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room-surprise · 10 months ago

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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!

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi #kabru #my stuff #analysis #character of color #theories #Dungeon Meshi Research

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dunmeshistash · 5 months ago

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Idk if I say this right did the manga style changed over time from first chapter were tiny details on it, to the end it is more detailed? Bc it got me gasping of the improvement of author's art style

Yep, Dungeon Meshi was published over 9 years and Kui's style got more detailed as it went on. If you look at her older manga before dunmeshi you can see she had a very "inky" and minimal style. Here's some pages from Seven Little Sons of the Dragon from 2011~2012 (Taking the chance to do kui propaganda)

I'd say that's impressive work even back then and I think it's cool how expressive it gets and how much she puts across with just clean linework

Here's Dungeon Meshi from 2014 when it began (2~3 years after this)

It's still BEAUTIFUL art but her simplistic character drawings are still there from her older work, I think she's going for more detail and less minimalism when she starts dungeon meshi tho, I guess she still had to find her footing in the new style?

I think chapter 1 Senshi is the biggest offender in that transition from very simplistic characters to very detailed characters (think of a furry transitioning to drawing more humans, her monsters and animals were always very detailed but her humans were mostly that face Laios makes)

Them in the first cover

Them in chapter 35

You can tell she really found the consistency on how to draw them and upped the detail on her character work, I do think she improved! (you'd hope so after 9 years) but I like to give credit to her earlier work too, she was working upon a solid base to get where she is.

I also wanted to say simple doesn't mean worse, it all depends on what you're trying to achieve, I think Kui had a vision for dunmeshi that demanded more detail so she got out of her comfort zone? That's all assumptions tho, either way she's an amazing artist and has been for a long time.

Anyway this is the Ryoko Kui art analysis nobody asked for by an artist that draws like once a year.

Edit: sorry fixed the date it was supposed to be 2014 not 2013

#Sorry I rambled I dont even know if this makes any sense #ask #anonymous #dungeon meshi #ryoko kui #dunmeshi thoughts

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frashka · 5 months ago

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I think one of my favourite motifs in farcille is their hand holding tbh because I'm so sure it was intentional, Ryoko Kui is just like that

So, as we know, Falin and Marcille are already very, VERY tactile with each other, but an important separate detail is their hands. They always hold hands when something important and even culminating for them happens. By taking Falin's hand as a child, Marcille takes on a completely new and an unknown life, allowing Falin to teach her something new, to show her something important. By accepting Falin's hand, she accepts new knowledge into her life, new possibilities and, importantly, lets someone to be close to her.

It's also important how Ryouko Kui focuses on their hands when Falin's handing Marcille raspberries, because it's another symbol of Marcille accepting new things and knowledge, thanks to Falin.

Curious and lively and expressive Marcille we, as an audience, know is like that because of Falin in her life. Because she took Falin's hand and let her show Marcille something new. We saw Marcille before that, a little arrogant in her knowledge, and so different from someone we know: serious, unemotional and not so happy. She's lonely. And we see her like that twice in the story: before Falin stepped into her life, and when Falin (in Marcille's head) left her behind. Three years should feel like nothing for a half-elf, right? But Marcille felt that time passing, even mistaken it for four years with how Falin's absence affected her.

Moving forward, it's really important just how much focus we get on Marcille's hands during the resurrection scene: her drawing blood from her palm, powering Ambrosia with it, carefully rearranging Falin's skeleton bone to bone. Despite being pretty fastidious and clean most of the time, here she stains her hands both with dragon's blood and her own.

And after all that, The Bath Scene happens.

Ryouko Kui dedicates THREE panels to their hand holding. Anime adapted this scene nicely, but in manga we feel that slow pacing that makes the whole gesture even more special. It's the act, the way Marcille freezes on the spot, it's how she almost reciprocates before realising what Falin is doing (and ends it more out of concern for Falin's health). This whole scene is about love, trust, care and devotion. Falin realised with what methods Marcille brought her back to life, she knows how dangerous and illegal and draining this magic was and still she trusted Marcille. She takes her hands here because she loves Marcille, because she's greatful to her and because she's worried about her wellbeing. Remember how Marcille cut her palm, how she moved Falin's bones with her bloodied hands? There's a lot about these devoted hands and how tenderly Falin holds them in her own.

Finally, we see the scene before Falin's sacrifice.

It's subtle here, but once again we see Falin holding Marcille's hands. This is the moment when we — when Marcille — understand that this devotion goes both ways. That Falin doesn’t care who gets hurt, who she hurts, she doesn’t care about her own life, as long as it means that her brother and Marcille are alive and safe. They are the most important people in Falin's whole world, and by taking Marcille's hand in hers she tries to soothe her and tell her that everything's alright. That she loves her, she loves Laois, and she wants to make sure that they're safe.

Their devotion goes both ways and runs horrifyingly deep with what they're ready to sacrifice for eachother.

#dungeon meshi #farcille #marcille donato #falin touden #i hate them so so much you have no idea #ryouko kui i KNOW you did this intentionally you fucking genius #ough

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kitsunico · 8 months ago

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hope people who are anime only for dungeon meshi will consider also picking up the manga cause nothing can compare to the way ryoko kui draws literally anything. the compositions, the expressions, the designs.

she is so great at sudden tonal shifts and character interactions that i feel can be truly appreciated only in her original work. like some serious mind rearranging stuff. please read dungeon meshi

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animehouse-moe · 9 months ago

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Ryoko Kui's Daydream Hour

I am moving at a glacial pace with tidying up and editing the images of this art book, so I'm going to take a break and talk about Kui's incredible character design on Delicious In Dungeon, using elves here as an example

So, first of all, race-defining traits. With the elves, it's obviously ears as the first. But, Kui plays around with that far more and in an incredibly natural way. The size of their ears differs, the angle at which they protrude from the side of the head can be different, their rotation in terms of where the opening of the ear faces can change, and even the "pointyness" is unique to each elf.

It creates incredibly varied views and "styles" of elf within the world, and complements a lot more of the physical traits that reflect ethnicity in our world.

Take, for example, the hair of elves. In the vast majority of cases it remains blonde or silver/white, and is straight. As you can tell with some of the images, it's not always smooth or silky like some exhibit, but in the vast majority of cases, for elves that are pure elves, their hair is straight (potentially with some shape/volume as you can see with the gray-haired elf with green markings on their face).

Similarly, elves are shown to have characteristically blue or green eyes. Which begins to draw your attention towards an outlier.

This elf. The one with purple eyes. Immediately, you might think "oh, they must only be part elf", but Ryoko Kui was only laying a trap with that idea. This elf is certainly 100% elf, it's just that they exhibit traits that are heterogenous to how Kui's defined elves as a race.

The biggest outliers being the purple eyes, but then also the ears. Here's the thing though, there's not a race that strongly exhibits purple eyes throughout Ryoko Kui's work on Delicious In Dungeon. It's just that elves exhibit strong homogeneity in regards to eye color. A similar thing can arguably be said about the ears which may make viewers think something's up. They're certainly the smallest of the bunch, and the most rotated, but other elves also see aggressively rotated ears, just not to the degree that this one does.

If you want to talk about how the traits of elves mix with that of other races we actually have two examples. Marcille Donato, obviously, as a half elf and half tall-man, but also this other blonde woman with blue eyes.

We know of Marcille's heritage so let's focus on the woman on the right. The first thing that you notice as a heterogenous is her hair: it's wavy. It's a trait that's very much separate from Kui's depiction of elves. Similarly, the shape of the eyes betrays that much more narrow and sharp style.

Then there's also the ears, which are larger, noticeably shorter, more round, and most noteworthy are thicker.

With that last piece I'm sure many are thinking, "Oh, she has to be half Gnome!". Yes, the shape and size of the ears does very much fit Kui's style of Gnome (as does her height, I'll say more later), but let me show you a (bad and unedited) image of how Kui draws gnomes.

Their eyes are far more slanted and downturned. It's a very strong trait of the Gnomes, alongside their very prominent noses and hair that isn't noticeably curly or wavy.

So no, it's not Gnome, and I wouldn't say it's Dwarf either. My guess is that this woman is part half-foot. The smaller stature (yes, the headshot shows that she's shorter than the other elves), the curly hair, the shorter yet more prominent and thicker ears, the rounder eyes, it all speaks to similarities expressed by Half-Foot characters.

And I think that's really incredible. It's just a wonderful highlight of how thoughtful and creative Kui is with their character design, and how unique they're able to make a race.

At a glance, you can tell who's what, but they don't all look the same by any means.

That's something that's really driven home with Ryoko Kui's Daydream Hour, and something I really want to talk about more. Though, as you can tell, I've got a lot of work ahead of me to get images that are actually good and presentable, so we'll see when I'm able to squeeze out a proper post.

#ryoko kui #daydream hour #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #marcille dunmeshi #marcille dungeon meshi #marcille donato #delicious in dungeon marcille #anime art book #anime art #manga art book #manga art #anime and manga #anime #manga

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dungeon-meshi-tournament · 7 months ago

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Masterpost

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi spoilers #favourite anything from the series tournament #farcille #falin touden #marcille donato #the way kui draws expressions #ryoko kui

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candy8448 · 4 months ago

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Nearing the end of the dungeon meshi manga!

(Previous post)

I really like how chilchuck has a crisis and then starts to take charge lol. I love him. Dadchuck really shining through

Dadchuck! Dadchuck! Dadchuck!

Also i love the little tidbit about the cultural differences with even what to do with a babytooth. The tiny details are so cool

I like how the really powerful monster marcille makes is the EXACT SAME as the familiar she made to rescue senshi from the griffin. Same amount of wings and everything, i like that

I really dont like the labru ship but i can deffo see where people are comming from. The energy in this page is just overflowing

Also i really like the composition of the pannel with laios and kensuke being completely black. Shows the manipulation and evilness of the winged lion, its cool

I mentioned in this post how that when i saw it, i thought that it was chilchuck and his wife and what i thought about that. People however said it wasnt him due to the size of his ears and such (see the post for details on both parts) so idk, what do u think.

Oh no the hourglass eyes D:

Also the next pannel after that looks really cool, i love it

XD chilchuck knowing exactly what to get marcille to listen while everyone else's doesnt work as well, lol

These pages are amazing. Chilchuck's and izutsumi's expressions are everything. I love all of them so so much ^v^

Dang, her and laios both being like "i think the demon's powers are evil" "i think that being the dugeon lord is bad" XDXDXD

JAJSGDSJAHSB I FORGOT BUT I JUST REMEMBERED THAT "eating is a privilege of the living" :000!!

Falin's so me core...

The canaries applying sunscreen to mithrun otherwise he would forget and shiro picking up shells for falin are so cute!

I find it so funny how laios and crew just gets eaten lol

We are getting near the end and its crazy, i really dont want it to be over :( (but im deffo glad that kui decided to end it at a good point rather than drawing it out for too long. I despise series that draw it out for even a tiny bit too long)

(Couldn't marcille have asked the winged lion to change falin back to how she was before? Instead of just freezing her?)

Actually no, cuz if they tried to get her out of the dungeon the effect would dissapear and she would turn back to a chimera but outside and thats not good seeing how easily she murdered shiro's and the other parties

And to think that from neat the start, if they revived Falin with the black magic and then very soon after asked falin to teleport them back to the surface, then none of this would have happened lol, though i guess like laios said to marcille, without all of this they wouldn't have had all this fun and tried all that food and grown close together. I guess the real meshi was the friends we made along the way.

(Next post)

#i do a little ramble #a meshi a day keeps the dungeon away #dungeon meshi #manga #dunmeshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi spoilers #dunmeshi spoilers #dm #dm chilchuck #dm senshi #dm laios #dm marcille #dm izutsumi #dm falin #dm kabru #chilchuck's wife

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ubercharge · 10 months ago

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im not sure if anyone asked you yet, but thoughts on the dunmeshi anime?

thanks for asking! sometimes i forget i exist here as a person cuz i just log on to queue random stuff without making posts 💀

it's pretty rare for me to watch an anime without ever reading the manga, and there've been stellar adaptations recently. ONK, kisekoi, BTR, frieren, CSM just to name a few. in a landscape where we're used to being disappointed as readers who have a frame of reference before watching a show, i had very, very high hopes for the dunmeshi adaptations that weren't quite fulfilled.

i'll dump everything under a cut since i actually have a lot to say, sorry if you were expecting it to be brief 😎

the lines in the artistic style are good, nicely translating the characters into animated format. really no notes there. definitely a nicer comparison for char designs between manga and anime vs. tonsuki and tensura who both have incredible manga styles that the anime stumble over (though in the latter's case, i don't think they were aiming for it sadly)

the shading has been fine, but weakened by the colour choices. some of the dungeon scenes (e.g., living armour stuff) are lit with a medium blue which helps to sell the idea of the scene being in a place not lit by fire (and contrasts it with the making camp & cooking scenes), but the lack of dark shading flattens some of these very well-drawn images.

the earlier chapters don't have the same level of detail as newer ones, but the art style is still fantastic - it's expressive with high contrast and shows action and impact perfectly well. manga will often times have a naturally easier way with contrast due to it being in black & white, but i don't think that means anime should just give up on contrast in favour of playing ineffectively with colour.

here's a night shot of fern from frieren. the choices made here allow for the shading to stand out from the flats and give her more definition overall while still being relatively simple (just flats + shading)

when dunmeshi has more "normal" lighting conditions, it does a lot better. similar to fern up there, there's about the same amount of difference between the flats and shadows, so i really wish they did a better job on the dungeon scenes since they're going to have to deal with non-torchlit scenes plenty. i won't argue that the living armor scene certainly has some kind of a sickly, alien mood to it, but tl;dr i think it should've had darker shading if not also being less green. this largely applies to every other blue-green lit scene they've done.

looking at kui's coloured drawings in the ed gives me an idea of what could've been and it makes me sad to lose out on colour choices more similar to that (even if they obviously can't have her level of detail on top of it)

some of the backgrounds haven't been too interesting but some have been good, overall it's probably fine. plus you can only draw and detail repeating bricks so many times before the viewer gets bored of looking at them anyway, i guess.

the animation is really fun and expressive. it's trigger, so they don't keep scenes stiffly on-model when they want characters moving around. this is good because it helps to sell both action and comedy moments!

the music overall i haven't really cared for? the BGM has not been particularly moving, interesting, or memorable - mostly generic. and i've seen too many fantasy shows for my own good, so i might be harder to impress (but i even remember tenken had a good BGM song or two to make a fight dramatic and that show was barely above average at best)

i'm biased not being particularly into bump, so i would've selected a different artist for the OP (i actually did like the bump OP from SxF though, come to think of it). before anyone makes a wisecrack based on what i've watched lately, no it doesn't have to be yoasobi.

i maybe feel the ED song would've been better for the OP, i don't like the largely peaceful bit of the OP with very still visuals. the OP is where you reel people in! it should be an eye-catching hook, representative of what to expect with some extra sauce on top.

the ED is great, total bop. it's a fine time for slower visuals as an enjoyable wind-down from the episode, so less or no animation is no big deal. plus kui's art is absolutely gorgeous! it all perfectly fits that "end of work" fun and lighthearted mood they were going for.

i largely enjoy the voice acting. i would've personally gone for a less "old man" voice on senshi because he's really not that old for a dwarf, but they obviously wanted to make it clear he was the older, wiser, knowledgeable character.

this might be my own personally most blasphemous opinion, but i would've picked a different VA for falin. i want to make it clear i absolutely adore saori hayami - she's incredible and one of my faves. with that said, her voice fits the character, so maybe it's just because i've heard her too often which is not her fault by any means! i love the voices for laios, marcille, and chil.

it seems netflix's subs go off of the official EN TL of the manga, which makes sense, but i've talked about how i don't like it more than ehscans' TL (which is one of the single best TLs i've read for a series, official or otherwise) and that holds true for the anime ("mad sorcerer" is cooler AND less clunky than "lunatic magician"). i prefer less localisation stuff and/or quirkiness in my subs and more direct translation for both manga and anime.

as for the changes/additions they've made to the show, some of them have been alright and some i didn't care for. they really want to sell marcille as the funny joke character which is why they had her being chased by the basilisk instead of having doni & fionil like it was in the manga which was better for the pacing and had good impact vs a funny clip of marcille running back and forth.

i don't dislike when adaptations add or change stuff, but placing them cleanly is important. dunmeshi is already really funny! i don't think it needs help being funnier by reaching for the cheap laugh. when laios sees two people running for their lives from a basilisk and he just goes "wow that's a bad way to run from that monster", it's already lowkey hilarious - all the more so followed by marcille telling mr. monster-know-it-all to go rescue them if he knows what's up and him rescuing them by making himself big and chicken squawking real loud (which embarrasses marcille and chil, but c'mon guys, at least his idea worked!). i feel like the comedy in laios' funny hero moment is undercut by forcing the marcille butt of the joke moment in the anime.

dunmeshi is already incredibly good at just about everything it does. i feel if an adaptation wants to add or change something, it's often better amplifying a strength or shoring up a weakness in the source material. BTR adds a lot to the source (not hard considering the source is a 4koma) and makes already funny things even funnier. the "we should all get social media" scene is elevated to iconic status with the visual of bocchi glitching out + the VA's inhuman screech. i can't say where i'd really want to change or add stuff to dunmeshi, since it really feels so good and whole, but i'm sure there's room in the process of translating manga panels to animated scenes, and i think the direction overall could've been better (comparing most shows to BTR isn't fair i know because BTR is directed & adapted so well it's hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby territory)

i've mostly said negative stuff, but i don't want it to sound like i hate or even really dislike the adaptation. i think when it comes to a series you really love, you want to see the best adaptation possible within reason, and the disappointment of stuff not being quite what you were hoping for is amplified by so many other recent adaptations being so good.

dunmeshi does not have a bad anime by any means, but a lot of that is thanks to the source material's quality. if they do another season, i hope they have more time/budget/whatever because i think a lot of the parts it does have are good parts! but in this case, i wasn't hoping for good; i was hoping for great.

trigger makes great shows with wacky storylines (in some ways, the same one wacky storyline, but that's a different discussion) and dunmeshi, being directed by someone who's worked on a bunch of trigger stuff (largely sci-fi leaning), maybe needed some more direction from people who've worked on fantasy stuff? i can't say for sure what would've been enough to take the show over the top, but though i generally don't hope for much from adaptations, i really did have higher hopes for this one than it ended up achieving.

overall it seems i'll end up scoring the show a 7 or 7.5 when i finish the season, though there's certainly still room to wow us all. whatever you feel about the adaptation, whether you liked it or not, whether or not you've read the manga, feel free to comment your thoughts below or in my inbox. let's keep it free of manga spoils for anime-only watchers, though!

#sorry this is REALLY long #ask answer #anon #i've been busy with TEA in ffxiv but i'll try to post more!

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