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Review & Analysis of Books, TV Shows and Films


Dungeon Meshi

Dungeon Meshi Manga Cover

Dungeon Meshi, at first glance, is a lighthearted fantasy manga centred around cooking. There are numerous reasons why I love this story, and the way the author subverts your expectations is one of many. Usual comedy stories that attempt to make their audience take them more seriously introduce a dark twist. While in other stories the sudden tonal shift can throw people off, Dungeon Meshi had a dark undertone present from the very start, seen in their cavalier attitude towards death. The mangaka strikes the perfect balance between humour and seriousness, allowing the lighter scenes of adventuring to give more weight to the heavier emotional and action-packed scenes.

Getting further into the manga, the realisation occurs that this is not a story about cooking; It's about eating.



Entertainment Industry

Manga/Anime receives many criticisms, some of which are completely understandable. The entertainment industry is well known for re-using stereotypes instead of giving characters development. In particular, the shonen genre is infamous for being extremely weird around women, being either unable to provide well-written female characters, or unable to develop these characters into fully realised people. The recently popular fantasy, and more specifically the isekai genre, shows the most obvious stereotypes; Female characters are more caricatures than anything. While audiences are fully aware that fantasy takes some suspension of belief to be enjoyable, the way female characters are handled makes it hard to enjoy.

A common trope is to introduce a women, imply by their fighting skills they're a badass, then proceed to have her wear an outfit entirely impractical for her job but perfect for unnecessary fanservice.

 

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