Dungeon Meshi

Adventuring knight Laios Touden leads a small party through a seemingly endless dungeon, a subterranean maze full of dangerous monsters and precarious traps. Through the use of advanced magic, an explorer can sometimes be resurrected, allowing them to learn from past mistakes and give traversing the dungeon another go. However, when a powerful dragon eats Falin, Laios' spellcasting sister, she sends her brother and his companions back to the beginning to save them from permanent ends.

Though strapped for cash and equipment, Laios resolves to fight his way through the dungeon and rescue Falin before she can be digested by the dragon. Despite some of Laios' allies abandoning him, two remain by his side: elven mage Marcille Donato and halfling locksmith Chilchuck Tims. Due to their lack of funds, the party faces the daunting prospect of starving before being able to complete their quest. However, they find salvation in Senshi, a dwarven warrior with a penchant for cooking and safely eating defeated monsters.

With Senshi's culinary expertise, Laios and his companions struggle through the dungeon while learning about gourmet dining—and each other—along the way.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Donato, Marcille Main

Senbongi, Sayaka Japanese

Touden, Laios Main

Kumagai, Kentarou Japanese

Senshi Main

Naka, Hiroshi Japanese

Tims, Chilchuck Main

Tomari, Asuna Japanese

Izutsumi Supporting

Kambe, Mitsuho Japanese

Touden, Falin Supporting

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Mithrun Supporting

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Kabru Supporting

Katou, Wataru Japanese

Thistle Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuu Japanese

Inutade Supporting

Furuya, Yoshino Japanese

Ootsuka, Masahiko Producer, Episode Director

Kikushima, Kazufumi Producer

Vig, Julien Producer

Usa, Yoshiki Producer, Executive Producer

Reviews

Jun 7, 2025

WynterwithanAK

Recommended

Every year there are those few releases. I don’t think I need to say much more, you know what I’m talking about. The few new shows that fly above the thick cloud of the year’s releases and capture their limited and distinct spot among the discussions that will come to characterise that year. Simply, every year is defined by a select few new releases which, because of: heavy emotional impact, a new and unique premise, notoriety from past seasons, notably high quality etc. gain favour with the community and grow to be the great successes of the year. If you need some examples I would ... be talking about say: Quintessential Quintuplets, Violet Evergarden, Demon Slayer and Delicious In Dungeon. Yes, Delicious In Dungeon is certainly one of THE anime’s of 2024. It seems the studio even foresaw this, seeing as there is no way they would structure the show in such a way there is no real ending without knowing it would succeed. They knew it would be massive and a second season was all but guaranteed, and they’re certainly right.

So what makes this anime one of the special releases of 2024? We can start with the distinct style and detailed artwork. Characters always almost always look great, and if someone made a drawing in this style you would almost instantly recognize it. But by far its strongest virtue is the characters and world-building. There are no boring characters really, across the whole 24 episode season. They all act distinctly different, are 3-dimensional with complex backgrounds and personalities, and they work off each other to create a recognisable and iconic cast. This highlights the strength and quality of the writing, that we can also see on full display with the world around the characters. It’s complex, everything has its explanation, it all works together. This show has some of the best world-building I’ve witness in an anime. Of course the premise (cooking the monsters found in a natural ecosystem, the dungeon) requires this, and it is more than adequately done. My explanation of it is most likely inadequate, just know the world-building is excellent.

Another key factor in making this an iconic anime is the premise itself. You just need a unique and intriguing idea to create such a show, and Delicious In Dungeon is certainly founded on a new premise. A fantasy world where dungeon adventurers cook and prepare meals using the monsters of this unique ecosystem was an idea almost predestined to create an iconic anime. There’s much more drama to the story than what I just summarised but I don’t want to spoil anything. It’s an excellent idea with excellent execution.

You may say I’m being overly positive (as I usually am), however checking the ratings will reveal that the overwhelming majority of viewers agree with me, and rated this anime extremely positively. I highly recommend watching this anime, seeing as you’d probably like to be caught up when the second season releases and presumably takes its rightful place at the top of next years (?) discussion ;)

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 6, 2025

Panda_Roll

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

Delicious in Dungeon, a cooking show where mythical dungeon critters are used as ingredients for real world recipes.

There is a sub genre on the rise recently called "cozies". Cozy mysteries is the oldest one going back to the 1940s but more recently it's started to infect other genres.

Dungeon Meshi is a clear cut example of a Cozy Fantasy, dungeon crawler subtype. Instead of exploring, plot or character development the focus instead is shifted to the food aspect with actual recipes included for the dishes per volume (yes, most publishers require that for a cozy series)

On the surface it's an ok idea, it combines two ... popular genres and the 8.6 score on MAL is a testament to it's success.

Personally though, I have mixed feelings about this. The cooking portions break the build up tension way too often. The show has a story and is good about create a sense of urgency... which is thrown to the wind because it's a cozy so obviously everything needs to be slowed down to a crawl.

The characters are paper thin, they have exactly one role each:-

Laios = Monster! yay! can I eat it?
Marcille = ew! Yuck! ew ew ew EW! ok, I'll eat it... yum.
Senshi = Cooking mama
Chilchuck - Ugh, don't treat me like a kid! So annoying.

In the second half of the show Marcille becomes the designated butt of the joke character for some reason, that's about it.

There are a lot of inconsistencies as well. In one episode the group is introduced to a new monster type, the very next episode Laios is an expert on that monster's eating and breeding habits... how?! This includes monsters never seen before and have moved to the realm of myth. How does he know everything about them including their anatomy and behavioral patterns? Aside from an exposition dump for the viewer I mean.

Dungeon Meshi is two shows forced to share the time slot. The cooking aspect ruins the adventure pacing, the adventuring is too dark and morbid for a cooking show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 11, 2024

ryanq214

Not Recommended

Funny

The show has some redeeming qualities, and the characters are good, but frankly (despite knowing what it's name is) the show is dragged down by all the monster cooking. Just slows down the story most of the time, and it stops being funny pretty fast.
In addition, it's so weird how casual and not in a hurry the characters are 90% of the time despite them being on a time limit to save their friend. They have to save someone with like a month but they almost NEVER act like they are in a hurry. Just makes the overall story ... feel not important

The show would have been better without the cooking and characters just focusing on helping their friend as an adventure story. Would have been much better as the dungeon and adventurer side of the show is pretty good.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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	Poll: Dungeon Meshi Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jan 18, 2024	184 replies	by iamthinking »» Jun 22, 11:38 PM
	Thoughts On Laios And Falin On The Autism Spectrum Enderobot - Mar 12	18 replies	by Enderobot »» Jun 11, 9:18 AM
	Poll: Dungeon Meshi Episode 23 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jun 6, 2024	122 replies	by Cap_Aleatoria »» Jun 2, 3:04 PM
	Poll: Dungeon Meshi Episode 17 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Apr 25, 2024	160 replies	by a0i-kun »» Jun 2, 1:34 AM
	Poll: Dungeon Meshi Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Mar 21, 2024	179 replies	by a0i-kun »» May 24, 5:57 AM