#been thinking about dungeon lord Mithrun for a while now

[vaultureculture]

Little mouse

[yusiyomogi]

what i don't like about "mithrun represents elven violence in the story" interpretations that i've seen a lot lately is that they're kinda. um, i guess, trying to overshadow another much simpler and straightforward reading of his role in the story. which is that he's an abuse victim who's been dehumanized for years by extremely ableist society and now participates in the cycle of cruelty?

like, some of the elves in the story are fucking mean (we're dealing with criminals mostly i guess), but really, they're just super patronizing and dismissive to the lives of other races. like kabru said, their cruelty mostly comes from their refusal to understand importance of time in other people's lives. they don't execute criminals; they conveniently forget about their life spans. the canaries also are a military force of imperialistic country and a lot of their methods demonstrate a noticeable level of disregard to borders and autonomy of other countries and it's the whole thing.

mithrun kinda exists mostly outside of this narrative though? yes, at first, he seems to be an effective tool/weapon of the military force, but i don't believe his cruelty is "elven" cruelty, not really. he constantly goes against typical canaries' methods even, because he just doesn't care about the rules (and pattadol panics about it, showing that this is not the way she was trained). he's only particularly cruel and violent towards other dungeon lords, and to me it reads as something extremely personal.

he's self-destructive and self-critical and without fully realizing it he projects those feelings on people he relates the most to: other dungeon lords. and with that, i think, he recreates violence that was done to him. in some twisted irony he's often doing it by simply trying to prevent the worst: he treats marcille so roughly, because he's desperate to stop her from repeating his fate. and it does not absolve him from fault of traumatizing her, it's very obviously not framed as something "correct". but it's framed as something raw and complicated and uncomfortable. he would treat himself the same way, if he could go back.

i just can't get rid of the feeling that something about putting him as the main agent of elven violence kinda... misses the mark a little? even looking at his character's arc. like, when in other stories characters are meant to be agents of political regimes, their arcs are usually about deconstructing their beliefs or refusing to give up on them and going down with the system. meanwhile mithrun doesn't want to uphold his beliefs nor deconstructing them, we don't even know how he sees himself in the relation to political system, because his story is strikingly personal.

i think the scene in the end demonstrates it the best: while the rest of canaries are shocked or angry when laios takes marcille away from them, mithrun simply keeps eating in the background. he's a part of the system, but he's far from being a shining example of it. i think it could be seen as a narratively subversive move even, because possibly we were meant to expect his story to be something different, he's a military captain after all, and that's not how this type of story usually goes.

of course, every reading has right to exist! it's just my personal take, really.

[meocities]

The Lack Thereof

Mithrun/Reader - 1423 words, hurt/comfort

You're nervous. You're sad and lonely and hurting, and on top of it all, you're nervous.

Mithrun stares at you from across the bedroom. He's been doing that a lot lately — you've noticed how his eyes linger. You notice a lot more than you let on about him, but you’ve realized that he ends up knowing anyway. You can't keep anything secret from him — he'll find out that you're hiding something, at the very least, and then he'll just keep staring until you tell him.

He's doing that now. Staring. His eyes bore into your own, and when you look away for a second, glance back, look away again, he moves his staring to your hands. You're wringing your fingers in your own grasp. The edges of your cuticles are dry and picked. Your skin might have bled a few times from your nervousness, and though the blood was the only thing that could have given your anxiety away (blood that had long been cleaned), you know Mithrun sees the red-flushed divot of wounds even from the distance you're keeping.

Mithrun raises an eyebrow, and the anxiety compounds in your stomach. It burns your skin, just as much as the memories do, and you know you're strong but you think to yourself, god, I want to cry.

You're strong, and you're brave, and you've always stood up to everything that has ever been thrown at you, and you're so tired. You're so tired of the effort. You wonder if he can relate.

So you bow your head, and you know Mithrun's eyes have gone wide — as much as they can, anyway — staring at you still. He's silent, unmoving on the bed the Canaries had set him up with after the new kingdom's establishment. Of course it would be silent. Of course he would be staring. You’re the one who invaded his room in the middle of the night, after all. You know you're lucky that he doesn't care.

Yet, for now, you're still looking at the floor while the former captain of the Canaries looks at you, with your hands wringing themselves into shreds, and the hole in your stomach is eating you alive. You know he expects something of you, so you take a breath (it's shaky, and you cringe because you know your words aren't going to come out right) and deliver, ineloquently, “you don't care about most things, right?”

Mithrun's told you his story. How he became a dungeon lord — and how he lost that title in five years. How he's been recovering over time, slowly but surely, thanks to the help of Kabru and his Canaries, and the noodle shop that he lives above, and everyone who's had the smallest bit of faith in him along the way. And while Mithrun's made endless progress, you know he still has trouble desiring, sometimes.

You can't imagine asking this of anyone else.

Mithrun nods his head slowly, and you realize you've looked back up at him when his brows furrow together. “I don't,” he says.

“Can you do me a favor,” you say, expecting to stop there, but highly reluctant to even consider the thought of him rejecting you before you even get the real question out. “Can I join you?”

Mithrun looks down, gaze sweeping his bed, before turning back to you. It's a silent question, and you nod, cheeks aflame. Are your legs shaking? You feel unsteady. You aren't sure if you're breathing right — feels too shallow, as if you're afraid to even make a sound. Your hands, still fidgeting with your fingers, twist a joint in such a way that your knuckle cracks, and you wince at the sound interrupting the silence. Mithrun remains quiet, and you think that you might never have taken a deep breath in your life.

He breaks this silence a moment after. “Why are you asking this of me?”

There's lots of things you can say to this — lots of things that go through your head in response. It feels delicate to dissect, yet heavy. Emotion and cognition flit through your brain, and you think about analyzing yourself in your typical pattern of being self-aware, but it feels like too much. There's no good straw to grasp onto, but the one thing that comes to your mind is that, despite not knowing him for long, there's something about him that makes you feel as if he's the only person in the world you can go to.

I don't know wouldn't suffice as an answer. Moreover, you would feel bad about not communicating to the best of your ability. To him, you say, “I trust you,” and you don't think about how his distance is the most familiar thing you've known.

He doesn't seem convinced, but he shrugs and lifts his head to lay on the side of the pillow — moving to make room for you. Your heart thuds hard in your chest, and you're both terrified and not. You wipe your sweaty palms on the surface of your clothes, because you don't want to put that on Mithrun, not at all — there's no need for him to see that you're any more nervous than he already knows you are. While your hands are wiped off, you approach the bed, lifting your leg so you can slide over the top, knees bent as you sit by his waist. You're so close that your knees are touching the right side of his waist. The bed wasn't very big to begin with, and by the way Mithrun moves his arm out to make room for you to lay down, you know he's aware of the proximity.

Which, this action makes your chest ache. He wasn’t supposed to be caring — he wasn't supposed to make this easy. You're tempted to pull back for a moment before Mithrun raises his eyebrow at your hesitation, and you bite your tongue even as your eyes begin to moisten. You won't cry, you know this for sure — you refuse to be weak in front of someone as strong as him, and even though his eyes narrow at all the things you won't say, you give up part of the act and lay your head down on his chest, nosing your face into his neck. Your left hand comes to rest on his stomach so that you're curled into him, and you can already feel the moisture from your breath condensing on the skin of his neck. You won't cry, you remind yourself. You won't cry, and if some tears do drop on Mithrun's shoulder beneath your face then it was an accident. You didn't mean to.

Slowly, his arm comes around to cradle you into his side. Your breath hitches as his fingers trail down your spine to pull you closer, stroking along the bone of your back. You can feel yourself shaking, frozen in place — you don't want to move, but something like this is so unfamiliar. You never would have expected this from him, of all people — wasn't the point of seeking this out from him because he wouldn't be overwhelming? Wasn't the point of this to have an image of being loved?

Yet, with Mithrun’s fingers at the slope of your back, the image you had is colored and crisp. Even if he's pretending, it almost feels like he actually cares about you.

He can feel that you're shaking now — there's no doubt about it. Your breathing rattles through your chest as your fingers grip the fabric on his stomach, and you feel his abdominal muscles clench for a moment before he forces them to relax. He shifts his face above you and you feel lips on your forehead — he pressed a kiss to your skin, you realize, and your heart shatters into a million pieces. You're warm, you're burning up, and all you can do is sling your arm across his ribs, tuck a leg between his, and bury your face so far into Mithrun's neck that you don't know where you end and he begins anymore.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Not like this — nothing this nice. You're still shaking, but you're held tightly. Why did he desire to hold you?

You vocalize this sentiment. “Why are you doing this?” You ask, and your voice is quiet. Devastated. Unsure.

Mithrun doesn't look at you. He doesn't even shift his position. Just hums a short noise in the hollow of his throat — something you feel the vibrations of tickling your nose — and says, “I trust you, too.”

[furubabasket]

dunmeshi posting today (spoilers ahead for manga marcille stuff)

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i feel like there is so much to say and analyze about the fact that marcille's biggest--realest--fear is outliving everyone around her... specifically within the world of dungeon meshi that kui has created.

marcille's fear will certainly happen. (maybe not with falin, if her lifespan has been dragonified, but there's no way for us or for falin or marcille to know this yet.) and marcille has already watched every single one of her close friends die--temporarily. sometimes the circumstances have been dicey (or in falin's case nearly impossible) in ways that caused mounting dread and very real fear (in a way that seems uniquely upsetting in a world which has gotten somewhat blase about dungeon deaths--to have casual hope and to lose it), not even mentioning the initial shock, but so far, loss has not been final for marcille in recent years. that makes it hit all the harder when she has to contend with the possibility of falin being Dead For Good (such as when they couldn't find her bones in the dragon's stomach).

the thing that makes me absolutely sick about this is how marcille ends up just... having to swallow that her fear will come to pass. she just has to accept that both the "fix" she hoped for (the possibility of equalizing racial lifespans) is unethical and the "fix" she ALREADY USED (dungeon revivification) is impossible to implement everywhere. she just has to accept that no matter what, even in a world where death and loss isn't always final, she is doomed to experience it anyway or else succumb to the abusive and addictive pull of the demons' "security" like thistle and mithrun. (sidenote: all of the dungeon lords being elves, iirc, is telling and tragic.) I love the ending of dunmeshi and find it so compelling, and yet this is something that sticks out to me as so, so importantly "unresolved" even if I can't fully articulate it. marcille is not over this, and she can't be--while everyone else looks to the future, by definition hers is darker. that's going to take a lot more time to come to terms with. the moral is that whole "eating is the special privilege of the living," right? the moral comes down to "life involves hurting and being hurt, and that is the way of things, no matter how we run from it... but that doesn't have to be soul-crushingly depressing." marcille's friends are aware of the burden she has. they talk with her about her fears and comfort her without minimizing them. they help her feel less alone in what is a completely alienating existence. it's so fucking sad. it's horrifically sad! she got to save falin--but for how long? she got to save falin--but what about the next one? she got to save falin--why is that okay, but she isn't allowed to "have" everyone else? saving falin was only possible because of the help of a demon and forbidden magic, and while it's presented creepily, as readers we're certainly meant to root for falin's return. it's a "good" thing. it's the entire point of the first act, and the entire point of the very last. it's the good ending. it's happy! it's hard-won! and yet marcille needs to learn to accept death.

this dissonance is intentional, of course, and that's what makes it so fucking interesting. of course marcille goes crazy for a second. of course she struggles and obsesses. everyone else, functionally, gets to have what she wants! everyone else gets to "have" the dead now, no strings attached, no abnormal amount of future grief to carry. (for the opposite, past loss, imagine being kabru: being raised from the dead--watching your friends get casually revived--paying for the privilege--and thinking of your long-dead mother, who didn't get this chance, and wondering how easy it could have been.) in the future, when marcille's losses come, the dungeon's rules won't be around to protect her anymore from that cold, dull finality. it'll be real when it wasn't before. and she just has to be cool with that. man. MAN.

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Reason with the Mad Mage & Diplomacy with Elves

Note: everything from here on is retroactive/reread, because I stayed up until about 6am on Wednesday night reading until the end because that was the only way to ensure that the characters would be okay.

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Hey look, now our protagonists are the food, instead of running around holding cooking implements! I'm sure that's fine!! (Look at that lion's eyes!!!)

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I really like how...everyone? In the pasty gets at least 1 fight where they're totally on their own, for whatever reason: Laios with the living armor and again now with all the dragons, Chilchuck with the mimic, Izutsumi with the succubi, Marcille with the rabbits... I note that the reasons for it are escalating:

Laios fought the armor-captain alone as a strategic choice, while the rest of the party distracted the rest of the armor in the other room

Chilchuck fought the mimic alone because the rest of the party was asleep down the hall

Izutsumi fought the succubi alone because the rest of the party was already down, though not yet dead

Marcille fought the rabbits alone because most of the party was dead and Izutsumi had fled

Laios fights the dragons AND the Mad Mage directing them alone because the entire rest of the party is dead

Solid writing, that. And Senshi...has a monster that is His To Fight, that is where we got some special Senshi character exploration, but the whole point of it was that Senshi, who had been alone for so long, now had people reaching out to hold him, and to make food for him.

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I just like when they say things outright. "Meals are an act of optimism." "Only the dead don't eat." Fuck yeah!

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EYES EYES EYES EYES EYES. Thinking a lot here about that post about how Thistle is a great example of an antagonist who is really truly too far gone to "talk it out" with. His intentions ARE good, and Laios sees that so Laios tries... and Thistle is also trying, it's just...the demon has been playing on him for too long with too much skill.

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He's so! Earnest! And young! It's implied that he dies in the end, and I do think that's a narratively solid and restful ending for him, but man I want this kid to live and maybe covertly tag along with Mithrun on exploring the risen kingdom and defending it from random monsters, and re-learning how to have healthy desires. I think it'd be good for both of them, and also, potentially very funny.

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me, 2 posts ago:

me, now: Ah, yes, that makes sense... Not our heroes but Someone sure is.

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Fucking love multiple consecutive dungeon lords going, "my last wish is to fuck that guy up."

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They're just...happy...

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Love love love Chilchuck taking charge when Laios isn't there, especially in the context of "imminent tense 'diplomatic' meeting." He formed a union! He's good at this shit, and he'd be even better at it if he didn't have the handicap of being disrespected as a halffoot, and it's wonderful to see him with a team that has learned to respect him beyond that prejudice!

Also, Senshi's tiny eye wrinkle of determination <3

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Never mind my previous comment. Chilchuck is never allowed to do diplomatic relations with the elves ever again.

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Kabru, internally: oh my god we're all going to die

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I'm just noting Ms. fresh-faced aristocratic scion and the handful of extremely competent, notch-eared criminals she's in charge of... The structure of this lead group of Canaries is very interesting, because Mithtrun is nominally in charge, and he genuinely does command in combat and other matters focused on immediate dungeon lord-hunting. But he's ONLY focussed on that, so Pattindol is clearly accustomed to taking the lead in situations with more social nuance... And the criminal members make decisions on their own such as to take advantage of Mithrun's typical disappearance to go snoop around this house... But they are accustomed, and I'm sure required, to have permission/orders from a guard to use their black magic specialties, see: the enchantment of Laios, Chilchuck & Senshi here, or in their opening mushroom fight when everyone was shouting out how they could kill the mega-mushroom.

...I'm gonna pay attention to how Pattindol and Flamela [I hope I'm getting these names right] interact later. The Canaries are such an interesting paramilitary unit.

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This is just a screencap of Kabru's life for the rest of his life. Good luck, Mr. Future Royal Advisor!

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Every good adventure story, and arguably every good story, period, reaches a point where to explain it makes you sound COMPLETELY insane - sometimes even with the context of the rest of the story up to that point. This...is very much that point.

I love that point so much.

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It's unreasonably stressful that Kabru's hands are obviously magically, invisibly handcuffed this entire scene. It's a metaphor for how he's handcuffed by the general threat the Canaries represent, of course, making him unable to warn Laios of the dangers of both the Canaries and of the demon. Being able to weird a sword would do nothing to help if it's going well or if it all goes wrong. But it's still stressful! And Laios doesn't know about the dangers just like he doesn't put together that Kabru is invisibly handcuffed!

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God I love Marcille. And her problem-solving methods.

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FINALLY, SOME GOOD FUCKING SILENT COMMUNICATION.

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So! A court magician's daughter clearly outranks an aristocratic scion sent into the Canaries to prove her family's loyalty to the crown. That makes sense.

Unfortunately, Mithrun's single brain cell, while focussed entirely on destroying the demon, is still capable of Insight checks, and the criminals are basically unfazed by the court hierarchy games that Marchille is trying to play.

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Why does EVERY elf assume that Marcille's great wish would be to be a full elf! I want to drop Elrond on these people and watch him verbally eviscerate them.

Joke's on you, motherfucker! Her greatest wish would (she thinks) serve all people, and has secondary effects that she could still enjoy!

Marcille: [hears Izutsumi lurking, ready to kick Mithrun in the face]

Marcille: Alright, time to tell a bishie to step the fuck off.

[britcision]

So one thing I keep thinking about with the dungeon is the immortality spell

Here thar be spoilers

Cuz there’s this general assumption being made in and out of world that that’s just a thing that all the dungeons have (because that’s how dungeon crawler games work; you can save and come back and revive party members and things)

And from how the adventuring party culture is shown, it’s easy to assume that it’s just a general thing the demon sets up every time to keep adventurers coming back

After all, Chilchuck’s our only full time cast member who’s ever seen another dungeon, and he’s died a lot in his early career; makes sense he just got revived, all the dungeons work like that

And Marcille, who’s studied dungeons in general, gives us an overview of how it happens… but. She came to this dungeon specifically to study the immortality spell. For reasons

And Mr Tance gives us this description, which blatantly states that this dungeon is different

Now, other dungeons might have different immortality spells, and the Canaries definitely talk about dying like it’s something they do on the job just, on the regular

Like when Lycion explains they’re just gonna kill Fleki and revive her because neurological damage is harder

(Although somehow Mithrun’s fellow wardens are staying dead?)

So at the very least, there is something on some other dungeons that allows people to be revived, because the Canaries are at the Island for the first time in the 6 years since the dungeon existed

And yet, during the upheaval of the dungeon, Flamela says this

And holy shit gang, this tells us a lotta things

1) like everything else, the dungeon lord gets to decide if people can be revived on a per dungeon basis

2) it can be turned off. If you die in the dungeon suddenly you die in real life too, on a dime. As in, you revive the tank before the mage, and suddenly the mage is just dead-dead. The dungeon lord decides you stay dead on Thursdays? You stay dead on Thursdays

3) You’ve just gotta accept that any time the dungeon lord changes they may or may not do a reset to factory settings and wipe the whole dungeon, which is already super dangerous and likely to kill a lotta people

4) this is a regular fucking concern for the Canaries, who explicitly go in to fuck around when the dungeon (and associated lord) are too powerful

5) Flamela’s probably seen this before, it’s been a while and she lays it out in a very matter of fact way (and she’s. Dramatic. Cranky even.)

6) if Mithrun didn’t purchase Dungeon Immortality Insurance that dead Canary buddy in his flashback is dead-dead… and we don’t know if a single other member made it out of his dungeon soooo

7) Thistle is even more extra than we thought, since generic immortality is common enough to be taken for granted, but he specifically made dying illegal, which Mr Tance says is weird and he’s been doing this long enough to be an expert advisor

8) there is at least one other way to make resurrection work within dungeons. He didn’t even have to be like this. But he’s been doing it 1000 years and the demon may have gotten the idea from him

9) there have DEFINITELY 100% been adventurers who were used to the resurrection dungeons who bulled head first into a non-resurrection dungeon and are dead

10) Kabru is so fucking lucky he ended up at the Island if he coulda stayed dead he wouldn’t have hit 21. Milsiril probably steered him here on purpose as a baby dungeon

[chaoticstarlightwonderland]

Danganronpa Characters as the Dungeon Meshi races

Makoto - Half-foot/human hybrid because he is forever short and baby-faced. It's been confirmed in side material that tall-man are able to produce children with halflings and gnomes and the offspring can reproduce (unlike half-elves) so I think it makes sense to have Makoto connected to the most underestimated races. In an adventuring party, he does a lot of the halfling jobs like looking for and dismantling traps. I also think because of his caring nature and how accident-prone he is Makoto learned some healing spells from his party's mage. He has low mana thought (2/5) so it's really in case of emergencies or as a simple first aid until real help can come.

Nagito - A half-elf. I think it would suit his brand of luck; born with a natural lifespan of 1000 years but has to watch anyone and everyone he loves pass away. Because he still has his luck cycles, everyone is sure is some kind of curse but no mage can do anything about it, let alone even understand it. He probably would go through a lot, losing his parents, being discriminated against, being sold off into illegal slavery, and probably a bunch of health problems. But Nagito is still Nagito, he just keeps kicking away.

Hajime - A normal tall-man who was frustrated with the fact that he was never particularly special in anything. I think when he found out he had even a hint of magic he begged his parents to send him to a magic boarding school they could barely afford, only to find out first-hand how lacklustre his magic was compared to the kids. Hajime pushed himself to continue studying, which lead him down a path of dungeon hunting, and of demons. He made a deal which backfired on him, turning into a Lord of the Dungeon and slowly becoming "Izuru Kamukura-ised". If/when he gets out of the demon's thrall, his case is a lot like Mithrun's. Although he does have more skills outside of wanting to hunt demons, that was because of the initial deal he made. Hajime lost the ability to enjoy his talents or get satisfaction from being skilled. He is more talented than ever but he is incapable of enjoying it.

Junko and Mukuro - Demons. Junko is a demon that helps people achieve their hopes and desires and feeds on their happiness. This makes people think she is the nicer sister but that just means she enjoys giving people what they want and watching their despair as they lose the capacity to enjoy it. Mukuro is described as a 'war demon' because she grants humans their wishes with violence and feeds off their rage and the resulting bloodbath. However, over time she actually grew to love the humans (at least more than Junko) because it was so shocking to see the kindness that mortal beings can show each other, especially when she has seen first-hand the cruelty they are capable of.

Now for the shorter ideas that I still think are interesting:

Fuyuhiko - A half-foot that is the heir to a shockingly powerful crime/loan shark family. His family flew under the radar for a long while because the Elves and Gnomes kept underestimating them until they become so powerful they couldn't be handled.

Peko - A tall-man who was abandoned by her parents when she was young and was brought by Fuyuhiko's family to be his servant and bodyguard.

Chihiro - A Gnome mage who is very talented in communicating with spirits. He has one such spirit that he has raised all by himself that is this reality's 'Alter Ego'.

A minor thing, in a side comic it was said that the races consider music to be the thing that Tallmen are known for, so I think all the characters who have interest in music are Tallmen. That includes Kaede, Sayaka, Ibuki, Hiyoko, and Leon.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts and suggestions!!

[dianight]

Perhaps some day we could have a serious conversation about why despite her amazing character designs and great variety in body types compared to other mangaka, Kui Ryoko still chose to have all but one (two arguably) of the characters with an active leader role in the story of Dungeon Meshi to be men.

Spoilers below.

It is a fantastic manga, to quote a post I've read a while ago (paraphrasing), Dunmeshi is 95 chapters long and no panel is irrelevant. But! Out of all the groups in the story only one is led by a woman (elf queen) and she does not actually participate in it.

Laios' party has Marcille, but she is at best "second in command" if you will, as much as Chilchuck is.

Kabru's party, the orcs, the governor(s), the gnomes' party, the canaries, Shuro's party, the dwarfs and even the golden kingdom (Delgal and Thistle). Fionil and Doni are minor characters and they're a party of two, we could assume both share the "leader" position.

One can find excuses to each of those choices, but at the end of the day the choice was made to make them men.

Kabru could have been a woman, it would not change anything at all.

Zon and Leed could have swapped places, with the older sister leading and taking a less violent approach to the hotheaded younger brother.

Either/both of the governors could have been women, no difference.

The leading, more vocal and abrasive of the gnomes could have been the old lady and the quiet one the old man. I struggle to see if anything would change at all.

The canaries are mostly women, and they were led by Milsiril back in the day and the queen leads them, technically. Still, the choice was made to have Mithrun in the role of Mithrun with everything it represents. Could it have been the younger sister that has her love stolen by the older one, would the dynamics be the same? Tempted to have the life she could not get by the demon, getting eaten (but not fully!) and seeking revenge? Would Milsiril spare her this time? We can't tell, Mithrun is a man. It was a choice made by Kui-sensei.

Could Shuro have been a woman? Seeing as he's the fantasy equivalent of a japanese young lord(!) probably not(?) in terms of how it would be presented. A young lady with her entourage chasing after her unrequited love and getting beaten to it by another lesbian? Sorry but this looks like the kind of ntr I enjoy now. But I don't think it would be the same conflict with Shuro/Marcille and Shuro/Laios. It could(!) work, but not in the kind of story where (almost) all the leaders are men.

Could the dwarves have been women? I don't see why not. Senshi could have been inspired by a mother figure (or older sister) as much as he was by his mentor (whether you see it as a father/older brother/something else figure). All the women in the party starving while the young kid survives? I won't even call it sexist (<- not joking).

Could Delgal have been a queen instead? What about Yaad being a princess? Or Thistle, still a jester but a woman now? Which manga readers thought he was, for a while. It would require an author that doesn't put the importance on the king while the queen is irrelevant.

Am I overthinking things? There are a lot of important characters who are women in the story of Dunmeshi. People have jokingly described the plot as a lesbian trying to resurrect her girlfriend, and it would be accurate although not fully correct.

But the issue remains that all leaders except for the elf queen are men. I don't believe it was by chance. It might have been a deliberate choice for reasons that I can see, or it might have been completely unconscious when designing the characters and writing the story.

What a shame.

[weaselbug]

full thoughts on dungeon meshi

gotta say, i absolutely loved it. every minute of it.

ive never been so enthralled into something that i read it for 3 days straight. helps that i was live blogging it. and you guys absolutely loved it, though. you guys didnt love my long posts about where i got to.

i want to talk about Mithrun (i think thats his name?)

CW: suicidal ideation, depression, and stuff

but I've never seen a piece of media actually capture the feeling of wanting to die but having the willpower to just keep going. I had experienced this after high school because well, I had kept telling my self that I would commit suicide after high school, I dont really like talking about it all that much, because it feels self pitying, but I'm so glad a character in something actually got that feeling into a character, like a just left confused and aimlessly existing after you thought for sure that you were going to die, and you wanted to. disappointment is what I would call it.

the only other piece of media that talks about that kind of thing well is evangelion, but only kind of...

END OF CONTEND WARNING

i just love how there was no fan service, because well. it doesn't serve the story at all. i mean there were a couple up tunic shots for senshi, but really i dont really count those. i also dont like the idea of celebrating the fact that it was just a guy character who got them, thats just as weird if someone was celebrating the fact that there were panty shots of the female characters. please stop.

i love how the curse was real from the winged lion, made Iaios repulsive to monsters. also i really love the winged lion. i loved how he really did seem like a good dude, and it didn't feel cheap too, at least to me.

i love how you can tell the authors love for fantasy, where its not just eastern fantasy but its also not just lord of the rings. and each monster has a reason for being. like the red dragon doesn't have wings, because well, why would it need to fly if it has fire breath?

although, somethings i dont really like is that there were no lizard folk, kind of weird i geuss? you'd think there would be some of those.

also feels like Laios kinda doesn't really lose anything? while I'm glad they went with getting farin back, i think the story would have been much better if the resurrection didn't work.

this is great, but now i kinda have no reason to watch the anime anymore lol. oops, ruined it for my self haha.

[gullsumb]

Thinking about Dungeon Meshi D&D 5E classes, which I’m sure has been done before. However I have a special interest in making D&D characters, so this is what I’m doing! Yippee!

A bit of a long one.

Laois’ Party:

Most of them are easy ones. Chilchuck and Izutzumi are both rogues I’d say, Theif and Assassin respectively. Marcille is a wizard, obviously, probably Evocation? While she does do necromancy, she’s clearly most comfortable with explosions. Falin is either a cleric, she even has the classic Clerical Mace, or a necromancy/abjuration wizard. Senshi is probably a basic fighter. Champion with protection style maybe? He could also have ranger levels. It’s hard to say for me, since much of his utility is out of combat.

Now Laios… is hard to say. He clearly occupies the role of the Human Fighter Leader, however mechanically I’m not sure. Hunter Ranger is a possibility, and maybe Paladin of some kind? Or potentially a fighter/cleric multiclass. I’m leaning towards Hunter Ranger though. Great weapon or dueling style.

Kabru’s party:

Kabru is a battle master, dueling style. Daya, probably champion great weapon master? Kuro is either a fighter, or mechanically he could be a beast barbarian but I don’t think that’s necessary/doesn’t fit his character.

Rin and Holm are also wizards, Rin is seemingly also evocation while Holm is conjuration. Although Holm could also be a cleric of some kind. And Mick is seemingly another thief rogue.

Tansu Party:

Not super remarkable. The Tansu’s are both clearly wizards. I’d say Namari is a classic Champion, either defense or great weapon fighting style. Kiki and Kaka don’t do a ton of fighting, but do both seem to be classic fighters as well.

Shuro’s Party:

Shuro is another fighter… you truly hate to see it. Battle Master dueler like Kabru I’d guess? They’d take very different maneuvers though. Onto characters with interesting non-fighter skill sets, we’ve got Maizuru, conjuration wizard, and Tade, barbarian, great weapon fighter. Hein and Benichidori… back to fighters again. Maybe levels of rogue?

Canaries:

Like all of the elves are wizards… easy, but boring to analyze. Lycion is the only exception, path of the beast barbarian or fighter. That’s it, I’m done with them lol.

Special edition, Dungeon Lords:

Thistle, Mithrun, and Marcille are all wizards, and Laios is only very briefly a dungeon lord. However, I think it’s interesting both the differences and similarities to Warlocks in this. While a Lord does gain power from the demon, even carrying a book Tome of Shadows style in Thistle’s case, it really is more like genie-wish style power granting. I think it’s a really interesting approach to pact-making as well, a pact in which the character doesn’t know what they are agreeing to, and slowly becomes a different person over the course of the game.

I would be interested to see how that could work at a table… maybe the player would create an document of all their characters desires, and the dm would occasionally erase them, especially around when level-ups occurred or during story beats when the player does something the demon doesn’t approve of?

Anyway, that’s my thoughts on that! Feel free to hit me with opposing opinions or ideas, I just generally like thinking about D&D character building and dungeon meshi.

[smokeybrand]

Exorcism Sorbet for the Soul

I’m a little late with this one, mostly because I've been kind of distracted with a ton of other life stuff, but i got some time before errands and wanted to throw some light on a manga i enjoy; Dungeon Mesh or Delicious In Dungeon here in the states. Dungeon Meshi is a high fantasy style, dungeon crawling focused, manga with an emphasis on cooking. Now, i was a little underwhelmed by that concept when i heard it but the saving grace, the thing that actually got me to open the book, was the art. This sh*t is gorgeous, man. I loved every line, every layout, every page. It quite stunning. The creator, Ryoko Kui, has a real flair and unique look to her art and it’s absolutely stunning. Seeing her lines made me feel like the first time i saw Kubo’s art and, from me, that’s very high praise. Even more than that, the world she’s constructed is crazy fascination.

Like i said before, this is a hard fantasy manga. Think Tolkien, not Martin. Kui has crafted a world with is it’s own class system, fantastic creatures, and a magic system that seems sound. There are rules to this world that are immutable and have to be addressed as the journey opens up and i adore that. Other countries are mentioned, making the political climate of certain nations paramount, though, those aspects take a backseat to the more, personal, narrative we’re being guided by. Indeed, this story has a rather compelling tale of familial bonds, a theme that runs through this narrative like a river to the sea. It informs everything about this adventure and really hammers home with the characters.

The strength of this book is the relationships and interactions with the main party. I love these guys, man. The leader and closest thing to a main character, Laios Thorden is this gung-ho, Lovable but oblivious, Tall-Man who adventures as a Knight. Next, and childhood friend to Laios, is Marcille. She’s a an Elf Mage who basically gets the plot started out of her own hubris. She is a pretty great mage, but often bites off more than she can chew. Next up, is the Chef in the group, a quiet and worldly Warrior Dwarf named Senshi. Dude knows everyone and can cook anything. It’s kind of hilarious. Chilchuck is an easily panicked, coward of a Half-Foot. It took a while for me to understand why the party puts up with his sh*t but, apparently, he’s one of the best Locksmiths around, something i figure would come in handy while exploring a magical dungeon. Lastly, we come to my favorite character of the main cast, Izutsumi. She is a Man-made Beast, cursed with the visage of a cat and trained in the art of Ninjitsu. She’s a nekomimi ninja, bro. And a tsundere at that. Izu started off as a foil but learned to accept, and be accepted into, the party Vegeta style. Like, I'm no furry but Izutsumi is definitely worth that squeeze, you know what i mean? I'm a sucker for that kind of character and immediately found myself endeared to her feminine-feline wiles. Izu is easily the most capable in the entire party, a fact she’s well aware of, and rarely goes without letting everyone know it. I think the Kui agrees because she couldn't wait to introduce Izu into the narrative.

Dungeon Meshi is an amazing manga that deserves all of the shine it can muster. It seems to be pretty popular in Japan as of now but it can always use a signal boost. This thing needs a proper anime adaption because the world is just that opulent. Trigger actually gave us a little tease of what could be, for a commercial selling ramen of all things, and it was amazing. Thirty seconds was all i needed to see, to absolutely know, we need a full length series animated by the Gainax progeny, with a generous budget. I would love to see Izu’s ambush or that time the party fished for a Kraken, in full motion. I need to know how the monsters and beasts would be animated or how a studio would visualize the magic used throughout the narrative. How does one capture the Canary Captain, Mithrun’s teleport ability? How would they articulate the symbiosis between dungeon and Lord of the Dungeon? I would love to see the party’s battle with chimera Falon and how epic those madmen over at Trigger would adapt everything. I need this to happen so I nee more people across the world, to support Meshi.

Even without an amazing anime adaption, Dungeon Meshi is a brilliant read. It’s full of amazing, endearing, characters who populate a deep, well visualized, integrated world, that feels real. It feels alive. You care about the party within the first few chapters because hey act like people. They're fallible and make mistakes. Some of it is played up for laughs but it stems organically from people being people, even if, technologically, there are no “people” as awe know them. The comradery among the party is genuine and almost palpable. You want them to succeed in their quest and when the narrative opens up to the grater mystery ahead, you lust for the next chapter. This thing will lure you in with outstanding art and land you with one of the best fantasy stories i have ever had the pleasure of reading. Dungeon Meshi is all of the dope and you should go read it right now.