The first episode of Toriko was a 50 minute long cross over 50 special with One Piece. Originally I thought that was a kind of lame way of promoting Toriko, piggybacking off the popularity off a long running established shounen series, I realised that if the latest Narita novel adaptation by Brains Base started off with a special containing characters from Baccano and Durarara, I would be A-OK with that. Plus my interest in Toriko was rather low, so this would be an opportunity to check out whether One Piece was to my liking.
I suppose I’ll cover the One Piece part of the show first. For what’s supposed to be a shounen fighting series, I hope the fight scenes in the anime for real are a bit more…animated. These aren’t fights. Luffy leaps up to punch someone, but you never see his punches fly. All you see is a bunch of speed lines and a few blurry arms, which is incredibly easy to animate but rather boring to watch, especially since these fight scenes were what most of the episode consisted of. The character designs are very cartoony, which would be all right if they stayed on model a bit more often. As for their personalities, it’s mainly a bunch of typical shounen over-reactions but none of them particularly annoyed me the same way some of the Toriko characters did. The women also have these absurd body proportions of really long legs and large boobs, which, as unrealistic as they are, I rather liked. Big boobs, long legs and short shorts is a combination I approve of. Admittedly if my main praise is that the female characters are absurdly proportioned the way I like, that’s not particularly encouraging, but not enough to turn me off ever making the leap into the near 500 episodes of One Piece that exist.
Toriko though…
I mean, I could talk about how dumb the characters are. How the mangaka must have no idea what constitutes a fabulous character and simply gave one miserable looking multi-coloured hair. The character designs are all awful, especially when compared to the rather fun designs of the One Piece bunch. Toriko himself is the dumbest looking creature around, what with his ridiculous body proportions, neck bigger than his head, and stupid special moves. This is coming from someone who watched the nonsense designs of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and they are far more imaginative than the orange jumpsuit wearing Toriko. But that’s not my real problem with Toriko. No, my problem lies with the entire premise.
Let me spell this out to you for a second. The plot of this episode was a bunch of sailors visit an island with a whole load of wildlife native to only that island. They go there for the sole purpose of finding these rare creatures, catching them and eating them. The episode ends with them quite literally eating the entire island. Hello? Sailors go to island and strip it of it’s wildlife solely for the tasty meat, anyone? Galapagos Islands? And numerous other examples from sailors over the ages? I kept waiting for the anime to say otherwise. For the characters to express some sort of ecological concern, that they wouldn’t hunt animals towards extinction or not kill babies. There was one line. Toriko said he wouldn’t kill anything that didn’t have tasty meat. Well that’s all right then! This is a anime aimed at kids about the glorious life of poachers. I can’t be the only one who has such trouble wrapping my head that such a manga was created in the first place.
55 Comments
I’ve always loved reading your tags.
“Where have all the good Shonen series gone?” I’m not sure, but you probably won’t find any good ones at 9 am in the morning, which is when this airs.
Gurren Lagann aired at this time too. I know this because of the clock in the top corner. This is just one of the many tricks that make me the great blogger I am today
Well it appears that I’ve been told.
Well played sir, well played.
You should just quit watching shounen shows. Clearly, these stories are not constructed for weak-hearted vegetarians.
My opinion for One Piece, is speed-read the manga online, and then just start watching the show from the latest episode out. That’s what I did.
»My opinion for One Piece, is speed-read the manga online
Just what i di…
»and then just start watching the show from the latest episode
Why the hell would you want to do that ??!
Doesn’t make sense to me either. The coming episodes are going to be one hell of boring ones (they did bore me with the manga), and I also started watching it from the beginning, when it was around episode 430, and rushed trough it to the latest episode and bored me to hell, when I had to wait for a next episode every week.
Oh, sorry. That’s how I did it.
Though, my first exposure was through the 4Kids dub, which I thought was the coolest fucking thing ever.
it’s just, I figured it would be good for Scamp-kun, seeing as he wouldn’t want to catch up on 500 episodes worth of material. That’s a loooot of hours.
He’s got nothing to do for one month -.-
Let him suffer for a while, about something else than terribad anime.
Suggesting I read manga over watching an anime bahahaha that’s funny =P
Again,that’s just how I did that. Sorry :/
Nah, I’m just suggesting to watch the anime. You at least wont hafta suffer trough the coming weeks of nothing but a boring past with the least drama in all the crews pasts.
But the only way to make sure you enjoy watching it is to not watch with the 4kids. I kind of didn’t like it how they sensored lot’s of unnecessary stuff, other than showing boobs and a naked male upperbody.
Mass-reading One Piece certainly isn’t as bad as Detective Conan. 8I
One Piece scares me because of its length. But I was able to start from the beginning and catch up with Conan three years ago. But then One Piece still has 10 years to go. Then again Conan is…fucking Shogakukan.
I watched all of One Piece, almost never regretted any episodes.
I still watch One Piece and still don’t regret it.
However I still wonder wy the Toriko manga is so popular, seeing how the chars indeed aren’t well made.
Nami (the red haired one) didn’t have that shape, she grew troughout the series. Robin on the other hand is older and already had that marvelous body of hers when she joined the crew.
They probably also didn’t make Luffy’s fight scenes as good as usual, just to make Toriko stand out. -.-
Wth is with that capture lvl 5, if they had shown luffy’s or no even Choppers full ability’s, that mob would be a piece of cake for them. I kind of find it sad seeing such a great anime as One Piece getting used for something like Toriko.
But still you should check out a few episodes of One Piece, to see it’s quality rather than judging it with only a collaborational episode with it’s only purpose to say to One Piece viewers ‘Hey fans! Check this out, this anime is so great we even made a collaborational episode with your favorite show, One Piece.’
Btw, Zoro rules!
Oh man, I always loved Zoro, even back when he was Zolo. Man, his 4kids voice was perfect for him. Sorta lazy, but he know how to be badass when he needed too.
Also, being the retard I was, Sanji was fucking /beautiful./
You mean Sanji or his voice dub? Altough I only watch subbed anime, so I won’t even bother to check out the dubs.
Sanji’s headcold Brooklyn accent was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard when I first watched it.
It also helps that shit was my gateway anime. I’ve still got a One Piece fighting game that I play when I want to remember the old voices.
Also Shanks was delicious.
He’s still Zolo to me ^_^
I’m not sure if your final point was a joke or not, but you’re being really petty if you’re serious.
Petty? It’s the entire premise of the show, how is that petty?
Nami used to look like a normal teenage girl, but I guess her boobs had to get bigger as readers got older. Or something.
Well they do say mangaka improves and refines his artwork over time within their series
It sure did improve, I wonder how I watched the first low quality episodes of it. But I guess it was the humor and Zoro who got me trough it without noticing the sucky drawings. (I was also a noob to anime back in those days)
One Piece is very well written, I particularly like how they can have like this one single panel in vol 10 that is actually related to a back story on volume 50 and such. It shows that it was actually planned.
My rule for long ass running Shonen is always to read the original comics. I see people wasting weeks and months, watching the whole of Naruto season 1 while I used at most 23 hours to reach where season 1 ends. Same goes to One Piece. The time investment differs too much for me to think/do otherwise.
For me, pacing and time used is more important than colours, sounds and such. I know you prefer anime over comics but well,I still like comics better because I can read them while I take a shit.
if you bring your laptop, you can read subtitles while you take a shit too…
XD True, altough I still need to try it out.
I tried it, and it works, sort of. It’s too troublesome to consider it viable though. Now if you have an iPad, that might work better. Don’t use it while you are menstruating though… …
That’s foul, I apologise.
The million dollar question–any ideas of what you personally might want to blog episodically?
I ‘get’ the arguments for manga, but my general rule is I prefer my drawings to walk, talk and be in colour.
Also the ipad joke. I was confused. Then I thought a bit. Then I lol’d
I have no idea how that ended up there. I accidentally clicked reply while scrolling down, finished reading, refreshed, and then when I posted a comment, it ended up there.
The conversations that end up on here. All I can say is ew. The germphobe in me wants to scrub down all the laptops in the house now.
When I saw the first chart version with this anime, I was actually interested. I mean, c’mon, I LOVE food anime: Yakitate!! Japan, Yumeiro Patissiere. But the more that came about the anime, the more I was scared about trying it out. Hell, I’ll try almost any food, but this looks a bit much even for me.
And your discussion about Toriko & Co.‘s complete decimation of wildlife on the island? Talk about a horrible lesson for watchers. I’ll be passing on this show.
So now, having watched it, yeah it was shit
But those punny names for animals. I love it. I love puns. You can’t say the animal names weren’t inventive.
Pokemon have better pun names
Wow, that’s really disheartening to hear that this new shonen series is advocating such a terrible theme as invading the homes of innocent creatures and massacring them just for the sake of “tasty” meat. Furthermore, such a show is now being associated with One Piece, a series that I love! I feel safe to say that in every anime I’ve seen (300+) there was never any promoting of greedy poaching like that, and most are very eco-friendly if the topic comes up. So it’s really a shame that a show aimed at impressionable kids is portraying the heroes as doing things like this instead of the villains. The One Piece crew are sometimes shown eating fish and animals that they catch during their adventures, or if the beast attacks them first, but it’s not in the greedy, terrorizing way that the Toriko premise seems to revolve around.
I hope this doesn’t damage your first impression of One Piece. It’s a slow starter but it’s a great show once you get to know the characters, all of which are amazingly well developed and fun (and get like, 10 episodes each of backstory at some point in the series). I agree that the shonen angst and cartoony designs can be over the top sometimes, but it all grows on you before too long.
I will watch One Piece someday. But it’s rather far down the list, after I make my way through the Precure franchise. Well, that is, make my way through the starts of each member of the Precure franchise
Tell me when Enigma gets adapted.
Anyone here read Enigma?
Yeahhh I tried reading Toriko before. Didn’t work out. I don’t know how I managed to read up to around volume 3 though.
The first 130 episodes or so of the One Piece anime were pretty good. Mostly because it’s pretty creative and the drama is surprisingly well done. Back then the animation was less lazy (although not necessarily better), and the background music great.
If the first four episodes don’t excite you at all, then you don’t need to bother watching any more.
I heard the entire first arc was kinda meh and that IT GETS BETTER I SWEAR!
But I’ll take your advice on board
I suppose that refers to the Buggy arc, which starts in the fifth episode.
Sure, the show gets better as things move on, and the best arcs are a lot better than the first one, but if the premise of the show doesn’t excite you at all after episode 4, then that probably won’t change. Sure, you’d be able to tell that the show gets better later, but it doesn’t become a different show altogether.
The million dollar question–any ideas of what you personally might want to blog episodically?
At the moment, Fireball Charming, Steins;Gate and Tiger & Bunny. Decided to leave aside Nichijou because I’ve blogged too many series like it before
HURRAY!
I thought the episode was all right, but I’m not really planning to watch Toriko because I think the premise is boring. Maybe I’ll give the actual first episode a try; doubt it, though.
Also, I found it hilarious that Toriko was being so respectful toward the animals, and then he ate the shit out of the island. I guess it’s OK, though, since the island is apparently comprised of dessert rather than plant life and soil. How does every animal on that island not have diabetes?!
The Galapagos Islands look like a giant pair of apples from outer space.
True Story
So it’s OK to eat them
You have never watched One Piece? What a shame. It was my gate-way into anime, and I still love it until this day.
Mine was Love Hina, but the true interest in anime started with One Piece’s great story and characters.
One Piece has always moved me. I’m caring for the story and the characters even to the point that I bawled like a baby when the thing with Merry happened. Yes, I cried my eyes out because of a ship. That gotta count something.
Yes, indeed. I know what you mean. I mean come on that ship looks like a childs toy, but I still did almost cry, when they had to leave it behind. And the same thing with Zoro’s childhoodfriend, Robins Mother, Sanji’s hungry days, .…
The best thing is, no matter how many times I rewatch those episodes I still feel almost the same pain, as I watched it the first time, in my chest.
Ahh, Love Hina for you too?
Ikr, even for Scamp.
Yup, Love Hina took my anime virginity too
Well, apart from Pokemon back in the day. But that doesn’t count because, like the incident with Father Tom, I didn’t understand what it was at the time
/pedophile priest joke
If I remember, I think my gateway anime was Fullmetal Alchemist.
Ugh. For me it was Naruto.
I haven’t seen this episode just yet, but I might watch it just for the One Piece bit.
Warning: Die hard One Piece fan reporting in.
” The women also have these absurd body proportions of really long legs and large boobs”
That is jut part of Oda’s art, I know it seems strange, but it isn’t even about fanservice, for whatever reason, Oda always draws his women well endowned.
“I hope the fight scenes in the anime for real are a bit more…animated.”
I can’t recall too much from the anime(I follow the manga), but from what I gather, the fight scenes were pretty good, there are times when the anime feels slightly budgeted, and the characters look paperlike-ish, I am not sure why this happens though.
As for the poaching thing, well, Luffy loves his meat, but the anime doesn’t really show them prancing around killing everything in sight, especially since Chopper can talk to animals (though Sanji has joked that Chopper is backup food). As for food in Toriko, I have no idea, I haven’t read that yet.
I agree with the sentiments above, you should start One Piece. Although it is a very consistent show, the epic,rare moments alone are enough incentive to watch it.
Moments like : Zoro vs Mihawk, Zoro vs Kuma, Whitebeard and Ace, Enel’s face ‚Merry’s funeral, the Franky house scene, and various others have made shonen fans very happy(or sad) for a long time.
You can take your time though, just make sure to start before it’s over. I did it a bit differently then most of the nice folk above, I watched the anime to the newest episode, then I switched over to the manga.
The thing with Toriko is, from what I’ve read of it, it’s supposed to be over-the-top ridiculous fun that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It’s like saying that Cyanide and Happiness promotes murder and pedophilia. Or something.
Since you’ll be watching HunterXHunter in the fall though, I’ll be interested in seeing your reactions to a certain class of hunter in that anime.