Toriko, Vol. 38

So a bit of time-skip occurs at the competition behind the human world chefs and the Blue Grill chefs. I guess in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that important, but it's kind of annoying to skip things like that without even a panel. As for the the rest of the volume, this is where we see the “secret” behind Blue Grill's “Eternity Kitchen” - just what it is they're trying to cook. I do like how the plot is unfolding, but I really dislike the use of “time” (or more specifically, “duration”) as the way to increase “difficulty”. It feels a bit lame to me. Because if it really takes such a ridiculous amount of time, how would you even “discover” the recipe in the first place? The whole “voice of the ingredients” was now kind of retconned into “voice of the food spirits” (cheating, basically, since it's literally someone else giving you the answers), so it means the very first individual to cook something had absolutely no one to give them any hint on cooking those ridiculous ingredients - it all just breaks down from there. Oh well, it's not bad, it's just not satisfying. Anyway, at the end of this volume, the cooking of Another is completed by Komatsu (as you'd expect by now), and one specific food spirit (and you should've guessed just who this individual is by now too).