Literature / Otherside Picnic

Toriko (left) and Sorawo (right)

It was the third time that Sorawo Kamikoshi crossed the door she found into the mysterious, unearthly place she dubbed the "Otherside," and the first time she planned to explore beyond just the immediate surroundings. One encounter with an eldritch creature later, and she's facing the humiliating prospect of drowning in a few centimeters of water... until a woman appears. Toriko Nishina is outrageously beautiful, seemingly fearless, and, frankly, a bit of an oddball, but she's able to save Sorawo, both from her "lie-down bath of death" and from an unknowable creature straight out of an urban legend. After a little bit of persuasion (and a promise of cash for her trouble), Sorawo agrees to accompany Toriko on her artifact-hunting expeditions in the Otherside. However, cash isn't actually Toriko's primary motivation: it seems that she's trying to find her friend and mentor who's missing in the Otherside...

Otherside Picnic (裏世界ピクニック, Urasekai Picnic) is a Japanese Light Novel series written by Iori Miyazawa and illustrated by Shirakaba which can be best described as the Spiritual Antithesis of Roadside Picnic^note Which is the original inspiration for this series, if you couldn't tell from the title, crossing with Japanese Internet Urban Legends and Creepypasta, with a side dash of Yuri. The series began publication in 2017 under the Hayakawa Bunko JA imprint.

The English translation of the novels is licensed by J-Novel Club. The novels also have a manga adaptation illustrated by Eita Mizuno (previously the illustrator of Spiral) which began serialization in Monthly Shonen Gangan in 2018; it was later published by Square Enix Manga and Books in English in May 2021. An anime was announced for Winter 2021 as animated by Liden Films, with Funimation picking it up for English distribution. It began airing on January 4th, 2021.

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This work provides examples of:

• Actor Allusion: Episode 3 might remind viewers of that other time Ai Kayano voiced a blonde saying "death."
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: The episodes of the anime take place in a different order from the light novel, resulting in Sorawo and Toriko using Hasshaku-sama's hat to get to the Otherside when it had been destroyed in a previous episode.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the manga, Abarato had unkept, scraggly hair, a ragged looking cloak, and overall looked very haggard.◊ In the anime, while his hair was still long and scruffy, it looked much more well-kept and his overall appearance was much neater◊ (the fact that he now also had glasses might have added to this impression). Fans joked about Abarato "becoming hot" to the point that Eita Mizuko jokingly apologized on Twitter for focusing on the "unclean" aspect of his character.
• Adaptational Super Power Change: A minor example. In the novels, Sorawo wears a contact to hide her Magic Eye, though it hinders its effectiveness, so she does remove it from time to time. In the anime, it seems to be a power she can turn on or off, shifting eye color with it. It may be an animation error as Sorawo mentions that she does wear a colour contact in the anime.
• Affably Evil: Runa Urimi is affable, even telling Sorawo that once she's made contact with Satsuki, she'll let all of her cult members go. And when she discovers that her men grabbed Sorawo by mistake, when they were meant to grab Toriko, she doesn't pull a You Have Failed Me, instead simply reassuring him with a "What's done is done." In fact, this actually has a downside, as one member of the cult plans to shoot Sorawo in the head out of jealousy, believing that with a convincing enough explanation, Runa will forgive him.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Runa Urimi is a bit full of herself, but she's Affably Evil, and she had no goal beyond wanting to meet Satsuki Urima. For her trouble, she's forced to watch as Satsuki, or something bearing her appearance, murders her mother, and then her jaw is dislocated by the woman she believed was a "God".
• Alien Geometries: The general location of things in the Otherside is relatively static and thus mappable, but the phenomena in those locations can be subjected to this trope. One example is the copy of Nippori. Sorawo notes that it shouldn't be large, but no matter how much she walks through it, it never ends, until she finally rescues Toriko, and the place disappears.
• And I Must Scream: Downplayed: In Chapter 4 of Volume 1, Sorawo and Kozakura become stuck in the Otherside at night. Sorawo elects to keep Kozakura safe by using her right eye to shift perspective and turn Kozakura into a tree while she goes ahead to rescue Toriko from the Doppleganger phenomena. While this does physically keep Kozakura safe, the various voices she hears, the fact that she can't move while being conscious, and various other factors scarred her quite badly before Sorawo and Toriko came back to turn her back to human. The ordeal leaves Kozakura with a fear of dark places, and she demands a good yakiniku meal from the two as compensation.
• Artifact Collection Agency: DS Labs is a medical company that has been researching the Otherside and gathering artifacts from that world in order to cure members who were mutated due to overexposure to the Otherside. Kozakura is one of their researchers (and thus the source of money she used to buy artifacts from Toriko) while Satsuki is a guest researcher there, though not an employee.
• Ax-Crazy: When Sorawo uses her Magic Eye on Akari the latter goes completely berserk all the while sporting a Slasher Smile and cackling madly. One wonders if she hasn't a few screws loose.
• Beach Episode: In Chapter 2 of Volume 2 the girls hit the beach when, upon successfully pulling off the rescue of the US Marines stuck in the Otherside, their exit spits them out in Okinawa. Then they once again get sucked into the Otherside, getting deposited at a strange beach, where the two continue their vacation.
• Big Damn Heroes: Toriko and Migawa show up just in time to keep a cultist from shooting Sorawo in the head.
• Big Damn Kiss: At the end of Vol.4, having had a close call, Sorawo asks Toriko to slap her to help her avoid Sanity Slippage. Toriko opts to kiss her instead. Sorawo even notes that she slipped her her tongue.
• Black Speech: It's heavily implied that this is what happens when Sorawo tries reading Satsuki's research notes out loud.
• Bland-Name Product: Averted. All the various sites, brands, or works reference like 2ch, Twitter, YouTube, NicoNico Douga, Dean & DeLuca, and The Hurt Locker are mentioned as-is.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: At one point, nearing a Despair Event Horizon Toriko suggests to Sorawo that this is in play, that the denizens of Otherside are so alien to us that fear is the only emotion we have in common with them, and therefore the only inroad they have for attempting communication, that their terrorizing people may well be lacking in malignant intention.
• Blush Sticker: In the anime post-credits scenes, Toriko and Sorawo sport these after a few drinks.
• Body Horror: Sorawo and Toriko are lucky that the changes they received from the contact with the Otherside are nothing too bad. DS Labs' initial expedition crews are not so lucky, and some suffer quite badly from this.
• Brown Note Being: Anyone who looks directly at the Kunekune will eventually go mad, a characteristic brought over from the original Creepypasta. The thing is, the only way to defeat the Kunekune involves "recognizing" it, meaning Sorawo has to stare at it directly for an extended period of time. Doing so makes Sorawo start sputtering gibberish as she nearly loses her mind.
• Cat Ninja: Akari goes to Sorawo because some of these are after her.
• Claimed by the Supernatural:
  • After the first successful hunt of the kunekune, both Sorawo and Toriko are marked due to contact with the kunekune. Namely, Sorawo's right eye was changed from brown to lapis lazuli blue, and the fingers of Toriko's left hand (later the whole of her left hand) become transparent. This also gives them some extra abilities to affect the phenomena via the changed body parts.
  • Volume 2 reveals that the two actually got very lucky, given that some others suffer full blown Body Horror from contact.
  • The antagonist of Volume 3, Runa Urumi, is revealed to have received the gift of Compelling Voice.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Justified: One hypothesis by Kozakura is that the reason why various phenomena are based on Japanese Creepypasta is that the world and its inhabitants created those phenomena using information from humans that entered the Otherside.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Natsumi is very protective of Akari. When she mistakenly believes that Toriko is the "Sorawo" that Akira is always going on about, she's momentarily worried, because as beautiful as Toriko is, Natsumi figured she didn't have a chance. And when Sorawo has to spend the night at Akari's because of Otherside issues with her apartment complex, Natsumi rushes over to spend the night and spends the whole time shooting dirty looks at Sorawo.
  • Toriko is a downplayed example. During the "Pandora in the Next Room" incident, she is upset to hear that Sorawo spent the night with Akari, and actually finds Sorawo in bed with Kozakura. She spends the subsequent train ride giving Sorawo the cold shoulder.
• Clingy Sleepers: In one instance, Sorawo, Toriko, Kazakura, Akari, and Natsume all have a party at a Love Hotel together. After some supernatural intervention from Otherside, the five of them wake up to find themselves all naked and intertwined, and with Sorawo having no memory of what took place. They all agree to just write it off as something weird that happened and not bring it up ever again.
• Comically Missing the Point: With regards to "self-responsibility" stories that are claimed to cause bizarre events to happen to those that read them, Sorawo says that she's read all of them and nothing weird ever happened to her. She tells that to the researcher of the other world she entered and to her monster-fighting partner in said other world (you know, the one with the see-through hand) while looking at them with both of her eyes. You know, the left one and the right one that's an unearthly blue color and that can be used to drive people insane. Good thing nothing weird ever happened to her.
• Compelling Voice: Runa Urumi, the cult leader obsessed with Satsuki Uruma, has this ability and uses it to gather and brainwash loyal cultists. She also uses it to interrogate Kozakura and forcibly put Sorawo to sleep. When Sorawo views it with her Magical Eye, it manifests as some kind of tentacle that attaches to the target, which Toriko can remove to destroy the voice's hold on the victim.
• Creepypasta: The various phenomena in the Otherside are based on Japanese Creepypasta.
• Cute Monster Girl: In Episode 2 the girls encounter "Lady Hasshaku," a figure from an urban legend who, despite being inhumanly tall, is otherwise a normal-looking woman with long, flowing black hair. At least, she's "normal-looking" until you get a good look at her face...
• Dark and Troubled Past: In Sorawo's case, her mother died when she was young, and her father and grandfather got involved in cult activities. She ran away since she doesn't want to get involved, but ends up suffering from nearly getting kidnapped by rival cult and a manga cafe she stayed in burned down. Running out of money and food, one night she dreamed of something in the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane entry, and upon waking up, due to her resource running out, she's forced to go back home. She's prepared to take out her family and the cult by burning them down, but no one came home until the police arrived at her home a few days later saying they all died due to gas accumulation in their mountain retreat. Also, since her family gave most of their money to charity, she doesn't have much in terms of inheritance or funds, other than the student loan she managed to secure for university, which is why she agrees to work with Toriko, since the money from selling artifacts would help her financially.
• Decomposite Character: Redrick Schuhart from Roadside Picnic decomposes many of his signature traits (being choleric and adventurous), at the very least due to Otherside Picnic being inspired heavily by it. Both Sorawo and Toriko inherit his adventurous nature and Kozakura inherit his choleric temper. And the stereotypical "stalker" character archetype goes to Abarato instead.
• Degraded Boss: Sorawo lampshades this trope when she and Kozakura face off with four kunekunes, ask if they're trying to swarm her now that she has defeated them before.
• Devastating Remark: When Sorawo says she doesn't want to return to Otherside because of the inherent danger, Toriko, still desperate to find and rescue the missing Satsuki, is left devastated and wanders into Otherside on her own. This causes Sorawo to realize that she'd hurt Toriko and go in on a rescue.
• Dissonant Serenity: The US Marines trapped in the Otherside sent out two expedition platoons along Kisaragi Station's railroad line trying to find a way back. Only one person came back, pleasantly strolling, humming, all the while carving his own face with a Ka-Bar.
• Eagle Land: Mostly type 1. The U.S. Marines are at wits' end, stressed to the breaking point, and about to snap. But the commanding officers are Reasonable Authority Figures and when Toriko and Sorawo return to rescue them, everyone is overjoyed to see The Girls .
• Eating the Eye Candy: Sorawo describes Toriko as extraordinarily beautiful, and gets lost in thought over her looks several times in the novels.
• Expospeak Gag: Kozakura explains why she doesn't like doing field work in the Otherside as: fear tolerance is a physiological issue, namely the length of activation sequence of serotonin transporter gene: the longer they are, the more serotonin is produced, thus the less the fear signal will affect amygdala. She has short serotonin transporter gene, or: she's a scaredy-cat.
• Expy: Kozakura is a female L. Lawliet and possibly just as much of a loony Hikikomori. She is eccentric, has odd mannerisms, has a penchant for going barefoot, a long Messy Hair, even a similar crouch position when she sits on chairs.
• Everyone Can See It: "Everyone" being Kozakura, the only character the main duo had interacted with at that point, but she immediately calls out Sorawo and Toriko for their "Lover's quarrel". Interestingly enough, in Vol. 5, Kozakura doesn't seem to think that they would be in a relationship, instead thinking that they are just close friends. This could be because she calls them lovebirds to taunt them in a friendly way.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Runa Urumi worships Satsuki as god and wishes to summon her to Japan and meet her, which she eventually partially managed by summoning and meeting her in the Otherside (since the instruction required to do so can't be understood on Earth without Sorawo, and Sorawo won't cooperate). The end result, however, is getting her mother killed for her trouble.
• Eye Scream:
  • During their kunekune hunt, Sorawo and Toriko find the corpse of a man who plunged his hands into his eyes, destroying them. Kozakura speculates that this is because the man realized that the mental assault by the kunekune occurs by sight. Given his death, this ultimately doesn't save him.
  • In Volume 3 this is also the fate of Runa's mother: "Satsuki" drives both her thumbs into her eye sockets, holding them there until she dies.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Sorawo is surprised that Toriko immediately starts using her first name upon learning it. It's not explicitly stated, but this may be because Toriko grew up in Canada.
  • Similarly, Kozakura calls Toriko by her first name. Kozakura's other name is not revealed, but since "Kozakura" is likely a surname, Toriko doesn't seem to reciprocate it.
• Foil: Satsuki and Sorawo for each other. Both are bespectacled, have black hair, are aware of Otherside, and are recipients of Toriko's affection. When Sorawo suggests mapping Otherside, we're told Satsuki did so as well. Satsuki was said to have blue eyes, while Sorawo has one blue eye. Toriko said Satsuki was good at evading danger in Otherside, an ability Sorawo's Magic Eye also gives her. But while Satsuki was said to be a charmer who could make people do what she wanted, Sorawo is socially awkward and, as Toriko points out at least once, in need of serious people skills.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: On a couple of occasions, Toriko has to slap Sorawo to break her out of a trance state. Sorawo jokes at one point that Toriko is well on her way to becoming a domestic abuser(which hurts Toriko's feelings) When Sorawo requests a slap later to avoid Sanity Slippage, Toriko opts to deliver a Big Damn Kiss instead.
• Giant Woman: On their second trip together to the Otherside Sorawo and Toriko encounter "Hasshaku-sama" from the urban legend of the same name, and fittingly ("hasshaku" means "eight shaku," "shaku" being a somewhat obscure unit of measurement close to one foot) is a inhumanly tall woman. With her long flowing black hair and white dress, she looks like she could pass for a Cute Monster Girl until one gets a good look at her face.
• Ghost Train: The train that pass through Kisaragi Station are locked trains with ape-like creatures that brutally kill unresponsive, uncaring passengers. The US Marines taking refugee at the station in the Otherside pray that the train never stops at their station. In Volume 2, the Marines reveal what happened when the train DID stop (due to a soldier failing to stop Sorawo and Toriko from escaping finally snapping and blowing up the rail): the ape-things killed a number of soldiers before being repelled.
• Gratuitous English: In the anime, the US soldiers switch between speaking English and Japanese on a regular basis, and their English consists of such gems as walking up to Toriko and Sorawo and saying "Hey, the girls!"
• Hellevator: One of the Otherside entrances that Toriko discovered is via a specific floor combination of a particular elevator. The floors that they visit in between aren't normal floors (later revealed as being in interstitial space), and some contains monstrous beings. In a filler episode, an elevator in a different building takes them to a fiery landscape implied to be Hell, with a single human figure in the distance identified as Satsuki Uruma.
• Hollywood Tactics: The American military unit attempts to deal with an Otherside being that's moving fast and erratically by firing mortars at it. Unsurprisingly, it's completely ineffective. Possibly justified given that the they had limited weapons to choose from and were under heavy psychological trauma from having been trapped in the Otherside for so long.
• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Interstitial space is a space between the normal world and the Otherside that, depending on the entrance used, the user will pass through for some time before arriving at their destination, and it can be a pretty unpleasant place. The abnormal floors in the elevator Sorawo and Toriko used to cross over are an example. Another time, the two ended up being sent there while dealing with the Ninja Cats.
• Improbably Female Cast: Almost every named character is a woman, with the notable exception of their contact at DS Labs.
• Indignant Slap: Zigzagged. Toriko has a habit of striking Sorawo whenever the madness of the Otherside is threatening to overwhelm her, typically a case of Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!. However, when Sorawo makes an offhand remark that Toriko is turning into a domestic abuser, Toriko is clearly hurt by the remark and tries to refrain from doing so later, offering a Big Damn Kiss instead. However, when Sorawo is suffering a case of Laser-Guided Amnesia, and can't remember Toriko, Otherside, Kozakura, Migawa, or UBL, Toriko slaps her in front of everyone. Kozakura and Migawa assume it is because Toriko is upset that Sorawo forgot her, making it an Indignant Slap, especially due to their recent Relationship Upgrade, while a still amensiac Sorawo thinks Toriko is flying off the handle. Toriko herself claims it was Percussive Maintenance, and that it had worked in the past. Toriko ends up having to use her invisible hand and insert a finger into Sorawo's MagicEye to restore her memory.
• Informed Attractiveness: Sorawo really, really, really thinks Toriko is pretty. The novel dedicates a lot of time to Sorawo's inner thoughts about Toriko's looks.Later, when Natsumi mistakes Toriko for Sorawo, she gets really worried, because Akari had been talking up how awesome Sorawo was, and when she thought that the stunning beauty Toriko was Sorawo, she was afraid she didn't have a chance with her childhood friend, now.
• I've Heard of That — What Is It?: In the final segment of vol. 4, the girls find themselves at a Love Hotel in Otherside. Sorawo suggests that it's a "Love Hotel Girl's Party" when they spend the night. Toriko tells Sorawo that she's wrong, and that she doesn't know what a "Love Hotel Girl's Party" is. Sorawo correctly points out that Toriko has never been to one, either, and doesn't know herself.
• Japanese Honorifics:
  • Toriko surprises Sorawo by addressing her by her first name without honorifics even though they've just met. The two use first names without honorifics, but will occasionally use "-san" on the other.
  • Satsuki's worshippers, such as Runa Urumi, call her "Satsuki-sama." Runa's followers all call her "Luna-sama," and this includes her mother, who would otherwise use yobisute on her daughter.
• The Lonely Door: The access points to the Otherside are free-standing gates, such as the door Sorawo found initially or the shrine gate in Chichibu.
• Lonely Together: This is basically what brings Sorawo and Toriko together: in looking for a place of solitude in the Otherside, Sorawo encounters Toriko, who wants to find her only friend Satsuki. As time goes by, the two slowly forget their original goals to focus on making a place for themselves together in the Otherside.
• Love Confession: Volume eight starts with Toriko giving one to Sorawo, who is unsure how to respond. Toriko gives her one week to decide how she feels about her.
• Mark of the Supernatural: Sorawo's and Toriko's encounter with the kunekune leaves their bodies permanently altered. After Sorawo looks at the kunekune long enough to perceive its true form (and almost loses her mind in the process), her right eye turns a vivid shade of blue and gains the ability to perceive the true form of all Otherside phenomenon. Toriko, who pulled off the strange growths that appeared on Sorawo's face, ends up having her left hand gradually turn completely transparent, gaining the ability to physically interact with Otherside phenomenon. Combining their abilities gives them a fighting chance against all the strange threats from the Otherside.
  • In reference to J. Allen Hynek's three-point scale of encounters with extraterrestrials, Kozakura uses the term "fourth kind" to describe incidents like the above that involve a physical alteration of the observer's body.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Sorawo's dream of a red person embracing her and asking if she needs her current family might or might not directly led to the deaths of her father, grandfather, and the cult due to gas accumulation in their mountain retreat.
• Mind Rape: Phenomena that interface with human brains tends to cause this in anyone unfortunate enough to witness them.
• Missing Reflection: The mirror cube Toriko obtains from defeating the kunekune turns out to reflect everything like a normal mirror except humans. Toriko jokingly suggests that the cube works like this because Sorawo, who perceived the kunekune and allowed Toriko to kill it, is a misanthrope. Sorawo isn't amused.
• Muggles Do It Better: DS Labs' original method of accessing the Otherside (or UltraBlue Landscape as they called it) initially involves things like yoga, meditation, and more esoteric occult methods until Satsuki showed up and showed them that finding a portal in the real world is much more practical.
• Nice Day, Deadly Night: Satsuki explicitly warns Toriko and Kozakura not to go into the Otherside at night due to dangers involved. Then Sorawo and Toriko end up stranded in the Otherside at nighttime without their usual armaments...
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: When under the effects of Sorawo's eye in "Sannuki-san and Karateka-san," Akari is able to defeat Sannukikano simply by beating the ever-loving tar out of her. Even though she's saving them all, Sorawo, Toriko, and Natsumi are a little horrified watching, especially since Sannukikano looks like a regular human to everyone but Sorawo and Akari is sporting a Slasher Smile all the while, implying she has a few loose screws.
• Not What It Looks Like: In "Pandora in the Next Room", Sorawo spends the night at Kozakura's, thanks to Otherside weirdness taking up residence at the apartment next to hers. She wakes to find Kozakura spooning her, because the weirdness followed Sorawo to Kozakura's house, and the poor woman was terrified. Cue Toriko walking in and finding them in bed together.
• Oblivious to Love: Sorawo. At the end of Vol. 3, Toriko flat out tells Sorawo that she loves her. At the start of Vol.4 set only a couple of days later, Sorawo doesn't get why Toriko wants to hold her hand. Then Toriko repeats it a few times, with Sorawo seemingly taking it as a plutonic gesture. It isn't until the trip to the hot springs, when Toriko gets flustered about the idea of being naked around Sorawo that Sorawo seems to be slowly edging to the truth. It takes a Big Damn Kiss to finally get her to admit what she'd begun to suspect. This trope gets subverted in volume 8; The entire book focuses on Sorawo and her struggle to figure out her true feelings for Toriko. Ultimately, she concludes she can't be without her, and Sorawo then confesses her love to Toriko.
• Official Couple: Despite the initial amount of Les Yay teases between Sorawo and Toriko's relationship during the first few volumes, Volume 3 slowly moves away from subtext to text where Toriko declares her love towards Sorawo. It wasn't until Volume 8 when their relationship as lovers is fully cemented, going into a Relationship Upgrade where Sorawo confesses that she is in love with Toriko, making both of them a couple.
• Older Than They Look: As noted in Token Mini-Moe, Kozakura is much older than her appearance would suggest, given that she's a university graduate cognitive scientist.
  • Sorawo, Toriko, Akari and Natsumi also look more like teenagers than young adults- the former pair are second-years at university and the latter are a year younger.
• Poor Communication Kills: The lieutenant of the US Marines advises Sorawo and Toriko not to use their phones, but doesn't explain why. This leads the two of them to interpret it as more of a gentle suggestion than an outright warning, so they call Kozakura, alerting the enemy to the soldiers' location.
• Powers in the First Episode: Sorawo and Toriko get their powers in the first volume/episode when the encounter with the kunekune leaves Sorawo's eye and Toriko's hand altered.
• Ramming Always Works: After the Kankandara proved to be resistant to the gunfire of Sorawo and the Marines, Toriko commandeers the modified MRAP that was part of the convoy and simply rams the creature until it stops moving.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The leader of the US Marines at Kisaragi Station is a lot more reasonable to Sorawo and Toriko compared to the men under his command. This is justified by the fact that they've been stuck there for a month and lost a lot of personnel trying to survive. The lieutenant in charge of the squad that encounters the girls is also rather reasonable, being willing to talk things through with them and ordering his more impulsive master sergeant to stand down.
• Replacement Goldfish:
  • Between Toriko's approval of Sorawo's decision to grow her hair out and Akari's statement that Sorawo looked similar to the missing Satsuki, Sorawo is left wondering if she's this trope to Toriko.
  • To a lesser degree, the same is true of Kozakura in the novel.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Averted, in volume 8; Sorawo and Toriko's Their First Time is depicted very frankly.......and it then gets weird during their lovemaking Sorawo (using her eye) and Toriko (using her hand) discover that they can 'unravel' and 'merge' with each other. Both find this a liberating and exhilarating experience.
• Ship Tease: Sorawo and Toriko's relationship builds up slowly, but there's quite a bit of ship tease between them from the very beginning.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Kozakura's Remington M870 is equipped with a GATOR shotgun spreader which changes the shot pattern to a horizontal fan. This allows her to try to at least hit something even when she goes into full panic and start shooting things with her eyes closed. This is used for good effect in an encounter against four kunekunes.
• Shout-Out:
  • The series itself is one to Roadside Picnic, down to the name, but the 2nd chapter of Volume 1 has an extended Shout-Out with Abarato, who acts a lot like a typical "stalker" and even has scenes of him showing Sorawo and Toriko how to test glitches (anomalies in Roadside Picnic) with metal bolts. He also refers to the Otherside as The Zone. The glitch being tested is also similar to the novel's Burner anomaly. The only difference from the book is that he's not there to hunt for artifacts, the two protagonists are.
  • The Elevator they use to get to the Otherside could be considered the spiritual cousin of the Elevator in the Research Institute for Magic and Wizardry of the Academy of Sciences, which is the springboard for Tale of the Troika, another Strugastky Brothers novelette often found anthologized with Roadside Picnic.
  • Toriko's first meeting with Sorawo has her comparing Sorawo to Ophelia.
  • One scene has Sorawo directly quoting and namedropping Dutch's "If it bleeds, we can kill it." as self-motivation against the Otherside denizens.
  • Toriko compares Sowaro's attempt to disarm the Kotoribako to The Hurt Locker.
  • When they go to a hot spring hotel, Kozakura says that Toriko looks like Venus from Sandro Botticelli's famous painting of same. Sorawo agrees.
• Shown Their Work: The author, instead of usual afterwords, shows various citations of each Creepypasta used and citations of scientific theories used in the novel.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Sorawo made it to college without ever being in a relationship before, which is understandable, given that she was hiding from the cult her father and grandmother were part of. But it's clear to the readers fairly early on that she's very into Toriko long before she recognizes that fact for herself, and thus far only for Toriko.
• Slasher Smile: Under the influence of Sorawo's Magic Eye, Akari goes from a cautious fighting stance to aggressively charging Sannuki and beating her to a bloody pulp with a mad grin on her face.
• Sleeps in the Nude: After their wild night in Okinawa, Sorawo tries getting Toriko out of bed only to discover she's naked. It turns out Toriko sleeps in the buff "when she feels like it." Sorawo, who's already a bit shy to begin with, is immensely flustered by the fact that she shared a bed with her naked friend.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Due to her short height, Kozakura wielding a Remington M870 does give this impression.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Otherside Picnic's main inspiration, Roadside Picnic, is this, being that the main characters heavily focus on dealing with anomalies and otherworldly creatures, as well as with them hunting extraterrestrial artifacts for monetary purposes. They have distinct differences, however.
  • In Roadside Picnic the story focuses on Redrick Schuhart, a stalker whose goal is to retrieve artifacts within the Zone. At day he is working as a member of the Institute, but at night he is actually an illegal stalker who breaks the U.N.'s laws regarding such prohibited visits there. On the other hand, Otherside Picnic starts off as this: both Sorawo Kamikoshi and Toriko Nishina meet each other coincidentally in the Otherside after dealing with the Kunekune, doing the same thing that Redrick did in Roadside Picnic: finding artifacts for monetary value. The difference starts here. Redrick works, or worked, for the government and is a law-breaker, while Sorawo and Toriko doesn't, being mostly working independently with the Otherside expert Kozakura. And most importantly, the "stalker" archetype is less omnipresent on Otherside Picnic, with only Abarato being seen as one, and even so he doesn't embody it fully since Sorawo and Toriko are the ones who hunt for artifacts and not him.
  • Their own settings also contrast. Roadside Picnic's the Zone is obviously visible right off the bat and is explorable without through the need of special doors. Otherside Picnic's the Otherside can only be explored through various doors and sometimes mere coincidences in various spots that are otherwise completely unknown to an average human.
  • In terms of character, Redrick has contrasts to Sorawo, who is a Sour Outside, Sad Inside Anti-Hero who is willing to break the U.N.'s laws of visiting the Zone and has a family including his wife Guta and his mutated daughter Monkey. Sorawo is a Byronic Hero with a Dark and Troubled Past who lost her entire family including her mother from a car accident; and her father and grandmother became involved with the cult where she was chased out by them until their eventual death. Redrick has a known violent temper and is somewhat social, while Sorawo is cripplingly shy (at first) and extremely unsocial. And Redrick also contrasts to Toriko, where unlike the sour and brooding Redrick who barely has moments of happiness, Toriko is much brighter and more cheery than him, albeit they hide most of her insecurities of actually being alone. The last chapter of Roadside Picnic also furthers the contrast between Redrick to Sorawo and Toriko. Whereas Redrick is willing to sacrifice Arthur Burbridge, a child, to the Meat Grinder in order to complete his Wish-Fulfillment goal (though no fault on his part), Sorawo and Toriko are against hurting a child (including Kasumi) or someone, as they both pursue a Third Option to this type of goal instead of readily sacrificing someone to do so which becomes fundamental after putting the cult leader Runa into a Heel–Face Turn. Redrick did not move on from his own demons and stayed as a broken man to the end, while both Sorawo and Toriko faced their old demons altogether including their encounter with Satsuki during Volume 7 and have since wholly changed in their own Character Development, with their eventual ascension to being an Official Couple during Volume 8. Redrick is a Shadow Archetype to both Sorawo and Toriko, representing the lowest point of humanity going through such cruel fate, something that is both willfully avoided by both the main characters due to them having an established development over the course of the story.
• Something We Forgot: At the end of Episode 4 of the anime, Sorawo finds her way to Toriko, saves her and has her open a way out for the two of them. The last scene before the closing credits cuts to Kozakura, who's rather upset about being left behind.
• Suggestive Collision: After Sorawo and Toriko tumble out of the elevator in Episode 3, they land with Sorawo on top of Toriko— and if you look closely, Sorawo's head is level with Toriko's chest. This is a downplayed example though, because the shot happens at a distance and because Sorawo gets up pretty quick and is more focused on chewing out Toriko for messing with the "Elevator Lady."
• Teeth Flying / The Tooth Hurts: Sannuki extracts teeth from Natsumi and Akari by supernatural means, with Natsumi coughing up blood, and Akari spewing a good deal of blood out when her tooth went flying. Fortunately, a dentist was able to return their teeth after they beat Sannuki.
• That's an Order!: The lieutenant of the marines tells his master sergeant to lower his weapon, followed by, "That's a direct order." The master sergeant reluctantly complies.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Thrice over by Vol. 4.
  • A portal to Otherside opens in Toriko's apartment.
  • Three strange women show up at Kozakura's house, and spirit her and Sorawo to Otherside. Kozakura is less than pleased to learn that this has left a permanent gate on her doorstep.
  • "Pandora in the Next Room" has denizens of Otherside take up residence in the apartment right beside Sorawo's.
• Third-Party Peacekeeper: Kozakura accuses Sorawo and Toriko of using her for this purpose when they have a spat about going back into the Otherside.
  Kozakura: You two fight, and can't apologize, but neither of you has the guts to contact the other. So you make a call on me, a mutual acquaintance, looking to find an excuse to talk.
• Token Mini-Moe: Kozakura is this due to her short height (Sorawo think she's around 140cm), despite being the oldest of the three main characters.
• Too Annoyed to Be Afraid: Sorawo and Toriko are attempting to lead a group of U.S. Marines to safety in the Otherside, when they're confronted by a creature Sorawo knows from net lore as the kankandara. She uses her Magic Eye to try and see its true form, which usually makes the entity they're facing vulnerable. However, the kankandara is attempting to frighten her and stare her down. Sorawo finds this to be irksome, and declares to the monster, "I'm going to murder you with this eye of mine!"
• Touched by Vorlons:
  • Sorawo's eye and Toriko's hand end up changed by their encounter with the kunekune, but it happens to also give them powers— Sorawo's eye (which is now a vivid shade of blue) can see the true form of Otherside phenomenon, while Toriko's hand (which eventually turns completely transparent) can interact with them. Combining their abilities gives them a fighting chance against all the strange threats from the Otherside.
  • The title is a metaphor. The Others are compared to human picnickers who came to Earth, did...something temporary (to them) and left, but their garbage had long-term effects on the animals (humans).
• Trapped in Another World: Generally this is downplayed since there's entrances that allow people to go between worlds, but sometimes people can enter the Otherside without warning and with no idea where the exit would be. An example is a group of US Marines stationed in Okinawa that was transported to the Otherside while training in the mountains. In the same chapter the marines are introduced, the tavern that Sorawo and Toriko were eating at suddenly sent them over without any warning.
• Treacherous Spirit Chase: Hasshaku-sama superimposes the image of someone close to her victim onto herself, luring them to come close enough and vanish to the blue light. Abarato thinks she is his missing wife and disappears after touching her; Toriko sees her as her lost friend and starts walking towards her. Sorawo, having no one precious to her, is not tricked and manages to chase and grab Toriko. Except not — what Sorawo thought was Toriko, is Hasshaku-sama.
• True Sight: Initially it seems that Sorawo's lapis lazuli eye seems to allow her to do this to the Otherside's phenomena, although later she speculates that it instead allows her to see through multiple aspects of a phenomenon.
• Twice Shy: When told that bathing at a hot spring involves being naked, Toriko suddenly becomes very shy and flustered, and cannot look at Sorawo directly. Sorawo notes that Toriko's shyness about the whole thing now makes her shy about it, and as a result, the pair decide to invite Kozakura to tag along, in order to, as Kozakura puts it, "chaperone the lovebirds."
• Undisclosed Funds: In the first volume, Toriko whispers the value of one of the mirror stones she found on the Otherside into Sorawo's ear. The exact amount isn't disclosed, but leaves Sorawo flabbergasted.
• Unknowingly in Love: Sorawo recognizes early on that Toriko is in love with the missing Satsuki. But she is oblivious- until well into vol. 4- of her own feelings for Toriko. Justified in that Sorawo spent much of her youth dodging kidnappers and hiding in abandoned buildings. She's thrown when Toriko reveals that she has two mothers, so it's likely that given everything going on in her life, Sorawo simply never stopped to consider her own stance on romance or orientation.
• Wallpin Of Love: Volume 1, Chapter 2 opens with Toriko seemingly performing this on Sorawo, to her complete bemusement. As it turns out, she noticed that one of Sorawo's eyes had turned bright blue after their close call with the Kunekune, and she just wanted a better look. There is definitely a Ship Tease angle to it, particularly when Toriko murmurs that the color is "so pretty," causing Sorawo to become flustered.
• Wham Line:
  • At the very end of File 9, just as Sorawo and Toriko leave the Otherside, Sorawo casually notes that closing the door cuts off the sight of Satsuki standing on the building. As it turns out, she had been there watching them whole time, and Sorawo had been very much aware of it.
  • In Volume 3, Sorawo insults the "Thank You Woman," assuming her to be just another one of Runa Urumi's followers, only to hit a nerve.
    Runa: Don't make fun of my mom!
• What Did I Do Last Night?: After they came out of the Otherside into Okinawa after rescuing the Palehorse Battalion soldiers, both of the girls proceed to go party, and Sorawo ends up getting so drunk that the next day she wakes up at the side of a naked Toriko with no idea of what she did the previous night. Sorawo gets really embarrassed when Toriko reminds her of the various things she did.
  • Happens again in the opening chapter of Volume 5 though with a larger group (Sorawo, Toriko, Kozakura, Akari and Natsumi) and Sorawo is more concerned that she did something with her eye's power while drunk. The true situation is... a little more complicated.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside / Year Inside, Hour Outside: Zig-zagged between the tropes. During one expedition to the Otherside, Toriko and Sorawo stop at an "observatory" with a rotating floor to eat lunch. Though they don't take long to eat, they find that night has fallen while they were in the observatory. And that they've changed locations and are no longer near the AP-1, which they'd left parked outside. After returning to the observatory, and staying the night, they find themselves returned to their original position. Once they return home, they discover that only four hours have passed on the "surface world."

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