Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 1
Staff Reviews
Why am I writing an over-long recommendation for something that my colleague EB has already been recommending for years to great effect? Well, I guess because I just finished this series and, as a bookseller, I need to gush.
Delicious in Dungeon begins as a fantasy slice-of-life whose great trick is taking objectively silly D&D lore at face value and building it into a coherent world: how does 'adventurer' work as a profession? How do the wacky monsters in tabletops/JRPGs comprise a functional ecosystem? What if the 'Dungeon Master' was a literal guy who told them what to do? And of course, how do they taste? You get several volumes of largely self-contained, laugh-out-loud funny chapters exploring these questions.
Then, gradually, Delicious in Dungeon unfolds into an epic that stands among fantasy greats like Bone and Witch Hat. It locates the pathos within every member of its party of lovable weirdos, and its culinary premise develops into an examination of hunger, desire, death, and power -- all the while maintaining its wholesome-yet-macabre sense of humor and its focus on how we care for ourselves and each other, a theme rarely explored, let alone given center-stage, in fantasy stories. It's profound stuff, but so grounded.
If you play TTRPGs or CRPGs, enjoy real-play shows, or read cozy fantasy writers like Travis Baldree, you owe it to yourself to delve into Delicious in Dungeon. Itadakimasu!!
A fighter, a wizard, and a thief lose their cleric to a dragon. Beaten, broke, and grieving, they vow to recover and resurrect her before she's totally digested. With the majority of their supplies left in the dungeon, they're perilously low on resources... until the fighter Laios suggests they sustain themselves on the dungeon's most abundant resource: monsters. Ryoko Kui's appealing character designs, stellar draftsmanship, and her fascination with ecology take Delicious in Dungeon from a loving D&D tribute to what might be the best fantasy manga (or comic, period) of the 2000s.
Description
When young adventurer Laios and his company are attacked and soundly thrashed by a dragon deep in a dungeon, the party loses all its money and provisions...and a member! They're eager to go back and save her, but there is just one problem: If they set out with no food or coin to speak of, they're sure to starve on the way! But Laios comes up with a brilliant idea: "Let's eat the monsters!" Slimes, basilisks, and even dragons...none are safe from the appetites of these dungeon-crawling gourmands!
