One Piece Diaries #66: One Piece x Toriko Collaboration Special

One Piece is one of the most beloved anime in history, but at over 1,000 episodes, it’s tough for those who haven’t been watching from the start to jump on board. One Piece Diaries tracks one writer’s experience with this daunting rite of passage. With hype for the highs and critique for the lows, this column will help you decide whether to take your own One Piece journey – or let you relive the one you’re already on. It will be updated biweekly every other Thursday.

Episodes Watched: One Piece 492 + Toriko 1

After just a few episodes of the Post-Marineford arc, I ran into the One Piece x Toriko Collaboration Special.

This special, which consisted of the first episode of Toriko and the 492nd episode of One Piece, first aired in 2014. In it, the Straw Hats run out of food and decide to gather some on what turns out to be Hungry-La Island, a legendary island that’s home to animals who are quite literally made of food. The Caste Lion has castella cakes instead of a mane. The island itself also turns out to be made of food. Rivers are made of cream, parts of the ground at made from pudding, there’s a mythical fruit tree that combines the flavors of multiple fruits into one…the list goes on.

Aside from eating a lot of food and getting to know each other, the main storyline involves Nami and Toriko’s friend Komatsu being kidnapped by Cocoalas, aggressive koala-like creatures who grow cacao beans on their backs. Most of the episode from One Piece revolved around trying to rescue them.

It was a cute crossover that I would probably have appreciated more if I were familiar with Toriko–or interested in pursuing it further, which I’m not, for reasons having to do with the creator that I’ll talk about later.

I did like the magical food island, which was the Boin Archipelago without the fatphobia. It’s a fun idea with a lot of potential…but the Straw Hats weren’t acting like themselves.

First off, there’s Luffy. Yes, he absolutely would eat everything in sight and forget about his crewmates…for a while. But it looked like he left them on the boat without food for at least 24 hours. He might be single-minded when it comes to food but he’s not cruel. 

I’m also not sure why none of them went looking for the rest of the crew until Franky suggested it when they’d already been waiting for a full day–that’s too long to go without food and it’s too long not to start worrying that something had happened to the others on the unknown island.

The biggest problem, though, was Sanji. This island should have been heaven for him. His life’s dream, the reason he’s traveling with the Straw Hats to begin with, is to find the All Blue–a mythical ocean where fish from all over the world congregate. He ought to be over the moon to discover an island bursting with rare ingredients that surpass anything he ever knew existed. But he’s pretty blase about the whole thing. Yes, he does make a sauce out of a few ingredients he finds, but he isn’t particularly excited about it. Frankly, it seems unrealistic that he’d be willing to leave the island so quickly.

Obviously, he can’t stay because this is a crossover and he’s needed to continue the One Piece plot, but someone with his goals and personality would probably want to stay for at least a few months trying out recipes. He could have at least shown a desire to do so, even if there was some practical reason why he couldn’t.

Overall, the episodes themselves were okay. But I can’t close this out without talking about the creator of Toriko, Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. Shimabukuro is a personal friend of Oda’s which explains why they created this crossover together. On the surface, this is heartwarming – I love the idea of two creators merging their imaginary worlds. It’s especially heartwarming because the two are good friends in real life. But when you dig in a little further it becomes a bit disturbing.

In 2002, Shimabukuro was arrested for violating child prostitution laws. Specifically, he paid a 16-year-old 80,000 yen for sex. Though I can’t verify whether or not this is true, many have speculated that the reason that Shimabukuro was able to return to publishing manga in 2004 is that Oda personally vouched for him.

I don’t want to speculate too much about what Oda’s friendship with Shimabukuro means, or what Oda thought about his actions. I don’t want to judge anyone without knowing all the facts. But it’s not hard to believe that Oda did support him; in 2021, he expressed support for Nobuhiro Watsuki, the creator of Rurouni Kenshin and Oda’s former employer. Watsuki was arrested for possessing child porn.

I’m sure it’s not easy to disentangle yourself from people who are both personally and professionally important to you, or to accept that they’ve done something seriously wrong. But supporting two people who committed crimes that harm children is morally questionable, to say the least.

Sorry to end on such a downer note. Next up, I’ll finally be talking about the Post-Marineford arc, which may or may not be as depressing as what I just talked about, but at least (probably) won’t be real life.

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