The Story
Coco reveals that he tricked Livebearer into eating ingredients that would activate the poison of the poison potato no matter how much of the poison he would be able to neutralize. Livebearer intends to eat the potato anyway because he has taken precautions by lining his stomach with biodegradable plastic, but Coco predicted that and planned accordingly. Livebearer is left with no option to surrender. But instead of conceding the match to Coco, Livebearer has his goons attack Toriko and the Gourmet Mafia.
Toriko’s team make short work of Livebearer’s goons, and Coco is able to defeat an enraged Livebearer quite easily. After the fight Komatsu brings out the prepared poison potato, which Coco reveals he had been preparing Toriko to eat. The foods he consumed are meant to help negate the poison. But when Toriko eats it, his gourmet cells take care of the poison for him.
With Livebearer captured, Toriko and group go to the gourmet data archives to look up the location of the meteor garlic. This turns out to be unnecessary, as Match has found the location of the actual ingredient.
The Review
With this arc coming to an end, it’s only fitting that we get some action as part of the climax. Granted the climax itself was Livebearer’s surrender. The fight itself felt more like an addendum, like the writers figured viewers would want to see some action after watching the most exaggerated game of memory ever.
The action helped break up the pace a bit, though the fights themselves were both a bit longer than I would have liked, and too short to really leave an impact. The lack of a serious threat against the characters made their victory a foregone conclusion, so the fights themselves lacked any of the necessary substance to make them interesting. Though it was amusing to see what was left of the animation budget get spent during those short fights. After several episodes of people sitting around I imagine the animation department had some funds piled up.
The climax, while subject to the somewhat ridiculous Toriko science, was a lot of fun. Mostly thanks to the fact that it wasn’t another battle won by excessive brawn. Granted the final conflict was one of muscle, but seeing a contest of brain in such a hyper masculine show as Toriko, was a nice change of pace. Knowing what I do about the anime I don’t expect to see an arc much like this one for a while. But it was enjoyable while it lasted.
Though I still don’t understand how garlic, no matter how meteoric, could be something that anyone would want to eat as a main course. I do my fair share of cooking, and while garlic is absolutely delicious, it’s only so as part of other dishes. To eat an entire clove of garlic, especially a massive one, no matter how well prepared, makes my toes curl.
Then again, this is Toriko, where horrible monsters are what’s to eat, and apparently animals evolved solely for the purpose of being extremely edible. I believe I can suspend my disbelief for the sake of some celestial garlic.
The Grade