Pretty much agree with everything Choperman said. I felt like once Soma came into Jump, Toriko stopped trying with the food, though it might have even happened earlier than Soma's arrival. The tempura and Melk flakes were probably the last ingredients that actually piqued my interest. Sure, the meteor garlic was funny, but otherwise…
That said, other than the actual description of the AIR ingredient, overall I rather liked the arc and the Gourmet World so far. Is it as explored as I would like? No, but the glimpses and the craziness as is satisfies me, as well as the crew's handling of it, well before the inner demon massive upgrade.
And despite the possible misstep in power levels, once Shima actually spends time on a fight, it tends to be interesting. Even with the curbstomp and the Blue demon power-up, the 8 King battle was enjoyable.
The NEO sneak attack just seemed like a big misstep, and Choperman covered a lot of the reasons why I don't care about any of the villains at the moment. I know there's a few out there excited for the Blue Nitro, but I'm not. The mystery isn't that intriguing personally, and having the "big bad" all be the same race with similar body structures seems like a big mistake given Shima's really good with unique, interesting designs. Barely care about Neo too. Teppei is the only big connection with resonance, and Shima already showed the card early and revealed the rest seems to barely matter.
