Princet Penguin

- never any “omg pervert!!!” jokes that are so insanely prevalent in fantasy manga for some reason

- only “ship tease” is between falin and marcille

- completely and well fleshed out female characters who have their own motivations character and arcs just as equally as the male characters

- catgirl who actually is a cat girl (inscrutable, a little rude, pushes shit off tables, a little unsettling) and not just a cutesy moe girl with cat ears

- ultimate autism protagonist (thank you laois for your service)

- “this elf is actually 5000 years old but looks like a young adult/teenager for some reason” but ryoko kui actually pulled off making it heartbreaking and a significant part of marcille’s character

- chilchuk divorce

- the most insane worldbuilding ever

if you have been under the impression up to this point that dungeon meshi is a low stakes found family slice of life about quirky fantasy friends talking about food (like i did before i read it), i'd like to tell you that it is not that. those moments of found family enjoying a meal are surrounded by a harrowing and grim journey through a terrifying labyrinth designed to kill them, and throughout the 97 chapters comprising it from start to end, I cannot think of a single page that didn't contain vital story information that mattered.

keeping in the theme of "no wasted panels", theres also no wasted time, setting up the premise and end goal that will encompass the entire story in the first chapter. as someone who watches a lot of anime who dilly-dally in getting to the point, i found this very refreshing.

also, the main character is written to be autistic in an extremely believable way, and i dont mean that in a "its my headcanon!" way, i mean it in a "the vast majority of character conflicts he has directly involve his inability to communicate, even though to him he speaks very plainly and directly as best as he can" and a "his niche obsession that other people cannot understand and find offputting is something that gives him a great deal of joy, and his passion and competence in it gives him strength that other people can't and seemingly refuse to try to understand" way. as someone with The Same Problems, i found myself having a deep love for his character at the end. like, he is really something else.

mangapark is my go-to

we even see adaptations that have evolved over short periods of time, as with senshi’s golems adapting to the nutrients used to farm on them

another detail I enjoyed from off the top of my head was when senshi warned marcille not to use a spell that would damage a wide area of the lake, because the fish would die and the merfolk, krakens etc. would suffer in turn, despite a general interest in keeping the monsters at bay. this is narratively smart because it leads to more creative solutions, and also communicates a value of animal life without reverting to “isn’t it just fucked up to hunt things.” the focus of cooking and eating in the manga feels very intentional as a way for the characters to interact with this premise. unlike accumulating treasure, trying to earn fame and fortune, or hunting specific monsters (besides the one that swallowed a party member), eating is a necessity to life, which life itself factors in as part of its cycle. the party members became a part of the ecosystem the very first time they entered the dungeon, but by choosing to sustain themselves from it, come to a better understanding of it—this isn’t a value judgment or an appeal to nature, at least to me, it’s just an observation about how these systems work that the series is making, and something the author wants people to be mindful of

a last point that really hammered it in is an explicit visual representation of the dungeon as an ecosystem—the flashback to the sprite project (analogous to real life insect cultures). the sprites thrive when the cultures mimic dungeon conditions. because that’s all a dungeon is: a self-sustaining ecosystem (as long as it has the resource of magic, as well as other life-giving resources), which is resilient and yet sensitive to change

so far I think it does subvert most of the sensibilities of the dungeon fantasy subgenre in a meaningful way, which is to say it draws the emphasis somewhat away from battling and racking up kills in favor of environmentally conscious problem-solving and acknowledging the lives therein as being in interaction with each other

this is all surface-level praise as I’m only on like chapter 20 but I’m saying. I think you should read it. don’t just take my word for it though. check this out:

The Witch ~

My Mother’s Garden

The garden lasted a few months. Then, an agent of the town’s housing authority found out about it and told my mother it was against the rules. “But no one’s using the land,” I remember her arguing. “The kids in the neighborhood play there.” The response was clear: Get rid of the garden or be evicted. Here was another one of those impossible choices of poverty. This was what my classmates would never understand, as they earnestly debated welfare fraud and the grasping desperation of the undeserving poor.

something drawn realistically to show an emotion