Manga Review - 'Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 1' by Ryoko Kui

What a surprisingly fun, funny, clever, and dynamic manga, all about cooking and eating monsters in a deep, deep underground dungeon.

'Delicious in Dungeon' is a D&D/fantasy tabletop-style manga where the objective is to find and cook anything - anything - that is edible, for more than carrying weapons to fight monsters, humans need food to survive. They need continuous energy and nutrients. Lots of provisions need to be accounted for. The cost of living applies to adventurers, too.

Really, I'm shocked that this premise hasn't already been done a long time ago.

The art is great, the band of hungry, dungeon crawling characters are individually memorable and distinct, with their own special skillset, and the writing does take some unique twists and turns in each chapter.

Again, it is all so clever and hilarious. And the food! The culinary skills! The manga makes cooked slime, creatures and monsters look appetising!

'Delicious in Dungeon' can be appreciated by chefs, D&D players, and general fantasy fans. Its appeal - its appetite, its tastes, its palette (and pallette!), its range - treads and treks far and wide.

I should learn to cook and form a coherent paragraph properly.

I only wish there was more than one (named) female character. Well, more than two named female characters, if you count the barely-seen damsel in distress whom the heroes' quest is focused on (though she isn't seen or mentioned much at the middle and end of the volume - she is the main hero's little sister and she is about to be digested in a dragon's stomach!); as well as a fabled, mysterious country of gold hidden deep beneath the underground. And of course the only female lead is a bumbling elf sorceress type, to go alongside the neglected damsel in distress.

But the overall experience is so darn funny, exciting, and enlightening. It goes out of its way to avoid many fantasy genre cliches, in fact.

'Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 1' is a manga made for everyone.

Recommended if you like other modern manga such as 'Witch Hat Atelier', 'A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch', 'She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat', 'The Girl From the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún', and 'Attack on Titan'. 'Delicious in Dungeon' has mass appeal, all right.

That's all I have to say.

It is, ahem, a huge treat. Take it from this small review, however you like it.

Final Score: 4/5