Lord Of The Rings Meets Dungeon Crawler Carl In Netflix’s Undisputed Best Fantasy Series

Food and the fantasy genre are a match made in heaven, especially if you picture heaven as having rivers of brown gravy flowing through pillowy clouds of mashed potatoes, and the proof is in the pudding with dry loaves of leaf-wrapped lembas bread from The Lord of the Rings enduring as one of the most iconic fictional food products ever. Indeed, across novels, manga, movies, TV shows, and video games, fantasy is home to myriad fictional dishes and beverages that would be lovely to try for real, such as The Stormlight Archive’s Chouta, Harry Potter’s Butterbeer, The Elder Scrolls’ Elsweyr Fondue, and Dark Souls’ Estus.

Moreover, Monster Hunter is unique in that it has adorable characters like the Meowscular Chef and Grammeowster Chef cook meals made from harvested monster parts. This is a trait it shares with Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon, an astonishing fantasy/comedy manga/anime series boasting its own monstrous cuisine.

Delicious In Dungeon Is A Rare Fantasy Treat

Custom Image by Casandra Ronning

Netflix’s Delicious in Dungeon adapts Ryoko Kui’s Dungeon Meshi, and both the manga and anime are hailed as some of the best fantasy in the last 22 years. Even with only half of the manga adapted for Netflix thus far, the anime has sandwiched itself between the likes of The Lord of the Rings and Dungeon Crawler Carl in terms of popular fantasy media.

There’s a lot to adore about Dungeon Meshi, including: phenomenal fantasy worldbuilding via an intriguing monster ecology, particularly the cooking and eating of the monsters the party comes across; fascinating twists on classic fantasy/role-playing monsters, such as Dungeons & Dragons’ mimics being depicted as hermit crabs, and mollusks that mimic and inhabit suits of armor as a colony, thus being referred to as “living armor;” fun and funny characters who instantly feel like they have some semblance of established history, and have been positively described by manga and anime fans alike as sitcom-esque; and a surprisingly rich story that only gets better as it goes on, which makes Studio Trigger’s upcoming Delicious in Dungeon Season 2, reportedly premiering in October 2027, doubly exciting.

It’s the kind of manga/anime that will have you salivating due to the gorgeous food Delicious in Dungeon serves before it has you salivating due to the plot, and both remain consistently fantastic throughout. Unfortunately, the manga’s creative ingredients and stats panels for meals, like the Mandrake and Basilisk Omelet, weren’t adapted into the anime.

Settle Your Appetite, Delicious In Dungeon Season 2 Is Still A Year Away

Sadly, if you’ve been starving and craving Season 2 for the last couple of years, the wait isn’t going to be any less torturous, as there’s a year to go yet until it is slated to premiere. That said, if there was ever an animation studio and anime adaptation deserving of the phrase “let them cook,” it’d be Studio Trigger and Delicious in Dungeon.

Based on how much of the manga the anime was able to tackle in its first season, it is likely that Season 2 of Delicious in Dungeon will finish regaling fans with the whole story told in Dungeon Meshi’s 97 chapters and 14 tankōbon, challenging how much lore The Lord of the Rings was able to jam into a relatively abbreviated number of volumes. And, anyone who’s watched the anime yet hasn’t read the manga has the perfect opportunity to do so now, assuming they don’t mind spoiling their dinner and the anime for themselves. Netflix’s logline for Delicious in Dungeon Season 2 is short and sweet:

Dungeons, dragons… and delicious monster stew!? Adventurers foray into a cursed buried kingdom to save their friend, cooking up a storm along the way.

Delicious in Dungeon Season 2 is scheduled to premiere on Netflix in October 2027.