A shocking slaughter and a determined brother.
What They Say:
Dungeons, dragons… and delicious monster stew!? Adventurers foray into a cursed buried kingdom to save their friend, cooking up a storm along the way.
Episode 17: “Harpy/Chimera”
The parties must band together to fend off an attack by vicious Harpies – but the unexpected appearance of a transformed Falin stuns everyone.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Chilchuck should have known better than to let Laois go off with Shuro and the guy who they don’t know. Shuro alternates between trying to strangle or slice Laois up for the sheer audacity to use black magic to resurrect Falin only to lose her again.
While that situation is defused, the group suddenly has another problem, a harpy attack. They have enough fighters to handle a flock of harpies, and Marcille and Chilchuck talk about what they can do to deal with their secret getting out. The kunouchi make short work of the harpies, who rain from the sky like something out of Dragons Dogma. Except… there’s always a bigger bird…
Thus, we get a full look at what’s become of Falin. Mutated by the mad mage, she has become a dragon/harpy/human chimera. With the strength of a dragon and the magical casting abilities of a human mage, the bodies start hitting the floor. Shuro and Laois try to use non-fatal means of stopping Falin from killing everyone but the three parties start to quickly end up on the back foot. Shuro’s party is decimated, as is Kabru’s party.
I want to applaud the sound design during this whole fight. The audio effects on Falin casting the spells were crazy. Special shoutouts to the English voice cast for some just amazing performances all around. Good stuff.
Kabru manages to do enough damage to Falin to cause her to retreat. Kabru’s gnome healer Holm managed to survive, which allows them to revive Maizuru and the others. Everyone is tracked down, rezzed, or healed, and by end head count everyone is accounted for except the masked Asebi.
If folks were doubting Laois’s autistic tics, the angry back and forth between him and Shuro should make it abundantly clear that Laois is definitely somewhere on the spectrum. I’ve seen several folks, including Laois’s English voice actor, talk about how hard the first fight scene hits for them in their personal struggles with interpersonal communication as neurodivergent. Kui never comes out and says Laois is, and I don’t like to imply that she intended for Laois to be representative for someone who is, but she’s written about people who are before. They don’t have the words for it in the dungeon meshi world, but we do.
Laois decides that their only path forward is to confront and defeat the dungeon lord. Then Falin will be free of his influence and maybe they can find a way to return her to normal. Shuro and his group decide to return to the surface and report back to the governor of the island about what’s happened. Laois and the team have no choice but to make good on their promise to take out the dungeon lord or face the music.
In Summary:
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. The party nearly comes to blows before being blown away, only to finally have a true clash of personalities. We get the grand reveal of Falin’s dungeon makeover and a new goal of taking out the mad mage in order to free her from the fate of being a monster. Failure is literally not an option, as it would mean losing a sister, Marcille in elf jail, and who knows what else. With Shuro making his opinion on this whole situation known he retreats, leaving Laois and party well and truly alone in the deepest levels of the dungeon.
Episode Grade: A
Streamed by: Netflix
