Delicious In Dungeon Episode 6 Review

Delicious in Dungeon Marcille sleeping

Related: Delicious In Dungeon Episode 5 Review

I’ve been really enjoying Delicious in Dungeon, the latest anime from Studio Trigger, and its latest episode could be its best one yet… or it could be its worst. I’m honestly not sure yet. There were some things I absolutely adored about the sixth episode, Court Cuisine / Boiled in Salt Water, and some things I just didn’t care for.

Let’s start with the good. The animation quality in this episode was a huge step above previous episodes, and that’s saying a lot. Trigger’s animation is some of the best in the industry, so the baseline is already very high, but there were some truly spectacular moments in this episode.

One scene in particular, with Chilchuck facing off against the mimic, showed some really dynamic and fluid animation that would probably be a bit much if it were constant but showcased the anxiety of the situation very well.

Speaking of the mimic, it’s probably the most interesting monster of the week we’ve seen to date, and for a number of reasons. Chilchuck’s storied history with the mimic is a great way to build up suspense and solidify the danger of the monster, and having it interact as part of an ecosystem with last episode’s treasure bug was a really great way of building out the mythos of the world.

I also liked Laios’ adventures in the mysterious painting world, and I’m really interested to see if this is expanded upon in future episodes. The curious elf-ish person from the different stages of life in the painting world has huge “recurring character” vibes, and I really want to see them return. Will they? It’s hard to say – and I won’t look up spoilers from the manga to find out – but my fingers are very firmly crossed.

Unfortunately, the two sides of this story really struggled to meet in the middle in this episode. There’s next to no continuity between Laios’ painting adventures and Chilchuck’s mimic encounter, and it hurts the episode a lot. I understand why it turned out like that – the two stories were almost certainly two different manga chapters, neither long enough to justify a standalone episode – but I’d have preferred if the timeline of events was shifted around a bit to make each of these stories connect with another that made sense.

That might not be music to the ears of manga fans, but as a casual enjoyer of the anime, having two disparate stories happening back-to-back in one episode is jarring at best.

Still, as Delicious in Dungeon starts to fill out its world a little bit, there are some exciting possibilities opening up. We still don’t know if the additional party from the last episode is coming back, and we’ve started to see more threads show up that are just waiting to be pulled and unraveled. Add onto that the impending digestion of Falin in the belly of a dragon, and there’s plenty of tense mystery to go around.

I’ll be curious to see how it all pans out in the end, but I am hoping that episodes like this are few and far between, if only for ease of viewing.

Delicious in Dungeon is streaming new episodes weekly on Netflix.