This season I picked up Dungeon Meshi due to the raw respect I have for studio Trigger. So far I’ve done nothing but regret the decision as neither the comedy nor the cooking is doing much to keep my attention. To be fair I may be pretty biased as I recently watched a seasonal anime about a guy who ends up transporting to a fantasy world and basically becomes a traveling chef who forms a party. But on the non-biased side of things, I’m starting to wonder if these anime are making a crucial mistake. Both of these cooking anime struggled to keep my interest during drawn-out cooking segments because they use fantasy ingredients in producing fantasy meals.

I think that some educational anime about cooking, especially bringing Japanese recipes to a Western audience, would do incredibly well. Us weebs are already interested in the culture and that often extends to the meals. However, to me these fantasy recipes serve to do nothing except pad the runtime of an anime. What the hell am I supposed to do with multiple segments about cooking shit like Ice Dragon Meat in a pot until it’s tender and then adding 5 Monster Mushrooms into the mix? Every cooking scene feels like a waste of time because it offers no practical information worth absorbing. Even when anime do try to incorporate some useful cooking knowledge, they often fail to mention exactly what temperature and times the chef is following. In my catalog the only production I know that did cooking justice was Food Wars! as there was a lot of real world cooking information to be learned during that journey with enough intense tournaments to keep the stakes and hype alive. Personally I think either a basic edutainment cooking anime OR a survival-type anime about people lost in the wilderness who have to find food to eat would be much more entertaining watches than all these shows following the isekai/fantasy trend that is so prevalent.

Oh no, the recipe I have no basis for must of not turned out well.

I’m curious to see if anyone thinks I’ve hit the nail on the head, or if there’s some other value to these fantasy anime that incorporate a ton of cooking with fake recipes that I’m missing. Lord knows if I don’t see a big shift by episode three, Dungeon Meshi won’t be surviving my seasonal watching this winter I’m afraid. Do you enjoy cooking being a focus in anime? Why or why not? Are you watching Dungeon Meshi? Should cooking in anime usually follow real recipes and techniques? Form a party, raid a dungeon, and remember how to cook Chimera Head Stew for sustenance in the comments below!