#THEORIES

[lychee-raichi-reishi]

I think it has something to do with how everyone is always comparing the two by saying that Lucanis is superior in every way except seduction. Flirting is Illario's only skill, the ONE thing he is acknowledged for, and it doesnt work on rook but somehow lucanis has managed it. so hes now mad and bitter that he has also been beat in what was supposed to be his only area of expertise, but is trying to place the fault somewhere else by saying that its because rook has bad taste.

Absolutely obsessed with how illario tells a lucanis romancing Rook that they chose the wrong dellamorte

SAME oh my god. It’s the fact that it’s a romance specific line that really gets me- it could easily apply to Rooks that aren’t romancing Lucanis, if he had meant “you chose the wrong Dellamorte to assist with your cause, because I’m the better assassin.”

But that’s not what he meant. Illario is specifically referring to Rook choosing the wrong Dellamorte as a romantic partner.

The jealousy he must feel, to be thinking of Rook and Lucanis’ relationship in the middle of their fight is CRAZY. I’m so curious whether he wants Rook because they don’t respond to his flirting, or whether he wants them because Lucanis has them- either way, I don’t see an explanation for this line that doesn’t come down to Illario wanting Rook for himself, and that being part of his frustration at being the “lesser” Dellamorte

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Any chances for the Parker-Bowles family to get their own royal titles? Camilla's son is out there labeling himself as the monarchy's secret weapon, do you think Charles considers it? I'm thinking that it could be part of his will and wants William to reinforce it once he's King.

I've always expected that to happen, like an earldom or a baroncy each for Camilla's kids. I get vibes from Charles that he's considering (or has considered) it but the traditionalists and/or William and Anne are blocking the way.

What gets my goat the most about Camilla's family is all these articles about how unprecedented and historical it is for the king's stepchildren to be part of the family, but it's being painted like all the monarchs in British history have been divorced men who remarried women with her own children.

I get that Charles and Camilla, wants to set standards for how steps are treated by the royal family after the way William set new standards for how in-laws are treated when he insisted on the Middletons being part of his and Kate's relationship. I generally don't mind that they want to do that (after all, it is their family and they are close), but it's how they keep trying to shoehorn her family into everything. On the one hand, yes, absolutely, she has every right to bring them along with her. But on the other hand...the monarchy isn't "her" family or "her" business - it's Charles's. She's the plus-one here but they're acting like she's the one and it rubs me the wrong way.

[common-or-garden-blog]

Are Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus nest parasites?

Toothless talks about his mother teaching him things but never mentions that she is really huge. Teaching survival skills to a tiny infant is hard when you are orders of magnitude bigger. Are Seadragons common/garden mimics that switch an egg out for their own? Or do Seadragon babies provide some kind of benefit for raising them? (Like geriatric care, idk.) I kind of doubt a dragon could be "tricked" into believing the egg is their own, they're much more intelligent than say... warblers.

[thrandilf]

Why Swallow Aditi?

S7 didn't exactly give me new information, but it did confirm at least part of a prior theory I had

My original thought was that Aaravos pre canon/imprisonment had wanted to take out the archdragons by not getting directly involved, so he'd sow enough discord that they'd all kill each other instead. Part one was to have Luna Tenebris killed (perhaps by Kim'dael, or himself but he got away with it) but instead of being able to sit back and watch the fireworks, Aditi stepped in to broker peace

So, by killing Aditi, the dragons would be back to fighting and the elves would be involved as well

The importance of Aaravos seeming to keep his hands clean/stay out of the light was that I had assumed that with all of the archdragons dead, Xadia would look to him as their last hope to lead and he'd have total power

However, even if ruling Xadia wasn't his goal, he needed to not leave his mark on the situation because it all hinged on the dragons and everyone else going after each other

So, by swallowing Aditi, he ensured there was no evidence. No body, no blood, and no way to disprove an archdragon hadn't done it

He operates thinking through not only his goals but how to set up scenarios in which the evidence or lack of it still benefits him, like Sol Regem's skeleton left for them to find

It's also why he didn't bother to swallow Karim. Didn't need to

His desire to kill all of the archdragons was evident this season, but he decided to use his mortal vessel to do it while making sure he'd gather them in one place and he even had contingencies, such as Ezran having the Novablade, so he'd get what he wanted no matter what

All of it's calculated, and I hope we get to see how he takes on the world without archdragons in arc 3

[waywardsou2]

OK OK OK GUYS I JUST HAD A THOUGHT

So, we all know how Viktor asked Jayce to destroy the HexCore, and he didn't right. He used it so save him instead and then he melded with it and turned into Jesus. We all know that right.

But when Jayce comes out of the Arcane the first thing he does is go and find Viktor and fucking blow him up

What if, Viktor's physical body, was the HexCore. What if he somehow knew that Viktor, the real Viktor would be ok and this Viktor. His body, was not actually him.

The HexCore took over and influenced him through his bodily autonomy. It explains why the HexCore "fixed" Viktor and then he went on to say the line "So much senseless pain" and fix (insert name here)'s pain.

I truly believe that was not Viktor, some of the things he did were not things I think Viktor would have done without influence. Which is why Jayce had to destroy that version of Viktor, but it was actually the HexCore as well. And he was keeping his promise.

I don't know if he fully knew the extent of Viktor connection between his body and astral projection form because from where I was sitting those two were not connected at all.

I think when he met up with Mage Viktor, and had all those flashbacks and such I think somehow he knew that that was not fully Viktor. And he had to take the gamble of destroying the HexCore without destroying the real Viktor. Because when he gets back to Piltover he clearly knows Viktor is coming for them. He know Viktor will be back despite blowing a hole in his chest

He did keep his promise in the end...

I'm going to go cry now

[5thsideblog]

if the creators wanted us to think mike and el were this beautiful power couple that will stand the test of time and have their big cheesy fairytale ending why not schedule finn and millie to have a q&a together…. Instead of finn and noah…. why are they grouping finn and noah/mike and will together SO much this season. Like i know we haven’t officially entered promotion yet and won’t for a long time but even all the leaks ive seen photo wise ive seen more for will and mike than mike and el. it’s crazy 😭😭 like the more i think about it none of the crazy theories or overanalysis is what makes me think byler will happen, it’s simply the way the creators choose to group them together all the time. When one of the guys is literally in a canonical relationship with the main girl.

[rusty-lustful-fireflies]

I presume:

9. Andrealphus went after I.M.P because he knew that would provoke Stolas to quick and spontaneous action. On the other hand going after Stolas directly would probably lead to more insightful and at least a little more just trial, since he is a goetia and they would actually listen to him.

If I.M.P was executed that would hurt Stolas terribly- a win for Andre and Stella. If Stolas rushed in acting hasty (he was deliberately not informed about the trail) that could be (and was) used against him as well. In a way the trail probably went for Andre better than he has hoped.

As for Stolas not coming up with a lie- he didn't see the whole trial so he had no way of knowing what was said and what was already proven against them and if his lie contradicted that he would have fucked over himself without helping Blitzø.

Very random word vomit about the latest episode, Mastermind, because I waited too long to ask when the episode first came out

Okay, since the next episode of Helluva Boss is coming out, what? This Saturday, can someone please explain mastermind to me

Okay, because like, maybe I'm stupid, but couldn't stolas just be like Blitzo has an asmodeus crystal and has been operating under his jurisdiction and is there by legal so blitzo should be set free. He could also lie and turn this back on andrealphus (as a from what it looked like this enter court case is just hearsay anyway) and just be like I never gave him the book and unless there's proof this court hearing is null in void? And the jingle is no longer cannon, so it's not like anyone other than IMP or stolas know this isn't true. No one can even argue that since there is no proof unless I'm forgetting something

So this is there by like a defamation case on Stolas and IMP

Like, I know it was all improved, and i love the song. i won't lie. I do enjoy the fun and whimsy, but I feel like just saying the almost truth would have also worked... like, yes, he had 5 minutes to think of literally anything but had enough time to think of a song with a vague reason as to... why did Biltzo have the book? But not enough time to... maybe thing of something a little less damning?

Because... what does Stolas have to gain by giving Blitzo the book in this whole mastermind thing?

but then again, I never know where this show is going anyway

I swear I might have misinterpreted the entire episode, but I really don't understand any of it. Like at no point did I understand the motives behind anyone. Like andrealphus not making this case about Stolas instead of all of imp. As previously stated, why did stolas make up this whole mastermind thing. What exactly does his whole fake "Mastermind" thing even mean? How in the world did Satan let this happen? Is Satan stuipd? Why didn't asmodeus say literally anything?

Can someone please explain this episode. I know it's not that deep, but this is the first helluva boss episode that really lost me.

[tanoraqui]

I’m so glad there are people in the Game Changer tag sufficiently obsessed with this show that they’re now building red string board conspiracy theories about how our beloved host Sam Reich might be possessed by the spirit of his (entirely fictional) evil ancestor Sam Dalton from the escape room episode. Normally I’d say that the evidence presented so far isn’t enough to beat the fact that they’ve never done some sort of ��season arc” like that, much less a multi-season arc, and shown no sign of intending to do so—but on Game Changer, “they’ve never done something like that before and shown no sign of intending to do so” is EXACTLY why they would do something!

Incredible show. It’s mere existence is an ongoing experimental art performance. It’s also possible, of course, that instead of being possessed, Sam Reich has simply been replaced by his evil ancestor Sam Dalton, and is locked in a closet somewhere on set.

[yreez]

[whimsicallywiddershins]

So we found out from Palamedes and the Unwanted Guest that lyctorhood is not perfect and leaves a mark on the necromancer. The necromancer devours the cavalier's soul, and unintentionally gains something from it, mostly emotions or new urges or something like that. Like Ianthe getting Babs' hatred/distaste of Gideon.

John devoured Alecto. For a little while, John and Alecto were one, two souls intermingling like two pieces of flesh bleeding together. Then John created her a body and poured her soul back in, unintentionally creating a perfect lyctorhood.

John didn't really know what he was doing. He was running on guesswork and instinct. So I think he and Alecto shared and gained something from eachother.

Alecto is always described as angry. Which makes sense, considering the circumstances. But when John killed and devoured the earth, he was furious. He was raging. He hated.

What if Alecto got most of her anger and hatred and rage from John? Some of it was hers, yes. But hatred? A never ending anger? What if Alecto got what John was feeling when he ate her, made her?

And John. What did he get?

The thing is, we don't know what Alecto's personality was like. She was a planet, not exactly a person with feelings.

But we do know what Resurrection Beasts are like. They are relentless. They hunt and hunt and hunt John. Angry, yes. But mostly unstoppable and stuck in a never ending cycle of hunting John no matter the cost.

John won't forgive the Trillionaires. He doesnt even seem that angry anymore. But he won't stop hunting them, not for anything. Augestine begged him to stop. John doesn't let his lyctors tell him to stop. John doesn't care how many worlds he kills, how many people he displaced. He doesn't care about the cost to the Houses. He is relentless. He hunts and hunts and hunts.

John acts like a Resurrection Beast. And Alecto acts like John.

[ratvic]

!!!ARCANE SEASON TWO SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Here are some things i noticed about Isha from trailers and the new episodes, and some theories!!

1. Isha is reaching out to someone while being carried away by Sevika, they are presumably reaching out for Jinx during the final battle she has with Vi.

2. Isha means "One who protects.", this is shown by their need to protect Jinx, and how they rushed in to protect her when Vi was about to deliver a final blow.

(One thing about that scene is that i can't tell if Jinx was yelling "No!" at Vi, to stop incase she killed Isha, or at Isha, telling them not to shoot Vi.. So if u know.. Drop a comment 💙)

3. When Isha orginally drops their hat during their first meeting with jinx they go back to get it, but when they need to protect her, they dont even glance at it when it falls off. This might only be a nice detail to me, but i found it sweet.

DROP UR THEORIESS PLEAASEE!! I'd love to talk about themm!!

[shaylogic]

In the comics, Edwin's bones are originally hidden in a chest in the attic he was killed in. He stays in the attic. He returns to it from Hell.

In the show, he returns to the attic from Hell and meets Charles. He reads to him as he dies, sitting on what appears to be a chest?

I don't wanna get really morbid, but. . . uh. . . do you think. . .?!!

[raytorotitsenthusiast]

Predictions for the MCR WWWY shows based on how likely i think it is

100% (Definitely gonna happen)

- Gerard rambles to the crowd

- Gerard is in some sort of outfit

75%-99% (Extremely likely)

- Someone throws a prideflag on the stage

- MCR members family there

- Audience member(s) dressed up is noticed

50%-74% (A good chance)

- Mikey is given the mic and says things

- Ray's mic is turned up (please)

25%-49% (A possibility)

- Frank messes with someone while playing

- Audience member holds up a sign with something funny on it

- Dan and Phil are there

2%-24% (Very unlikely)

- One of the band members references "but seriously, imagine it"

- Frank plays a lick from 'I Am Going To Kill The President Of The United States Of America' as a joke

- Pose 28. Need I say more?

0.00001%-1% (Delusions❤️)

- ALL MEMBERS IN DRESSES

- Ray takes his shirt off (PLEASE)

- New song/songs played

- Studio versions of demos released (ie Sister to Sleep, Someone Out There Loves You)

- They play Witch

Welp i'll return in a month to see how wrong i am

[silverlininghills]

"300 tracks"

you know those hand signals tyler does during the line "300 tracks in my Adidas track jacket"?

i, like probably everyone else, assumed that was him signing 3-0-0 with his hands.

but no. he's signing F-0-0.

consider the ASL signs for F vs 3:

yeah, he's definitely signing F there

so what does F-0-0 mean? well, funny thing about that--you know hexcodes? those 6 digit codes that indicate a specific colour? well, there are also three digit codes as well, where you basically double each number to get the full 6 digit code. wanna guess what #F00 is?

yup, that's pure red babey!!

and, better yet, wanna know what its complementary colour is?

why it's pure cyan of course!!! y'know, like the whole __cla_im00FFFF.jpg = CLAIM CYAN = I AM CLANCY thing.

tyler, you sneaky sneaky bastard.

[room-surprise]

Evidence that Kabru from Delicious in Dungeon is Indian, a Masterpost

(EDIT: This post is an excerpt/remix of Kabru's section of my larger essay about the real world linguistic and cultural references Dungeon Meshi. You can read the essay on AO3 here. I also have another post about what part of South Asia I think Utaya is based on here.)

Since Kabru’s first appearance in the anime is upon us, I wanted to write something that compiles all the evidence we have that Kabru is meant to be a person of South or Central Asian ethnicity, or at least whatever the equivalent to that is in the Dungeon Meshi world. 

Ryoko Kui can and does draw people of many different ethnicities, and the way she draws Kabru matches the way she draws other Asian characters in Dungeon Meshi. He doesn’t look Black, or Hispanic, or any other ethnicity because he isn’t supposed to. He looks like a dark-skinned South or Central Asian person, because that’s what Ryoko Kui probably intends him to be.

So let’s go through the evidence! (There are no spoilers for the plot of Dungeon Meshi below, but there ARE spoilers for Kabru's backstory as explained in the manga, and in extra materials like the Daydream Hour and Adventurer's Guide book.)

KABRU’S NAME

The Dungeon Meshi Adventurer's Bible tells us Kabru’s real name is unknown. There are other characters whose real names are only told to us in the Adventurer's Bible and were never revealed in the manga, but then Kabru, Thistle and Izutsumi’s entries simply say their real names are unknown, and though Kui could tell us their true names, she doesn’t. I assume this means that the characters themselves don’t know what their real names are, and that the names they go by are not their birth names, but this is only a supposition on my part.

KABRU THE MOUNTAIN

Kabru (काब्रु) is the name of a mountain on the border of Nepal and India, and part of the Himalayan range. It’s the 65th tallest mountain in the world and it is very snowy and icy, with frequent avalanches. Because of this, even though it’s not the tallest mountain in the world, climbing it is challenging, and is not often attempted. Those few that have managed to climb it consider it a major achievement.

“This prohibitively fearful icefall… had thwarted numerous expeditions, perhaps even the 'thought' of attempting the mountain… Unstable seracs of the icefall, a complex maze of chasms, and delicate snow bridges spanning seemingly never ending, near bottomless crevasses… Each time the members stepped into the icefall, they stood a good chance of never returning.” (Kabru - Mountain of the Gods, Major A. Abbey, Himalayan Journal 52, 1996, editor Harish Kapadia)

WHAT DOES KABRU’S NAME MEAN?

Kabru is a character that is known for being very good at charming people, but who doesn’t express himself honestly, because he’s trying to manipulate the people and situations around him in order to maintain control at all times. I think nobody really knows who Kabru is deep inside, maybe not even Kabru himself, so a remote, hostile, icy mountain that’s hard to climb seems like an extremely appropriate name. 

Some of the oldest English sources I found regarding Kabru suggest that Kabru isn’t the correct local name for the mountain (a common problem in early Himalayan exploration by Europeans) and might just be a descriptor, or that it’s a misspelling. 

This makes the name seem even more appropriate, since Kui’s told us Kabru’s true name is unknown. It’s possible that Kabru was a place-name or a descriptor that Milsiril (Kabru’s elven foster mother) was given when she picked up a traumatized 7 year old Kabru, and she just started using it as his name, and that even he doesn’t remember his real name thanks to his severe trauma.

The fact that people in the real world can’t seem to agree on the mountain Kabru’s name, or what it means, reminds me of the running gag of Laios repeatedly getting Kabru’s name wrong in the manga.

"All the people near the Kabru massif call it 'Kaboor'." (The Alpine Journal, 1921-22 Volume 34, Edited by George Yeld and J. P. Farrar)  “It is also said that the name applies to a peak close to Kinchinjunga on the southeast, and not to the peak known to Europeans as Kabru… [The real name is] Pahung Ri [Pauhunri].” (Appendix I: Place Names in Darjeeling. The appendix says it was “compiled mainly from an article written by Colonel Waddell and published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Vol. LX, part I, 1891)”) “Kangchen is a Tibetan name… the Sikkhimese use it as the name for the peak called Kabru by Europeans.” (Charles Bell, Dyhrenfurth's Himalaya (Berlin, 1931)) “...Kyabru or the horn of protection. The name is… Kabur… possibly a corruption of Kangbur or the swelling of snow; it might also mean the white swelling (kar-bur).” (Appendix I: Place Names in Darjeeling.)  “Kabru literally means the 'White Avalanche' peak (Ka means 'white' and bru means 'avalanche').” (Kabru - Mountain of the Gods, Major A. Abbey, Himalayan Journal 52, 1996, editor Harish Kapadia)

I’ve seen one other mountaineering article cite the “white avalanche” meaning, and I think it’s plausible since the Appendix says it can mean “white swelling” or “swelling of snow”, which may very well be a literal translation for “white avalanche”. 

WHAT ABOUT UTAYA? IS THAT INDIAN TOO?

Utaya means “raised” or “uplifted” in Hindi, but it’s also a real village and a Japanese boy’s name.

Utaya (ウタヤ) is the name of the village that Kabru was raised in before his mother died and he was adopted by the elf Milsiril. Utaya is located in the southeast of the Western Continent. It’s worth noting that Kabru probably wasn’t born in Utaya, since his mother had to flee from her home to keep Kabru alive, so Utaya may be some distance away from his birth place… Not so far that a woman with a newborn baby couldn’t survive the trip, but far enough that her husband’s family gave up on chasing her. So Kabru was probably born in a close-by area.

In the real world, Utaya (Yakut: Утайа) is in an extremely rural and isolated area with a population of less than a hundred people. It’s located in the Sakha Republic, which is in the Northeastern part of Asia in the Russian Federation. The Yakut/Sakha are a Siberian Turkic people.  

The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages. 

Early and medieval Turkic groups exhibited a wide range of both East Asian and West-Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins, in part through long-term contact with neighboring peoples such as Iranian, Mongolic, Tocharian, Uralic/Yeniseian peoples, and others. Turkic peoples share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics like cultural traits, ancestry from a common gene pool, and historical experiences. 

JAPANESE MEANINGS FOR UTAYA

Utaya can be a Japanese boy’s name with several different meanings, depending on which kanji it’s spelled with. In most of the spellings: Poetry, sing a poem, singing, compose poetry

In many of the spellings: The place where the sun shines, it's been a long time, distant, big, to shoot with a bow, to swear, affirmation, question.

The Utaya disaster happened a long time ago.

If Utaya is up in the mountains above the clouds it’s a place where the sun shines brightly.

 Kabru has sworn to himself that he will prevent another Utaya tragedy from happening.

In only a few of the spellings: to mend, feathers, wings, a word for counting birds and rabbits, sort them out, washing with water to separate the good from the bad, roof, house with a roof, a world covered with a big sky, infinite space, song that praises the Buddha, Eight.

Counting birds and rabbits makes me think of divination and also that the people of Utaya were like little birds and rabbits (small prey animals) to the monsters that devoured them.

Separating the good and the bad could hint to the “judgment” of Utaya and the greed of its people that led to their downfall, also sorting through things to separate good and bad is something that’s done with food and other resources.

The Himalayan region is often referred to as the “roof of the world”, with a big open sky above it. 

The infinite could refer to the dimension the demon comes from, or to the sky above the mountains. 

Buddhism is a common religion in the Himalayan region, and eight has auspicious connotations in Buddhism. 

With all that in mind, Utaya as a name for Kabru’s home village is an interesting choice, and adds another layer to his origins, maybe suggesting not just North Indian/Himalayan, but Central or North Asian cultural influence as well. 

It is also possible that the name is just telling us that Utaya is “up” in the mountains, or that it was “uplifted” by the wealth of the dungeon, or even that Kabru was “raised” there… The Japanese name meanings are also extremely fascinating and hint at similar ideas, as well as the tragedy that happened to Utaya.

WHY ELSE DO YOU THINK KABRU AND UTAYA ARE HIMALAYAN?

In the real world, the Himalayan mountain range is an extremely popular tourist destination, and the amount of people who want to visit and attempt to climb the mountains far outpaces the local ability to support it. This makes me think of the dungeon of Utaya and how people overcrowded it in their desire to conquer and exploit it. 

Dungeons as an unsustainable way for locals to make a living that leads to the destruction of their homes when the dungeon inevitably collapses is a major plot point in Dungeon Meshi, so I think the parallel is likely intentional. Characters often talk about someone “conquering” the dungeon, and “conquer” is also the terminology commonly used for climbing a mountain. This terminology obviously has a hostile, imperialist subtext in the real world, since it’s most commonly used by outsiders talking about proving their strength by climbing a mountain.

Also, there are local legends in the areas surrounding Mt. Kabru that there is a valley of immortality hidden on its slopes, which reminds me of the way that the dungeons can grant conditional immortality to the people inside of them.

This image of Utaya could be showing us a village built on a mountainside. The house shapes seem a bit more Middle Eastern than Nepali/Indian, but it’s not a detailed drawing and the roof styles are a mix of flat and peaked.

CULTURE

In the Daydream Hour sketchbook, Ryoko Kui included a small comic about characters sharing desserts from their home countries. A young Kabru is shown enthusiastically trying to share an unnamed sweet, and he is interrupted by his elven foster mother, who insists he present a type of elven cake instead. We know that Kabru hates this type of cake, and he seems disappointed to have to eat it and talk about it.

The white balls in Kabru’s dessert are very likely meant to be  an Indian sweet called rasgulla (literally "syrup filled ball"). Rasgulla are a dessert popular in the eastern part of South Asia, made from ball-shaped dumplings of chhena dough, cooked in light sugar syrup. While it is near-universally agreed upon that the dessert originated in the eastern Indian subcontinent, the exact origin is disputed. Rasgulla are as culturally important to the Bengal and Odisha regions of India as Parmesan cheese is to the region of Parma in Italy.  

Rasgulla are also popular in Nepal, where they are called rasbari. 

KABRU’S PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Kabru is one of several characters in Dungeon Meshi with clearly non-European features: he has brown skin and thick black/dark brown curly hair. He has almond-shaped eyes with long, dark lashes (fans like to joke that he’s wearing eyeliner). All of these are traits common to people from the Indian subcontinent. His blue eyes are not common for someone with his skin/hair color, but blue or green eyes are not unheard of in that region either. 

(Indian man with blue eyes)

Blue or light eyes are often a cause for discrimination, like what Kabru experienced as a child. More on this in a moment.

Kabru is 5’7” (170cm) tall, which is short for a Northern European man (180), tall for a Nepali man (162cm), but close to the average height of Indian men (177cm). He has a slender build, which is also common for Asian people in general, and South Asian men in particular.

Compared to the European-looking tall-men in Dungeon Meshi (such as Laios, Falin, Delgal, Marcille’s father), Kabru’s facial features look more like the other Asian characters, such as Toshiro and his party. 

CAN DARK-SKINNED PEOPLE HAVE BLUE EYES?

Yes. Light-colored eyes are very uncommon in parts of the world where most people have dark eyes, since dark eyes are a dominant trait in real-world human beings. That means that in order for two parents with dark eyes to have a child with light eyes, both parents need to have a recessive light-eyes gene (or for there to be an illness or genetic mutation), and that’s rare in populations that don’t have a lot of light-eyed people to begin with.   

THEN WHY DO SO MANY DARK-SKINNED CHARACTERS HAVE BLUE EYES?

Anime and manga often give characters with dark skin light colored eyes instead of allowing them to have brown or black eyes, which is much more common in real life. It’s a hurtful design trope that makes many readers feel that their natural dark eyes are somehow ugly or inferior to blue eyes.

This trope is used over and over again by authors who want their characters to look “cool” and “exotic”, and for their eyes to be high-contrast to make it easier to show their emotions.

I don’t think this is what Ryoko Kui is doing in Dungeon Meshi. 

UNREALISTIC HAIR AND EYE COLOR COMBOS IN ANIME

In a lot of anime/manga, blue eyes (regardless of skin color) don’t actually mean anything in the narrative, in the same way characters having green or pink hair doesn’t mean anything, the colors are non-diegetic, they don’t actually exist in the world, like the music that plays in the background without an on-screen source. 

It’s an artistic shorthand to make characters visually stand out, instead of giving them all black hair and eyes like most real-life Japanese people… Which is what most anime/manga characters are meant to be: Japanese people. 

Dungeon Meshi has a large cast of characters that are explicitly meant to be non-Japanese. We know this because there’s a group of characters that are Japanese, and they’re drawn differently from everyone else, they wear ethnically Japanese clothing, and have ethnically Japanese names. 

Unlike other series, where eye and hair color don’t mean anything, Dungeon Meshi has no unrealistic skin, hair, or eye color combinations. 

(Except for the elves, who seem to have different genetics than real world-humans. I’ll get into that another time.)

Ryoko Kui must be aware of the dark skin, blue-eyes design trope, because if she gave Kabru blue eyes just because she thought it looked good, surely she would have made some of the other Asian or dark-skinned characters have light eyes. Out of 9 Asian or dark-skinned tall-man characters, Kabru is the only one with blue eyes.

Kabru having light-colored eyes is central to his story, and Kui talks about it.

KABRU’S STORY AND WHY HIS BLUE EYES MATTER

Kabru’s father and his family tried to kill Kabru when he was born because he had blue eyes. Kabru’s mother ran away, and ended up raising Kabru by herself in Utaya. She didn’t try to return home to her own birth family, but instead struggled to raise a child completely on her own with no money or support, which implies she had no other options, due to the fear people of their region have for people with blue eyes.

This is a real thing that used to happen frequently in areas where most of the population has dark eyes, and it still happens to this day.

In a realistic story, this is logically what would happen to a character with dark skin born with blue eyes in a place like the Utaya region. It’s rare for manga or anime to show dark-skinned blue-eyed characters facing this. 

WHAT IS THE “EVIL EYE”?

The “evil eye” is a supernatural belief in a curse brought about by a person looking at you. The belief in the evil eye has existed since prehistory, as long as 5,000 years ago. It is estimated that around 40% of the modern world's population believes in the evil eye. This concept is most common across the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, areas where light-colored eyes are uncommon. 

In areas where light-colored eyes are rare, people with green eyes, and especially blue eyes, are thought to bestow the curse, intentionally or unintentionally. Just one look from a blue-eyed person is often considered enough to inflict a curse.

One of the most famous and widespread talismans against the evil eye is the nazar, a glass amulet featuring concentric circles in dark blue, white, light blue and black. It’s supposed to “bounce” the curse away from the wearer. 

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO KABRU?

Imagine Kabru growing up in a village surrounded by people wearing and hanging talismans that look like his eyes, because the people around him think blue eyes are evil. They call his mother a witch for birthing him, and a whore because she doesn’t have a husband. Imagine parents forbidding their children from playing with or even talking to Kabru. People crossing the street to get away from him, or chasing him away by throwing rocks.

I think the reason young Kabru was able to learn how to speak some kobold is likely because he was so heavily ostracized by the other tall-men around him, the only children he could occasionally interact with in Utaya were kobolds, who might not share the same cultural superstitions that the tall-man do. 

This childhood trauma, combined with Kabru’s experience of the dungeon collapse in Utaya, and being raised by an elf that treated him more like a pet than a human being, set Kabru up as a character who has never had a home where he belongs. He has been an outsider from the instant he was born, and every place he has lived treats him as an “other.”

To his father’s family, he was a curse. To his mother, although she loved him, he was a burden. To the people of Utaya, he was a monster. To the elves, he’s a tall-man baby (no matter how old he gets) with funny looking eyes, to the people on Merini Island, he’s a foreigner from the West with elven ways and education. 

CONCLUSION

I wanted to write this because I know some people will see Kabru in the anime for the first time today and think "Oh, another dark skinned blue eyed character! This is a bad character design that is evidence that the author is racist at worst or ignorant at best.” And I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of Ryoko Kui’s work in Dungeon Meshi.

This isn’t to say that Ryoko Kui has never done anything wrong, or that her work couldn’t be more inclusive, or that there’s no way in which she could improve. 

But there are pages and pages of artwork she’s done that shows she cares about these issues, and I think it’s worth celebrating when someone makes that kind of effort with their artwork.

ANYWAY…

If you’ve read this far, you’re very strong hahaha. I hope you enjoyed this essay. I’ll be publishing more soon when I finish my Dungeon Meshi research on the names and cultures of all the characters. Wish me luck!