Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi) Volume 1 Impressions
Good day and welcome back to Tiro Finale! Starting this week we will be running an irregular book exchange week where toss a bunch of suggestions into a randomizer like some Black Hotpot, draw lots and review the first volume of WHATEVER comes out, be it a critically acclaimed masterpiece or a Nana no Kaoru (blame Takuya for this!).
Now fortunately (?) this week all 3 of us managed a decent selection. For my part I drew Ryoko Kui's Delicious in Dungeon or Dungeon Meshi, a series that caught my eye some years ago but never got around to reading, so now's as good an opportunity as any!
The premise of the story is pretty straightforward, a party of adventurers got teleported out of a dungeon after things went south, leaving them at the very beginning, without most of their supplies but still needing to save the mage that made the teleport. Without money, supplies, or time to waste, our plucky adventurers decide to brave that very same dungeon to rescue their missing comrade. If the title of the book hasn't already given it away, lacking any food of their own, the party will have to live off the land, and that involves eating whatever monsters they come across.
And that's the gist of it, which is a good enough excuse for our party to meet and cook up some new monsters in a monster of the week format. In the first volume, it starts off with relatively orthodox food items such as walking mushrooms and carnivorous plants, before venturing into more interesting creatures such as the living armor at the end of the volume (none of this is a spoiler as its all loudly announced in each chapter's title).
Given that this is a story revolving around living off the various inhabitants of the dungeon, the crux of the story naturally hinges on the keeping the encounters interesting for each chapter. On that aspect, the book largely succeeds. What I found particularly neat about how the mangaka handled it is the broader focus on actually acquiring said food items. The manga touches on the details in the behavior and biology of the monsters, how to subdue/harvest them before moving on to the process of butchering and prepping before moving on to the part where things get cooked and eaten. It is all these prior steps that I found most engaging, as getting to see one might go about taking down various fantasy creatures for food offers a rather fresh perspective when looking at the monster that I am familiar with as typical mob enemies that I don't usually don't give much thought about.
As for the actual food itself, in the first volume at least most it is surprisingly mundane, with all it having very close analogues to food in real life. The ingredients might come from monsters, but once getting past the butchering and prep work behave rather closely to common food items in the kitchen, like the giant scorpion being similar to an oversized lobster when cooked in a hotpot. All of this kind of makes sense, given the complex nature of making food from farm to table even in real life.
I also noticed that all the food are contemporary to what can be found in Japan. Whether the reasoning behind this is to ease the readers with something familiar for the first volume, or as a stylistic choice I cannot say, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
The art itself goes for a relatively simple and clean look, set in a world with a old-school Western D&D aesthetic. The large mega-dungeon as the setting does not obey the laws of physics and space, allowing various biomes to exist within without a care for the logic behind it all. Which is fortunate, as I would not be too fond of tunnels and brick walls for an entire series.
While the environments are rather minimalist and are not even present in half the panels, the characters, their equipment, and the monsters are all clean and nicely detailed, if not overly imaginative. The art of the food itself, while good, is not quite comparable to the absurd quality seen in mangas like Golden Kamuy or even Shokugeki no Souma. The more simple look of the foods does however fit well enough with the overall aesthetic, and I can a reasoning for opting for this more abstract look, given how the food is made from fantasy monsters, not exactly something you can find an exact reference for.
As might have been reflected in the premise and artstyle itself, Dungeon Meshi goes for a more lax, whimsical tone. The characters themselves are an eccentric lot, from the knowledgeable human warrior Laois why might be a bit too into monsters, to the dwarf.... cook (?) who is the resident monster cooking expert of the party. The party is rounded up with the half-elf mage Marcille and the halfling thief Chilchuck, who serve as both tsukkomis to the other two who are a tad too excited in eating whatever they come across.
The characters here in Volume 1 aren't particularly deep, mainly sticking to the tropes they are given at their introduction, though considering the main focus is the monsters, this isn't much of an issue, and the banter between them is entertaining enough to keep the flow of the story going.
It's a decently good read, but I can't help but feel it doesn't quite match up to a manga that has similar elements, Golden Kamuy, which featured prepared from the animals in the forests of Hokkaido using traditional Ainu cooking methods, backed by drop dead gorgeous art. And that was only a side addition to a gripping main story with tense drama and awesome action.
While Dungeon Meshi does not quite measure up that well when sized up against such a behemoth in many respects, what it does do well is offer a more relaxed, fun adventure that caters well to people who enjoy this setting. It's not a must read, but do consider picking it up at a discount.
The series is available in English in Bookwalker up to Volume 8 out of the nine published in Japan.
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