Characters

Laios Touden

Basic Info

Laios Touden is the protagonist of Dungeon Meshi and the leader of his party. He's obsessed with monsters, and jumps at the opportunity provided by not having any money for food to finally fufill his dream of cooking and eating them.

Laios is a bit of a unique character, not only in the world of DunMeshi, but also just in general- his intentions always stay pure, with a single minded focus on saving his sister at all costs, and his obsession with monsters makes him an outcast from those around him. While the goal of saving his sister certainly isn't unique, his thought process and methods are, with people around him constantly being shocked and disturbed by his actions. Interestingly enough though, he never does anything "evil", and I even hesitate to call him morally grey, because he does have very set morals, he's just also completely unhinged while he's adhering to them.

Hands down, Laios is the best character in DunMeshi. It helps that he gets the most screentime, being the protagonist and all, but I think he's fleshed out in a way that's absolutely fascinating. I also really love his character design, it's really simple but very effective, and the way Ryōko Kui illustrates him is such a breath of fresh air. In a world where anime protagonists are either twinks as thick as a sheet of printer paper, or dehydrated and absurdly muscular, Laios actually looks like a real person. He's muscular, sure, but it's also obvious he eats well, being a little soft, which is great considering this is a manga about cooking and eating. In Laios' case, especially about eating.

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Falin Touden

Basic Info

Falin Touden is Laios' sister, and the entire reason the manga exists. At the beginning of the story, Falin is eaten by the Red Dragon, deep within the dungeon, and Laios and the rest of the party are transported to the surface before they can save her. The goal of the party is to get back to the Red Dragon and kill it before it fully digests Falin, so that they can revive her.

Unfortunately, by the time the new party gets to and slays the Red Dragon, Falin had been reduced to a skeleton. Using dark magic and the flesh of the now dead dragon, Marcille revives Falin, bringing her back (if not slightly changed by the experience). In another stroke of bad luck, Falin is then transformed into a new type of monster by Thistle, and now the party has to find her, kill her, and figure out a way to turn her back to normal. The method chosen to do this is by eating all of the monster parts of her. It was Laios' idea.

Falin genuinely is such a sweet character, in flashbacks she's shown to be nothing but kind and loving, and hoping for friends. As a child, she was ostrasized from her village for her magical talent, and so didn't have any friends other than her brother. When she went to the Magical Academy, she met Marcille, and became very close with her (in my opinion, there's a lot of lesbian subtext between Falin and Marcille). In a worse story, Falin would've stayed dead, or been reivived but would've died later, and used as a plot device for Laios' emotional character development. Thankfully, this is a good story, and Falin has a happy ending, something fit for a manga with such an optimistic streak to it.

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Marcille Donato

Basic Info

Marcille is the mage of the party, as well as being a half-elf (something which is revealed later in the story). She's smart, funny, and an extremely talented magic user, but often clashes with the other party members. Unlike Laios and Senshi, Marcille hates eating monsters. She hates the idea of it, she hates people talking about it, but she does still do it out of necessity (and the fact that Senshi makes the dishes taste incredible).

An interesting part of worldbuilding in Dungeon Meshi is the very fact that Marcille is a half-elf, something which is quite rare. It's not common for the races of the world to mix, and the reason for that is two-fold: number one is that the cultures of each race are very separate, and it's not common to fall in love with someone other than your own group, since the lifespan difference makes things complicated. The other reason is because those who are mixed end up with very long lifespans, up to a thousand years, and their aging rate is very unstable, not fully being the proper age for an elf or a tall-man (what humans are called in DunMeshi). They also cannot produce offspring. Marcille's father, a tall-man, died when she was very young at the age of 80, and ever since then she's had to wrestle with the fact that it's very likely that she'll out age everyone around her- even her closest friend, Falin, is a tall-man, and will only live for a few more decades if she's lucky.

Once this fact comes to light, a lot of things start making sense about Marcille as a character. The reason she's so attached to Falin is because she was able to break through her walls; the reason she's so protective of everybody is because she has a very deep fear of those around her dying; and the reason she knows so much about the dark arts is because they're relevant to her goal- to make the lifespans of the shorter lived races longer.

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Chilchuck Tims

Basic Info

Chilchuck is the lockpick and rogue of the party, and is a half-foot (dunmeshi's version of halflings). He's extremely experienced with traps and lockpicking, but doesn't do combat at all, and has very little skill in terms of fighting. He's very honest and practical, and can come off as kind of an ass sometimes, but he does care a lot for his companions, and is just as dedicated to the quest to save Falin as everyone else is.

Even though he looks very young (something not helped by his short stature), Chilchuck is actually around middle aged for his species, since half-foots have a lifespan of around 50 years. It comes as a surprise later on in the manga that Chilchuck actually has a wife and three daughters, though he's estranged from his wife and doesn't spend much time with his kids. Even though that is the case, he cares for them deeply, and wants to reconnect with his family after the adventure is over. Another shock comes when we find out that his daughters are actually also completely mature, and he helped raise them, instead of the perception being that he's a deadbeat.

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Senshi

Basic Info

Senshi doesn't start as a part of Laios' party, and instead they meet him in chapter 1 when they're trying (and failing) to cook a huge scorpion for the first time. He joins their party soon after, since his life-long goal has been to slay, cook, and eat the Red Dragon. Even though he has no personal connection to Falin, even after they slay the Red Dragon, he stays with the party out of a sense of loyalty and duty, as well as his will to care for and feed others.

Senshi is an incredibly skilled chef, and well versed in the ways of the dungeon and all who roam within its halls- especially creatures who are nutritious and delicious. He claims to have been living and studying the dungeon for a decade now (though the dungeon was only discovered 6 years ago... curious) and it really shows that he knows his stuff.

While Senshi doesn't have a ton going on, I still find him really intriguing, as someone who loves to cook and eat monsters. I think it's pretty funny that whenever the party tells others what they've been doing, everyone immediately jumps on Laios and calls him a freak (which he is) while completely ignoring that Senshi has beeen doing the exact same thing for much longer. Also,I really think Senshi is a good case study in how the art style changed over time, specifically with adding more detail to the character designs, as well as making them more... appealing. I'll be the first to say it- I think Senshi is one of the most attractive characters in DunMeshi, especially in the cover for chapter 47 (which is seen below- it's the third one. You know what I mean).

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Izutsumi

Basic Info

Izutsumi is a catgirl. Need I say more?

I really should say more. Izutsumi is a bit of a strange character, since she joins the party about halfway through the manga and just ends up sticking around out of convenience. She initially follows the party because she overhears Marcille talking about her use of dark magic, and Izutsumi is interested in Marcille's magical talent in order to break a curse that has been set upon her. See, Izutsumi is a member of the beast-kin, which is not a natural race in the world of dunmeshi, but instead being an artificial creation, combining the souls of an animal and a human using dark magic. Izutsumi struggles a lot with her personal itentity, and wishes she weren't beast-kin, but as the story goes she comes to accept herself through making bonds with other members of the party.

Even though she can be pretty emotionally distant from the other party members, she does bond a bit with Marcille, and seems to be the most comfortable around her (though that bond is stronger on Marcille's side). She comes off as very aloof a lot of the time, and exibits the cat like behaviour of wanting to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants to do it. She does take her situation and surroundings seriously though, and is a very skilled fighter when it comes down to it, being able to take a massive pack of succubi on her own. She was also the only person Laios trusted to do something extremely difficult if one of his plans went wrong- and she went through with her promise. Even though it seems like she doesn't care, she really does. She just has a different way of expressing it.

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Kabru

Basic Info

Kabru is the leader of his own adventuring party, and ends up crossing paths with Laios' party on many occasions. On the outside, he seems very friendly and polite, eager to make friends and gain their trust. However, this is a manipulation tactic. Internally, Kabru is very cynical and judgemental of others, and doesn't trust people at all. He especially doesn't trust Laios, thinking he is very weird for being obsessed with monsters, and at one point names him the number one threat to humanity.

Probably one of my favourite moments with Kabru is when he and Laios meet for the first time. When Laios says they've been eating monsters, Kabru is disgusted, but pretends to be interested in order to come across and friendly. Immediately his bluff is called and Laios offers him some food they've just cooked up, and Kabru's first response in order to get out of this awkward social situation is to kill Laios (he just ends up eating the food instead).

Kabru is very smart, which is good news for him because it means that he can read people and situations very well, and knows how to play things so he and his comrades always come out on top. However, he's inexperienced in dungeoneering, and this lack od experience and knowledge ends up getting him and his entire party killed by monsters on several occasions. There's even a running bit where Laios' party keeps running into the dead bodies of their entire party, and so they move them to a safer place for corpse resurrectionist, but once they're revived they keep thinking Laios' party killed and robbed them blind, even though it was actually the corpse resurrectionists who are doing so.

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Mithrun

Basic Info

Mithrun is a more minor character in the overall story of Dungeon Meshi, but he's still interesting and I like his character design a lot so that's why he's here. He's the leader of a group called the Canaries, a group of elves who investigate dungeons that have surpassed a certain danger level in the hopes to get them under control. Mithrun is a very powerful magic user, with the ability to use teleportation magic- though his poor sense of direction leads to things and people being teleported to not end up in the exact location that would be most convenient. His sense of direction and depth perception is messed up due to the fact that he only has one eye- the one that's half closed is a glass eye.

Earlier in his life, Mithrun became the lord of a smaller dungeon, something which ended up ruining his life. Even though he had everything he wanted, he still desired more, and the demon within the dungeon took advantage of that, feeding off of his desires in order to gain more power. Eventually, the demon ended up devouring his desire altogether, leaving Mithrun an empty shell- almost. There was one desire left- the desire to get revenge on the demon. Even though he had no will to live, eat, take care of himself, or even sleep, he still kept on living because he wanted revenge. Because of this, Mithrun has to be taken care of often, and has to be forced to complete basic tasks, because otherwise, he just wouldn't do so without external help.

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Thistle

Basic Info

Thistle (sometimes spelled as Sissel, we'll get to it) is the Lunatic Magician, and the current lord of the dungeon- this means that anything they desire in the dungeon will happen (within certain limits). He's basically the main villain of the manga, almost right until the end when it's revealed what the true evil is. In reality, Thistle is more of a victim of the dungeon's power than anything else. He was given a vast amount of control over a huge space, and it drove him completely crazy, unable to listen to those around him who were asking him to stop. Sure, he does a lot of bad things- he's the one who turns Falin into a monster, and he's the one who is making the dungeon very dangerous and deadly, but I'm confident in saying that he's not exactly making those choices in sound mind.

As for the name thing, this one is kind of interesting. A lot of Dungeon Meshi isn't officially translated yet, and so a majority of it is a fan translation. This is fine, but one quirk of this is that the names are spelled differently for a lot of the manga. Laios is sometimes called Laius, and for a full chapter Marcille is called Marcilla. Thistle is one of these things, with the author of the manga calling him Thistle, but with one of the volumes calling him Sissel (that translation had another error where they refered to Thistle as female). I find this stuff pretty cool, since these discrepencies will vanish once the definitive translation comes out, and will most likely be forgotten.

Honestly, one of the main reasons I like Thistle is the visuals surrounding him are genuinely really cool. I just really wanted to show off probably my favourite cover in the entire manga (it's the second one, seen below).

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Winged Lion

Basic Info

Even though the Winged Lion doesnt fully appear until chapter 60, he's seen everywhere in the dungeon, in the form of statues or wall decor. He first presents himself as a benevolent being, offering to give Laios everything he wants, and all for the price of... nothing. That can't be right.

It isn't right. The winged Lion is a demon, and he is the one who grants the wishes of the lord of the dungeon. He feeds on the desires of others, manipulates them and gives them massive amounts of power, until their desire and lust for more reaches a zenith. At which point, he devoures the desire. When someone's desire is eaten, they lose everything, even the will to live. His motivations are purely selfish- he thinks desire tastes good, and he wants more of it, so he does what he can to make someone desire as much as possible to maximize his delicacy.

One thing that's a bit weird about the winged lion is how he's drawn. Ryōko Kui illustrates him in a way that is distinctly... horny. There's no other way around it. This is seen especially in later chapters, and there's one panel in particular that I'm thinking of (it's in the transparents section- you'll know it when you see it). The result of this is actually pretty interesting, because you have this creature who is noble and polite and charismatic and attractive, and when you find out he's evil, you don't really believe it at first. I mean, the people who are saying so haven't actually met or talked to him, but you have, and he seems like a pretty great guy! I mean, what could go wrong? (The answer to that question is pretty much everything).

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