Category: Fantasy

Summary: A young man who had surely died in an accident, was reborn in another world as a baby! After that, he was picked up by the patriot hero “Sage” Merlin Wolford and was given the name Shin. He was raised as a grandson by Merlin and soaked up Merlin’s teachings earning him some shocking power, however, when he became 15 his grandfather Merlin said: “I forgot to teach him common sense”!

Authors: Yoshioka, Tsuyoshi (Story), Shunsuke, Ogata (Art)

An “abnormal” boy’s unconventional other world fantasy life starts here!!

Kenja no Mago is another Isekai manga, a manga where our main character is dropped into a fantasy world after their previous life ended usually by accident such as being hit by a car. Kenja no Mago is great for those seeking manga similar to titles such as “Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari” “Tsuyokute No Saga” and “Tales of Demons and Gods” these being three series I highly recommend if you are enjoying Kenja, or vice versa if you are reading any of those 3, Kenja is a great choice to read while you wait for new chapters.

Story (7/10): I believe a story should not only be judged based on originality, but also execution. I cannot say that Kenja no Mago (Which onwards of this point I will refer to as KnM) has perfect execution of this popular theme in modern manga, however, KnM does a great job of making the reader understand where the MC is coming from, how they feel with each passing moment, and also helps the reader immerse themselves in this fantasy world.

Art (9/10): It is extremely hard to fault KnM when it comes to art. KnM’s fantasy world is beautifully depicted through the art of Shunsuke Ogata and once again helps the reader immerse themselves in the daily life of our MC and how this new world feels to him as an individual. The art style features cute characters and a very Medieval theme to the structure of the towns.

Character (8/10): I was pleasantly surprised when I realized this series didn’t immediately start with the MC getting betrayed by his newfound friend, a noble, but instead featured him being assisted by him. Shin’s first friend was a Prince who assisted him against an arrogant noble who believes that commoners are bugs and that nobles stand above them. The characters in KnM have a wide variety of personalities (however some cliche) that will make not only following the story of Shin interesting but his comrades as well.

Enjoyment (9/10): I’ve smiled every time I’ve read and re-read the 15 chapters that are out as I am writing this, you could say I am obsessed with the Isekai genre, and series such as KnM always is enjoyable to read.

Overall (8/10): Even with all the amazing feats KnM has accomplished as a series, I feel like handing out a 10 is still too much for a series that only currently has 15 English chapters released, however, I am sure that if this manga were to be completed, a 9 or even a ranking of 10 would be plausible.

Thank you for reading my review, and definitely be sure to read KnM if you:
1. Enjoy Isekai
2. Enjoy lovey-dovey Romance
3. Enjoy Confident MC’s

Summary:
In the world where the taste and texture of food are very important, there is Toriko, a hunter of precious foods regularly hired by restaurants and the rich. He’s a man with the inhuman skills necessary to capture the ferocious, evasive, and rare animals to complete his ultimate dinner course! His current accomplice is a weak, timid person who was inspired by Toriko’s greatness and accompanies him on all his journeys on his quest for the course of his life.

Note: Was nominated for the 2nd Manga Taisho Award in 2009.

Author: Shimabukuro Mitsutoshi

I bet you’re wondering “how can a shounen about food be interesting?”. I thought the same thing until I read it, and honestly it completely blew my expectations away… at first. I’ll explain what I mean later

Pros:
– Unique concept and setting (Can you name another battle manga about food?)
– Godly world building. Seriously, it’s one of the best in manga
– Amazing art, with brutal action sequences
– The hype is over 9000!!

These are the only pros I can think of for Toriko unfortunately, because i felt this series had a lot more flaws.

Plot (3/10)
The story takes place in the Gourmet age, a world where people live and explore various delicious food to eat. Our main protagonist Toriko, and his partner Komatsu explore the world to find rare and exquisite ingredients, to accomplish Toriko’s dream of creating the best full course meal. Toriko’s the gourmet hunter who searches for the food and defeats any opponents that comes their way, meanwhile Komatsu’s the chef who prepares the food.

The plot is simple and repetitive e.g. Toriko and co. go on a quest to find a food-> Toriko arrives and has to fight some monster who doesn’t actually give af about the food-> villains shows up, Toriko fights them and wins-> Toriko gets a powerup from eating said food, then decides if he’ll put it on his full course. Rinse and repeat for 300+ chapters and you have Toriko.

[Warning spoilers]

Characters (4/10):
There’s a diverse, large cast of characters, but they lack basic characterization and meaningful character development. Our main characters, the four heavenly kings are just as bad in this aspect because they’re static and never really grow or change much throughout the course of the series.

Toriko is pretty much your typical shounen protagonist with nothing that really differentiates him to other shounen MCs. My problem with Toriko is he’s mindnumingly generic. Toriko will always do what’s right because of how righteous and kind hearted he is. He shares too many similarities to Goku e.g. Toriko loves fighting, he’s a glutton, he’s dumb but a genius at fighting and he even wears a knockoff gi outfit. Toriko is essentially Goku with blue hair.

Komatsu is our deuteragonist in the series, but we barely know much about his life. All we know is Komatsu is a weak coward who works as a chef in the famous Hotel Gourmet, that he went to chef school, he partners up with Toriko-san and goes on adventures with him and the rest of the heavenly kings.

That’s why the best written character is Midora because he’s one of the few characters who’s: fleshed out really well, has interesting abilities, a clearly defined personality and motivation, gets a proper character arc and good character development. The rest of the villains are poorly written and generic.

This brings me to my next point, the main cast become less interesting and sidelined as time went on. There’s blatant writer favouritism with Toriko who has 3 demons, yet they’re poorly explored. Before the timeskip, the 4 kings were around the same lvl, afterwards Toriko creates a large power gap and leaves them behind.

Komatsu becomes a gary sue chef e.g. any cooking competition, Komatsu’s able to prepare ingredients that would have taken 100+ yrs down to 30 mins. There’s no tension in his matches. He makes experienced chefs’ like Setsuna look like scrubs.

Enjoyment (5/10)
There’s a lot of nonsensical powerups our 4 heavenly kings receive that become forgotten after the arc they’re introduced. The calorie aspect of moves gets dropped too.

The timeskip was trash. The structure was atrocious e.g. the whole point of the timeskip got resolved during it- Komatsu got rescued. The 3 kings spent a year and couldn’t find air, yet Toriko comes back from training and finds it in less than 5 mins 🤦‍♂️

Everything goes downhill after the Pair arc. Sunny, Coco and Zebra’s journey for the main food that pertained to their dream got offscreened. That’s 3 wasted arcs. Zebra, Coco & Zebra Vs Joie got offscreened too.

There’s overused plot devices e.g. back channels, food luck. Food luck is the most nonsensical, broken ability I’ve seen in any shounen. It went from simple precognition to search for food, to characters spamming it in fights when food wasn’t even relevant. I broke down in laughter when it was revealed astral spirits was what was helping them.

Furthermore, there’s the convulted drama with Accia, the talk no jutsu turning NEO into a good ‘thing’. Many plot points were never resolved. There’s a poorly written, one sided relationship with Toriko & Rin (which made their wedding look like a joke) and missed potential with space.

Overall (4/10)
Overall, I enjoyed Toriko for what it is, which is a “fun, hype fuelled adventure story about food”. There’s not much manga where I’ve felt immersed in its world like Toriko. However, I won’t deny it went downhill after the time skip and became worse as it went on. Toriko turned into DBZ so bad with a ridiculous power escalation. It went from “Toriko and Co. are going to hunt this rare ingredient and make a dish that will make your reader’s mouth drool” to fighting some retarded Majin Buu like a blob that was going to destroy the planet because “he wants to eat it”.

Once you’ve gotten over the hype and start to analyse the story deeper, it isn’t that great. Toriko’s a mediocre shounen.