Episode 4 – Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!

This week we have MM’s vegetarian options, since there aren’t really any new forms of monster meat out there. Still, Melphila accepted Aristide’s proposal and is now going to live with him, so that progresses the story quite a bit, so I’d say it’s still satisfying enough. I think the most notable thing we learn is that it was Melfila’s own father who started spreading rumors of a greedy villain to prevent Melfila and her mother’s research from falling into the wrong hands. In short, rhyming bullshit.

While we didn’t see it elaborated in as much detail as last week’s episode, the people around Melfila’s family’s land believe in animism. The only thing we currently know about animism is that it prohibits eating monsters. So, as far as they’re concerned, they’re not disgusted by the idea of ​​eating monster meat because it looks unappetizing, but it’s more of a religious or spiritual thing to them. As I said last week, this casts a very different light on Melfila’s idea of ​​wanting others to understand the culinary joys of monster meat. It’s also implied that eating monster meat is something that other people – even if they were in the past, distant or otherwise – have at least considered, and probably have done. Suddenly, Melfila and her mom’s research looked less like some revolutionary new food approach and more like a mother and daughter working on old-fashioned recipes/cooking techniques. Still cool, but not quite the huge taboo that this series has always made their research into.

The obvious thing here is that just as Melfila doesn’t need a tragic backstory to explain why she loves monster meat, her peers don’t need a reason to hate it. In fact, it may sound disgusting because this is still very compelling and easy to understand – see Delicious food in the dungeon. The series thinks too much about things. I’m a huge onion hater, I don’t hate onions because they killed my entire tribe and when I asked them why they said, “To test my abilities.” I hate onions because they taste bad and I don’t like their texture. It doesn’t have to be deep.

So giving the villagers not only a reason, but frankly, a really good, legitimate reason for not wanting to eat monster meat just makes Melfila look like an asshole. This is clearly something the series doesn’t want us to think about her, as it makes her even more weird and misunderstood. She doesn’t seem to force others to show monster flesh, nor does she ask the villagers to help her hunt because she knows it would interfere with their beliefs, so that’s something, but still. Either there’s something else at play that we don’t know about yet, or this is some super clunky and ill-conceived writing.

Going back to Melfila’s father spreading rumors about greedy villains, 1. I don’t think he needs to worry about someone using her research for evil in a community where eating monster meat is forbidden and 2. Is this the first time he’s on screen talking about how desperate he is for his daughter to get married? It sounds like he bears a lot of responsibility for her social struggles. So the whole thing ended up being pointless. Again: it feels like this series thinks too much about things, which is made even more clumsy writing.

But on a more positive note, I must say, I loved the dynamic between Melphila and Aristide. More specifically, I loved how quickly Aristide and Melphila warmed up to each other—no surprise, both being largely shunned by their peers—and how Aristide instantly went from aloof hunter to wife. Maybe it’s because both shows have ginger heroines, but Aristide and Melfila remind me of Kairos and Marie from last season Engaged to my sister’s ex-husband (ANN’s own Rebecca Silverman recently commented here).

Speaking of Aristide’s wife-ification, I want to take a moment to appreciate the last two minutes or so of the episode where Aristide goes to pick her up and burns all her crap away with one of his dragons. It was very deliberately showy and it made me laugh. Love it.

Finally, I watched an episode of this show dubbing This past week. Immediate impression makes me think so far so good! In fact, it’s still early days, but I would say that, at least so far, dubbing and sub are roughly the same as each other, and you are interested in dubbing Or sub, most importantly, this may be the factor in your decision between the two. I think right now, I prefer Sweet Mephira with Rotting Tooth from Katie Welch dubbingbut also Taitung BanAristotle’s softening. Nonetheless, their counterparts in opposite languages ​​also performed well. By the end I have a definite preference for which one (if any) I have, and it’ll probably come down to the supporting characters (especially the ones with the most dialogue) or any big moments that happen later (comedy, drama, or otherwise).

grade:

Pass the monster meat, Milady! Currently live broadcast
Crunchy roll.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation and the majority shareholder of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.