A World Without Women:A Feminist Critique of a Shōnen Battle Manga
Timothy LewisCTSJ 210: Mother Goose to Myspace
Prof. ChristianakisFebruary 25, 2015
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A Note on Translations and Pagination:Toriko, like many shōnen manga, is subject to a process called “scanlation,”
whereby, the weekly texts from Japan are scanned and translated into English—usually ahead of their official release in Japan. This semi-legal process exists as a mechanism to overcome the publisher’s (in this case Shueisha Publishing Co., Ltd.) economic reticence to translate the text into a variety of languages, as well as a practice known as “region-locking”—which literally restricts a text from certain regions, usually because of difficult-to-navigate obscenity laws. The translations of Toriko used in this paper fall under the category of unofficial translations because the official texts are difficult to obtain mainly because there are large number of chapters that have not been translated, yet. Readers will note, then, that the translators credited in this essay are credited by their Internet personas, and not their real names. As such, there are various translators, particularly because the series has been running for almost eight years. These translations are reliable because the manga community is extremely large and self-regulating—it mostly operates through a series of Internet forums that are frequently moderated by long-standing members. As for the pagination, since the author of this paper does not have access to the official volumes of Toriko, the pagination will refer to the online pages, as noted in the url for each chapter.
The entire series of Toriko can be found at this link (for Chapter 1, onwards); it is updated weekly:http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
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Toriko is a shōnen battle-style manga by Shimabukuro Mitsutoshi that has been in
serialization since 2008 in the leading provider of shōnen stories, Weekly Shōnen Jump;
the series is currently on Chapter 317 (released officially, Monday, February 23rd, 2015).
The still-continuing story revolves around the titular hero and his chef-combo-partner
Komatsu’s adventures in a world that is in The Gourmet Age; that is to say, everything in
the world of Toriko—from the architecture to the celebrities—is dependent on humanity’s
relationship with food and cooking. Ironically, in this world of abundance and seemingly
infinite resources, there is an almost absolute lack of individuals who could be described
as female characters. This will be the point of departure of this paper: In Toriko , there are
no female characters because any individual in the story who meets the standards for
“female” fails to meet the standards for having character—since the women in
positive/heroic positions do not self-actualize in any moment in the text—through the
examples of three women in the text: Rin, the beast tamer; Setsuno, the Human National
Treasure; and Melk the Second, the kitchen-knife craftsmaker.
Before an analysis can go any further, it is important to have a contextualized
understanding of shōnen as a genre, as well as the audience for this style of text. Shōnen
manga is a type of graphic novel that is typically is offered as a literary encounter for
elementary-age to fifteen-year-old Japanese boys; some would liken it to American pulp
fiction. The common characteristics of shōnen manga involve a male protagonist
pursuing their manifest destiny across a vast, dangerous world with their various
compatriots—this is not a genre that operates well when its characters are flat. Shōnen
manga are often also characterized by a cast of zany/quirky characters who introduce
readers to a variety of new ideas and possible worldviews, for example, in Toriko, readers
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are presented with three different ontological models in the protagonist, Toriko’s (non-
nuclear) family: his three adopted brothers (Coco, Sani, and Zebra) approach food (and
therefore, the world) from the starting point of luck, beauty, and violence, respectively.
Unlike some manga in the shōnen genre like Yu-gi-oh or Detective Conan/Case Closed,
Toriko is a battle manga, which necessitates a level of violence that is uncommon in most
Western elementary school texts; in battle manga, people get hurt, bleed, and die. This
closeness to death and violence separates shōnen battle manga from traditional
elementary school texts in a way that allows it to capture the attention of readers through
sensationalized acts of violence—in fact, that is the selling point for Toriko. With a better
understanding of the genre, it is now possible to engage the text in a way that
contextualizes its position towards its readers, as well as its literary purpose.
In Toriko, men are willed into being. There are no women who are demonstrably
mothers—and the only woman who has had a child, Chiyo of Shokurin Temple, lost the
child and turned to an evil organization (the Bishokakai, or Gourmet Corporation) to find
a phantasmal food that is rumored to be able to return the dead to life. Keeping in mind
that Toriko is published weekly, readers would be surprised upon realizing that not a
single woman or female form appears in Toriko until the second to last page of Chapter 7
(Shimabukuro, 2008, 1-20); this is particularly relevant when the practice of selling
mastered versions of the text is concerned, since in the 203-pages of the first volume
(which contains Chapters 1-7), or collection of chapters for public consumption outside
the serialized magazine Shōnen Jump, female bodies appear in one panel on page 202.
These individuals are random, silent (they do not even have an attributable sound effect,
which is another trope in shōnen manga), and looking for their future husbands; they rely
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on Toriko’s brother, Coco, to tell their fortunes and help them find the man of their
dreams (Shimabukuro, 2008, 18). In the wake of this, readers continue to only
experience women as important only in their relationship to men—in fact, the first words
said by a female form in Toriko are “Kyaa, Coco-sama <3!” (Shimabukuro, 2008, 3)
These women exist as pure love-objects, this permeates their being down to their
discourse being punctuated with hearts. There are no women leaders in the world
government, the main antagonistic organization in the series, the eight king beasts of the
world, or in the official arbiters of taste, the G7—women do not have a stake in the world
of Toriko; the Gourmet Age is not for them.
It is not until Chapter 22 (Shimabukuro, 2009, 8) that a female individual
becomes relevant to the plot of the story—that is to say, it is not until almost half a year
into serialization that a woman has a role in Toriko that transcends the role of the
background. Rin is a member of the International Gourmet Organization (IGO; the world
government in the Toriko universe); she works as a wild beast manager in the Gourmet
Coliseum (a place where the leaders of various countries watch and gamble on animals
killing each other) where she was in-charge of stimulating and relaxing the animals with
a variety of hormones, pheromones, and other perfumes. Her power and abilities as a
fighter are not dependent on her physical capabilities, but instead, on the vigor of the
perfumes that she manipulates. Rin, for no stated reason, is absolutely infatuated with
Toriko to a point where it can be said that her very existence is tied to her relationship
with Toriko—this is even taken to an extreme biological level, when she, dying from a
massive abdominal wound, is able to be revived from a kiss from Toriko because her
cells react favorably to contact with his flesh/essence.
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Rin has an opportunity to transcend this locked ontology in her relationship with
her boss, Mansam (an ineffectual, vulnerable, and balding man who constantly asks
people if they addressed him as “handsome”); Rin does not listen to Mansam when he
instructs her to relax the beasts during one of the battles in the Gourmet Coliseum. Rin
tells Mansam to “shut-up” and calls him “baldy” because she is preparing her make-up
for Toriko (Shimabukuro, 2009, 1-20); naturally, for failing to listen to the “good advice”
of men, she is punished in the eyes of the reader by being presented as a bad woman-
worker who puts others in danger because she cannot control her female emotions. The
entire Coliseum has to be evacuated because instead of wordlessly obeying her boss, she
chose to “… think, act, initiate, confront, resist, challenge, feel, care, or question.”
(Dworkin, 1974, p. 42) Rin continues this trajectory as Toriko’s inactivated love object
throughout the series, for example: in Chapter 29, Rin goes into an emotional frenzy
because Toriko said her name (Shimabukuro, 2009, 1-20); in Chapter 30, Rin chastises
her biological brother Sani for touching Toriko (Shimabukuro, 2009, 1-20); in Chapter
38, Rin, watching Toriko massage his pet wolf Terry Cloth, wishes to herself that she
could be like the animal, so that Toriko would rub his hands (and therefore, actualize) on
her body (Shimabukuro, 2009, 1-20). This continued and shallow love routine continues
until Chapter 266 when Toriko non-chalantly agrees to Rin’s random marriage proposal
(Shimabukuro, 2014, 1-18); Rin then takes on the position of a bride-to-be, which
continues the negation of her identity as an individual woman.
Rin does not meet the standard for a female character because she does not self-
actualize at any point in the manga; purely her relation to a world of men defines her.
This is even more true when one considers the fact that the author never allows her to
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succeed in battle or in her job: in Chapter 23, instead of managing the perfumes, she does
her make-up to impress Toriko (Shimabukuro, 2009, 1-20); in Chapter 30, the first
conversation that her beauty obsessed brother has with her is about how she is fat and
undesirable (Shimabukuro, 2009, 1-20), in Chapter 38, Rin is helping Toriko fight an
enemy creature, but instead of weakening it, she only makes it angry (Shimabukuro,
2009, 1-20); finally, when faced with a battle with one of the strongest people in the
world, the evil Starjun, her attack completely misses and Starjun gores her through the
abdomen—effectively eliminating her as a sexual subject (Shimabukuro, 2009, 1-20).
Particularly in the moment where Rin faces Starjun does she go through the patriarchal
motions for women in children’s texts because “First they are objects of malice [Rin’s
goring], then they are objects of romantic adoration [being saved by Toriko’s love].”
(Dworkin, 1974, p. 42)
There are a handful of other women in Toriko; however, none are as prominent as
Setsuno, the Human National Treasure. Setsuno is one of the four people in the world of
Toriko whose very existence is fundamental to the world: she is considered the greatest
living chef. However, in only being defined by her work, Setsuno also does not exist as a
“character;” she guides Toriko and his chef-partner Komatsu to rare ingredients and
powerful people, but she never expresses her hopes and dreams, or meets any of the other
standards for character in Dworkin’s perspective. Setsuno is positioned as a mentor/fairy
to Toriko and Komatsu, since “She is beautiful, good, and unearthly. Mostly, she
disappears.” (Dworkin, 1974, p. 42) Like Rin, the only time that Setsuno expresses desire
or ambition is when she thinks about her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Jirou (one of the
three strongest individuals in the Toriko world) (Shimabukuro, 2010, 1-20); also like Rin,
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she is presented as a helpless in a fight when she was a young woman (Shimabukuro,
2010, 1-20). Setsuno is later presented as a capable fighter, who can manipulate the air
pressure around her; however, her main battle is with another woman (Chiyo) who is
jealous of Setsuno’s title (Shimabukuro, 2013, 1-20). This is not a battle between rivals in
a field, but instead, between images of women as petty and fragile objects of division.
Later, too, Setsuno takes the lead against one of the series’ final villains, Joa;
however, Joa is so strong that Setsuno must rely on Jirou to save her from the only
potentially self-actualized woman: the villain, Joa. There would be more to discuss about
Joa; however, since Joa is an end-of-series villain, all of her motivations, aspirations,
thoughts, and beliefs have not yet been revealed to readers; although it is interesting to
see how well Joa fits into the category of the “bad woman” from Dworkin’s piece, since
she prepares a human man’s head as the main course for a meal at the conclusion of one
of her battles (Shimabukuro, 2013, 1-20)—“She, the evil persona, is a cannibal. … She is
devouring and the male must not be devoured.” (Dworkin, 1974, p. 48) There would be
more to say about Setsuno, if her past had been presented to the reader; unfortunately,
Setsuno was seemingly willed into existence from thin-air as a “limiter” on the powerful
Jirou (Shimabukuro, 2014, 1-20).
Finally, Toriko offers readers Melk the Second as a potential female character; the
daughter of the great knife-sharpener, Melk. Melk the Second is from her name to her
actualization, a male object. After Komatsu’s kitchen knife (equated to the soul, the
phallus) breaks, he and Toriko seek-out the legendary smithy Melk. When they arrive at
Melk’s residence, Toriko challenges the authenticity of Melk the Second (who is calling
herself Melk the first) and meets her with violence (Shimabukuro, 2011, 1-21). The bad
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woman is destroyed and the good woman, “… a victim” (Dworkin, 1974, p. 48) is born.
Melk the Second spends most of her time in the presence of Komatsu—a weak and
frightened character meant to display the reader’s psyche as it confronts the
ridiculousness of the Toriko world. Komatsu, even in his state of total anti-masculinity,
still manages to position and understand Melk the Second as a woman-victim, uttering
lines like, “Things like you being a woman…don’t matter do they?” (Shimabukuro, 2011,
1-20) or (after her actualization as a patriarchal object) “… she doesn’t need to behave
like a man anymore … she could just act normally like a girl now…” (Shimabukuro,
2011, 1-20). Even after creating a knife that can split mountains for Komatsu, Melk the
Second is restricted to a female body dependent on male approval and existence—the
message she carves into the knife, her mark as an artisan, exists as a “…symbol of her
deep thanks and respect towards Komatsu.” (Shimabukuro, 2011, 1-20) After the ten
chapters or so that Toriko and Komatsu spend with Melk the Second, she disappears for
the remainder of the series—only to show-up as a fan/supporter of Komatsu and Toriko
on rare occasion.
There are two women in Toriko with smaller roles (in terms of allotted page time)
who also fill the role of a non-self actualized woman: the Warden of Honey Prison, Love;
and the God of Chefs, Frohze. Love very much parallels Rin in her powers, personality,
and position as a female object in a male world: she has masterful control over her
pheromones, which allow her to subjugate men with a pseudo-erotic image; she is
combative towards most men, particularly her boss (the President of the IGO); and she is
in subject-shattering love with Zebra, the human manifestation of the God of Death. Love
is in every way possible enraptured by her demise; a demise that scorns her and infuriates
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her. Additionally, there is the God of Chefs, Frohze; Frohze is the only other mother in
the series besides Chiyo. Frohze is positioned as a resource to the God of the Toriko
world—but, she is only as good as the food that she can cook. Like all of the good
women in fairy tales, Frohze dies helping her adopted son with his battle wounds “—…
the only good woman is a dead woman.” (Dworkin, 1974, p. 41)
In this story without female characters, all that remains are the values of the
masculine gourmand and the non-stop replication of brutal violence. Absent women, that
is all that can remain is an endlessly shallow consumptive force. The world of Toriko is
one of many kings: there are the Four Heavenly Kings (Toriko and his brothers), the
Eight King Species (the strongest animals in the world) and the kings of various, warring
countries. In the world with no queens, there is only bloodshed and materialism—in this
way, Toriko functions as a cautionary tale: a fairy tale with a moral. The moral of the
story: masculine desires or perspectives should not define a woman’s character; rather
than continuing to exist under the thumb of disciplinary power, women should be free to
self-actualize. Only then, with an idea of the Self that is disconnected from masculinist
truths, can the world begin to move again.
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References
Dworkin, A. (1974). Woman Hating. New York, NY: Penguin Group
Mitsutoshi, S. (2008) Chapter 7: At Hotel Gourmet!! In Toriko (Caeserpk, Trans.) (pp. 1-
20). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2008) Chapter 9: The Days of the Four Heavenly Kings!! In Toriko
(Caeserpk, Trans.) (pp. 1-17). Retrieved from
http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2009) Chapter 22: Battle Wolf!! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp. 1-17).
Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2009) Chapter 23: Welcome!! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp. 1-19).
Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2009) Chapter 29: Meal In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp. 1-19).
Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2009) Chapter 30: Sunny! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp. 1-18).
Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2009) Chapter 38: Devil Athletics In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp. 1-
19). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2009) Chapter 48: The Worst Encounter!! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.)
(pp. 1-19). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2010) Chapter 65: Gourmet Living National Treasure Setsuno!!In Toriko
(Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp. 1-15). Retrieved from
http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
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Mitsutoshi, S. (2010) Chapter 97: Miracle Answer!! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp. 1-
20). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2011) Chapter 117: The Secret of the Stardust!! In Toriko (Kewl0210,
Trans.) (pp. 1-21). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2011) Chapter 122: The "Real" Melk!! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp.
1-20). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2011) Chapter 124: Knife Complete!! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.) (pp.
1-20). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2013) Chapter 208: Trying the Four Beasts!! In Toriko (Kewl0210,
Trans.) (pp. 1-19). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2013) Chapter 222: A Catastrophic Joker Card!! In Toriko (Kewl0210,
Trans.) (pp. 1-17). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2014) Chapter 252: Acacia's Fairy Tales!! In Toriko (Kewl0210, Trans.)
(pp. 1-20). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
Mitsutoshi, S. (2014) Chapter 266: The Final Treasure Chest!! In Toriko (Kewl0210,
Trans.) (pp. 1-18). Retrieved from http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/toriko-r107
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