Netflix’s Cooking Anime Delicious in Dungeon Is Filling Thanks to Its Fresh Takes on Fantasy

By Elijah Gonzalez | June 14, 2024 | 11:30am

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

Anime Features Netflix

Netflix’s Cooking Anime Delicious in Dungeon Is Filling Thanks to Its Fresh Takes on Fantasy

As a genre, fantasy can be almost anything. However, “anything” is quite intimidating, and for many reasons (including common points of inspiration and commercial pressures) that limitless field of possibilities frequently dwindles to a handful of digestible templates. Thanks to the influence of Tolkien, Dungeons and Dragons, and other works that plucked elements from these and earlier tales, a whole field of tropes have codified around high fantasy, from their backdrops to the specific peoples that inhabit these spaces.

In the realm of anime, these influences often feel even more focused, with many of them traditionally drawing on ‘80s role-playing videogames like Wizardry and its numerous clones and, in recent years, frequently parroting popular “LitRPGs” such as Sword Art Online, where characters are either in a fantasy videogame or in settings that non-critically use the verbiage of games, even if this doesn’t actually make much sense in context. Unfortunately, this has led to a crop of copy-cats that are less interested in fleshing out unique places and more interested in reveling in how cool the protagonist’s “game-breaking” ability is or whatever.

But despite what’s in vogue, there will always be stories that do cool things within seemingly restrictive genre spaces. This most recent season has seen multiple, from Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’s melancholic musings to the over-the-top gags of ‘Tis Time for Torture Princess. And somewhere between the globe-spanning trek of the former and cozy times of the latter is Delicious in Dungeon, a food-obsessed adventure that finds new takes on familiar material.

The premise is as follows: after a trek into a dungeon ends in disaster, a party consisting of the tall-man (aka human) swordfighter Laios, elven mage Marcille, and halfling locksmith Chilchuck must plunge back into its depths to save their companion Falin, who was swallowed whole by a red dragon. The group is eager to rush back and rescue her before she’s digested, but unfortunately, they’re out of coin for food provisions.

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Taking this situation as an opportunity to satisfy a life-long curiosity about monster meat, Laios suggests that they cook up some dungeon critters, which Chilchuck and especially Marcille are not exactly thrilled about. Luckily, they bump into Senshi, a dwarf who’s been studying how to serve up these subterranean creatures for the last decade, and who is so eager to share his findings that he joins the crew. In a race against time, they retread their steps back into this labyrinth, snacking on creatures as they make their way to the lower levels where the dragon lurks.

If it wasn’t clear from the setup, this series is very much about cooking. Almost every episode focuses on at least one lavishly prepared dish, most of which are the namesake of that week’s adventure. While it isn’t the first fantasy anime to emphasize crafting meals (some other examples are Restaurant to Another World or Isekai Izakaya), and it’s not the first action series to be about hunting game in the pursuit of dining, this particular mashup still mostly feels novel.

And more than this being a relatively fresh spread, where the series’ food-based hijinks truly shine are in their execution. We watch as Senshi slices and dices murderous plants, sautés Walking Mushrooms, and roasts Basilisks, as knifework and other precise motions are lovingly rendered via fluid character animation that lets us soak in all the little details. Ingredients char and boil to mouthwatering effect, and when the recipes are finally completed, hyper-detailed stills with the dish name are displayed alongside a triumphant trumpet blast. It’s dang satisfying.

But perhaps the biggest payoffs come after our adventurers finally dig in, hesitation turning to joy as they (usually) find flavorful bliss in each bite, which comes across thanks to their expressively rendered reactions and delighted exclamations. Studio Trigger, who are mostly known for their madcap action series like Kill la Kill, put an equal amount of care into animating this particular brand of food voyeurism, and the results are delectable.

Additionally, as Senshi carries out his craft, he explains the specifics of each recipe as if he’s on the Food Network, making it clear that the lore-dumping tendencies of high fantasy match up perfectly with the similarly tidbit-dense format of cooking programs. While I’ll probably never prepare dried Slimes, listening to our head chef explain the underlying principles of his trade is downright therapeutic thanks to how closely it groks to concocting actual meals.

But focusing on food isn’t the only way the series distinguishes itself from much of its ilk. One of the most talked about and contentious aspects of many fantasy stories is how they depict different “races,” such as humans, orcs, elves, and more. It’s a topic that has spawned a lot of discourse, from insufferable forum threads to bona fide academic research. To avoid a lengthy tangent, I’ll simplify my stance: this is frequently my least favorite trope in the genre when handled poorly because, most charitably interpreted, it can set up uninteresting circumstances where entire groups of people act a certain way, and at worst, it can have troubling parallels to real-life stereotyping. If nothing else, it is very, very boring when certain groups (traditionally orcs) are portrayed as one-sidedly evil, as it washes away any moral compunctions for our protagonists to cut them down and minimizes the need for tricky things like complicated belief systems.

While the way these different peoples are portrayed is a background element in Delicious in Dungeon, at least through the first 11 episodes currently out, the series has handled it relatively well. The members of our adventuring crew are a diverse bunch, and their quirks are never tidily explained by their “race.” For instance, Laios acting like a little freak who wants to eat monsters has nothing to do with being a tall-man, and Senshi is more interested in cooking than “traditional dwarf things,” such as blacksmithing and mining.

Perhaps the best example of how the story handles this is when we meet orcs. Instead of coming across as Tolkien’s servants of the Dark Lord, the orcs we meet are forced to live in the dungeon because elves and humans have displaced them. There are different accounts of what exactly went down, and Marcille argues that orcs were banished due to being plundering aggressors (although she sounds a bit like a prejudiced aunt at Thanksgiving in the process), while the orc leader says they were given little choice to do otherwise.

After we meet the orc leader’s toddler son, a kind little munchkin who doesn’t understand why his dad won’t share bread with our crew, it becomes doubly clear that these orcs bear little resemblance to the ones spawned from the pits of Isengard. It also helps that Ryoko Kui, the author of the manga, came up with really unique designs for these guys, giving them tufts of fur, hooves, and other boar-like flourishes. All of these specific details come full circle with the show’s food obsession when Marcille and the orc leader share a meal, cuisine acting as a gateway to burying the hatchet, or at least, to momentarily stop the shouting. After all, we’ve all got to eat.

However, the place where this story feels most distinct from many other high fantasy yarns is how it handles this dungeon itself. This type of underground maze is a lynchpin of countless role-playing games, a backdrop where the player can test their mettle against waves of enemies, traps, and puzzles. Lurking at the bottom is an evil necromancer conjuring hellspawn, a formidable fire-breathing foe, or any other final boss the DM can cook up. In short, it’s a space to be challenged and eventually conquered.

At first glance, the dungeon at the heart of this story bears these hallmarks: the opening monologue tells us this place used to be a great kingdom before a mad magician gained control, and that whoever defeats the mage will become the new master of this dominion. However, despite this setup (which seems increasingly like a myth), our adventurers’ focus isn’t to defeat this big bad, but to save their friend from a different foe.

As they journey deeper, learning the many tricks and nuances of this labyrinth, it begins to feel less and less like they’re battling this setting itself and more that they’re trying to find some semblance of harmony with it. This philosophy is best embodied by Senshi, who has been more or less living in the dungeon’s depths for some time, and frequently reiterates they should avoid causing unnecessary harm to their surroundings. He creates a garden on the back of golems and gets mad at Marcille when she uses AOE magic that comes with collateral damage, encouraging the group to only ever take what they need.

Just like in the outside world, the monsters have a delicate ecosystem, and tampering with it too much can lead to dangerous creatures from the lower floors running rampant on the upper ones. Eventually, we begin to see this space somewhat similarly to Senshi and Laios, that these abandoned halls, untamed canopies, winding staircases, and other homes to mesmerizing flora and fauna are full of wonder. It’s another aspect that ties in nicely with the show’s fixation on food—after all, if this place is picked clean, they won’t be able to hunt any more monsters!

And more deeply, it ties into the series’ ethos that this space, with its many funky critters, has an inherent right to exist and shouldn’t need to revolve around the whims of people. This dungeon isn’t here to be plundered and bested but to be maintained and conserved. Like the other elements of this idiosyncratic fantasy travelogue, this focus on the dungeon as an ecosystem is a unique angle that gives Delicious in Dungeon a standout flavor in a crowded buffet.

Elijah Gonzalez writes about games and anime. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon series. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.