Last weeks thread - 9 Comments
Dungeon Meshi is a well liked manga, and an adaptation by Studio Trigger is now airing. If you haven’t picked this one up, consider joining us. Both for fun and as a way of contributing to activity on Lemmy.
This week we get learn a lot about the phenomenon known as “dungeons”. Marcille points out that the dungeon they are in has been carefully designed accounting for a mind-boggling amount of complexity, and that she studied the science in school. But then the dungeon that Falin discovered seemed like a natural occurrence?
So which is it? Man-made, or natural phenomenon? And can the dungeon master really be taking every little detail into account? Are they omniscient within the dungeon?
This is the tipping point. This is where the story begins to crack open the floodgates on what is really going on.
Remember not to spoil anything if you’re a manga reader, but feel free to elaborate on tidbits of lore that may not be coming through in the adaptation.
Today’s episode clearly had different director with more sharp edges and slightly different expressions. I liked the fight with that water sphere. Our Quartet clearly run out of luck, Laios went down with food poisoning and Marcille got wounded pretty hard. I wonder if they will be up to the task to kill the red dragon.
Things aren’t looking good for them. One thing I am not clear on is whether Marcille can naturally regain magic if they just wait and heal up. The boys can go get some food for a while, give our girl some rest.
She can, magic is kind of like a chemical that strives to exist in equal quantity everywhere. Living things naturally get “polluted” with it as they breathe and eat. That’s why eating mandrakes from a dungeon gives mages a boost, for example.
Dungeon’s are particularly dense with magic, as marcille comments when entering the one Falin showed her. All the magic in the world flows outwards from dungeons, simply being closer to one, or even inside, makes mages more powerful.
However, for the stuff to actually move inside the body, is really slow. As in, up to a week to regain full strength. Marcy is kinda fucked, unless our gang comes up with something.
True. I also noticed much more “Trigger” in the style of the animation, and even the stills. Stills especially have been sticking close to the artstyle of the manga, so far, rather than what is typical for Trigger.
Only one more floor. The orcs told our party that the dragon has been active in the “residential area” which is located on the fifth floor, which used to be part of the city around the castle that became the dungeon.
Back when they entered the fourth level, the narrator mentions that you can see through the floating water of the lake, down to the fifth floor and the city buildings below.
Student Falin is so smol! While Marcille has only changed a little.
Despite Chilchucks suspicions, in her younger days Marcille was indeed considered a prodigy with a bright future in elven society. Why is she now dungeon delving in foreign territory, a powerful but decidedly unexceptional mage? I’ll say no more…
Any thoughts on what we learned about dungeons?
A very Marcille focused episode. It’s worth noting that Undines typically aren’t hostile, this one is PISSED because someone poured boiling water on it :D
AND LET HER TRY SOMETHING OTHER THAN LIVER, DAMMIT!
Next episode, we’ll be getting a tense re-union, and our first proper on-screen encounter with another party.
This is the first time they cared about the medicinal value of food. It worked in a fantastical way reviving Marcille so quickly. I’d only thought about the food as regular food until now. I suppose it makes sense mystical monster meat can have exaggerated nutritional value.
She’s not revived or even a bit healed. Liver will help her body deal with the blood loss due to its high iron content, but that’s about it.
Food can restore a mage’s magical energy if it contains a lot of it, but potions that have a similar effect to an actual healing spell aren’t a thing.
Rough time for Marcy this week. Question for the source readers if it is explained. I was wondering about Marcille’s magic and her staff. She is obviously able to cast magic without it like she did during the fight with the Undine. However, her first instinct when it appeared was to look for it. So, does it help her control the magic in some way, or perhaps cast spells while using less magic? Just curious if the source explains anything about it.
I mentioned in the Episode 6 discussion thread about how the tone is getting darker as we go. This episode really drives it home. As the Undine fight kept going, I was waiting for the happy, silly moment that I knew was coming to bring it to a resolution before the end of the episode. However, it never came. Our poor Marcelle simply got beat up and the gang ran away. Now things are looking quite dire.
Each episode, I feel like I end up talking about the animation of a scene that I like. This episode, it was the sequence of Marcille fighting with the Undine. As others have mentioned, it felt a bit different than sequences from previous episodes (compare it to the fight against the Kraken for instance). There were so many dramatic angles and poses by Marcille during this sequence. Two parts stood out to me in particular. First, the first-person view of her falling into the water was just gorgeous. Hands are notoriously tricky (just ask any AI algorithm), and that sequence was done great, hands and all. The second bit I loved was when she set off the explosion directly underneath herself to escape the fight. There were some very obvious impact frames used here. I managed to pause on one of them to grab a screenshot. Just a great action sequence.
Final thing I wanted to mention is that I loved the flashback portion of this episode. It felt pulled straight out of Little Witch Academia. Falin was a bit like Sucy while Marcille is a bit like Diana. Great stuff. Looking forward to the reunion with their former party member coming next episode.
It’s not really explained, but there are several characters who cast spells with their hands “by default” so the use of a staff or wand isn’t just a matter of “it’s more efficient” or everyone would use them.
Marcille comments that she hopes she’ll be able to hit, so my assumption has been that the staff improves precision in some way. That simply achieving a very high skill level in casting allows you to forego the use of a casting aid.
Was there something specific that gave Laios food poisoning?
Everyone was eating the same thing, so at least someone else should have gotten sick.
Or it seems just like Laios could have squirreled something strange to snack on in secret later.
The connection is probably something I’m making up, not something that the authors included into Dungeon Meshi, but… why does the relationship between Falyn and Marcile remind me so much the one between Enkidu and Gilgamesh? Enkidu/Falyn is used to the wilds, but lacks any sort of theoretical knowledge; while the cultured Gilgamesh/Marcile is a cultured city person, with plans of grandeur. Even against all odds, both become friends. And eventually, Falyn/Enkidu dies.
…on another topic it seems that being a weirdo runs into the family. Falyn’s behaviour isn’t so surprising when you remember her brother Laios is also a bit crazy.
Me and my sisters were exactly the kind of forest adventuring kids that Falyn seems to be. Except of course she lives in a fantasy world.
We knew what plants were safe to eat, and would munch on wild strawberries, blueberries, and lingonberries. To me Falyns behaviour just makes sense :D
Also, while the country/city girl dynamic may have been the case in the flashback, in present time Falyn has surpassed Marcille as a conventional mage. The teleportation spell she used to send the party out of the dungeon is seriously advanced stuff.
Falyn went all in on the gnomish school of magic. But while Marcy has the greater mana-pool as an elf, and is educated in both gnomish and elven magic, she doesn’t excel at either. She spent her time on something else… Still, Laios party does rely on Marcy for offensive magic.
