Delicious in Dungeon

Episode 4

Episode 4 of Delicious in Dungeon provides plenty of twists to old recipes, but not all of them are quite as successful as prior offerings.

I enjoyed the details about the golems. This is the series' quintessential strength in regards to world-building and creativity: take a standard fantasy monster concept and find a way to involve it in the world of food and cooking. In this week's case, it was the earth golem and vegetables. Similarly to the genius of making haunted armor edible by bringing in mollusk concepts, we get the very cool idea of golems being walking plots of soil. Most often the fantasy depiction of earth golems is either a hard-packed clay or stone variety, so having them being earthen soil that Senshi cultivates is a terrific idea. Conceptual novelty on a classic monster is really enjoyable and makes it clear that the details have been attended to.

Sadly, the orc element I was less keen on. The issue of fantasy humanoids as stand-ins for other races, cultures, etc. has been a thorny one for quite some time. I won't get into all the particulars in a weekly anime review, but suffice it to say that even the best attempts at using fantasy humanoids as monocultures often fall flat for me. It's not a situation where I would say “No you can never do this ever!!!” because I think that's a bit extreme, but I also think it's really easy for these setups to fall flat or miss the mark. Much like Senshi cooking, I felt like this was interrupting my enjoyment rather than adding much to the episode.

At the very least, the core takeaways from the episode were excellent. There is the binding element of food bringing us all together and the shared community of hunger, preparation, and sacrifice. I also enjoyed Senshi's feelings on tending to the dungeon environment - to give back as much as he takes, to tend to the ecosystem for its own benefit and the benefit of all. These are good messages no matter how you slice them. The baby orc was adorable and the visual detail of the warthog features even on the little one's fur was great.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Delicious in Dungeon is currently streaming on Netflix.