#also once again WHY ARE PEOPLE MAD AT KABRU???

[bhaalschosen]

Anime only dungeon meshi fans out here arguing about Toshiro and Laios (and KABRU??) and I'm so confused I thought we loved all these weirdos. I thought we loved them

[malewifesband]

i see it often that people do not see laios liking kabru, but in reality laios does like kabru! quite a lot for a guy that (from his perspective) he just met! laios forgetting kabrus exact name is not evidence of disinterest in any way--hes only heard it a couple of times, he struggles with small details (unless you want to argue laios also doesnt give a shit about marcille, chilchuck and senshi, he also forgets small details about them. if you do think this, i think dungeon meshi may be too advanced for you. stick to bluey.), and the man has autism. like near explicitly.

laios offers food from their limited supplies because kabru showed an interest in eating monsters, and makes him an omelette so he can have something to eat even though other food was already being prepared. he listens to kabrus criticism of his behavior and mindset in trying to protect falin even though she was straight up killing people, and tries to drag kabru to safety. he watches kabru defuse the situation between himself and toshiro masterfully, and confides in him how hurt he is that toshiro is so angry and how he mustve done something truly awful to upset him like that. when kabru tells him that meeting him was the best part of his time in the dungeon, laios agrees and says its the same for him (remember: laios doesnt do empty platitudes well--if he said it, he meant it).

when kabru leaves, we get three fucking panels in a row of laios staring after him, flexing the hand kabru was just holding, and reflecting on kabrus words ("next time..?")

when kabru shows up again deep in the dungeon, chilchuck is suspicious, but laios is so excited to see him that he throws caution to the wind and lets kabru hold his hand again despite seconds later crossing succubus off his list of shapeshifters that could be appearing as kabru--a carelessness around monsters and danger laios rarely exhibits. when kabru gives his warning about the canaries, laios is grateful. he notices how often kabru saves his skin

when lycion reveals that kabru lied about wanting to eat the omelette laios made, it breaks his heart because he made that with love! he made it for kabru, and kabru didnt like it, and now he knows kabru was just playing at friendship to use him. that breaks his heart, hes distraught, but he doesnt have time to be hurt about it when marcille needs his help urgently so he turns to run to her. he apologizes to kabru and tries to leave again. he isnt listening to what kabru is saying here because kabru was just revealed as a liar and because it doesnt really cohere (kabru is stuttering and speaking in broken sentences as he tries to explain about the dungeons power) and he needs to save marcille

he doesnt believe kabru wanted to be his friend, because who would? why would laios be special enough, loveable enough, to go through the pains kabru went through, just to be his friend? but when kabru makes the intensity of his desire known, laios promises to feed him again, at a proper restaurant --and again, food is care for laios, to feed someone is to love them. marcille is still his priority bc she is in real danger but he means what he says, he really does want to start over with kabru and be real friends with him

once we hit the resolution of the story, kabru near glues himself to laios, helping him and trying to cement himself as a right-hand man, and making known his intent to support laios no matter what. in the medieval manuscript style epilogue, kabru is one of two friends that stick by laios as he becomes king. both marcille and kabru become the people closest to him (besides falin of course), two friends who will always support him, always let him know when hes fucked up and theyre mad at him, two friends who he can rely on. laios did not have to accept kabru as an advisor, he did not have to ask him to stay with him. he did that because after everything, he trusts kabru now, and knows he can count on him

while laios doesnt give any big monologues about what he likes about kabru, its very clear he does, and we know what things laios values in other people. he appreciates kabrus social skills (very clear in the post canon comic in the adventurers bible), his intelligence, that kabru WANTS to be around him and understand him even though its difficult, his strength, and frankly he does appreciate his charm (three fucking panels straight of staring after him). laios really values people with specialized skillsets who are willing to tell him frankly what they think and advise him in areas he is weak in (something we see in his relationship with... i was gonna say namari but its everyone. he does this with everyone he likes. and in the resolution kabru does this CONSTANTLY he does not go a panel without giving laios his professional opinion on how to deal with people).

in conclusion: arent you hungry, kabru? let laios make something for you

[roydeezed]

Dungeon Meshi Thoughts 05

I think this will be the last of these Dungeon Meshi posts before I catch up because I’m finding it very hard to put down. Judging by the names of the next few chapters I’m on the edge of the fight with Thistle The Mad Sorcerer so I thought I’d stop off here and leave my thoughts before continuing. So this post is going to cover chapters 51-67. My spoiler filled thoughts down below past the “Keep reading”.

Last we left off, our intrepid heroes had just learnt of Senshi’s backstory and helped him overcome a great trauma in his life, the belief that he might have eaten his comrades in order to survive. Now, having been changed into different races because of the changeling mushrooms, the group talks about the differences in the ages of the races, which in hindsight after learning of Marcille’s desire, makes me realize how important this conversation was. It also makes me wonder how old Marcille really is. The story at multiple times obfuscated attempts at learning about her age. Has she somehow already learnt the way to increase her own lifespan as her worries about people dying on her due to age seem a little too real to be just worries for the future. And her traveling around picking up random bits of knowledge while also landing on forbidden magic screams someone who’s lived so long all they  can do now is gather knowledge. Marcille’s backstory, for being supposedly so old, is still so vague.

Getting back to the story, the main draw of the cooking in a fantasy setting has been the fact that they get to try all these sorts of wild creatures that would never exist in our world. But leveling that up and creating a whole new method of cooking, through changing things with the changeling mushrooms is such a great evolution of the lore of this world and classic fantasy staples. 

We also learn quite a bit about Laois and Falin’s backstory over the course of these chapters. The key motivation of Laios leaving his hometown was that he was sick of the people there, namely his parents with how much he didn’t want to look like his dad. His main regret was leaving Falin, which is why he’s trying so hard to get her back. His motivation, of wanting a world of harmony speaks to more of a desire of adventurers, to see a world that they haven’t seen before through Laios’s kindhearted view.

It’s a much vaguer wish, with an emphasis on discovery than someone like Marcilles wish, which, while grand, is very concrete. Maybe that’s why the Lion chose him, as such a vague wish is easy to manipulate. One other thing that stood out to me was that both Laios and Falin were engaged before it fell through. In between the cracks of what we know they have a whole set of lives and personalities. I want to know what Laios in love looks like so bad. The little scene of little Falin eating alone is so precious and heartbreaking. I just want the best for these siblings. 

Sharing food as a form of love, for both of the siblings, shows how much they both care about the party. Two small moments that followed this revelation that I loved were Marcille crying because she realized how much Falin loved her and Izutsumi acting literally like a cat as she comforted Marcille.

Izutsumi should be the blueprint for all catgirls going forward, the authour really hit a homerun when they made her.

The group also comes to the conclusion that they can eat her to fix her, calling upon the help of all their allies so far. With where I’m at now, with the characters as divided as they are and the Lion manipulating Laios, I can only say this was an overly hopeful dream. 

We then go over to what I now consider to be the manga’s secondary protagonist, Kabru. Who once again, I dearly love. I love all of the characters but Kabru is just great in so many ways. And we see his determination in not letting a repeat of Utaya, his hometown, happen again. We see how the dungeon has corrupted others and in an effort to drive out campers and get Thistle to come to them, the canaries incite desire in people by flashing money. Originally they seemed outright evil, but I should’ve known better as it’s never that straightforward with Dungeon Meshi. The Canaries are either royals or criminals who’ve meddled with dark magic, signified by clipped ears. This makes me wonder if Marcille has any relation with the Canaries because is she somehow authorized to learn forbidden magic? The Canaries seem like a lifetime membership though. 

Misurn and Kabru manage to get one over on Thistle and just as Misurn is about to end Thistle, Kabru realizes that he needs answers. A bad faith take of this situation, upon learning of the demons and the dungeon mechanics, as well as Kabru’s later desire to stop Laios, would be to say this was just extending the story through a plot convenience. And it really very easily could have been. But this goes back to the systemic issue of the older races, dwarves and elves, not trusting the younger races. Seeing them as naive and impulsive. Kabru forcing this information out is one of the reasons I love him so much. 

While I think some naivety is needed, Kabru looks forward to a world like the one Laios and Marcille look forward to but in a much more realistic sense. He understands the first thing that needs to happen, even before a magical resetting of the race’s ages, is that they need to trust each other. And that’s something we see happen on a smaller scale with our party.

Next, we learn Chilchuck’s backstory. He turns out to be a father and a husband, and through Marcilles incredibly empathetic prediction, we learn most of how the separation with his wife went.  After Senshi, Chilchuck comes in as the second most known about party member, though we still don’t know why or how he got into adventuring. While filling out the role of the rogue in the party, he is also the most wholesome, having raised his daughters and loved his wife.

Next we learn about Marcille’s backstory. And even though we learn quite a lot about her, by the simple virtue of being an elf, there’s still a whole lot more we don’t know about her. This also drives home Marcille’s desire to eliminate the differences between races. With Chilchuck and Senshi, them belonging to a younger race and being younger respectively, we’re able to learn their backstories quite fast. Marcille, being an elf, has that much more of a distance between her and her companions as she has so much more ground to cover on formative memories and motivations. Also on a personal note, finding out that Marcille got into dungeon crawling because she’s basically that world’s equivalent of a flatliner is the dorkiest, stupidest, and funniest thing about her. She’s such a loser(affectionate), I love her so much. Her being into a dorky prince like person as her one true love comes second to that. But going back to it, Marcille is so intrinsically tied to the siblings that it’s just as much her story as it is theirs. 

The next little bit has a few fun moments I want to mention. One is that the Dullhan looks like such a cool monster that I hope we see it again. Another is that I love how the story of the succubui helps Izutsumi come to terms with her animal nature so organically. It’s such a brilliant use of monsters to help realize the protagonists character arcs, you know I’m writing this down for future TTRPG use. Also Chilchuck’s wife is blonde, that’s so wholesome, he’s such a good husband. Them losing to the succubi because of Marcille’s lame taste is also so on brand. Though I would’ve thought Marcille would’ve seen Falin with how much they seem to care for her. I thought the story was alluding to a romantic relationship between the two of them but I guess I’m wrong as it sets it up that Laios sees Marcille as his type. Also Izutsumi is god tier ace rep. 

We then meet the lion, who looks adorable by the way, and we learn that it wants to help Laios become the new lord of the dungeon and that Thistle is keeping it trapped. From what we learn later, it looks like Thistle was able to keep the dungeon safe for so long because he locked up the lion, preventing it from feeding on his desire more. The lion also probably manipulated the people of the kingdom to make them aid Laios in such a specific way. As we later learn from Kabru's perspective, Demons are beings from a dimension of infinite energy that grow strong by feeding on people's desires. 

Here's where I think Dungeon Meshi delivers another masterstroke of storytelling. All throughout so far, we've been very clearly watching the world through our characters' eyes, learning what they want to learn about, being curious about what they want to be curious about, and more specifically learning about the characters themselves from little moments of dialogue to big chunks of backstory. And this has gotten us invested in the characters without much thought to the world. But now the world is developed in such a major way through the Canaries and The Demons and especially our characters' relationships with these two, specifically the Demons, that we can't help but care about the world as well. The main crux of the demon's powers being gained through desire lets the story function through the wants and needs of our main characters, making us, the audience, at the very least, understand, if not root for their desires. Desires that could very well destroy their world. It puts us at odds with the story as much as our characters are. It's genius.

Going back to the story once again, we follow Kabru as they tail Laios along his journey and we once again see that Kabru makes a quick and impulsive decision to follow Laios so he can speak with him one more time. Kabru is always quick to come to conclusions; we saw as much from his first interaction with Laios, where he chooses not to blame him for his party's death and gets a read on him instantly. It's one of his greatest strengths, but also could become one of his greatest weaknesses. Thankfully, up until now, it's worked out, but going forward, it could very well backfire as Kabru doesn't second guess himself enough to fully consider his assumptions.

Finally, on to the last stretch of events before I put it down to write this, our heroes come across Thistles cabin and partially free the winged lion after eating some phoenix.

The birth of the lion from the book as well as the whole sequence with Misurn and the goat are incredibly horrific.

As a horror fan, my love for this manga increased tenfold with the recent developments. The lion also looks like a biblical angel after it’s birth.

The imagery is absolutely breathtaking here.

Also I really like Misurn as both a character and a plot device. He’s so single minded about revenge but he also has a lot of personality even if that comes from having his desires taken away.

I also love how Kabru as a human matches wits with these supposed mature races. He meets them equally and I couldn’t be prouder of my boy. 

Our heroes also attempt to kill some rabbits for Falin and things go horribly wrong with Marcille being the only one left to fend for herself in one of the funniest moments in the series where she has a ghoulish dance troupe with dead rabbits and her fellow party members.

Speaking of the rabbits, if anyones watched Re:Zero they reminded me a lot of the snow rabbits but like a 100% more messed up.

But here we get another moment that makes me wonder what Marcille has actually gone through.

She talks about how it would make her feel if everyone died like she has some experience.

I’m still mad that the story skipped over her age. Is she like a thousand years old or something? What’s your deal girl? How’d you get so adorkable? But really. Marscille’s actions make me feel like she’s not that old but hints to her backstory suggest she is. It’s so weird. Going into this next part, Kabru is still my favourite but with how much of a loser she is Marcille is a really close second. And the fact that she’s such a capable wizard makes it a hundred times funnier. We love emotionally unstable dorks here. 

Also, I absolutely love the crying faces in Dungeon Meshi, they pack so much gentle emotion into them.

Anyways, they feed Falin and take her out before getting ready to fight Thistle. That’s where I stopped reading and right after posting this I am going to go back, I’ve been away from this for way too many days. With Kabru also converging on this point I don’t think this fight will turn out like a typical fight. There are way too many factors involved to accurately predict anything. Though it would be wild if Laios becomes the lord of the dungeon. Knowing how subversive and nuanced this story gets I wouldn’t put it past it. Our heroes have suffered so much, I just want a win for them at this point. With being on what I feel like is the precipice of a major plot point, I can’t really speculate much or analyze much as it all feels like it leads to the immediate next part. Like all the build up has been for a very specific set of circumstances that I probably won’t be able to predict. See ya next time when I've caught up! Unless something happens where I need to stop and gather thoughts.