Caroline Wright

I feel compelled to write this review because this series is so overrated. I can't believe there isn't backlash against it. Anyway, Dungeon Meshi is another bland anime in the vein of Spy x Family, which falls back on recognizable tropes and weak worldbuilding to support itself. The cooking angle was the only thing I liked. The characters--with perhaps the exception of Senshi--were stereotypical and flat. The show tried too hard to make them seem close, but didn't spend the time to develop them and their bond in the first place. The dungeon setting really undercuts the story as well. This should be a video game, not an anime/manga series. In a video game, you could have fun exploring the location and cooking the monsters. As it is, all you get to do is watch other people have fun. And the setting is so loose and contextless that it has no stakes whatsoever. If characters die, they can just be brought back to life, so there's no drama. It isn't funny either, and the adventure isn't exciting. So what's the point? It's saved from being one star only by the fact that it isn't outright offensive, just boring.