#mickbell delicious in dungeon

[gregrulzok]

This is something I love SO much about Kuro, and about Dunmeshi's portrayal of Bilingualism.

Like ... When we first meet Kuro it's so easy to assume he's a dummy. He's a big doofy-looking dog man that only talks about food, and his sentences are disjointed and broken, so you think oh, haha, token dumb character.

But then we swap to speaking Kobold and it hits you like a truck - Kuro is a person, and he has a full and complete train of thought that he can articulate. This is a grown ass man, and in his native language he speaks just as well as anybody - not only that, but here we see that Kabru, who is usually so good with words, speaks Kobold just as poorly as Kuro does common.

It's such an easy, obvious, and common trope to depict broken speech in a characters non-native language as a funny gag at the expense of their intelligence - not even just in fiction! Making fun of non-native English-speakers for their broken English is so fucking common and normalized - and here you have such a clear and simple portrayal that, no, in fact, Kuro isn't stupid.

And the thing is, common is common for a reason, right. In general high fantasy, "Common" means "Language that is effortless for everyone to speak". But in Dunmeshi, it's explicit that Kobolds can't fully learn Common - Common is designed for Humans, but Kobolds are demi-humans with different mouths and throats that don't allow them to enunciate in the same way.

And yet Kuro is doing his best to study it. He's going out of his way to master a skill most others don't even have to think about. Speaking of which ...

We get this exchange between him and Kabru, which I also wanted to focus on.

Because when we first see Kuro, then portrayed as a simple-minded dummy, it's easy to think that Mickbell is taking advantage of him and Kuro is unaware. Here, Kabru even assumes they can't truly be friends unless they speak the same language perfectly.

But that's not really the case - Mickbell isn't taking advantage of Kuro, not in the way we (and the rest of the party) assume - because Kuro isn't as stupid as we assume. He's thankful to Mickbell, he wants to repay him, and the food is a nice perk - but ultimately he cares about Mickbell enough to put this much effort into learning a whole language for him (while Mickbell cares about him in his own way, though since Mickbell grew up without a family or friends, it usually just manifest in over protectiveness and a fear of losing him. His goal in life is to buy a house for them to live in together. Cmon.)

I think generalising Kuro and Mickbell's relationship as unhealthy (whether you perceive it as romantic or not) is doing a massive disservice to Kuro's intelligence due to his speech - something Kui goes out of the way to disprove.

I love these idiots.

[un-bear-ably-weird]

Guess whos been watching Dungeon Meshi, and watching dungeon meshi, and watching dungeon meshi, and

[pears-n-peaches]

If Kuro spoke better common, he and Mickbell would have a Sam and Max-esque dynamic.

[littlelightfish]

Funny things I found out playing with language setting in Netflix while looking episode 15:

Chilchuck's scream sounds HAUNTED in brazilian portuguese. Give it a try if you can.

(You can hear it here)

In spanish dub, Senshi says: "tocó mis senos de hombre", which means "he touched my man boobs" in Spanish. And I think that's the best dub line one so far.

[hawberries]

down the dungeon we go!

[millidew]

his change in career has captivated me

bonus:

[papay0]

Not sure if anyone has done this yet

Spin the wheel and get a dungeon meshi character!!

Tell me who you got in the tags :D

[benjingle]

Whatever this is

[sleepiercreature]

I couldn't find an English version so I put the fan translation of the sketch on top of the Dungeon Meshi: Adventurers Bible Complete Edition pages of this comic

[relatablepicsofchilchuck]

2 half-foots hanging oout, call that a "foot"

[animentality]

[lucraven]

My brain is rotting in its skull

[saccharineomens]

i really like the idea of mickbell absolutely loathing chilchuck but chilchuck is completely oblivious

thanks to @fumifooms for helping me get reference for dandan!

[brickiebrickie]

When your biggest hater starts befriending you

[littlelightfish]

Manga-Anime comparison:

BOMBASTIC SIDEYE

He's my package give it back

We added eyes and a Mickbell so he won't eat your soul!

This... I hold this close to my heart <3

[savaralyn2]

Dungeon Meshi in JOYPOLIS collaboration event.