Summary

• Delicious in Dungeon is mainly inspired by European medieval fantasy and has the same Renaissance-Faire chaos aesthetic of the Dungeons and Dragons film.
• Like Honor Among Thieves, Delicious in Dungeon finds its humor in the weird and macabre of fantasy adventures.
• The rises and falls in humor of both the film and the show are threaded with bombastic action and heartfelt backstory.

The following contains spoilers for Delicious in Dungeon Season 1, which is now streaming on Netflix.

With so much fantasy crashing up on the shores of streaming platforms lately, it can be very easy to sleep on some hidden gems. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a narrative success for fans of tabletop gaming and the fantasy genre. It was a breath of fresh air with great special effects, fantastic character chemistry, and a healthy mix of humor and drama. Although there are rumors of another Dungeons and Dragons film coming out in the future, it could be a long wait and that style of fantasy doesn't pass by too often in film and television, until now. Netflix has recently released a weekly anime called Delicious In Dungeon, which follows a party of demoralized adventurers as they must speedrun a huge dungeon system to find the red dragon that ate Laios' sister, Falin. To do this without frequent re-supply trips to the surface shops and Inns, the party must learn how to cook and eat the monsters they defeat along the way.

Aside from its almost identical acronym to "DnD," Delicious In Dungeon includes all the fun tropes of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Since Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves lined up their identity with their product with a perfectly accurate depiction of an imagined campaign, it sets a high standard to match for other media that wished to attract similar audiences. This is where Delicious In Dungeon delivers in spades in both the broader strokes and minutiae of the genre. From the Renaissance Fair chaotic aesthetic of fantasy clothing to the humor within the more irksome moments in adventures, Delicious In Dungeon serves the Dungeons and Dragons experience through the animated realm of anime. Furthermore, Delicious In Dungeon is a largely light-hearted adventure but boasts the same heart and soul to its characters and backstories as the characters in Honor Among Thieves. From rolling laughter to teary-eyed goodbyes, Netflix has released a banger of a fantasy show.

Delicious In Dungeon Is Dungeons & Dragons

• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Imdb Score: 7.2/10.
• Dungeons & Dragons Original Edition of its tabletop game was released in 1974.

Delicious In Dungeon takes a bold, yet tried and true method of bringing audiences right into the action from the start. The party is in dire straights against a massive red dragon that swallows Falin, their healer, and Laios' sister. They run and some of their party breaks off out of shame and bankruptcy, leaving only three of the original members left. As they pursue their speed-run of the dungeon to re-encounter the dragon with a better plan and save Falin before she's digested, they encounter a Dwarf named Senshi, who loves cooking, especially the monsters within this mega-dungeon.

All of this happens very quickly in the show and it plunges the audience straight into the high jinks, adventure, and irksome laughs and cheers as the party preps meals from monsters that, quite honestly, look delicious the majority of the time. Considering the immense popularity of Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition which has grown into popular culture over the last eight years, many tables are updating how conventional Tolkien-style fantasy stories are told. Throwing audiences right into the action has been a convention in film for decades from the opening scenes of James Bond films to Star Wars, and dungeon masters have replaced slow, lore-dump intro sessions with epic prologues of action and intrigue. Delicious In Dungeon serves up this updated and fresh way of seeing Dungeons & Dragons gameplay through its story, making it very relatable for many who love the genre.

The introduction of Honor Among Thieves actually burns slower and the introduction of Delicious In Dungeon. Although the film does a great job of featuring the intensity of Revel's End prison and the main character's predicament, it takes a more classical approach to Dungeons & Dragons storytelling. Honor Among Thieves time and time again reveals wonderful homages to featured monsters, locations, module characters, and artistic decisions that pay homage to their manual art over the years. In a similar light, Delicious In Dungeons features many creatures featured in the tabletop game and Honor Among Thieves. Mimics, Oozes, Animated Armor, and Dragons litter the dark and drafty rooms of the dungeon, but they have been given some added original flavor, literally.

Humor in Dungeons Is Delicious

• Delicious In Dungeon Imdb Score: 7.6/10.
• The original manga Dungeon Meshi (Dungeon Food/Meal) was released in 2014.

Whether it's watching the laughs unfold before the audience's eyes or they're rolling the dice to discover the comedy in failure, humor has always decorated the adventures in Dungeons & Dragons. Many fantasy adventures are joked about beginning with The Fellowship of the Ring, but soon ending up like Arthur and his knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Delicious In Dungeon finds its comedy in the fascination of the macabre as the party reluctantly (Except Senshi and Laios, who love it) prepare surprisingly delicious meals from the meats, juices, and other parts of monsters they've defeated.

The hilarity of Marcille's initial aversion to this practice, juxtapositioned with her amazement at how delicious the food was builds a bizarre and fun levity that is so familiar to lovers of Dungeons & Dragons. Often in film, those downtime activities of camping and eating are streamlined with montages or small talking scenes as they set up camp or get ready for bed, but in Delicious In Dungeon, the show makes downtime and cooking strange creatures the main event. Of course, the action is interesting and full of high jinks and plans gone wrong, as it should be, but this addition of embellishing a smaller detail of a game into the subject of most of its episodes builds a cozy dynamic with a show full of swords, sorcery, and a dire ticking clock.

Honor Among Thieves as a film needs to use sweeping montages and quick edits to make sure the story moves with the adventure. However, the film does a great job of holding downtime moments when it's emotionally important and humorous. Honor Among Thieves builds its humor through its character-building and meta-humor for those who enjoy the tabletop game. One that matches the macabre humor differently than Delicious In Dungeon is the "speak with dead" graveyard scene, where the sorcerer Simon spams the spell on several dead warriors until he gets the full story of who has the magical helmet. This snarky humor involving the number of questions that can be asked is the crux of the joke and even returned in a silly end credits scene. It's these similarities in humor and fascination that Delicious In Dungeon and Honor Among Thieves connect well.

D&D and DiD Pair Action and Heartfelt Story

• Studio Trigger is the creator of the Delicious In Dungeon Anime.
• Bump of Chicken performed the opening song called "Sleep Walking Orchestra" and Ryokuoushoku Shakai performed the ending song "Party!!"

All great narrative mediums, whether it's books, television, or film, require a delicate balance of heart and action to build a balanced adventure narrative. Honor Among Thieves is based on a game that inspires anyone to write an adventure and play with friends in a way they can all enjoy, so the expectation for the film to have good storytelling is paramount from its fans. Anything other shows or films that are adventure-coded with the same structures and ideas of a D&D campaign needs to build that same dramatic balance to attract the same discerning audiences.

Honor Among Thieves builds great action that is catered to each character's personality and function in the party, whilst slowly building up to a bigger meaning of found family not being taken for granted. Audiences gushed about how the film's ending took them by surprise and made them cry (Happy bitter-sweet tears, promise.) It was truly a big moment for a franchise reboot film to have such an immediate effect on its fan base. Even though Delicious In Dungeon is originally based on a manga, it's very clear the showrunners made sure to follow the example of Honor Among Thieves when it came to balancing every character's moments throughout a very harrowing adventure with heartfelt consequences.

In episode 12 of Delicious In Dungeon, the party realizes that Falin has already been digested by the red dragon since it began moving around the dungeon more, speeding up its digestive system. This led to gruesome scenes of desperation as the party assembled what was left and turned to dangerous blood magic to resurrect her. Although it seemed like this solution worked well enough for the moment, leading to very sweet reconnecting scenes between Laios and Falin, it's clear something is mysteriously amiss and powerful about their recovered friend. Although Laios starts as the leading character story for the overarching narrative of the initial story, Senshi, Marcille, and Chilchuk's stories slowly unravel as they venture further. Through flashbacks and wild action against fierce creatures, the characters of Delicious In Dungeon are really allowed to shine within the narrative. This balance between character arcs in both Honor Among Thieves and Delicious In Dungeon really feels like the audience is witnessing a dungeon master unraveling the adventure and catering it to their respective parties evenly, making both this anime and the film perfect complementary pieces to have on Netflix.