Manga / Toriko

Gourmet everything!

This is the Gourmet Age, where the world's manliest heroes quest for yet-undiscovered culinary delights.

Toriko is a Shōnen manga series by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, started in Weekly Shonen Jump in May 2008. The story revolves around the eponymous character's adventures as a Gourmet Hunter, 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 a Genre Throwback, pulsing with testosterone and being filled with incredibly buff men reminiscent of older manga such as Fist of the North Star or the early parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Modern-day Shōnen tropes like Muscles Are Meaningless, the post-Dragon Ball variant of Stock Shōnen Hero, and Bishōnen Jump Syndrome are avoided. This series also contains gratuitous amounts of Food Porn, and thus, readers are advised to not read this manga on an empty stomach. There is also an OVA, a crossover with One Piece has aired, and an anime adaptation debuted in April 2011 (simulcast and licensed by Funimation).

After eight years of serialization, the series ended in November 2016 with a total of 396 chapters.

Compare with Food Wars!, another Shonen Jump manga about Food Porn.

---

Toriko provides examples of:

A-G

• Absurdly Bright Light: Jewel Meat and anyone who eats it.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: All Melk Knives; especially Komatsu's, which split the side of the mountain Melk the Second was facing when she swung it lightly.
  • 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!
  • It seems like Old Lady Chiyo is able to do this, essentially de-boning Wagon in what seems to be the span of one panel.
  • Starjun's blade is insanely sharp...and he combines it with fire to make it even deadlier.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • Everyone refers to Zongeh as "Zombie"... even the introductory text.
  • Everyone gets subjected to this at the hands of Chin Chinchin. He saves remembering names for those who have talent.
• The Ace: Teppei.
• Achilles' Heel: Toriko is not merely a glutton, he literally needs to eat huge amounts of food in order to prevent his body from eating his own cells. 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's End, this isn't a problem anymore.
  • Jiro, when unsealed has the ability of knocking the damage he is dealt with. That, actually becomes his biggest weakness if someone knows how to release that damage which deals him all the damage he suffered AT ONCE, as in this case, Acacia.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Coco. His body can also secrete poison for attacks, and he can create new immunities on the fly.
  • Gourmet Hunters in general normally acquire immunities for different kinds of poison (see below), but Coco is the most extreme example.
  • Grinpatch's immunity may trump even Coco's. He sucked up tons of Coco's deadliest poisons and said he wanted more.
• Adaptation Expansion: The OVA is based on the Gararagator arc. They made the fight sequence between the croc and Toriko a bit longer — Awesomeness ensues.
• Adaptive Ability: Gourmet Hunters have this due to being infused with Gourmet Cells as well as their personal abilities. Most of them have Acquired Poison Immunity due to this.
  • Toriko demonstrates this trope the most, e.g. adapting to the cold of Ice Hell by shivering so much, steam comes off of him.
  • Zebra likes to claim that it's not whether or not he can adapt to his environment, but whether or not his environment can adapt to him.
• A Day in the Limelight: More specifically An Arc in the Limelight. The Chefs will be at the center of attention in the ANOTHER arc.
  • Before that, each of the Four Heavenly Kings got an arc with Toriko to show off their skill and personalities.
• After the End: The whole world recovered by way of a food ingredient. It was the ingredient called "GOD".
• The Alcatraz: Three of them, the only one visited so far is the Honey Prison.
• Alien Geometries: Many areas of the Gourmet World. Coco hypothesizes that the Gourmet World is literally alien.
• All Just a Dream: Teppei's death is revealed to be this in the following chapter.
• Already Done for You: Toriko and Komatsu go to the Gourmet Research Facility to capture the Regal Mammoth, but after the GT Robot attack distracts them, it's revealed that Sunny already captured it.
  • And then subverted when it turns out that Sunny only captured a Regal Mammoth child.
• 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.
  • The Dharma Horse trumps everything so far. Assuming it to be the same height as the Gourmet Towers, it's around 1.3km tall!
  • The Four Beasts. The Mounturtle is slightly bigger than the Dharma Horse. The "Beast King" Gaoh killed a Regal Mammoth with one blow. And all four completely curbstomp the armies sent against them. An army fielding 100 meter long tanks capable of bringing down Regal Mammoths, swarms of fighter jets, and kill sats.
  • Chapter 263 takes this to ridiculous extremes; first we get to see the Breath Dragon from Toriko's first Gourmet World foray, capture level 219. Toriko attacks it with a Flying Fork, which it dodges - and the fork just keeps flying, passing a Wingrizzly, capture level 536, before bouncing off the shell of a Stronghold Rhino, capture level 972, and being caught by a Thunderous Devil, capture level 1160, standing over a field of volcanoes the size of its feet. Said Thunderous Devil is then nearly stepped on by a Ficasdaltonphant, capture level 2650, which then spots an Ashurasaurus, capture level 4220, flying overhead. The camera then pans out to reveal one of the Eight Kings, the Battle Wolf, capture level 6090. To put this in perspective, the world collectively crapped itself at the Four Beast, which maxed out its capture level at around 450. That thing stood a decent chance of eradicating the Human World if left unchecked, and now we get these monsters.
  • And then we get this: That wasn't the Battle Wolf King. That was one of its lackeys.
  • Toriko then keeps continuing in this trope, reaching the heights of Capture Levels over 7000 (Acacia's Full Course Menu), then GOD appears, which has Capture Level of exactly 10,000. Then comes Acacia, who has fused with Neo, reaching Capture Level of 30,000.
    • This all hype is then entirely crushed, with introduction of Outer Space, and its ingredients like giant skewered edible planets with Capture Level of 60,000 and a snake that dwarves the entire Sun and can eat planets, with Capture Level of 530,000.
• Ambiguously Gay: SUNNY
• Animal Battle Aura: Intimidations often manifest this way, e.g. Toriko's intimidation is a projected image of a Hanya demon. It's actually a physical manifestation of their Gourmet Cells called Appetite Demons.
  • Toriko's intimidation has turned into a full on Guardian Entity that impaled Starjun through the chest. It's made of Appetite Energy and the other Four Heavenly Kings can also manifest this way.
• And the Adventure Continues: With GOD obtained and tasted, Toriko finds out that there are more unknown ingredients in a place called "The Farthest Land". The catch? It's in outer space! After telling Komatsu about it and that the other four kings already have a head start, the duo hop in a shell fish shaped spaceship (just go with it) and set out on an intergalactic roadtrip.
• Anticlimax: Apparently Midora just left Komatsu to be picked up by Toriko without a fight; as the latter two are already reunited after the timeskip, though it is revealed that this was because Toriko was so terrifying at the time that even Midora acknowledged that he wouldn't get through the fight without getting hurt.
  • In Episode 142, Joa's appearance throws off Starjun and Toriko off balance and the fight doesn't conclude as it did in the manga.
• 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 ends 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 26 species he made extinct were damaging the ecosystem. A desert town sees him as their messiah for saving them.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Gourmet Cells. They mutate the host's body, giving them special abilities and traits and can "evolve" by consuming specific foods.
• Apocalypse How: The aftermath of Midora's Meteor Spice seems to have been a Continental Societal Disruption, as evident by the fact that food is suddenly extremely hard to come by outside of the Gourmet World, and that, for a time, people in the Human World mostly subsist off (possibly synthetic) food pills of some description.
• Artistic License – 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!
    • In the manga at least, its alluded to those faucets are installed by the natives.
  • The anime is far worse in this than the manga due to most of the animals and plants featured in the beginning of each episode are created by fans, who are children.
• Artistic License – Economics: Inflation is practically a way of life in Toriko, especially when the main character eats and charges everything to his gold card (which has no limit).
• Art Major Physics: Going closer to the planet's core lessens gravity's hold, not increases it in real life.
  • This may actually be physically plausible, as there is no gravity at the center of a planet; it diminishes until it cancels itself from all sides. Though, it can increase over certain distances, assuming the core is small and much denser than the crust. The dimensions of this world aren't exactly normal...
  • Ichiryu takes this trope to extremes with his "Minority World" ability. Putting the atoms that disobey the norm (the "minority") in charge of what the rest of the body of atoms does. In other words, he can reverse the laws of physics.
• Attack Reflector: A key element of the "Enbu" martial arts system used by the monkeys in Area 7. By completely mastering the cells in the body, one can reflect or redirect any force applied to it. This includes gravity, meaning even a novice Enbu user can easily hop around a region with high gravity.
  • Sunny's Spatula attack is this as well. His Super Spatula not only reflects attacks, but increases its power while doing so.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Ichiryu's Full Course Menu. According to him, it's full of ingredients that no chef can prepare, so it's essentially worthless. The Billion Bird that is hatched with the Full Course is also this. It's extremely nutritious and it can produce a near infinite number of offspring that are just as filling... but it tastes so bad that no one would eat it if they had any other options. The bird nearly went extinct because its reproductive cycle actually relies on predators trying to eat it.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The Four Beast learns of the Heavenly Kings' powers after re-absorbing its "limbs" which the Heavenly Kings curbstomped using their advanced techniques. It later uses that knowledge to counter their attacks and curbstomp them in return.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The GT Robot's core antenna.
• 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.
• Balloon Belly: Happens after Toriko and Komatsu eat the entire Gararagator except for one of the leeches.
• Batman Gambit: Coco managed to win against a Gourmet Corp. member due to this and a little help from chemistry. He had to pull off a DAMN good one to defeat Livebearer.
  • Midora theorises that Acacia tricked Froese into committing suicide to stop his plans and then revived her into a new form (Joie) that would be willing to work with him.
• Beast with a Human Face: The Hanya Panda, a giant panda monster with a markings on its chest and belly that resembles an angry human face. There is also the Tounyuudou, monsters based on the wanyuudou youkai of Japanese mythology that resemble gigantic disembodied human heads situated on top of flaming cart wheels.
• 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.
    • For the love of all things sacred, don't hurt Komatsu. If you think it's bad that Toriko will be mad at you, remember that Coco, Sunny, AND ZEBRA will be gunning for you as well. And Zebra can use his anger as fuel for his attacks, so if you're even within a 100 kilometer area of them, not only did you hurt Komatsu, you're probably cocky you got away, so Zebra will find you and murder the hell out of you....if the others don't follow and hold him back so they can get a few shots in.
• BFS: Though more like BFKs, the knives in the Heavy Hole qualify.
  • The knife Melk made for Ichiryu to prepare Acacia's salad dish AIR takes the cake.
    • Later on in the manga Toriko's knife reaches epic proportions.
• Bifauxnen: Melk the Second and Chiru.
  • Although Chiru is debatable, as it's more that she's covered up rather than than her looking ambiguous, as it's obvious she's female once her mask comes off. It's very obvious even beforehand in the anime due to her voice.
• Big Eater: Every. Single. Character. Who is an active combatant.
  • Zebra, who ate twenty-six species to extinction definitely takes the cake. On second thought, make that several cakes.
  • The energy for the crazy, ultra-destructive techniques used require an insane amount of calories. Toriko's 3-Fold Spiked Punch alone cost 90,000,000 calories, which would be 10 kg of fat or 22.5 kg of carbohydrate.
    • The anime has corrected this, and Zebra (who has the highest calorie capacity out of the Four Kings) can store 4,500,000 calories instead of billions.
  • Chin Chin-Chin and possibly Toriko, even moreso after the Food's End training thanks to being able to store enormous amounts of food inside of their various organs.
  • Midora might be the most extreme example in the series (and that's saying something). In his own words, his hunger cannot be satisfied no matter how much he eats, and he eats a lot. The mere leftovers from his meals are enough to feed a population of vicious wild beasts.
  • Neo, who eats planets, and even a super condensed star going supernova during its fight with Don Slime.
  • Toriko even goes so far as to put Neo on his full course.
• Bio-Augmentation: People infused with Gourmet Cells. See Applied Phlebotinum.
• Bishie Sparkle: If you eat Jewel Meat, you will spontaneously sparkle. Even your poop will sparkle!
  • Toriko after returning from his Bubble Fruit Buffet.
• Bloodless Carnage: The anime. Although recent episodes seem to be including more blood.
• Body Horror: Tommy and Bogey live on this trope. Also, there is Toriko's arm regrowth.
• Book Ends: The first chapter has Komatsu meet Toriko while he was fishing for some big game near a river. The very last chapter has Komatsu rushing to meet Toriko, only to find him fishing for a spaceship so they can explore the new gourmet universe.
• Born Lucky: Apparently there is something called "Food Luck", and Komatsu and Toriko have it. So does Zongeh, and he's revealed to have a lot of it. That's why he's been able to survive most of the stuff he's been through.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: In some regions of the Gourmet World, it may rain gummy candies, chocolates, marshmallows... and mountains.
• Break the Badass: The Four Beast's master does this to Teppei, filling him with dread with a mere look, right before apparently killing him and leaving his severed head and hand in a bowl of food.
• Breather Episode:
  • 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. Things got worse from there.
  • 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 Gararagator, the manga gives us a panel showing Komatsu's crotch staining.
• Bugs Herald Evil: Tommyrod of the Gourmet Corps can breed and spit out of his mouth a variety of creepy and hostile bugs, and specifically a winged one called "Butterfly Worm" which gruesomly kills Yun's parents and is killed with a certain difficulty by the combined effort of Toriko, Takimaru and Match.
• 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 short woman dressed in an adorable bee costume.
  • A lot of characters are this. Director Mansam of Biotope 1 is constantly drinking and assuming people called him "Handsome" (They aren't), Knocking Master Jiro is constantly plastered, Sunny of the Four Kings is obsessed with beauty. When you can kick ass like they can, you can afford to be silly.
• Caged Inside a Monster:
  • The Gourmet Corp. use a strange skeleton beast with cages on its shoulders to capture chefs during the cooking festival.
  • The IGO also uses beasts that grow cage like structures on their backs to transport prisoners to the honey prison.
• Call-Back: In Chapter 196, locations that the heroes have visited in the past (Ice Hell, Baron Archipelago, etc.) are shown to have been absolutely destroyed by the Four Beasts.
  • Toriko's full course features every single notable food Toriko has eaten over the series. If it isn't in the menu proper, then it is used as a side dish or garnish.
  • The King Land Shark appears multiple times throughout the story. Most notably when referenced in Jirou and Setsuno's full course, and when Toriko and Starjun nearly fight it later on in the story. It also appears in places ranging from a picture of Battle Wolves to a background combatant in the finale. This is also true of the Devil Python though its appearances are fewer and far more obvious. And this isn't even mentioning the plethora of refences when the crew discusses the animals vying to succeed the eight kings.
• Call-Forward: There are several jokes made at the beginning of the series about how Komatsu is likely going to die and how he should write his will (Which he does). Guess what happens... Twice.
• Canine Companion: Terry.
• Canon Foreigner: Tina, the TV news reporter.
• Canon Immigrant: The Mugen Kugi Punch from the anime's finale makes its way into the manga as of ch 293, albeit portrayed a lot differently.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Zebra apparently gets drunk very quickly, in stark contrast to virtually everyone else.
• Central Theme: Food, nutrition, and the joys of eating. Every character at some point is shown openly enjoying some food or drink, food stopped a war, the entire world is based around food in some way, and famine is depicted as one of the worst things in existence. There is also a subtler emphasis on camaraderie. Particularly victorious moments are always celebrated as a group, Toriko says that food tastes better with friends, and two of the worst villains in the series suffer from unending hunger due to loneliness.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Somewhat justified with various Gourmet Hunters. While people infused with Gourmet Cells become superhuman, their specific abilities (Sunny's Prehensile Hair, Zebra's vocal powers, etc.) are implied to be the result of training.
• Chef of Iron: Virtually any of the chefs can count, but special mention goes to Setsuno.
• 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.
  • The fact that Acacia's Full Course only has seven slots as opposed to eight.
  • The compatible ingredient that keeps a person from being taken over by their gourmet cell demon. In Toriko's case, the rainbow fruit.
  • While technically a Chekhov's Gunman, the fact that the people eaten by the Four Beast didn't die definitely counts. They weren't going to die... yet.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Remember that silly old man that Toriko gives some booze to? Well, turns out he is a legendary Gourmet Hunter who ends up bringing Komatsu Back from the Dead.
  • Or that baby penguin that followed Komatsu around during the Ice Hell arc? Its saliva is the final ingredient needed to finish Komatsu's version of the Century Soup.
  • Much later on, the silly old man also saves Toriko as well.
  • During the Mellow Cola arc, Komatsu ends up waking up a Nitro from some form of hibernation. That Nitro is revealed to be a Taste Hermit and is now helping Toriko and the others save Komatsu's life by finding PAIR.
  • During the Ozone Herb arc, Toriko and Komatsu encountered a Nitro that tasted the Ozone Herb, rejected it, and leapt away without a word. That Nitro is later revealed to be "Pair", a member of the Gourmet Nobility.
  • Remember that famous hunter named Acacia? Well he's back! And the VILLAIN!
• Clip Show: The pentultimate chapter, 395, ends up bringing this. It takes place on the day of Toriko and Rin's wedding reception, and we're treated to a series of pages that show off all of the big moments in Toriko and Komatsu's partnership as they were cultivating Toriko's Full Course Meal, now that he and his companions finally get to eat it.
• 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.
• Cool Train: The Denshark is a shark that has a train as its body.
• Cowardly Lion: Komatsu will go into the world's 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.
• Crazy-Prepared: Both during and after Meteor Spice, we learn that Ichiryu had all sorts of preparations in place for just such a catastrophe. Besides just making sure people were in place to limit the damage from the initial attack, he had an entire mountain of frozen food ready to stall food shortages, and his own Full Course was designed to create a food that could be eaten indefinitely.
• Cross Counter: Toriko and Acacia gets this midair during their fight, however Toriko drops to the ground first after the impact.
• Crossover:
  • With One Piece. Heck the anime premiered with a crossover between the two. Likely due to the real life friendship between Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro (the mangaka) and Eiichiro Oda. So much so they've had three, one in the manga and two in the anime (pre and post time skip with the One Piece cast) ^note Though curiously neither of the anime episodes were ever dubbed.
  • Dream 9: Super Collaboration Special!!: A special aired in April 2013 which is a three way crossover between this series, One Piece and Dragon Ball
• 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 and to top it off the wolf was exhausted from giving birth.
  • Toriko vs. Gourmet World. Even water droplets from trees are out to kill him.
  • Once the heroes had defeated Livebearer at his game, his attack on them with all his men was so one sided, his beatdown at their hands wasn't even shown on screen.
  • The Human Military versus the Four Beasts. So much for 'we humans will defend the human world'.
  • Followed up by the Four Kings curbstomping the Four Beasts with their new Honoring the Food powered moves. The fight against the true Four Beast is a more proper fight.
  • Teppei vs. the Four Beast's Master. The match-up so one-sided that it can't even be called a fight. Teppei is overwhelmed with dread with a mere look from his opponent. He's put into a coma that lasts for several days just from the fear.
  • Toriko vs. Horse King Heracles. Heracles simply snorts in Toriko's direction, vaporizing half of his body along with a good chunk of the landscape.
  • After the Four Kings' encounter with Monkey King Bambina, in which three out of four were nearly killed in the literal blink of an eye, they learn from Kaka that the Monkey King wasn't even fighting, he was trying to play games with them. Their pride takes a severe blow at the realization that they weren't even up to being the Monkey King's playmates.
  • All the 8 Kings except Derous delivers this to the pieces of NEO, which were capable of slaughtering animals with capture levels around 5000.
• Cut Short: The anime. Likely due to to the declining popularity of the series, it ends with a more truncated version of the Food Festival arc which doesn't even cover the battle between Starjun and him. The manga would continue on pass this point and reach a conclusive ending. But the anime never adapted the rest of the story.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: "Dark" Cooking techniques which heal their targets. These were prohibited by IGO because they can upset the circulation of food.
• Deal with the Devil: Acacia has been working with the Blue Nitro the entire series, although for different goals.
• Death World: The Gourmet World. Two seconds after entering Toriko is mercilessly attacked, knocked out, chased from one deadly trap into another, each one worse than the last, and survives only because Knocking Master Jiro got there just in time. That was through the safest entrance.
  • 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 Gararagator and Silverback Troll Kong. 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 the Battle Wolf takes it out easily after giving birth. 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).
    • An offhand comment in a much later chapter explains this—the Devil Serpents they fought weren't fully grown. One they meet later in the series is over caputure level 5000.
• 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.
• Distant Reaction Shot: With so many global scale attacks thrown out so often in the time skip that you'll feel bad for the poor Earth.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Warden Love can, with her pheromones, cause this to pretty much everyone, including beasts. Except for Zebra, that is.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Chefs and Gourmet Hunters forming a Combo is, on the face of it, purely a business partnership between professionals with complimentary skill sets. There is a whole lot of romantic subtext around Combos, however. Several of the most prominent Combos are between people that are also romantic partners and when Toriko is deliberating asking Komatsu to partner with him he shows an uncharacteristic nervousness akin to him planning a proposal. Similarly, the other Four Kings fighting over Komatsu as their partner is akin to them fighting over a girl, with that idea that he could Combo with more than one being instantly rejected. The subtext briefly becomes outright text when Toriko becomes engaged to Rin with Sunny questioning what that means for his Combo with Komatsu, with Toriko's confused as to what that has to do with it.
• Drunken Master: Chief Mansam. Even his Full Course Menu is composed of only foods that have alcohol in them.
  • Knocking Master Jiro 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. Even he won't drink during visits to the Gourmet World.
• 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.
• Eldritch Abomination. The original Four Beast, and he is quite Nightmare Fuel inducing at that.
• Elite Four: Toriko, Coco, Sunny, and Zebra are collectively known as the Four Heavenly Kings, even though they are the good guys. In terms of destruction...
  • Now there's the Four Beasts from the Gourmet World, who enter the Human World to feed on people. Capture Level: 100. Not coincidentally, the Four Kings have been tasked with stopping these monsters.
• Empty Chair Memorial: In Chapter 395, Toriko leaves out some chairs and sake for Midora, Jirou, Ichiryu, and Froese, so their spirits can enjoy the reception as well.
• End of an Age: The title of Chapter 257, and an apt one at that, as Midora's Meteor Spice cause so much devastation that 100 nations were left incapable of functioning.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Match outright states that even the Yakuza doesn't kill without intending to eat the kill. Tommyrod is baffled by the idea.
  • When Match accuses Livebearer of cheating at his game, Livebearer acts insulted that such a thing would be suggested. And it's just that — an act. Not only is Livebearer cheating, but the game is stacked in his favor. Coco wasn't fooled, however.
  • Midora spares Ichiryu after defeating him since he can't bring himself to kill family.
  • Finally, the main difference between the heroes and villains is that the heroes (mostly) only kill what they eat, while the villains have absolutely zero respect for the sanctity of life. Neo takes this a step further by not respecting the sanctity of death.
• 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 surprise it.
  • Its other name is the "Human-Face Apple", which is also Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Expecting Someone Taller: 'Tengu' Buranchi's reaction to meeting Komatsu.
• Expy: Toriko often draws inspiration from Buddhist cosmology and philosophy - the main characters even get a Meditation Powerup at a Zen monastery.
  • The Four Heavenly Kings are lifted straight from the mythology - each is dedicated to fighting evil and a protector of a different direction. Even some of their abilities come from the legends - two of the mythical Kings' names literally translate to "he who hears everything" and "he who sees everything." This is best seen when Toriko, Coco, Sunny, and Zebra assemble to protect the Human World from the "Shijuu."
  • Ichiryu corresponds nicely with Sakra, Lord of the Devas, whom the Four Kings serve. The myths also goes out of their way to explain that Sakra, although long-lived, is mortal. When a Sakra dies, a new deity becomes the new Sakra and chief protector of humanity/Buddhism. Does that sound like a job for a certain main character?
  • Acacia, the man who discovered GOD in the distant past, ended wars, and is now worshiped in temples, represents the Buddha. While GOD itself might be a metaphor for enlightenment or Brahma - the supreme deity/concept of Buddhism.
    • Also, the series is heavily influenced by the shonen classics Fist of the North Star and Dragon Ball.
• Extreme Omnivore:
  • GRINPATCH. He's probably got a few screws loose, and according to Coco his immune system is insanely good. But he seemed overjoyed that he might meet Toriko and Terry again because he wanted to EAT THEM. He even willingly digests Coco's poison because he thought it tasted "interesting". He eats everything because it can't hurt him (in theory).
  • This is the power granted by ANOTHER. It allows people to savor and digest things that are normally impossible for them to eat.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The poor sap who falls into the insect pit during the Puffer Whale arc.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: The Gourmet Astronomists have been selectively breeding shellfish that are the same species of the giant clam in Blue Grill and modified them into spaceships. They can exceed the speed of light and enter a subspace called "back channel".
• Find the Cure!: The hunt for "PAIR" takes on a new level of urgency after Teppei crushes Komatsu's heart, the resulting wound being impossible to heal even with Dark techniques, since "PAIR" is the only ingredient that can save him.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Toriko gets a wolf as a pet, a beast so legendary and strong that its ancestors singlehandedly saved an entire continent from extinction, and what does he name it? Terry. Justified as the name probably sounds more exotic to Japanese ears. And then right back when you realize that he named it Terry because the young wolf's fur felt like terrycloth when he petted it.
• Food as Characterization: With a few exceptions, a person's Full Course Menu tends to be symbolic of their values and general favourite foods. The most blatant one is Zongeh's menu, full of low-level ingredients that represent his weak and cowardly nature.
• Food Pills: In a last ditch effort to prevent starvation after Midora ruined the Human World with his Meteor Spice, IGO converted most of Human World's food into capsules. The capsules retain the nutritional value of the original ingredients but lack their taste. People still have to eat large servings of capsules to get the full nutritional value.
• 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.
• Foreshadowing: After running into Starjun, who was eating in the same restaurant as them, Starjun told Toriko that they could have a rematch at the 'Festival', at some unspecified point in the future. Several story arcs later we find out he was referring to the 'Cooking Festival' that kicked off the second stage of the plot.
  • Both Zaus and Teppei were remarked to have acquired scars that they didn't have previously, that both of them couldn't explain acquiring. We later learn that this is a sign that they were "Cooked" by Joie.
  • The GT robots opened their mouths vertically. This little detail became much more important after the timeskip.
• Game Face: Hooo boy, like you wouldn't believe. Just about every combat-worthy character, good or bad, will have at least one of these at one point.
• Gecko Ending: The anime ended with one after 147 episodes.
• Gender Bender: Eating "PAIR" does this. It's part of PAIR's ability to grant those who eat it a chance to experience things on the "other side".
• 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 with his daughter, Melk the Second.
• 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.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Toriko is quite fond of Cigar Tree branches.
• Great Offscreen War: The Gourmet War that happened prior to the start of the series.
• Guns Are Worthless: It's mentioned in the first chapter that firearms are completely useless against any creature with a capture level 5 or higher (the only exceptions being those that are difficult for reasons other than fighting ability). Then the Four Beasts invade the Human World. The most advanced weaponry the armies of humanity wield against them — 100 meter tanks, fighter jets, kill sats — don't even scratch the Four.

H-N

• 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.
• Healing Shiv: Revitalizing Kitchen Knives, special knives that stimulate the regenerative process after cutting the flesh of an ingredient so it heals instantly and can be reused indefinitely.
• Heavy Voice: Tina in Episode 27 after stuffing herself to the brim with tofu.
• Heel–Face Turn: Livebearer, as seeing Komatsu prepare the Meteor Garlic made him realize how much he once enjoyed real cooking himself.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Komatsu and Toriko... Excuse me: TORIGO-ZAAA~N.
• 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.
• Homage: A lot of the manga can be seen as a send-up to several popular Shonen Jump manga throughout the ages. There are even a number of direct references to old Shonen Jump works. To list a few: Toriko himself has clothing similar to Goku's classic Gi, the dynamic of the main party members can be seen in several different works like YuYu Hakusho, and the Gourmet Demons have similar abilities and appearances to that of Stands.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Toriko and Komatsu's partnership is one of the most important in the manga, and the two are incredibly close. There's also the matter of a Gourmet Hunter having partnerships with their chefs, but because of how important the decision is for Hunters it is treated similarly to picking out a life partner^note and this was the case for Setsuno and Jiro, for example. When Toriko asks Komatsu to be his chef, it's even framed as if he was proposing, and other Hunters make comments about wanting to have Komatsu as their own personal chef as well.
• Hope Spot: The fight between Ichiryu and Midora ends with Midora sparing Ichiryu after defeating him. Right when it seems like Ichiryu will be able to get through to Midora and warn him of their mutual enemy, a Blue Nitro appears out of nowhere to finish him off.
• Human Resources: The Gourmet Wars and the lack of food that resulted from them lead to people feeding newborn babies to livestock. Midora was one such baby.
• Hurricane of Puns: In each episode right after the opening, there is a corner where the narrator introduces two or three ingredients. Most of them have very puntastic names.
• 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.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Gourmet Cells and the Food's End technique can do this with their host.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Zongeh apparently learned his "skills" from playing a lot of old school console RPGs.
• Impossibly Delicious Food: Really the main point of the manga. Starts off here and cranks the delicious up. All the badass and fight scenes are just the appetizers to the main course. (Literally, in most cases.)
• Improbable Chopsticks Skill:
  • This is used as a Training from Hell for Toriko and Komatsu in Chowlin Temple: they have to manipulate and catch incredibly delicate foods with chopsticks, as well as eating with 5 meters-long chopsticks.
  • Weaponized by Ichiryuu, who can obliterate giant monsters using giant energy chopsticks.
• Improbable Weapon User: How about using a Bendy Straw of Doom?
• Irony: In a series that constantly hammers in the importance of food, its nutrients, and eating, the very last thing the villain does once it's been defeated is throw up every last scrap of food it ate during its lifetime.
• Is It Something You Eat?: Zebra has no clue what 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.
• Ki Manipulation: "Appetite" Energy, the pure cellular energy of the Gourmet Cells, which the Four Heavenly Kings used to launch the Ou Shoku Bansan on the Four Beast.
  • Toriko also speculates that his various Fork and Knife techniques (Flying, Shield, Leg, etc.) are composed of Appetite Energy that he is emitting subconciously.
• Kick the Dog: Tommy decides to kill the Baby Wall Penguin's parents. Why? He thought they were too noisy.
  • Earlier on, Bei kills Terry's mother because she was "disgusting".
    • This is a constant theme for the Gourmet Corp. One member, when stealing Rainbow Fruit, wiped all but a few Troll Kongs guarding it.
• Killer Robot: The GT Robot. Subverted in that it's actually being controlled by a distant operator, so the robot is only a killer because the operator is Ax-Crazy as hell.
• Kill Sat: The Human World Military has some that fire lasers.
• Knight of Cerebus: The series mostly involved fun (If occasionally gruesome) hunts for food and rare animals. And then the GT Robot 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 Gourmet Corp. And whenever the Gourmet Corp turns up, you can bet that the seriousness will turn up as well, such as the Bubble Fruit Arc.
• Knockback Slide: Toriko's blue demon does this after his Devil Fork clashed with Heracle's hoof.
• Last Kiss: Subverted near the end of the Regal Mammoth arc. Toriko gives Rin a mouthy farewell kiss as she's bleeding out on the ground. Gourmet Cells, which Rin has, can heal almost anything, given the right food. Which, for obsessive-over-Toriko Rin, is Toriko's saliva.
• Lecherous Licking: When Sunny'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.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: When a person's Gourmet Cells evolve after eating a compatible ingredient, they regenerate any injuries that person has, even a hole in the chest. This is how Toriko survived eating a Nitro Cherry and a Poison Potato (the latter being an ingredient compatible with his cells).
• 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.
  • The central human world is the entirety of the surface of our Earth, and the Gourmet World was formed by an extraterrestrial parasitic rock crashing into the planet hundreds of millions of years ago, consuming energy from the earth's core in order to grow. Judging from the diagrams given, it can be assumed the planet now has at least twice the diameter of Earth. This rock is also the original source of Gourmet Cells.
  • This is confirmed in a scene with the monkey king, that says the planet's circumference is 220,000 kilometers... Y'know just 5 times the circumference of the earth... 'Cause throwing mountains around a regular world wouldn't be crazy enough.
• Made of Iron: Virtually everyone who's had more than a single line of dialogue can withstand truly ridiculous amounts of damage. It's not always limited to the Gourmet Cell powerhouses, either; for example, one of Match's subordinates has his forearm half-severed and one eye gouged out by Tommyrod's bugs, then is stomped into a crater by Barrygamon, and survives.
• Martial Arts and Crafts: The whole series is based around weaponized cooking on exotic ingredients.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Rin and Sunny. Lampshaded when we see them together for the first time.
• Masochist's Meal: Some ingredients are really unsafe to eat, or require putting oneself through agony to fully savor their flavor. The Nitro Cherry is a literal cherry bomb, and the "correct" way to cook it is to make it as tasty as possible without defusing it. The Poison Potato is one of the most poisonous Ingredients in the world, and again the "right" way to cook it is to simply make it as tasty as possible without diluting the poison, since the poison itself adds to the flavor. The worst might be the Sandoriko Flower: breathing in even a tiny bit of pollen can instantly dehydrate you, but allowing this to happen makes the Sandoriko flower itself taste much better. Good thing that eating the flower itself stops the allergic reaction.
• 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 news of the Four Beasts' awakening causes a panic that dwarfs the upheaval caused by Zebra's release. The entire population of the Human World retreats to the center of the Human World, leaving the borders completely deserted. Wholly justified, since the Four Beasts are horrifically powerful denizens of the Gourmet World that prey exclusively on humans.
  • Pretty much all the beings on the planet have a mild case when Bambina shows his true form. Every creature on the planet subconsciously feels that it may be the last minutes of their lives so they stuff themselves with their favourite food.
• Master of Your Domain: The core element behind Enbu, or Monkey Martial Arts, the technique required to traverse the 100G mountain and confront Bambina.
• Mating Dance: Ballboons like the Monkey King Bambina have an extremely complex 1000-step mating dance that finishes with a kiss. Performing this dance perfectly is the true method of obtaining PAIR.
• Medicinal Cuisine:
  • Meteor Garlic is so packed with nutrition that anyone who consumes it instantly undergoes a Growing Muscles Sequence and becomes absurdly muscular for a time. According to Match, it's also known as the "Doping Garlic", as it provides enough energy to work all day and all night for a month without rest.
  • Medicinal Mochi is made from a special Colored Rice that can neutralize any poison it comes in contact with. It is the only known antidote for the poisonous Green Rain emitted by the monstrous Four Beast. Its potent curative properties are only matched by the difficulty of its preparation, with even world-class chefs struggling to prepare it until Komatsu develops a way to simplify the process.
• Mêlée à Trois: As of the end of chapter 370 we have the Four Heavenly Kings and Starjun vs Neo and Joie vs GOD. Adding to the mix, in chapter 374 the remaining Blue Nitro have joined the fight and chapter 375 ends with the arrival of the Eight Kings.
• Miracle Food: Ichiryu's Full Course, if properly cooked, can generate enough food to feed any number of people, though it's not very tasty.
• 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.
• The Mole: It turns out that Neo (An organization comprised of wealthy individuals, such as Mokkoi and the king of Jiddal) have spies in both the IGO, Gourmet Corp, and Biotope 0. Who? See Wham Episode below...
• Monster Clown: Tommyrod.
• Monster Is a Mommy: Most notably, the Battle Wolf. Later on, Nightmare Heracles.
• Mood Whiplash: Chapter 208, OH SO MUCH. The Four Beast has been defeated, the Heavenly Kings get their antidote, what remains of the Four Beast explodes and frees all the people he ate, and the rest of the world eat the antidote and the meat of the Four Beast. Everything is happy. Suddenly, we see an assorted food dish with Teppei's severed head and hand. Yes, it's that sudden.
• Mundane Made Awesome: It's a manga about a gluttonous Kenshiro Expy and his adventures catching game animals... Yay.
• Mundane Luxury: After Midora ends the Gourmet Age by ravaging the Human World, any fresh food is considered a luxury, even an ordinary radish.
• 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 Gets Fat: Justified; every important named character has Gourmet Cells implanted in them, which grant superhuman abilities at the cost of burning incredible amounts of calories and requiring delicious food to continue functioning. As a result, few Gourmet Cell users are fat and many are brawny due to the Gourmet Cells reactions to food.
• Nightmare Face: Besides the Game Faces mentioned up above, a lot of beasts in the Toriko Verse are pretty creepy-looking, particularly in the Gourmet World; noted examples include the Four-Beasts, the Nitro, and especially some of the Eight Kings.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Each of the Gourmet Corp. in the Regal Mammoth Arc do this;
  • Gido, while having Coco dead to rights, decides to be theatrical and finish Coco off with his GT Robo's Frickin' Laser Beam, but in doing so gives Coco and opening to shoot a bit of ultra-corrosive poison that renders the robot inoperable.
  • Cedre falls for Sunny's I Surrender, Suckers and gets in close to wail on him, putting himself in range to be trapped by Sunny's hair lock and struck by his Megaton Punch.
  • Finally, Starjun blasts Toriko with his Robo's laser cannon, propelling the gourmet hunter into the chamber with the Jewel Meat which heals Toriko and gives him a power-boost. As Starjun later admits, he shouldn't have wasted time fighting Toriko.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Toriko delivers a brutal one to Starjun in Chapter 220. Midora relentlessly punches Acacia to the point that even if his hands were eaten, he won't stop beating the shit out of Acacia with his stump.
• 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.
• Not Just a Tournament: The Cooking Festival. Nothing is the same afterwards.
• #1 Dime: Komatsu values his kitchen knives more than his own life. Even Starjun is impressed by his resolve.

O-Y

• Ocular Gushers: Weaponized by the Sandoriko flower; its pollen causes hapless victims to cry and cry until all moisture in their body is depleted. This flower also happens to be the cause of several mass extinctions in Area 7 of the Gourmet World. The one that nearly killed the Heavenly Kings was also one specifically bred to be weaker. The pollen of natural Sandoriko flowers has a 100% fatality rate.
• Official Couple: Toriko and Rin, by the end of the series.
• Oh, Crap!: Both the characters and you will say this.
  • The entire world has one when Zebra is released.
  • Rin, and presumably, the entire reading audience, when she measures the original Four Beast as having a capture level of 320!
  • Teppei has one when he realizes the Four Beast's master might be more than he can handle alone.
  • Yuda loses his composure when he sees the Gourmet Corp's "trump card": Nitros.
  • The beasts of Area 7's fear of the Sandoriko flower, whose pollen triggers lethal allergic reactions so potent that it is responsible for multiple mass extinction events on the continent, is so strong that it's part of their DNA! The moment a giant ant with a capture level over 700 saw one, it ran like hell.
  • Chapter 302 has a good example. Toriko is attempting to gauge how powerful the gravity of the 100G Mountain. As he turns around, he realizes that everyone in his company, including Zebra and the Denshark, are sporting this reaction. For good reason: Monkey King Bambina had just arrived and was standing right in front of Toriko.
  • Chapter 380 Acacia's expression when he see's Toriko's third and newest appetite demon.
• Old Master: Knocking Master Jiro, 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.
• Only Six Faces: The author does not have a very large pool of faces that he uses for major characters, which is leading to problems as the manga gets longer, where some characters look nearly identical to existing characters. Examples include Acacia, who is a spitting image of Coco, but older, and with longer hair, and young Midora, who is a spitting image of Toriko, without even different hair; the only differentiation comes from the scars. Many more characters have a particular feature (i.e. hair, eyes, or whole face) that's very similar to an existing major character, but with other features different. Examples include Starjyun, who has Coco's face with Zebra's eyebrows and a black version of Sani's hair, Aimaru, who has Coco's face, but has unique markings and different hair, Takimaru, who has an overall appearance very similar to Aimaru's, but looks a little more "boyish," Match, who looks like Zebra, and Nakaume, who looks like Komatsu.
• On The Next Episode Of Catchphrase: "Jikai mo tanoshisa tenkomori desu!" (loosely: "The next episode will be another huge helping of fun!")
• Orifice Invasion: It is suggested that the anus this is the most effective entry into the Regal Mammoth. Sunny is appalled by the idea but, luckily, the team goes in from the front.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Food Spirits, which are the souls of creatures who died with unsatisfied appetites so they linger in delicious ingredients and beckon chefs who can hear the "Voice of Ingredients" to cook them. They can also only be seen by those who have eaten PAIR. Appetite Demons are Food Spirits that inhabit Gourmet Cells.
• The Paralyzer: Knocking, using a gun which fire needles into nerves that control the animals' movements.
  • Toriko used his finger on his Fork hand to do Knocking on a puffer whale.
  • Teppei uses Impact Knocking, which presumably uses Pressure Points to induce Knocking with his bare hands.
  • The properly named "Knocking Master Jirou" is king of this trope, capable of knocking anything. Even The very PLANET itself.
• 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.
• Planet Eater: Acacia's Appetite Demon. Even a single diminutive beast spawned from it is supposedly able to devour all life on the planet. Also the last-chapter Space Taipan that casually eats planets as snacks.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Zongeh. He still managed to discover the Hell Soup ingredient by himself, which is not far from the Century Soup.
  • He also managed to surprise a Surprise Apple to the point near its absolute peak. The level that it reached was somewhere between a nuclear explosion and the destruction of the world. Although, it's doubtful anyone would have wanted to eat it afterwards.
• 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. However, it's not always how dangerous the creature is. Higher capture levels indicate that an ingredient is either very deadly, very rare, hard to find, or has a defense mechanism that makes trying to hunt them down near-pointless.
  • Over Nine Thousand: Capture Level immeasurable. Crosses over with Readings Are Off the Scale.
• The Power of Hate: Just like fear flavors the meat^note Literally, as enough fear causes the brain to release dopamine, the chemical responsible for pleasure, anger sours it. By becoming angry enough Toriko is able to not only dissuade Neo from trying to eat him, but he's also able to do the appetite demon harm.
• Pocket Dimension: Bambina trains the three pets in one of them.
• Power-Up Food: If Toriko eats a food that his Gourmet Cells crave, it'll lead to an immense power-up for him.
  • Acacia's Full Course grants the person who eats it complete control over their Gourmet Cells. This means they are able to transform into their body into their Appetite Demon at will.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Seems to be heading this, especially since the epic conclusion to Toriko and Starjun's fight is outright stalled due to Joa's appearance.
• Prehensile Hair: Sunny.
• Rapid Aging:
  • Time flows 200,000 times faster than normal in the Cave of Old Age. A mere human can be killed after staying inside for only a few hours.
  • Komatsu and co suffer from the side effects of temporarily growing old as a result of their bodies balancing the time difference from leaving Blue Grill.
  • Deer King kills its victims by producing a back channel that speeds up time thousands of years passing as a second.
• Rapid Hair Growth: Anyone who drinks the Billion Birds Egg has this happen to them. It even extends to their eyelashes!
• Rated M for Manly: Think Fist of the North Star meets Iron Chef with a dash of One Piece.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: GOD hits power level 10,000 and is almost immediately topped by Acacia, at level 30,000.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Averted LIKE WHOA by Toriko. He lives in a house made of sweets, and him eating it is a recurring problem. Also, more than one of the dishes he prepares in the series are desserts and he treats them with the same respect and loving care as the savory ones.
• Redshirt Army:
  • In addition to the main characters, more than one hundred regular Gourmet Hunters were on the voyage to Ice Hell. Eleven made it back alive.
  • The Human World's military got absolutely annihilated by the Four Beasts. Everybody was using a GT Robot, so nobody actually got killed, but the effect is the same.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Yuu, Komatsu's pet baby Wall Penguin. Tiny, cute, pink, and makes adorable noises and facial expressions constantly. Tends to endear himself to any women, children and animals who cross his path.
• Rule of Cool: The series runs on this, giving rise to powers and animals that get more and more awesome as the series goes on.
• Running Gag: At least in the earlier chapters, when Toriko and Komatsu have a meal together at a restaurant Komatsu will usually try one mouthful gush at how delicious the meal is and turns around to ask Toriko whether he agrees only to see that Toriko had already polished off his portion and is asking for seconds (or in extreme cases already polished off several dozen portions and is still asking for more).
• Samus Is a Girl: Second generation Melk first appeared as a Bishonen (that was pretty enough to give Sunny a run for his money). A few chapters and a hot spring later...
• Scare the Dog: One of the ways Toriko and various other characters deal with the various monstrous beasts is through the sheer force of their intimidation that frightens said beasts into submission. Toriko even takes this to the point where he doesn't even need to worry about levels five to six hundred.
• Sci-Fi Writers 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.
  • Zig-Zagged with Toriko's insane metabolism. On the one hand, burning 100,000 kcal/day should give him heatstroke or else require insane amounts of water in order to regulate his temperature. On the other hand, the Bubble Fruit Arc portrays the realistic consequences of having such a high metabolism while fasting. Whereas a normal human can go two months without food before starving to death, Toriko is at death's door within two days, which is before a normal person would even begin suffering muscle atrophy.
  • Played completely straight with Brunch's electrical attacks. 100 kilo-amperes at 100 Mega-Volts is 10,000 Gigawatts, which is 200 times the total electrical power output of the United States, and 100 billion times the typical resting metabolism of a human being. That power output shouldn't even be attainable, and if he were to maintain it for even a microsecond, it should cause him to burst into flames.
  • In general, numbers in the millions and billions get tossed around pretty freely.
  • A galaxy with the diameter of 10 years is really too small to be considered one. The Milky Way has the diameter of approximately 100,000 light years, while M60-UCD1 the smallest galaxy to be found is about 300 light years in diameter. Though it can be justified if the gourmet gods are about to finish the galaxy as their meals.
• Scenery Gorn: The Four Beasts devastate the landscape of the Human World when they awaken.
• Schmuck Bait: The Dodurian Bomb. Good Lord....
• Semantic Superpower: How "PAIR" works. PAIR is described as "Drop of Two Sides of the Same Coin", meaning it is essentially an embodiment of the idiom "two sides of the same coin". Drinking it allows one to experience life from different perspectives such as being a different gender, or even seeing into the spirit world.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Toriko and Komatsu combo.
• Serial Escalation: Just how powerful can the capture beasts get in this series, and in how fast of a time can they get that strong?
  • To put this in perspective, a Level 5 beast can take on a regular tank by itself. The entire force of the military of the Human World get completely annihilated in one blast by the Mounturtle of the Four Beasts after taking the equivalent of a barrage that could wipe Freaking Canada off the map! And the other three Beasts that the Turtle is accompanied by are just as strong. And then it's revealed said Four Beasts are just the limbs of a bigger, even more powerful single beast!
  • The entire series is pretty much a practice in how utterly ridiculous the scale of...everything can get.
• 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 ended a whole freakin' 100 year old world war.
  • Given some mention of what other ingredients (such as the recently mentioned drug snail) can do, very justified.
  • Several ingredients in Jidar 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 (and eventually planets...) single-handedly. Of course it's Serious Business.
  • The IGO apparently has more influence on world affairs than the United Nations. Given the anime's discussion of the Gourmet War, it does appear to be a UN instrument risen to power...
  • 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.
  • Acacia's rumored hors d'oeuvre can raise the dead.
• Shaping Your Attacks: Appetite Energy can take on many physical forms when emitted from the body from forks, knives, spoons or even a giant pac man.
• 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. The Four Beasts also seem to be unique. Humanity would probably already be extinct otherwise.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: If a shirt isn't sleeveless when Toriko puts it on, it will probably become so shortly.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Zongeh, who has far more confidence in his 'skills' than he should.
• 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.
• Staring Down Cthulhu: The Four Heavenly Kings and Teppei all face the Four Beast without showing a hint of fear, and actually make the monster pause. Which makes it all the more shocking that a look from the Four Beast's master fills Teppei with dread.
• 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. It's subverted when it turns out he is a very talkative and social person, it's just that his voice was too quiet for anyone to hear.
• Stripped to the Bone: Want to know how skilled Lady Chiyo is with her knives? She can do this trope to people without them noticing. Just ask Wagon, who loses the flesh of his torso in the blink of an eye.
• Super-Senses: Toriko has a nose that's "better than a bloodhound's", Coco can see different electronic wavelengths 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.
  • While it's never been specifically states that Komatsu has super taste buds, he can distinguish specific tastes from the Century Soup, a dish with hundreds of unique ingredients, and he's an expert at making food taste as good as possible, thus rounding out the five sense as represented by the main cast.
• Super-Speed: The Battle Wolf. A newborn wolf can run 100 meters in 1.5 seconds, and they become much faster with age.
  • "Beast King" Gaoh of the Four Beasts is fast enough to dodge Kill Sat strikes and is able to give a near full-grown Battle Wolf a run for its money.
• 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, especially now that he's learning to deal with "special preparation ingredients".
  • 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 humans are the main ingredients in some of the recipes, a testament to the Nitros' savagery.
• Sympathy for the Devil: After learning about Neo and its horrific backstory, the first thing Komatsu thinks is that it's just trying to find a meal that can satisfy it.
• Taking You with Me: Averted. Don Slime attempts this on Neo, only to have Neo eat his ultimate attack.
• Temporary Bulk Change: Meteor Garlic has this effect on people.
• The End of the World as We Know It: According to Kaka, the entire planet has been "cooking" ever since it was hit by the Gourmet cell meteor. The Gourmet Cells were seasoning on the main course that is Earth. The upcoming "Gourmet Eclipse" is essentially the egg timer signaling that the meal's ready.
• The Heart: Komatsu. While the Four Heavenly Kings sometimes do not get along (namely Sunny and Zebra), all four have become rather taken with Komatsu. Toriko himself has stated that Komatsu is the key to uniting the Four Heavenly Kings.
• Theme Naming: The word "Gourmet" is used a lot to name things, from Gourmet World to Gourmet Cells and Gourmet Hunter to Gourmet Yakuza.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Basically humanity's defense against the Four Beasts. They unleash enough firepower to destroy all of Japan 27 times over. Turns out to be the Worf Barrage though, since the Four Beasts were completely undamaged.
  • The state Starjun leaves Toriko in. Lets see: Toriko's covered in horrific burns and his own blood, his left arm is severed, so are both legs, and he's battered and bruised all over.
• The Unfettered: Komatsu's old training buddy Otake is willing to do some...unsavory things to promote his restaurant and rise in the chef ranks. Komatsu is not pleased, and when he objects, Otake challenges him to surpass him if he doesn't like it.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Chief Mansam's expression when Toriko flings a freaking Elephantsaurus through the Gourmet Coliseum's protective dome.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Zongeh outdoes everyone in the Surprise Apple chapter.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Komatsu and Melk.
• Together in Death: Asarudy and Silk, Silk has been dead for over 3000 years and her love for Asarudy has never wavered, in fact it has only gotten stronger. They are finally reunited in the afterlife after Asarudy ceases to exist by becoming Don Slimes vessel.
• Took a Level in Badass: Komatsu is now capable of dishing some serious damage now that he's armed with the knife the second Melk made just for him.
  • He could, yes. But he won't. That'd be out of character.
  • As a rule, this will always happen when someone eats an ingredient that reacts to their Gourmet Cells.
  • Now that Toriko has mastered "Honoring the Food", he's easily dozens of times stronger.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Toriko himself actually. At the beginning of the series he let Komatsu come along on his hunts solely because it meant he'd have access to quality food in the wild, and even told Coco that he shouldn't worry too much about Komatsu, because he'd filled out his Last Will and Testament before joining them for their Puffer Whale hunt, thus he was prepared for death. He's come a long way since then, where later chapters have him stating that protecting Komatsu makes him stronger than fighting alone ever did.
• To Serve Man: While most carnivorous beasts won't hesitate to eat humans, the Four Beasts are unique since they like human flesh so much they prey exclusively on humans. Subverted with The Reveal that the Four Beasts are merely the mind-controlled slaves of the true Four Beast, which is also being controlled by someone else.
  • Toriko told it something to the extent of "You have every right to want to eat humans, but we as humans have every right to fight you to not be eaten." Essentially saying that he didn't think it a monster for choosing to eat just humans, be that since HE was part of its possible menu, he'd fight back without prejudice, and everything had that same right.
  • It's also inverted in-universe: most Gourmet World monsters don't bother to come into the Human World specifically because everything in the latter (humans included) taste worse than anything in the former.
• Touched by Vorlons: Or rather Touched By Jellyfish, Gourmet Cells were discovered in jellyfish called "Gourmet Jellyfish". Coco believes they're aliens, making the trope more straight.
• Tragic Monster: The Four Beast, amazingly enough, since it's also being controlled by someone else.
• Tranquil Fury: "Honoring the Food" once it's fully mastered.
• Transhuman: Again, people infused with Gourmet Cells.
• Twisting the Words: Chief Mansam will always assume someone's calling him 'handsome'. They aren't.
• Unusual Euphemism: The anime is mildly censored (most blood is removed), but swear words in the english dub are usually substituted for food based words. The most common one is "Fork" in place of fuck, Cheese and Rice for Jesus Christ, Holy Canoli for Holy Shit, and many MANY more.
• 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, Sunny's narcissism, and Zebra's general aggression. Fortunately, it is often portrayed comedically.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy ( Actually "Well Done, Daughter" Girl): 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 Melk the First is actually a Doting Parent who thinks the world of her and gushes over how much she deserves to be his successor, but she never realized it because his voice was so quiet.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 230. Shigesam betrays IGO and seemingly kills Mansam, and Komatsu's boss had killed a bunch of IGO personnel during his defection.
  • Chapter 259, the entire Gourmet World is actually an invasive alien life form that landed on our Earth and formed over it.
  • Chapter 266: Rin and Toriko are engaged.
  • Chapter 285: Toriko fights Heracles, one of the Eight Kings. And loses. With a blast of nostril air VERTICALLY SLICING HALF HIS BODY. Leaving him fallen, close to dying. Or dead.
  • Chapter 361: Toriko and Starjun are TWIN BROTHERS!
• Worf Had the Flu: A villainous example for once. Lady Chiyo reveals after her fight with Toriko that the only reason he did so well against her was because Chinchinchin dealt a near fatal wound to her during their fight.
• 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.
  • To give a small example. Early in the story one of the characters is attacked by a killer robot. Said robot puts a hole through the guy's throat, his windpipe and spine are gone. He is thrown into the floor... and gets up, completely unfased by the damage. Regenerates with help of some alcohol and prepares to kick ass.
• World of Muscle Men: Nearly every major male character in the series has an extremely muscled body. Except Komatsu.
• 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.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: A day outside of the Giant Shell that hosts the Blue Grill civilization is equivalent to 60 days inside it.
• You Are Already Dead: Creatures prepared by masters of Honoring the Food are this. And so are humans...
• You Are Not Alone: Toriko says these exact same words to Terry when her mother is about to die.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In chapter 316 Kaka after revealing that she is a Blue Nitro thanks the Four Heavenly Kings for obtaining "PAIR" in its perfect state. Then states that it's time for them to die.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Basically the idea behind "Ultimate Routine", as well as combining it with Master of Illusion.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The Four Kings curb-stomp the Four Beasts, so the day is saved, right? Nope! Turns out the beasts were just tools of the true Four Beast, and he had just entered the very center of the Human World...where all the humans are! Even after the true Four Beast is defeated, they still haven't faced its master, who is even scarier.

---