Last weeks thread - 9 Comments
Dungeon Meshi is a well liked manga, and an adaptation by Studio Trigger is now airing. If you haven’t picked this one up, consider joining us. Both for fun and as a way of contributing to activity on Lemmy.
This week we get learn a lot about the phenomenon known as “dungeons”. Marcille points out that the dungeon they are in has been carefully designed accounting for a mind-boggling amount of complexity, and that she studied the science in school. But then the dungeon that Falin discovered seemed like a natural occurrence?
So which is it? Man-made, or natural phenomenon? And can the dungeon master really be taking every little detail into account? Are they omniscient within the dungeon?
This is the tipping point. This is where the story begins to crack open the floodgates on what is really going on.
Remember not to spoil anything if you’re a manga reader, but feel free to elaborate on tidbits of lore that may not be coming through in the adaptation.
Rough time for Marcy this week. Question for the source readers if it is explained. I was wondering about Marcille’s magic and her staff. She is obviously able to cast magic without it like she did during the fight with the Undine. However, her first instinct when it appeared was to look for it. So, does it help her control the magic in some way, or perhaps cast spells while using less magic? Just curious if the source explains anything about it.
I mentioned in the Episode 6 discussion thread about how the tone is getting darker as we go. This episode really drives it home. As the Undine fight kept going, I was waiting for the happy, silly moment that I knew was coming to bring it to a resolution before the end of the episode. However, it never came. Our poor Marcelle simply got beat up and the gang ran away. Now things are looking quite dire.
Each episode, I feel like I end up talking about the animation of a scene that I like. This episode, it was the sequence of Marcille fighting with the Undine. As others have mentioned, it felt a bit different than sequences from previous episodes (compare it to the fight against the Kraken for instance). There were so many dramatic angles and poses by Marcille during this sequence. Two parts stood out to me in particular. First, the first-person view of her falling into the water was just gorgeous. Hands are notoriously tricky (just ask any AI algorithm), and that sequence was done great, hands and all. The second bit I loved was when she set off the explosion directly underneath herself to escape the fight. There were some very obvious impact frames used here. I managed to pause on one of them to grab a screenshot. Just a great action sequence.
Final thing I wanted to mention is that I loved the flashback portion of this episode. It felt pulled straight out of Little Witch Academia. Falin was a bit like Sucy while Marcille is a bit like Diana. Great stuff. Looking forward to the reunion with their former party member coming next episode.
It’s not really explained, but there are several characters who cast spells with their hands “by default” so the use of a staff or wand isn’t just a matter of “it’s more efficient” or everyone would use them.
Marcille comments that she hopes she’ll be able to hit, so my assumption has been that the staff improves precision in some way. That simply achieving a very high skill level in casting allows you to forego the use of a casting aid.