Dungeon Meshi, or Delicious in Dungeon if you aren’t a filthy weeaboo like me, is a popular manga and ongoing anime series about a motley crew 🅺of adventurers navigating a big ol’ dungeon while also learning the best way to cook and eat the monsters they encounter.
It’s a lot of fun, and has proven extremely palatable with international audiences thanks to a wider release on Netflix. I’ve been following it from a distance, and this week&rsꦰquo;s episode finally delivered the character development I’ve been waiting for.
Marcille Donato and Falin Touden are officially an item, with a bath scene cementing their sapphic relationship in a way that surprisingly goes against the gratuitous fanservice we’d come to expect from a medium like this. But before they soak up the suds and open their hearts to one another, someth♏ing far more dr✅amatic and life-changing goes down.
While Dungeon Meshi begins as a fairly l🍸ighthearted comedy, it doesn’t take long for the manga to go in a much darker direction. Here’s hoping the anime will do the same.
After defeating the red dragon, Marcille and the party do their best to try and revive Falin, b🅺ut with her body already reduced to a skeleton and little energy to draw from, there lies a genuine fear that she may be gone forever. But through the use of dangerous black magic, Marcille is able to reach into the afterlife and bring her bestie back from the brink. With no necromancer in sight, and taking bones back to the surface impossible, black magic and the use of deceased dragon flesh to piece together Falin&🍸rsquo;s body is her only option.
But against all odds, it works, with Marcille jumping into Falin’s embrace the second she has r🤡eturned. With tears in her eyes, she screams out in relief. It’s an 💃adorable moment, with each girl expressing feelings they’ve been holding back for a long time. Later on, they retire to the baths to clean their wounds and take stock of the situation.
The bath scene is a common occurrence in anime and manga, often used to band all the female characters together in a steamy room filled with convenient angles designed to show off boobs and butts. It has been a staple for decades, so when Dungeon Meshi puts two of its most beloved characters in a room together, your average joe could be blamed for e﷽xpecting the same to happen here. But it doesn’t, instead subverting our expectations by putting a deliberate focus on the words and body language of Marcille and Falin as they celebrate a chance to spend more of their lives together, relieved they’ve both survived.
Studio Trigger is no stranger to delivering us the gay goods with the likes of Promare, Little Witch Academia, Brand New Animal, and Kill Laᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Kill all𒆙 having their own popular and/or canon queer ships. It’s also nice to see it handle fanservice in a much more mature way here than in its previous work.
It begins with Marcille washing Falin’s body, almoꦐst like she’s trying to make sure nothing is out of place after being resurrected from nothing but a pile of bones. Understandable, but it quickly embarrasses Falin as she gently pushes Marcille away, afraid of the intimacy of such an act.
After spotting a bruise on Falin’s chin, the two fall back against the edges of the tub, before Falin moves forward and take𝔉s Marcille’s hand in her own, causing tiny orbs of fading magic to spring forth. Falin feels more powerful than ever, like she has a new lease on life or a well of power bubbling up inside of her. But to lessen🃏 her partner’s worries, she allows this potential to slowly fade away.
While there are naked bodies on display from all angles as the two girls converse, none of it feels shameless or titillating, but in service of their individual stories. There is a br🐻ief respite of silence as we are taken to a wide shot, the girls sitཧting on opposite sides of the tub as Falin begins to understand that not only had she died, but a price had to be paid to bring her back, a price which Marcille will likely have to deal with for the rest of her life.
That’s a heavy burden to carry, but a worthwhile one. I mentioned earlier that Dungeon Meshi will eventually touch on much darker ౠthemes and ideas, and messing with the fabric of life and death is merely a precursor to that development. Either way, the bond of love between these two is unmistakable.
A number of scenes have already been cut from the anime, which ⭕led many to fear that ⭕this heartfelt exchange would also be on the chopping block. Maybe it wouldn’t commit to a queer relationship like this without compromise, or it would be wiped out altogether in exchange for a different, more heteronormative arc instead.
Thank goodness it hasn’t been, because I can&rsﷺquo;t wait to ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚsee where this goes. The fandom exploded with fan art and similar dedications to Marcille and Falin’s love the second this episode aired, while we also saw a number of official illustrations from Studio Trigger only added further fuel to the lesbian fire.
I’ve been watching anime for years, and I’m so used to characters like this, even those with obvious chemistry, being reduced to nothing in favour of the male gaze or another romantic interest who doesn’t fit thꦡem nearly as much. After going through her own death, Falin is piecing herself back together with the girl she trusts more than anyone else in the world.
Dungeon Meshi is flying in the face of such harmful tropes, framing a 👍scene featuring two naked women pouring their hearts out as one where nudity is arguably the least revealing thing about it.
