REVIEW: ‘Delicious in Dungeon’ Triumphs And Fails Throughout Its First Season

In Delicious in Dungeon Season 1, a party of adventurers is hit with catastrophe. Running into a red dragon, they soon find themselves completely outmatched. Rather than see her friends killed, Falin (Saori Hayami, Spy x Family) casts a teleportation spell saving everyone but herself from the dragon’s clutches. Now, her brother Laios (Kentarô Kumagai), as well as her friends Chilchuck (Asuna Tomari) and Marcille (Sayaka Senbongi, Kaiju No.8), rush back into the dungeon in the hopes of reaching her in time to resurrect her. But time is short, and the proper provisions aren’t available. If the party is to make it in time, they must be willing to sustain themselves on the monsters found throughout the dungeon in Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 (Dungeon Meshi) from Studio TRIGGER.

Delicious in Dungeon Season 1’s biggest struggle is consistency. Even with a full 24-episode season out, it never feels like the show is quite sure of what it wants to be. Oscillating between daring adventure and comedic slice-of-life series, the narrative is never able to coalesce. This creates a narrative full of great strengths and great weaknesses.

The best part of this series is the fantastic world-building it does. The show goes to great lengths to develop the dungeon in which it takes place. Rather than merely a series of caverns with monsters waiting for adventurers to arrive, Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 crafts a living, breathing world for its heroes to explore. Magical monsters are given roles within their environments, and everything clicks together.

Even how the dungeon repairs and maintains itself after explosive battles fleshes out the setting. This engaging approach to its setting makes every new encounter exciting. Even familiar monster types have new twists and explanations to them, making everything feel fresh.

The creativity that imbues the world is brought to life through TRIGGER’s wonderful animation. Action sequences always feel frantic and fast. The monsters feel like threats, thanks to how TRIGGER brings each creature to life. From the towering red dragon to haunting ghosts, the visuals always highlight what makes each monster a dangerous foe.

While the animation does a great job of bringing monsters to life, it also handles the series’ comedic side well. The best humor the show brings is the visual humor born of shocked reactions and over-the-top responses. Though it is mechanically well crafted, the humor can sometimes contribute to the show’s greatest weakness: its inability to balance its tone.

The opening moments of Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 establish the characters’ urgent need to descend into the dungeon to save their friend. This is reiterated frequently as the episodes go by. However, the characters’ actions rarely feel urgent after the first episode. As the trio prepares to reenter the dungeon, they meet another character, Senshi (Hiroshi Naka).

He specializes in cooking monsters, a skill that will allow the party to get back into the dungeon without raising funds for food. Once the new arrival starts showcasing how monsters can be used to make delicious meals, the party’s determination to hurriedly return to their comrade evaporates. Rather, the series focuses on Senshi’s preparations as he makes countless dishes from the monsters they encounter.

Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 tries to make this feel like a necessity. Without proper nutrition, the party can’t do its best. While keeping your energy up is important, the lengths they go to and the intricacy of some of the dishes they prepare feel counter-productive to their goals. If the show just wants to be about cooking monsters, it shouldn’t have the urgent plot point that it frequently talks about while not lending real weight to it.

One aspect of the food-centric nature of most episodes that lands splendidly is the visual design of the meals. Anime is known for mouth-watering meals. Studio TRIGGER proves they can deliver a gorgeous menu of dishes that remind many of us that adventurers in fantasy dungeons eat way better than we do.

At the core of everything Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 does is its cast. The four main characters that make up the party are frequently the only characters in episodes. As such, they have to present strong and engaging interpersonal dynamics to keep the audience both entertained and invested in them. The show only succeeds at this some of the time.

Easily, the strongest character in the party is Marcille. An elvish mage, Marcille’s character grows a lot as the party dives deeper into the dungeon. Her growing self-confidence and the show’s exploration of her connection to Falin make for some of the series’ best scenes. She’s even shown to be flexible in her willingness to approach dungeon food. Initially staunchly against eating monsters, she is open-minded enough to come around over time. This open-mindedness contrasts her with what is easily the weakest personality in the party, Laios.

Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 generally presents Laios as a lovable oaf. Often short-sighted, he tends to rush into things with no clear plan. It also turns out that he has always wanted to try eating monsters. It seems this has been a secret desire of his. Now that he has an excuse to do so, he will stop at nothing to try to taste them all. This hyper-fixation causes Laios to do some fairly crappy things to his friends. From stealing Chilchuck’s lockpicking tools to pry meat out of carb-like monster’s legs, to lying about what is actually in their food, Laios shows repeatedly that he will do whatever he wants when it comes to tasting monsters. This clashes hard with how much the show wants the viewer to like him.

All of these elements make Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 an uneven journey. While some moments and characters shine within its excellently crafted world, the inability to balance what the show tries to do, along with some unlikable elements, makes it miss more than it hits.

Delicious in Dungeon Season 1 is streaming now on Netflix.