Dungeon Meshi
Delicious in Dungeon

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Overall, this is a great example of fantasy manga that takes world building and various questions seriously; namely, monster design, world ecology, and consistency. This story takes place in a world that mirrors something like what you would encounter playing Dungeons and Dragons. The way it is written, with rich descriptions of the world and its various creatures, their interactions, and anatomical considerations, take it to the next level, hearkening to the mindfulness of design from older editions of DnD like ADnD2e and 3.Xe. You have meticulous planning of how certain environments work in tandem with their creatures, and how these are divided into different ... environmental spheres throughout the story really takes you on an in-depth journey. The backdrop of food as an excuse to explore the world is also a wonderful and fresh angle in the fantasy genre, particularly because the recipes sound much more accurate or believable than those others that might try to mimic this.
The art is, succinctly put, superb. The author's style has very strong lineart. Some of the shading use of lines rather than texture remind me of European woodblock prints, vaguely. The background art and design of environments is always detailed enough and yet you can still see points of focus easily. Designs of creatures are also not too crazy, with homages to the original inspirations in mythos without re-inventing the wheel. However, you do see some cuter designs of some creatures, and this is welcome as well.
What makes my scoring less than perfect is primarily to do with personal taste. I don't really like much of the main cast save for the halfling. That being said, the characterizations and writing are very strong, giving overt personalities to characters, even if they were only introduced halfway through the story.
One other thing I didn't like, personally, is the power level that the story operates at. One of the things about endgame DnD is that magic will make things like death a mere setback than anything truly staying. This happens a bit with their use of necromancy magic in the story, sometimes for gag purposes. However, this is not to fault the story itself. In fact, the story does deal with themes about life and death in a very poignant and well-rounded way.
For budding worldbuilders, I think this is a better read than something more bizarre like Made in Abyss. The monsters are familiar and the characters provide great comedy relief in the midst of a rather insidious plot that occurs both outside and within.

Truly a breath taking journey for those who love character driven plots as well as heavy world building. Dunmeshi has helped me fall back in love with the Dungeon genre where it actually focuses on the dungeon rather than a male protag picking up chicks. Genuinely my all time favorite story and it has also led me to getting treatment for my Eating Disorder (it left me with a strong desire to heal my relationship with food). I recommend Dunmeshi to anyone and everyone I meet and I love seeing my manga collection being over taken by the series on my bookshelf.

I feel like there's three major arcs in Dungeon Meshi, and these will help readers decide if they want to stick with the manga.

The first arc feels almost like it's a Dungeon and Dragon's companion, while it might not be directly based on D&D, it's mostly about a party of adventurers in a dungeon, needing to find food, and thus cooking monsters. If you're already a D&D fan, you might enjoy this section the most, but I feel like it's the roughest part of the series.

The biggest issue is that while the main story line is introduced in the first chapter, it's ... almost immediately dropped and so much of the story is "What are we eating today". Monster appears, quick fight (though chapters are of a decent length so there's a bit of action) and then the party sit down while the cook makes something and displays it.

While I really loved Shokugeki no Soma where everything was something that was over engineered, but potentially realistic, Dungeon Meshi clearly lives in the fantasy world, but still has minor pieces about interesting techniques. You won't learn how to cook here, but it's not intending you to and that's kind of the problem with this Arc. It seems more intended to delight Tabletop RPG players, or people so immersed in fantasy that they might discuss how a Basilisk and Cockatrice differ, or how to properly cut up one.

For me this was by far the weakest part of the manga, but also the one truest to the name of the manga.

About a third of the way through the manga, the real story finally hits it's stride, and it comes suddenly. The main thread of the manga is picked up but food still is very critical to the party. The story is well done the writing is excellent, and there's still a strong food theme. This is definitely the part of the manga that I would easily recommend, and if the manga started here, I probably could have even given it a 8 or maybe 9.

The thing is, when Dungeon Meshi wants to tell a larger story they can, and even while it becomes over convoluted, there's enough interesting stories that every chapters is engaging.

But with three arcs, there's always going to be a third one, and here... It's a mix. Ultimately the final third of the book loses a lot of what made me love this manga. It's pass the point of no return, readers need to finish the story, and unlike Shokugeki no Soma (which falls off hard), this arc is still well written, and engaging, but oddly enough I feel like the cooking and food becomes forgotten, or just thrown in enough to satisfy fans.

Again the writing isn't terrible, and there's a lot of interesting action and occurrence, but there's a little more plot convivence, and a lot of characters seem to be persuaded by words just because they have to do something that they might not normally do.

The thing is, I don't hate this section of the manga, but it's really obvious that the writer was wrapping up the manga, and it just took a very long time to do so.

I Believe each of these main arcs are about 30 chapters long, and I feel the weakest arc is the first arc, but I also think the change doesn't exactly benefit the manga, as it would have been lovely to have a strong story the entire manga, rather than a "McGuffin" that the party is chasing for that opening part. In addition while I see the meaning, if the manga really is about food, meals, or consumption of foodstuff, that could have been handled better in the final arc. I do see where that's attempted, but I also think there could have been a stronger connection to the story, rather than it being shoehorned in to check a box.

Overall it's a good, not great manga, I'd recommend it, but I would caution readers that they should have some love of RPGs/D&D/fantasy monster based media before jumping into this. Still I enjoyed it, I easily finished and since it's under 100 chapters, I might even read it a second time as the characters are interesting and well done.

Note: Giving this a mixed feelings ONLY because of the heavy focus on "Fantasy Dungeon monsters" early on. I feel like if I wasn't already interested in D&D I probably would have given this a pass.

Second Note: This only has 97 chapters.