Submitted 2 weeks ago by Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world to [deleted]
The last anime I actually really liked was Cowboy Bebop. I try getting into it off and on but I’m kind of put off by the common tropes. That said, my d&d characters for the past 20 years have been some variation of “that’s an awful lot of hydra meat that’s going to waste if I don’t cook it” which I understand is the premise of the show.
Is it worth giving it a try? Am I going to have to sit through an unreasonable amount of jiggling tits?
Dungeon Meshi doesn’t follow a lot of the anime tropes that people who aren’t into anime often dislike; so, I would say it’s at least worth a shot.
There’s not much fanservice in Dungeon Meshi. I would say it’s exactly like how you would expect it to turn out if you just played DnD and then hired someone to animate it. Complete with the player stupidity and boss cheesing.
The series does take time to build up - it starts off feeling like a generic gimmick anime, but the story and lore gets deeper the more you watch. And the gimmick (eating monsters) ends up becoming a lot deeper than you would expect. (I’ll talk about it more below.) The storytelling is, in hindsight, extremely efficient, but the writers just never draw attention to the info that you’re supposed to remember. So I think it’s one of those series where you really have to rewatch afterward in order to pick up all the lore tidbits that the characters just toss around.
Speaking of lore, I would say that the worldbuilding is one of the most extremely detailed that I’ve seen in any media, where it touches on really mature topics like implicit (and explicit) racism, tribal tensions, political feuds, cultural differences. And every little thing must have an explanation. And there’s actually different races of humans in this world, each with their own nation and culture. I think it all ties back in to the core theme of the series, which is that eating is so fundamental to life that it influences human culture. And, inversely, that because eating is the one universal constant across all cultures, it is the one thing that can unite people. Over the series, you stop seeing “eating monsters” as a gimmick and it starts becoming more like a thesis. Like, “yeah, of course it would be a show about eating. What else could be so fundamental to discussing the human experience?”
Touching on the typical icks with anime (oversexualization, often with minors, harem, OP main characters, etc.): the series actually avoids all of the typical anime pitfalls. There’s no sexualization. Characters don’t talk or hint about sex at all. No revealing clothing, and all characters dress appropriately for their job/environment. There is one single scene where one character tries teaching another character about sex (giving the “birds and the bees” talk), but it’s not sexual in nature and IMO it is really meant to highlight a common implicit bias in this world (the character receiving the talk is actually a grown adult, but due to his race, gets infantilized frequently). Speaking of grown adults, every character in the show appears, acts, and is a fully grown adult. And as for power scaling, the main characters don’t have any OP skills and never learn any OP skills. They’re just a standard party of adventurers, and it’s made clear that the only reason they’re successful is because of the party’s deep understanding of monster biology and dungeon ecology and their willingness to use creative solutions to difficult problems (aka: cheesing every boss).
As a complete side note, I think it has one of the best and most accurate representations of autism that I’ve seen. I’ll leave it vague, but there are several characters that are strongly autism-coded, and the writers really went above and beyond to show how autism is interpreted differently by others when the person in question is a male or female.
Overall, I’d say I highly recommend the anime. It instantly became one of the best animes that I’ve watched, and it’s an anime that can be enjoyed casually, or analyzed for lore to hell and back, or analyzed for its literary merit.
Characters don’t talk or hint about sex at all
This is sort of true and the relative lack of traditional fanservice type stuff is refreshing, but I don’t think it would be fair to say Dungeon Meshi isn’t horny, because a lot of its thematic focus is indirect, allegorical commentary on sexuality, even if it is generally very tasteful about it.
I watched the English dubbed anime with my kids. It’s absolutely hilarious and loads of fun. Never in a million years would I have believed such a mashup possible.
I know many of the manga lovers seemed to like the adaption. I’m not personally into anime, but I still loved this show. I’d especially recommend it if you’re into d&d… and absurdity… and laughing.
I see you don’t need more convincing.
Dungeon Meshi has one of the more populated communities on Lemmy, !dungeonmeshi@ani.social.
It’s mostly just fanart as we’re between seasons, but the episodes discussions threads are likely to be quite active again once the second season starts.
The best way to know if it’s for you is to try watching a bit. The 3-episode rule is a thing for exactly this purpose. Sometimes even 1 is enough to know if you’re going to like something, but some take a few episodes to get to the crux of what’s going on.
My daughters got super excited to hear I was watching anime. I was like what, the D&D cooking show? I had not even realized it was anime. It is intensely odd, and I find that delightful.
Honestly, the only way you’ll know is to try. I don’t normally go for a lot of new anime, but I really enjoyed some of Dungeon Meshi.
Yes. Watch it. It’s great. I love watching the dishes they make with the monsters. Also, my wife likes it and she was a fan of cowboy bebop back in the day.
I tried a few episodes because I thought the premise sounded kinda cute. On the plus side, it didn’t have a lot of the anime bullshit that makes something completely unwatchable (the amount of jiggling tits is a fairly reasonable 0), the art is cute, and it does kinda capture that feeling of watching a fun group’s D&D campaign as an anime.
In the negative… I tried watching like 4 or so episodes and they just all kinda felt samey. Every episode I watched followed a very similar arc, very similar jokes, and didn’t really hold my attention.
Nonspecific spoilers for what I meant by episodes being very samey:
It felt like every episode arc was “party encounters threat (generally a monster). One party member tries to boldly go ahead and tackle the threat and fails. Another party member figures out or reveals they already know the gimmick. They kill the monster. One character starts cutting up and cooking the monster. Other characters object because it sounds really gross. In the end, they all try the food and like it more than they expected.”
I’ve been assured the plot really develops at some point so maybe I just quit too early, but it just didn’t grab my attention at all.
I’m not a fan of most anime for similar reasons to you, and whilst I’m not loving Dungeon Meshi, I’m enjoying it. The biggest trope that it has that I struggle with is the female character is very much the overly anxious worrier that has to be cajoled in to everything by the ensemble of males.
If you plan to DM any homebrew, you should definitely watch it. The “lotta hydra meat that’s going to waste” aspect is a driving force, but the major theme is exploring the dungeon as an ecosystem; its flora, fauna, structure, everything.
It’s like Julia Child meets Anthony Bourdain meets Steve Irwin meets David Attenborough meets Brennan Lee Mulligan. If you enjoy thinking about dungeon design at all, you will enjoy this show.
Yes.
And when you’re done with the whole thing next week and sad there aren’t more episodes, go watch Frieren.
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No not at all. The only boob jiggle type moment I can think of happens many episodes in and lasts about 5 seconds. Default throughout the show you aren’t getting constant creepshot angles or focus on fanservice. The show or, more or less, of a wholesome tone that sometimes dips into some series moments. There is a catgirl later on, but she’s actually like cat-girl with an emphasis on cat like behavior and is a good character who is dressed slightly lighter than everyone else but nothing you’d think twice of seeing.
Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Between you and the guy who hates things, I’m sold. I’ll be slapping it on the jellyfin this weekend.
ideonek@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Someone providing thoughtulful, datailed and truly personalized answer to question that is to user-specyfic to generalize is one of few things I reality like about social media.