Alright, so here I am at 4 AM, catching up to One Piece. I had just finished up episode 491, and it had been really emotional. Luffy was finally facing the reality of what had happened to Ace, and he was breaking down into a crying mess. I almost wish I was more emotional; I would've cried and I wanted to, but tears have never come easily for me, so my eyes remained dry even as my heart ached for Luffy (not in a lustful way, obviously lol). The episode ended sorrowfully as Luffy broke down into uncontrollable sobs. Oh, my heart broke when he collapsed like that, fat tears flowing thickly down his cheeks. After the episode was over, I was hungry for a continuation. I clicked on episode 492, and I was met by thisI totally wasn't in the mood for any stupid Toriko crap, but I'm one of those anime fans who feels an obligation to complete every single damned episode in a series, despite it being totally pointless and reeking of filler. The best part of the episode was probably One Piece. I say that, but I'm really stretching it. Even the straw hat pirate crew, which I love with a fiery passion, seemed to reek of Toriko's shit. You know what? Scratch that. The best part of the episode was definitely Zoro who got about two minutes of screen time at best. As the sky was covered with thick Toriko smog, Zoro was the single ray of sunshine that sliced its way through the condensed air pollution. It's been a long time since I've seen Zoro; he hasn't gotten any screen time for a good twenty episodes or more, so it was refreshing to see him and hear Nakai Kazuya's badass voice coming from Zoro's badass mouth. The worst part of the episode was Toriko. Not just Toriko, but his crazy band of circus freaks. Before I can move on with this weird-semi review, I need to acknowledge the terrible character designs, lacking any bit of originality or coordination. Toriko I don't mind Toriko's face or long blue hair. He could even pass as attractive if he didn't wear totally conflicting, ugly colors or be that incredibly, overly, and obnoxiously buff. He wears an orange jumpsuit. It's bad enough that it's orange, but a jumpsuit?! Now, you're just Naruto except more buff and with blue hair. His buffness also pissed me off. Most women like men to be lean, but not so much so that it seems like fucking watermelons are growing on their arms or their neck grows to be as thick as a tree trunk. Everything about Toriko's character design screams "I want to be cool!!" but it really only ends up infuriating me. Everything about his entire character design is simply ugly.  His powers are also really lame as well. The power of "fork and knife"? Doesn't that just sound incredibly and utterly stupid?  That's because it is. And it's not just Toriko that has a shitty design. Look at his team mates. Coco This guy's design is alright. Nothing amazing or particularly noticeable. He has the ability to shoot poison out of his fingers, which sounds pretty kickass at first, but when you actually see it in action, you'll notice how infinitely retarded it is. Sunny This guy was probably the worst. With a name like "Sunny" without an "O", he can only be a dog or an overly buff guy with cotton candy colored dreads and another blue jump suit on. A dog would've been better. Oh, wait. Toriko already has one of those, except it's wolf-like thing with orange eyes (it's not cute in any way whatsoever). Anyway, Sunny tries to be all effeminate with his high-pitched voice that goes up and down and up and down, but that just doesn't work for someone who is that buff and wears a blue jumpsuit. It sincerely looks like the creator of Toriko put about three seconds into Sunny's character design before deeming it "awesome" and barely thinking of how absolutely terrible it was. Kotatsu Komatsu This is Toriko's gorilla sidekick. Every time his name came up, I always thought of a kotatsu table. The latter is more interesting. Love interest I'm pretty sure she has a name, but it's not important. She was singled out immediately as Toriko's love interest stalker. She's obsessed with him, and as soon as she showed up, she was blabbering about how awesome Toriko is and how worried she was about him and how she wants to fuck him. Why does it seem like all female characters do in anime nowadays is fall in love? Is that all they're good for? She has this stupid laser gun things on her wrists. She's like spider man. Not at all. Now that I'm done ranting about the shitty character designs, I'll move onto the plot of the episode, which was equally shitty. The whole special consists of Luffy and Toriko running around  and eating a bunch of different shit. That's basically all there is to it. Then, near the end, they decide to kill this mutant koala thing, and they do. Then, ZORO. Then, the island turns into pudding. Then, everyone leaves. Here have some screenshots: This just goes to show how a little goes a long way. Luffy doesn't look like he has much muscle (even though he does) and he looks infinitely better than Toriko. God, Toriko shirtless makes me want to throw up. Disgusting. There was this part where Toriko was scratched by the koala, but instead of bleeding and getting a cut, his clothes are conveniently ripped off. That's why Toriko doesn't have a shirt on in the screenshot before this. THANKS KOALA. DX I may decide to watch a little bit of Toriko, just to see how incredibly generic and shit-filled it is when it's not relying on One Piece to be awesome. Then again, I wanted to claw my eyes out whenever I saw one of those character designs, so it may be best for my health if I didn't give it a go. Just so you know, I totally lost my appetite for One Piece after I watched this episode. I had been on such a roll, marathoning twelve episodes of One Piece straight, but this stupid special made me want to kill myself, so I didn't end up watching episode 493 which was almost guaranteed to be so sad, I'd be tempted to rip my heart out and throw it aggressively at the computer screen until I died or Luffy became happy again. Shit. That was a long sentence. It had, like, three commas. It seems like all the other bloggers have forgotten about Toriko. Is anyone still watching it? If not, why did you drop it?
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