Over the last few months, Delicious in Dungeon has been airing over on Netflix. Based on the manga of the same name by Ryōko Kui, the adaptation courtesy of Studio Trigger (the team behind Promare and Cyberpunk Edgerunners) has been a really good watch, and just wrapped its first season this past Thursday. Fans didn’t have to worry about the series’ future, because not long after the finale hit, Trigger revealed a second season is already in the works, complete with a trailer and poster hinting at what to come.
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That’s good news to hear, both because it takes tension off viewers’ backs and also because Delicious in Dungeon is just really good. If you haven’t watched it, the pitch is this: a group of adventurers inside a massive dungeon go about rescuing their friend who’s been accidentally captured by its big, evil dragon. The twist? They go floor by floor killing and then cooking monsters to eat, mainly because it helps them save what little money they have, and also because the leader Laios has always wanted to, and this is as good a time as any to do it. And with dwarf cook Senshi spurring him on, the other party members—elf wizard Marcille, half-foot (think hobbit) rogue Chilchuck, and eventual catgirl ninja Izutsumi—have no real choice but to go along with it.
Delicious is a show that treats things mostly light and breezy, but shows its darker side when it’s good and ready. There’s a certain Cartoon Network vibe to the whole thing: episodes are titled and run almost like they could easily be split into 11-minute blocks, and the comedy’s largely based around the characters’ quirks and how they all react to one another. It’s all incredibly charming, further helped by the fun voice work from the Japanese and English voice cast. The dub version is nothing short of a delight and makes the series with an already wacky premise even more unhinged, largely thanks to Damian Haas’ Laios and Emily Rudd’s constantly stressed Marcille.
The show is on track to become 2024’s mainstream anime hit like Spy x Family and has taken off for Netflix in a big way. Much of that can be owed to its weekly release schedule, which helped build up a community, ditto its sillier moments going viral and being so bizarre you couldn’t help but check it out. It also doesn’t hurt that it won’t go on forever: season one ended at what’s essentially the halfway point of the manga, which itself runs 97 chapters across 14 volumes. So if you need something to function as comfort junk food TV that gets you to laugh through its character banter or the occasional moments of visual slapstick, and eases you in with a pair of incredibly catchy opening songs, you can’t go wrong with Delicious in Dungeon.
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