Delicious in Dungeon

As you might know I am still getting into anime. It's not something I watch often because I hate English dubs and I like to multi-task which I can’t do when I have to read the screen. That said, I have been watching some of the anime available on Netflix and I stumbled upon one called Delicious in Dungeon. I fell in love with it immediately and proceeded to binge watch 24 episodes in 2 days. The show is a delightful blend of dungeons and dragons and a cooking show. It’s funny, smart, creative and I truly cannot recommend it enough. So if you are also an anime novice I think that this show is a really good place to start, it's short, it's fun and unlike some of the other ones I recommended for beginners it doesn’t get too intense.

First of all I really love just how Dungeons and Dragons it is. The characters are all the most archetypal versions of their race and class and I think that is great because 1) You know what to expect from each character and 2) It makes their interactions really funny and relatable to those of us that play D&D. It’s one of the very few D&D based pieces of media that is actually done really well. We had that one movie last year but all other attempts that aren’t video games have really fallen flat on conveying what makes the game so enjoyable and anime is just a really good avenue for it.

One of the things that I really love about this series is that you can really pick it up from anywhere. Yes it's only one season and only 24 episodes but if I wanted to randomly show this to a friend and I choose just to pick up where I left off I feel confident that the new person would be able to follow along without feeling like they are missing anything important. And I think that is definitely another benefit to leaning into the basic D&D format.

There is an ongoing story. Like obviously they are headed somewhere with a purpose (the overarching story of the campaign) but there are occasionally sidequests, and every episode has to have some kind of food related detour and that is what makes the show so much fun to watch. It definitely feels like D&D and the added element of Laois wanting to eat everything just adds really great entertainment value.

I also have to say that the show is just extremely bingeable. With only 1 season at 24 episodes and those episodes only being about 20 minutes long (save for credits and the opening sequence) it's really one of those shows that you can power through in about a weekend. Or you can sprinkle it out into about a week if you are not a hardcore binge watcher.

Honestly Delicious in Dungeon does some really great storytelling. It has a great structure that allows us to experience party dynamics as well as occasionally getting a little deeper into each character. And the added element of eating everything that they kill is not just funny but it sometimes leads to some really genuine moments among the group or with some other characters. Like the Orc episode, I think that is one of the things that makes the show so good. It's really cute, if you haven’t watched it yet then you absolutely should. I think this one is going to be on my rewatch list for sure and I can’t wait to attend the Delicious in Dungeon panel at Anime Expo.