlic to the kitchen and starts to prepare it. He manages to figure out how to start preparing it, and his skill impresses Livebearer enough that when the knocking wears off, Livebearer helps Komatsu finish the preparations.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 93 - The Moment of Truth! Coco's Daring Scenario!

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The Story
Coco reveals that he tricked Livebearer into eating ingredients that would activate the poison of the poison potato no matter how much of the poison he would be able to neutralize. Livebearer intends to eat the potato anyway because he has taken precautions by lining his stomach with biodegradable plastic, but Coco predicted that and planned accordingly. Livebearer is left with no option to surrender. But instead of conceding the match to Coco, Livebearer has his goons attack Toriko and the Gourmet Mafia.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 92 - Climax! The Last, Most Terrible Ingredients!

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The Story
With no time left to finish preparing the ingredient, Toriko takes the Nitro Cherry from Komatsu and eats it raw. The explosion damages his organs, but thanks to his gourmet cells Toriko is able to start recovering. Coco trades for a high level ingredient, thanks to the Nitro Cherry's joker status. They overtake Livebearer, but he is able to eat the Electric Banana and take the lead again, leaving Toriko and team with no way to catch up.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episodes 12 - 91

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The Story
After successfully beating Starjun's GT robot and harvesting the Jewel Meat, Toriko continues to go on greater adventures, and continues to grow stronger. He meets new characters, eats new food, develops new techniques and improves on his old ones. And somehow he manages to do all this with minimal filler material.

Mostly Minimal

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 11 - The Devils' Game! Clear the Devils' Playground!

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Toriko and Rin pass through the Devil's Playground, where each path leads to a new stage, where a boss battle waits.  Toriko tries to find the easiest way through, but in his weakened state battles that would normally be easily won are sapping his strength.  Making up for her mess up with the battle fragrance in the arena, and against the Rock Drum, Rin takes out an Axe Ox that Toriko can't beat.  She even helps fighting against the next boss.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 10 - Sprint to Regal Island! Aim for the Regal Meat!

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Toriko and Rin find themselves surrounded by a horde of monsters.  With Toriko still injured from his fight in the coliseum he can't go on much longer.  When the strongest opponent so far arrives, an obasaurus owned by one of the GT robots, Toriko has no choice but to ask Rin to spray him with the Battle Fragrance.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 09 - The Man Who Has an Invincible Domain! His Name Is Sunny!

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Sunny shows up, carrying the Regal Mammoth in one hand.  Despite the awesome show of strength the man is by every definition of the word a fairy.  When Mansam tells them that the mammoth Sunny brought back is only a baby, the group has to head out into Biotope 1 to track down the full grown mammoth before the gourmet corps can.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 08 - Inheritance! Active, Gourmet Cell!

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Toriko faces off against, and defeats the GT robot.  The fight takes up most of the episode, and I can't help but say that I wasn't immensely impressed.  There were far too many loped frames of animation, and reused segments to make me consider this anything other than a stock shonen anime battle.  Comparing to what I know from the manga I have to say that there were some parts of the fight from the manga that didn't seem to come across quite as well as they could have.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 07 - A Threat Appears! The Turbulent Gourmet Coliseum!

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After Toriko manages to intimidate all the monsters attacking the battle wolf, people start betting on him.  Toriko is able to confirm that the reason the wolf isn't fighting back is because somehow, despite being the only clone, is pregnant.  He lets Mansom know that something is wrong, and Mansom tells Rin to shut off the machine.  Rin tells him that the machine is broken, so she has to go herself and dose the beasts in person.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 06 - The Strongest Wolf That Ever Lived! The Battle Wolf Is Reborn!

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The top members of the IGO discuss the mysterious creature that appeared in the cavern lagoon.  They say that it is a new model of GT Robot, employed by the Gourmet Corps.  This corps has already attacked several of the other biotopes, and now are most likely after the Regal Mammoth in biotope one.  Fortunately they've already sent Toriko to go after it himself.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 05 - The Knocking Master! Time to Taste the Puffer Whale

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The gourmet hunter that kidnapped Komatsu throws him towards the devil python as a distraction.  But instead of going after Komatsu first, the snake attacks and kills the murderous gourmet hunter.  Komatsu searches through his backpack for the self defense firecracker/noise maker and ear plugs Toriko gave him.  He gets knocked around and drops the ear plugs, so he is forced to set off the cracker without protecting his ears.  The resulting bang shatters his ear drums and stops his heart.

Anime Reviews: Toriko Episode 04 - The Deadly Cave Battle! Fire, Five-Fold Spiked Punch!

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It really doesn't matter how much I eat before watching one of these episodes, even if there is no actual eating or cooking going on, I always end up hungry.