Eating is, quite simply, the sole privilege of the living.
– Laios Touden

Countless stories start with an epic journey: adventures to find allies, face foes and overcome hardships to achieve a grand end goal. However, a crucial element is often overlooked: the food. How these heroes stay fed during their escapade tends to occupy a marginal part of the story, as they’re not nearly as entertaining as the challenges awaiting them.

Instead, Delicious in Dungeon acknowledges how fundamental nutrition is for an adventure’s success. By combining dungeon crawling and cooking, it makes for a unique manga, as well as an innovative take on the fantasy genre. Debuting in 2014, the series has become Ryoko Kui’s best-known work, and the first to receive an anime adaptation in 2023 by Studio Trigger.

Out of the frying pan and into the dragon’s fire

The story begins with what appears to be the end of an adventuring party: an encounter with a red dragon. The fight soon takes a turn for the worse, resulting in them being defeated one after the other. All seems lost until a team member sacrifices herself to transport everyone else to safety with her magic. Out of the dungeon, what is left of the team is that they find themselves without allies, supplies, and means to face another descent.

Time is of the essence, but how can they embark on a rescue mission without even being able to afford rations? The solution is as simple as it is bizarre. They will eat what the dungeon provides: the very monsters that populate it. Thus, by making ghost sorbet, basilisk omelet, hippogriff soup, and many more dishes, this unconventional group will conquer the dungeon one recipe at a time.

Embracing the fantasy resurgence

The popularity of fantasy goes back to the roots of humanity itself when the first myths took shape. Ever since such tales have fascinated and imparted their knowledge to generations. Western fantasy, with its aesthetic and tropes, bears the mark of European medieval folklore. However, it would later expand its horizons with novels like Alice in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Today, the genre remains popular and has been translated across many media. From TV series sensation Game of Thrones to musicals like Wicked. And that is because, while these worlds might be fantastic, their messages remain universal.

Fantasy allows the authors to push the bounds of imagination, constantly reinventing itself. And such is the case for Delicious in Dungeon, as well. The central team features characters that are familiar tropes to the genre’s audience: from the half-foot locksmith Chilchuck to the elf mage Marcille, from the dwarf cook Senshi to the human fighter Laios, set on rescuing his sister Falin. It is no coincidence either: the author drew much inspiration from various RPG media. However, what may seem one of many typical iterations of the genre takes a unique turn when adding cooking to the mix – and with it, a yet unexplored perspective.

The duality of food in Delicious in Dungeon

Food is the main focus of the manga. It represents a constant presence throughout the story, being as much of a protagonist as its main characters are. The novel Like Water for Chocolate explores this same concept through the lens of magical realism. In Delicious in Dungeon, it features a double role, opposite but not mutually exclusive. On one side, it is food as consumption, the primal need to feed to stay alive. The dungeon is dangerous, and the rule “eat or be eaten” applies to all. Many adventurers fall at the claws of the monsters that infest the place, and the party must survive by feeding off them. Only by partaking in what is the cycle of natural life can they gain the strength to venture further.

On the other hand, food represents connection, which is the common ground of many different cultures. Sharing a meal creates and solidifies a sense of community. That happens between party members and the communities they meet, such as the gnomes. Through each meal, the characters learn more about the dungeon, its creatures, and themselves. And so does the reader. It is a refreshing take on the role that eating has, both as a primary function and a bonding experience. Such a dichotomy also exists in Pixar’s Ratatouille: the rat colony that eats to live on one side and Remy who lives to eat on the other. Delicious in Dungeon embraces both sides, showing how they coexist in the complex ecosystem that is the dungeon.

The many ingredients of a flavorful narration

However, the food theme is not the sole aspect that sets Delicious in Dungeon apart. Ryoko Kui fully embraces the freedom to experiment with world-building, crafting a universe as deep as the dungeon. A primary example is her take on fantasy races. While influenced by RPG staples such as the tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons and video games like Dragon Age, her story takes the time to define its characters both culturally and design-wise, putting them in an innovative light. For example, orcs no longer possess the negative connotation popularized in Lord of the Rings. Instead, they are a tribe with laws and hierarchies, and their design is inspired by wild boars. Or beastfolks, which are a product of magic, born from the fusion of an animal soul with a human’s.

This approach applies to all aspects of the story, which reveals its complexity along the journey. Despite the narrative of Delicious in Dungeon taking place mainly inside the dungeon itself, the reader learns about the world outside it through dialogue and character interactions. That is how the audience is introduced to themes such as politics. The latter revolves around the lifespan disparity between the races and the self-proclaimed superiority of the long-lived ones. Kui’s storytelling cohesively introduces this and many more elements, offering bite-sized tidbits of lore without overbearing the reader. A narrative choice that makes the series accessible to all audiences regardless of their genre knowledge.

Delicious in Dungeon leaves the reader hungry for more

Even in the realm of fantasy, each aspect of the Delicious in Dungeon universe has its own foundation. The race’s customs, the society’s roles, and even the different schools of magic. This grounds the story and favors immersion, giving a sense of realism to the fantastic. In particular, it finds application to the monsters that inhabit the dungeon’s floors. These creatures are not mere foes to slay but living beings with their biology and role within the ecosystem. It reminds us of the underwater world of Subnautica, where the player discovers its alien fauna by interacting with it. So does Laios’ team learn about the monsters by facing them and then by cooking them.

For example, the Red Dragon is – much like Horizon Zero Dawn‘s Sawtooth – an apex predator atop the food chain. It is a massive beast that slumbers for most of the time to save up energy and is active only when hunting. This explains why its meat is chewy but rich in flavor. Meanwhile, beings like the Living Armor appear to be enchanted objects but are, in fact, colonies of mollusks and, therefore, best served grilled or steamed. This level of detail contributes to fleshing out the narrative universe. But it also stirs the readers’ curiosity towards how such creatures could be turned into meals and what they could taste like.