Oh yes, this one, i held back on tackling it while i covered the One Piece TV Specials also because i never read nor did know much about Toriko as a series… that has changed, as i’m almost halfway through and quite liking it, and yes, i’m aware of Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro “canon event” that happened in 2002, but unlike Oda’s other acquaitance, Watsuki, an actual pedophile that had terabytes of child pornography (and suffered for it just a hiatus for its Rurouni Kenshin follow-up series, after the charges in 2018, which is even more insulting since recently the author of The Apothecary Diaries got punished far worse for tax evasion), it seems to have been a mistake he owned up to, he really paid for it in terms of being ostracized by the industry, actual consequences of his actions, plus it been 22 years, so i feel it’s pointless to still hold it over the man.
Had to get this over with because i didn’t want to talk about, you didn’t want to learn about that for a review of a special crossover about 3 popular Jump anime series (which already appared together in some of the Jump crossover videogames but not in anime form) colliding in a TV special, many couldn’t care less either way, but some might not have known or still held some incorrect info on the matter (like i did myself), so i had to make things clear(er) and to address the question.
MOVING ON, i really did wanted to cover this before, but we’re doing it now, and curiously it’s a collaboration special that is meant to be seen as a single short film… despite being originally released as 2 separate episodes, one from the One Piece anime series, one from the Toriko one, respectively Episode 590 and Episode 99. Dragon Ball at the time didn’t have an on-going series, but like that was ever gonna stop Toei from having some Son Goku/Kakarot enter the fray and throw down for the promise of a feast. Not an egyptian one, curiously enough in hindsight.
Yeah, the loose gist is that there’s a competition/race held by the IGO (International Gourmet Organization) from Toriko, with the prize being a huge chunk of a legendary meat, so we have the Straw Hats crew, the Toriko gang and the Dragon Ball posse race as the respective protagonists go toe-to-toe in racing and fighting to win the delicacy.
Obviously there are fights but the main conflict is quelled via the ol’ “Mr Satan faking it” trick, so everyone can be friends and partecipate to the huge feast.
There’s a bit more as the competition itself was actually a plot by the IGO to use the strong people that would win it as “bait” in order to draw out an uber-legendary fish called Akamee, a sort of pufferfish looking thing that basically steals the life force out of anything to become a freaking monstrosity (with tentacles of course), as a way to make the groups team up and fight it to resolve the situation before it’s too late….
It’s a cute lil plot that ‘s ok, as in pretty predictable, but it serves its purpose in justifying these characters from different franchises coming together and interacting, especially fighting against or with each other, i mean, who cares if there’s a non-consequiential scene where Vegeta, Zoro and Zebra confront each other for a bit, they do, and there are many little interactions from the cast that makes sense in term of pairing up similar personalities and such, alongside the expect visual cameos , like the Ox King from DB being both a spectator and a dinner guest.
Actually, this is where i feel the special is lacking, as it goes by too fast and hence there’s little space to have the characters interactions take advantage of the opportunities the crossover could offer in terms of comedy or fights, as the side scuffles are really brief., hence it could have benefitted from 20 minutes more and still do the expected battles against the pufferfish-octopus beast.
Animation is fine, it’s a TV special so you get what you’d expect… and bit more, i wouldn’t say the animators have gone out of the way and “overdid” it for what’s a small crossover TV special at the end of the day, and as much i think it would have been better if it was a bit longer (even if to just make the battles feel less brief so we could get the characters to do more) probably the Toei animators were beyond overworked already, so whatever.
As some of you might already guessed, it’s hard to find on official channels, if not impossible, since the licensing must have been a complete hell and so we have official english dubs of the One Piece episode (originally via Adult Swim’s Toonami) but not of Toriko’s one, i think it was on Crunchyroll but its not there anymore, maybe it’s still on Pluto TV, there are some international DVD releases floating around, but then again – due to the licensing trifecta at play – it was always a piece of anime material bound to survive on the internet via… less legal means.
Wise Cafe (International) 