First Impressions: Delicious in Dungeon

Streaming: Netflix

Episodes: 24

Episode Summary: Adventurer Laios and his party find their dungeon crawl cut short when one of their party members, Laios’s sister Farin, is chomped up by a red dragon. As her final act, Farin uses magic to whisk Laios, Marcille, and Chilchuck safely to the surface. Now, having lost most of their supplies and looking at pawning their equipment to get the funds they need, Laios turns to an idea he’s been kicking around for a while. Rather than bringing their rations with them down into the depths of the dungeon, why not just kill and eat the creatures who call that dangerous place home? It would hopefully allow them to reach Farin before she’s digested, at least.

Armed with an old book of information on hunting and eating dungeon creatures, the three set back out, but while the hunting part of their quest comes quite easily, preparing weird creatures in delicious ways turns out to be more of a challenge. Enter Senshi, a dwarven researcher who’s devoted his life to learning about the dungeon’s flora and fauna, as well as the most delicious ways of consuming them. He joins Laios’ party in the hopes of encountering more and rarer delicacies.

Impressions: Please note: I wrote this a few weeks ago when the actual first episode dropped and didn’t really have time or motivation to finish it at that moment. I’m sure everyone knows by now that this is a good show, but since I put in some amount of work I didn’t want the writing to go to waste.

I don’t really plan to focus on many first impressions posts right now, but like everyone else there are always a few new anime series that I’ve been anticipating for a while, and this is one of them. Personally, I’m drawn to quirky series that use genre tropes in creative ways, and having read some of the Delicious in Dungeon manga a few years back, I knew that this series would scratch that itch well. The question was more or less whether employing Studio Trigger to adapt the series to animation would end up adding anything to what the manga already offered.

After one episode I’m not entirely sure. This definitely isn’t a “Capital T” Trigger series, in that it’s not their original material and doesn’t offer the absolute over-the-top escalation or straight up visual parody of some of their other work. Having said that, this episode is consistently nice looking, rising well above workmanlike and showcasing some nice details. I happened to read online that the studio hired (or perhaps assigned) a designer specifically for the food, and it shows; never before has cooked slime, cave algae, or ambulatory mushroom creature looked quite so appetizing.

The star of the show is clearly Marcille; while Senshi reflects a sort of niche geekery that ought to feel familiar to many of us, Marcille is the long-suffering straight man who reminds us that the things we’re really into aren’t universal (though her eventual willingness to acknowledge the utility of eating weird food on the go gives us hope for all those relationships we have with people who “don’t understand” why we’re so obsessed with anime). Marcille gets all the best reactions, including a now-iconic shot of her in closeup with an unimpressed and slightly disgusted look on her face, zoomed-in without any regard to image resolution. It’s here that I think Trigger’s philosophy peeks through – the humor isn’t just her expression, it’s the devil-may-care attitude toward making the image actually look good in its zoomed-in state.

One thing I liked about the Delicious in Dungeon manga was the fact that, despite using fantasy ingredients it got me to thinking “oh, replace that ingredient with [this one that actually exists] and that might be pretty tasty” and that charm shines through completely in this animated version. I think an adaptation that does the source material justice is all that we can really hope for, and any additional finesse is simply the cherry on top.

Pros: The show seems well-made and design resources have been obtained and utilized to feature an important aspect – the food.

Additionally, I think the humor shines through in this adaptation without feeling clunky. The comic timing and visual humor is on point.

Cons: I never thought I’d say this because I’ve had the opposite criticism in the past with the way that Netflix handles currently-airing material, but the realities of my life have made keeping up with a weekly series a challenge. It’s much easier for me to cram in several episode in a row when I happen to encounter some elusive free time than it is to make an appointment at the same time every week. That’s not really a particular issue with the show itself, however.

Content Warnings: Unsurprisingly, this series has some fantasy violence (mostly comedic). For its characters to eat, occasionally some cute creatures have to get killed and cut up (I’m thinking specifically about the little walking mushrooms, but there are also more “realistic” animals getting butchered albeit in a not-too-graphic manner) so people who are averse to that in real-life might have similar issues with the show.

Final Thoughts: I knew from the moment that it was announced that this series would have to undergo some major adaptational mishaps for me to dislike it. It’s a rare example of a series that I read in manga form years prior to an anime announcement and its appeal is inherent to its text. All Trigger would have to do would be to adapt it frame-by-frame to have something of a baseline decent quality on their hands. The fact that the first episode (and subsequent episodes that I’ve now had the chance to watch) have been above and beyond baseline is merely a bonus.