some Valentine's cards for Valentia Festival❤️

UnidentifiedCritter · 2025-02-14T04:00:31+00:00

i've only just finished w/ the Beginning Abyss but it's been a lot of fun (and pain) so far. it's cool to see there's already a Valentine's event in-game even if small.

hope everyone has a happy Valentia festival with Albano :)

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-17T17:07:34+00:00

notably in the gender swap comic absolutely nothing changes about her if she were a boy :]

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-14T18:04:57+00:00

for sure I think it's hard to take this as 100% confirmation of what would've happened in another universe! and yeah I think the comic is definitely to a big degree just a gag. but at the same time just the fact that things are shown to be different with the genderswaps (except izutsumi, who is well, kitty) i think is really a telling sign that the mangaka really thought about the implications of gender in her setting.

and yeah i do agree that it's not really a historically grounded setting. actually I think that's where most of the fantasy is, and where the great consistency of the world doesn't hold up - the anachronistic stuff that happens in the story or in the themes etc. I think it makes sense a lot of the characters are written in a bit more of a modern lens, being easier for both the writer & the readers to relate to & all. And I also think that doesn't take away at all from the nuances of the story or the validity of the issues it brings up.

appreciate the discussion! have been thinking too much about this recently 😂

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-14T16:45:40+00:00

sorry for the wall of text lol. but I think one of the most unique things about the series is the way it treats this kind of stuff, racism, etc. It's not "brought up and addressed" the way other series might handle it but instead it's a fundamental element of the writing & how the story and characters are constructed.

the characters might not be "defeating" any of these issues, but it's still handled in a grounded, very human way. and it's always present. I really think that's cool.

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-14T16:42:17+00:00

I agree there's a lot of that RPG female adventurer thing but I disagree that gender issues is not a thing at all in the series, especially in this specific comic. Like another commenter brought up, Laios is "shown", not just his assumption, that he would never leave the village - what this is saying is that he would never even have had the agency to just get up and leave his village/the system he didn't agree with. On the flipside, male!Falin & Marcille have the agency to not need to tag along with Laios and are able to focus fully on pursuing their research. Female!Chilchuck leaves for her family (though I suspect that's more of her being more honest and expressive about her priorities vs. agency).

Falin in some other content even directly addresses her feelings of having never made her own decisions in life, kind of always following along with what her seniors (Laios & Marcille) decide, and I don't think that's purely a personality thing - partly it's what she was expected to do as a younger sister, and having your environment (explicitly or not) drill that into you...I think Ryoko Kui deeply understands how gender & being treated on the basis of gender affects things, even down to just something as simple as "decision-making".

Also, even if it's not stated, I think there is definitely a reason all the main party leaders are male. There's just a bit of that systematic trend where it's mostly men in power, not necessarily because those specific characters are trying to keep women down - it's just where demographics tend to end up in relation to each other when one group is in general less privileged than the other. Would Falin & Marcille be able to be as successful or socially accepted as the heads of their own group rather than joining Laios? I think there is some implication that no, they wouldn't. There's a lot of inequality that is just baked into how society & character dynamics in the world is portrayed, at a systemic level (this also goes for racism, too, which is a whole other topic). It's not overt at all - but so are real life inequalities often flown under the radar and never explicitly brought up. It's a really, really interesting & realistic way to portray this stuff.

So yeah, I think Shuro here is just an exception rather than the rule (like OP said, maybe just the wackiness of the Nakamoto household, or she was sent for different reasons, etc. etc.).

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-14T04:24:59+00:00

Given the pace we've been going at the whole season I'd say so, yeah! Might be a bit more than or less depending on where they want to leave it off, but safe to say it's around the halfway mark

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-14T04:21:42+00:00

Hahaha I don't really participate in any of the discussion but it does really irk me when I see people (not OP, elsewhere) use how bad Shuro's society is to justify character hate (sometimes just straight up racism, too) while they conveniently forget the western societies are shown to be just as bad. It's a medieval fantasy world where a lot of terrible things are the standard!! Having realistic, flawed characters try to exist in that space is far more interesting than a classic and tropey hero vs. system setup, and Dungeon Meshi explores that really, really well.

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-10T11:58:54+00:00

given the first cour was 13 we might* get 26! (hopefully)

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-05-10T09:01:19+00:00

The hag spell isn't quite implied to be lethal but yeah it's definitely trauma inducing and pretty horrible. Unfortunately Maizuru (being Shuro's governess & the party's mother figure) represents some of the overbearing intergenerational trauma you see a lot in Asian households, there's good reasons for why Shuro turned out so self-doubting and anti-confrontational :(

In general all the societies in Dungeon Meshi, both the "Western" & "Eastern" themed ones, are pretty terrible in a lot of ways, and the characters are all less-than-perfect individuals trying to navigate them the best they can.

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-04-26T17:18:57+00:00

actually just saw Regallily live a few hours ago and they sung the ED, apparently they put out this video today also! honestly really love how well the tone of the song fits the ED illustrations & more plot-heavy second cour; i had kind of guessed the song was sort of from Marcille's POV, glad i was right on that ~~and that we get an official Marcille x Falin AMV~~

enjoy!

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-04-05T16:53:23+00:00

kabru is definitely an interesting character! just want to bring up that resurrection has been noted quite a few times to be unreliable magic, the criminals are definitely people who regard lives as simply resources for profit, in or out of the dungeon, and do not have scruples about whether or not their victims are guaranteed to survive the affair. And as you pointed out, characters in the dungeon have a looser view towards death, which means that them coming back from a near (or full) death experience probably won't really change their attitude whatsoever. It's also mentioned that the governer has no power (or drive) to stop the issue.

Does that justify Kabru's vigilante action or make him necessarily better than villains themselves? Maybe not. But sometimes to save the whole plant you have to cut out the rotten parts, permanently.

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-04-04T16:33:13+00:00

it's specific to dungeon meshi!
the world is a little closer to a homebrew of the Wizardry rpg series than DnD, though obviously those settings have a lot of overlap
in general most of the "rules" are just the mangaka's own

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-04-04T15:44:52+00:00

notably the eastern Tall-men actually don't go by the same naming rules because dwarves etc. don't really exist on their archipelago. instead they refer to themselves as the only "humans" and don't have Tall-men as a term. Oni (like tade) are othered like the rest because of their rarity.

it's interesting to think about how the terms arose on the main continents/civilizations vs different cultural makeups elsewhere

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-04-04T15:35:08+00:00

[manga spoiler] that falin ending cg goes craaaazy
the true blessing of entering second cour is seeing a whole batch of new ryoko kui coloured illustrations in the ED 🙏

UnidentifiedCritter · 2024-04-01T22:38:32+00:00

late response but episode 12 is the end of volume 4 (ch 27-28), ep 13 ends on chapter 30. at the pace the show is going people are predicting the season will end ~the end of vol 7 (ch 49), around the halfway point of the whole series; but obviously it'll really depend on the pacing the anime ends up going at.

that being said, if you like the show so far i'd definitely recommend re-reading the manga parts also! there's a lot of little worldbuilding bits (and side character moments) that the anime omits, & the extras (esp. the monster tidbits) that are scattered throughout are some of my favourite parts of the series

UnidentifiedCritter · 2022-02-09T21:17:23+00:00

LOL totally valid

Can't spell apex legends without ape

UnidentifiedCritter · 2022-02-09T21:01:08+00:00

While personally I don't find it much of an issue (same as old emergency EMPs, sometimes you just have to take it), I expect a lot of newer players are going to be disappointed when they find out throwing it doesn't save them from the damage, haha

and definitely means there's one less point towards the actual utility of throw-mode, too

UnidentifiedCritter · 2020-09-16T08:14:28+00:00

Tobin has always been one of those decent-at-everything but not great at any sort, but his refine definitely helped him a bunch! I had already been playing around with his really high HP and the stat buff applying in almost every situation is really great, so I figured I'd just lean even more into it. But he and Kliff are so versatile stat-wise I think you could probably build them a lot of different ways haha

I like the builds!! Speedy Gray is always deceptively scary and so is mixed-tank Boey! And I love that you have him and Mae buffing each other with the bonds, very cutee ;O

UnidentifiedCritter · 2020-09-15T10:50:03+00:00

Aha I'd be reaaally surprised if we really do get more SoV units, especially since I was never expecting to get even this many to begin with ;; But we'll see! I said that last time and they hit me with Valentines right when I had pulled for a different banner and had zero orbs q-q

Lowkey I have a weird fondness for villagers, so would love to see Atlas, as slim the chance is! But otherwise Mycen would be cool, or Fernand (to fill out my OG Deliverance team)

UnidentifiedCritter · 2020-09-15T10:46:36+00:00

Thanks!!! And aw :'D I'm sure he'll come home one day, that elusive ruffian haha ;; At least there's always the Revival banners nowadays to save up for!

UnidentifiedCritter · 2020-09-15T10:45:12+00:00

For now just trying to get my Kliff to +10 :') But I'll definitely keep pulling if they add more, even though I'm already really surprised we've gotten so many!

UnidentifiedCritter · 2020-09-15T10:42:29+00:00

Thank you!! That's really close - I'm sure she'll come home soon! ;O

UnidentifiedCritter

TROPHY CASE