Episode 6 – Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!

I think the sign of a good food show is whether it makes you fantasize about eating the food it shows. I would say that this is one of the main appeals of media where food and/or cooking is a central part of it. MM technically did that for me this week, but it comes with a pretty big asterisk.

The Big Monster Fish (Zanas) is apparently a catfish with teeth. Well, I said “obviously,” but interestingly enough, I’ve found that people who don’t live in areas where catfish is a popular dish tend to greatly underestimate the size of catfish – so hey, if this sounds like you and you’re curious, look it up sometime! You’ll be surprised at their sheer size. As for me, I grew up (and spent most of my life) in Oklahoma. Without going too far off topic, people in Oklahoma are all about catfish, whether it’s eating them or catching them (if you’re feeling brave, or if you like an element of danger when fishing, sometimes look up “catfish noodles”). Also, I have a lot of relatives in Arkansas who catch their own catfish and that’s more or less the only thing my family and I eat every time we go there. So basically, just the thought of fried catfish is enough to activate the dusty neurons in my…Okl-ansas? Akanhoma? …brain.

But if I didn’t have a background that loves fried catfish as much as I do, I doubt this episode would have made me crave these foods in the same way that people crave Ghibli food. My partner watched this episode one time and commented that the Zanas nuggets looked like fake chicken nuggets. That’s the problem here: visuals. I’ve been saying from the beginning that visually there’s nothing spectacular about this series. Worse, it’s actually a bit sloppy, with each episode looking at least a little more hastily drawn than the last. It’s hard to make the food look delicious when the show itself overall doesn’t look good. The show might make up for that in the preparation or watching reactions to food, but while we did get some of that this week, I don’t think it’s enough to make up for those impressive visuals. By the way, did you catch a glimpse of the salad inside? It barely appears on the screen, so don’t worry too much if you don’t remember it, but like. It’s not just me of course, by anime salad standards this looks pretty pathetic, right?

However, what this episode lacked in appetizing food, it made up for it with an overall better episode structure that I hope it maintains for the rest of the show. Monster style of the week, if you will. Extra cooking and showing off the food, and some cute character moments, but keeping the storytelling or background information as that’s been one of the show’s biggest struggles so far.

At this point, we’re halfway through the series, and I have mixed feelings about the series as a whole. On one hand, the concept is cute, I love the main characters and the chemistry between them, and it’s a good light-hearted watch. But on the other hand, the visuals don’t do it any favors, and the writing so far has proven to be rather clunky. Still, I look forward to new episodes every week enough that sometimes that’s enough. Still, as the series enters its second half, I hope we get more episodes like this that focus more on food.

grade:

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

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