YMMV / Delicious in Dungeon

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • One of the adventurers Team Touden runs into is named Kaka. Which is most likely a homophone for "caca", informal slang for excrement in Spanish, French, German, and Dutch.
    • His twin sister Kiki arguably has it even worse. "Kiki" is slang for screwing in Spanish and for penis in French.
  • When the Winged Lion starts to eat Thistle's... desire, he licks and savours it very slowly, with the latter being rather reactive about the whole process.
• Adorkable: Laios, most definitely. He's nothing less than a huge monster nerd. He just loves everything about them and his enthusiasm is both endearing and infectious.
• Anvilicious: Eat well! Live healthily! Learn proper nutrition! If you don't you're only hurting yourself! The series isn't exactly subtle about these messages, especially because Senshi literally screams it out in the third chapter, facing the reader no less. It couldn't possibly be a more direct message.
• Awesome Art:
  • Ryoko Kui is a very talented manga artist. Everything from her character designs (which are all distinct from each other), to her monsters, to the many, many dishes of Food Porn in Dungeon is drawn beautifully.
  • Studio TRIGGER brings their usual incredibly high-quality and dynamic animation to the table for the anime. While calmer and less action-heavy episodes are animated at the level of quality you'd expect from a really good anime, they really up the game in certain episodes (most notably episode 3, 6, and 8), pulling out all the stops and putting the studio's famously stylized animation add to the events of the manga with comically exaggerated expressions, dynamic fighting, and Animation Bump galore.
• Awesome Music: "Party!!", the first ending theme, is a very fun and catchy blend of rock and disco (plus some jazz in the full version).
• Base-Breaking Character: There's a plethora of reasons that make Shuro divisive among the fandom. On the negative side: 1) He never had the guts to express his love to Falin, or to tell Laios he was frustrated by his behaviour, which some fans consider him a coward for. 2) Threatened to report Marcille to the elves after finding out that she had used Black Magic to ressurect Falin, despite admitting he would've done the same. 3) Many who interpret Laios as autistic felt like his secret dislike of Laios hit close to home, and view him as a Fairweather Friend. 4) He also accused of being a hypocrite for disliking Laios while being in love with Falin, as she shares some traits with him. On the positive side, people counter a lot of those criticisms with: 1) Shuro was raised in an environment where directly voicing negative feelings towards someone is considered rude in the best of cases, and that it could be racist for fans to ignore the impact being raised in such a culture has in his behavior. There's also the idea that Shuro has social anxiety and struggles to set boundaries or tell people "no". 2) His reasons for being angered when he found out how Falin was resurrected are completely valid, since Black Magic is a serious offense that results in permanent imprisonment. 3) A lot of Laios' interactions with Shuro mirror how east asians are often the target of microaggressions in real life, so even if Laios isn't doing it on purpose, he's also not an exemple of good communication. A special mention goes to him being responsible for Shuro being Only Known by Their Nickname because Laios couldn't pronounce his actual name, Toshiro. 4) His differences in opinions of the Toudens could be explained by the fact that, not only is he heterosexual, but Laios has been far more insensitive to him in the past than Falin has.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In the first chapter, Marcille refuses to eat monsters so hard she starts breakdancing. This is never commented upon and never appears again afterwards. However, it's briefly brought back to Marcille during her "dying flashback" in late chapters. She's a bit ashamed about it.
• Broken Base:
  • Over whether the scanlations or the official English translation makes for the better reading experience. Fans of the former complain that the official release is overly literal with stiff and awkward dialogue, and changed spelling of the cast's names from what they are used to with the scanlations. Fans of the latter disagree and accuse scanlation fans of just wanting to keep getting the series for free instead of buying it and supporting the creator properly. Then there's the third group who don't care either way and are happy to read both.
  • The omake depicting a rule 63 universe where female Shuro talks to Marcille and Falin about Laios with the latter two expressing shock has caused some debate. Some interpret it as Shuro having a crush on Laios, based on her blush. Others read it as Shuro reporting Laios for sexual harassment, based on her tears and the fact that Laios' well meaning but overly familiar and pushy attitude towards Shuro in the main universe could come across very differently if Shuro was a girl. The latter interpretation seems more likely given Laios outright states that Shuro being a girl makes their relationship, and thus Shuro's feelings for him, worse.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Senshi, who beats earth golems unconscious so he can plant vegetables in them, moved into a dungeon so he could hunt and eat monsters, and uses an adamant shield as a cooking pot. Apparently its nigh-indestructible nature also applies to fire, since it heats up very evenly, perfect for cooking!
  • Laios letting the Red Dragon bite off his leg so he can get close enough to kill it.
• Creepy Awesome: Falin's chimera dragon form. It's very unsettling to see her that way, but the design is really, really cool.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The encounter against Dungeon Rabbits. A near-total party kill? Tragic. Having to Animate Dead your teammates bodies to act as meat shields? Sad. Having your new army of the dead, consisting of your teammates and slain rabbits, perform ridiculous dance moves as a result of your dodge attempts? Hilarious.
  • The final battle against the Mad Sorcerer begins with everyone but Laios killed by dragons. What crosses the line is that Thistle makes light of the party being made a meal just as they've been doing to the monsters. The deceased party members even get recipes when they die, extra irony for Senshi being cooked in a pot.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Fans have noted that Laios shows many autistic traits, such as having a special interest (monsters and eating them), being bad at social cues, and coming off as weird to others (he has a history of not fitting in, both in his hometown while growing up and after he joined the army). Shuro, who Laios had considered a close friend, even tells Laios that he can't stand him because of his lack of social skills, an unfortunately common experience for some autistic people. Laois is understandably upset, but also confused as to why Shuro didn't just say something. Laios' English voice actor, Damien Haas, who himself is autistic, has expressed his support for this interpretation.
  • Falin is also theorized to be autistic due to being Laios' sister (as autism has repeatedly been shown to be hereditary in real life) and having a very similar personality to his, albeit more toned down. Like Laios, she thinks monsters are cool (though unlike Laios, it's not her main interest and she's more interested in normal animals), and she wasn't able to make any friends at magic school aside from Marcille due to her odd habits.
  • Some fans regard Shuro as having serious social anxiety due to his Extreme Doormat tendencies. It takes a major breaking point for him to say "no", and he can't bring himself to tell Maizuru that something she regards as a funny story of his early childhood was and is extremely upsetting for him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Tade. The infectiously adorable oni girl from Shuro's party.
  • Leed, the orc captain and Zon's little sister, for her Proud Warrior Race Guy tendency and Brutal Honesty coupled with an Ugly Cute design.
  • Chilchuck's daughters (Mayjack, Fullertom, and Packpatty), who are only mentioned in the main story and otherwise only appear in omakes and supplementary material. A lot of this is due to the inherently funny reveal that Chilchuck has a wife and three grown daughters despite his appearance. Mayjack especially gets attention for basically being a gender-flipped version of her dad, including her also being a locksmith.
• Evil Is Cool: Chimera Falin is without a doubt monstrous and horrifying and a Fate Worse than Death, but few can deny that they are the absolute coolest and most iconic monster in the entire series. They were already immensely popular and the subject of a lot of fanart from fans of the manga, but their first appearance in the anime sent the internet into pandemonium. Both among appreciators of a good monster with a tragic element, and among the show's audience of sapphic women for other reasons. This can in large part be chalked up to the mix of beautiful grace and bestial savagery that makes them both horrifying and appealing.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Kabru's party has been called by fans as either the Scrub party, Fail Party, Team Rocket or Team Loser due to having been easily killed and saved by Laios's party twice and mistaking the latter for thieves.
  • After getting more exposition, fans sometimes call Kabru "Cabron" instead, thanks to his hypocritical, negative way he thinks of other people ("Cabrón" is Spanish for "jerk", "bastard", "asshole", and similar words).
• Fanon:
  • A chunk of the fanbase considers and draws Falin as being chubby; in reality, underneath her baggy robes she has a fairly average build, albeit with a larger frame than other female characters in the series.
  • A lot of fanart draws Chilchuck looking a bit more his age, with a bit of greying hair, lines under his eyes and body hair.
• Fanfic Fuel: Laios's comment about milking a minotaur has gotten some risque fanart from the Bara fandom.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Golden Kamuy. A tumblr user even joked that the venn diagram of Dungeon fans and Kamuy fans was "practically a circle".
  • Oddly enough, with Asterix. Fans were clamoring for a banquet finale like the Gauls get for years.
  • A memetic one with the Fear & Hunger series, due to their diametrically opposed takes in the mix of food and dungeon crawling (this one, a family friendly comedy about Food Porn using ingredients from typical fantasy settings, and the other, a horrific dark fantasy about trying not to starve to death in a dungeon filled with otherworldly horrors). This has resulted in memes about the characters of each title interacting with each other to highlight their differences.
    • To a lesser extent, the same happenned with the Darkest Dungeon, for similiar reasons, resulting in existence of a mod allowing you to add Touden Party to playable characters.
  • With Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, due to sharing having a memetic elf character in Frieren and Marcille, and both series airing anime adaptations in the same season. This goes double for Latin American viewers, as both elves even share the same voice actress, and lampshaded like hell and back by her.
  • Fans of Monster Hunter that discover the series tend to take a very quick liking to it due to similar focuses on ecology.
  • With Fullmetal Alchemist, partially due to a slew of similiarities, like exploration of similiar themes and motives, lots of well developed characters, especially a rich cast of varied female characters, or the fact neither really ever loses its humorous side, even as they become more plot heavy.
  • A small one formed with Hades II due to the visual similarities between Senshi and the game's depiction of Hephaestus, as both are bearded Big Beautiful Men, with horn ornaments on their head and long black hair.
• Fountain of Memes:
  • Marcille's tendency to act very humorously in response to exasperation at her party's craziness, reluctance to eat monster-based food, and other reasons means most of the more memorable scenes for the series come from her, such as her breakdancing/handstand of refusal, disbelieving stare, post-mandrake Fish Eyes, and of course her disgusted crying face associated with the "elves are not lewd" meme.
  • The Touden party itself grew into this, as fans found incredibly fun to use them to see their zaniness thrive in other fantastic worlds, resulting in things like having them end up in The Backrooms, have them cook and eat Pokémon, and explore the dungeons of Fear & Hunger.
• Growing the Beard: While the early chapters are enjoyed for their comedic and world building elements, it's generally agreed the story really gets going once the party reaches the Red Dragon. At this point, the story changes from being largely a comedic Monster of the Week story to having more of a proper story arc. But while it gains a more serious storyline, it never loses the comedy or collection of monsters and monster-made dishes that made the story popular to begin with.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • When he learns what Marcille did to revive Falin, Kabru claims that it might be better if Falin stayed dead. At first, he seems to just be doing it to see what Shuro and Laios's reactions are, which is a bit cruel whether or not he really meant it. However, not too long after this, the audience sees Falin again... and she's turned into a nearly-mindless chimera. Kabru may have had a point after all.
  • After defeating the dungeon rabbits, Marcille is the only one left alive, drags her party's bodies to the cabin where they're staying and sits by them. Emotionally and physically drained, she ponders to a temporarily dead Laios how he thinks it would feel for her to be surrounded by everyone's dead bodies. While the scene is sobering and somber after a darkly comedic fight, it gets worse when not soon after, it's clear that Marcille just experienced a brief glimpse of her greatest fear: watching her friends die as she has to live for a thousand years.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: When the Touden party meets Tansu Floke and his party, he uses Namari as a shield from a deadly attack without hesitation. But when Kiki, another member of his party is attacked by tentacles, he looks much more worried about her. In Ryoko Kui's artbook, it's revealed that Kaka and Kiki were adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Floke as children.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In his review of the first chapter, Linkara jokes that Senshi's name means "poop farmer" in Northern dwarven dialect. Come Chapter 8, and it turns out Senshi really is harvesting poop to make fertilizer for his vegetable fields.
  • The fact that Falin's resurrection involved sculpting dragon flesh into organs and other things her body needed became this in 2021, when Wizards of the Coast released monster statblocks for dragonflesh grafters.
• I Knew It!:
  • Fans long suspected Asebi/Izutsumi would join Laios's party due to her appearance in the one-shot.
  • The reveal that Marcille is a Half-Elf was a pretty common theory before being confirmed in chapter 68, with some even correctly guessing that her more rounded ear tips were a clue.
  • Many readers strongly suspected that when the Winged Lion cursed Laios to not have his greatest desire granted, that desire would not be related to Falin's resurrection. Sure enough, Falin's resurrection goes off without a hitch and it turns out the actual curse is that Laios will never see another monster again. Laios's own teammates immediately and simultaneously also guess it isn't what Laios thinks.
• Informed Wrongness: Part of the premise of the series with the In-Universe taboo against eating monsters. Wanting to avoid eating humanoid monsters is understandable thanks to Carnivore Confusion but eating those that are animalistic is wrong because... it just is. Even though most of them are safe to eat and many of them are essentially just bigger, more beastly versions of normal animals. Most characters encountered balk at the idea of using monsters as food despite how much easier it makes Dungeon Crawling thanks to relieving adventurers of the burden of buying and carrying large amounts of supplies. There are adventurers who do it (someone had to write Laios's guidebook after all) but it still seems to be an interest that's niche at best and reviled at worst.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Laios. He loses his sister to the dungeon twice, his best friend tells him that he's actually always hated him, his team may be arrested and imprisoned forever if and when they return to the surface, and he seems to have a bad relationship with his parents to the extent they haven't spoken in ten years. Does he let it get him down or stop him moving forward? Nope.
  • Senshi, after his backstory is revealed. Years ago, his group of friends was trapped in the dungeon and killed off by a hippogriff one by one. After the last two got into an argument and only one came back, Senshi was tormented for years over the fact that he could've unwittingly eaten another dwarf. Even then, he chose to keep living in the dungeon, and the only thing that breaks his quirky Team Dad persona is when the group encounters a griffin down in level 6.
• It Was His Sled: Team Touden resurrects Falin with forbidden Blood Magic and then she falls under the control of the Lunatic Magician, who mutates her into a dragon chimera. Doesn't help that Falin's chimera form is so Creepy Awesome that fans love to post fan art of it all over sites like tumblr and pixiv.
  • Due to the fans' tendency to make all kinds of jokes about it, the fact that Chilchuck is essentially a middle-aged man with a wife and children has become sort of common knowledge about the character, and some might be surprised at how the series doesn't reveal this until about halfway through.
• Jerkass Woobie: Kabru. He's extremely judgemental and often falls into full on Black-and-White Insanity when it comes to how other adventurers view the dungeon, but that's pretty understandable when it's revealed his entire village was wiped out when the monsters from another dungeon came above ground and slaughtered everyone. He wants to destroy the dungeon to make sure this never happens again and sees anyone who wants to profit from the dungeon, rather than destroy it, as being willing to put their personal gain over the lives of others.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • A dub-specific example. A lot of fans of One Piece (2023) tuned in to see Emily Rudd in her first voice-over role as Marcille.
  • Fans of Smosh Games and ProZD tune in for the dub, featuring Damien Haas and SungWon Cho respectively.
• Les Yay:
  • Marcille is very close with Falin, and she does spend an awful lot of time blushing around her. At times she seems to be even more desperate to find Falin than Laios. Also, they share a bed and bathe together. It's worth noting that when chimera!Falin goes to tear off her top (her breasts are now covered by feathers but no one knows this at the time) the two characters who freak out are Shuro, who is canonically in love with Falin ...and Marcille.
  • One Omake has Namari talking with Kiki and Kaka about leg pouches, and how she thinks that tallmen look good when wearing those leather straps on their legs. Kiki then starts raising her dress and asking if Namari wants to see them wearing leg pouches for her, which leaves Namari a blushing, silent mess. The world guide returns to this topic and has Kiki tease Namari, asking if she wants to feel her legs.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Did anyone really think that Team Touden wouldn't eventually get Falin back from the Red Dragon? They lose her again pretty quickly, but still.
• LGBT Fanbase: The manga has a large following of lesbian woman thanks to how lovingly the women in the manga are portrayed, and large amount of subtext between Marcille and Falin, to the point where the Farcille ship is the most popular ship in the fandom.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Kabru and his group. They're far from the worst party in-universe but the fandom loves to laugh and poke fun at "Team Scrub" too much to care.
  • Shuro gets a lot of bitchless/maidenless jokes thrown at him, mainly due to him failing to confess his love for Falin or be with her in anyway, or because they prefer Farcille.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • This strip has made the rounds on tumblr.
  • Laios Voreden. ^ExplanationA combination of the fan translation of Laios's surname ("Thorden") and the joke that Laios has a vore kink.
  • "Elves are a proud and noble race! We are not lewd!" ^ExplanationOne of several parody edits in which Marcille gets angry over lewd comments about elves and is bullied by the rest of the party. Often used in reference to not only the series itself, but also to parody the fetish aspects of elves in fantasy fiction in general.
  • Marcille: No sense of right and wrong. ^ExplanationA joke spawned from certain dubious decisions on Marcille's part involving use of dark magic. Derived from Gunshow's "Wizards: No sense of right and wrong".
  • Italian Marcille. ^ExplanationMarcille's family name is Donato, a rather common Italian surname, and Chapter 81 shows that Marcille used to cook her father pasta, leading to jokes about Marcille being Italian.
    • German Marcille. ^ExplanationMarcille in the German dub of the anime is particularly expressive when complaining about eating monsters, which fans took and ran with, including an edit of the English dub where only Marcille speaks German.
  • Senshi pantyshot.^ExplanationThe manga generally eschews fanservice of most kinds... except, hilariously, Senshi, the portly dwarf, who regularly ends up in positions where the audience can see his underwear
    • TRIGGER HAS DELIVERED!^ExplanationOne of the concerns for the anime was that Studio Trigger would downplay or even outright ignore said shots where the audience can see Senshi's underwear. Come episode 3, those fears were gone, as the fight with the living armors features a very prominent shot of Senshi's from under his vestments. Funnily enough, Trigger adds Senshi upskirt shots, such as during the Dryad episode
  • Senshi is hotter than [X].^ExplanationOn Tumblr, it's common to see vote based posts voting which character (between Senshi and a more conventionally attractive anime character) is more attractive, with Senshi winning those votes. This results in fans joking about Senshi being "the hottest character".
  • Senshi sitting.^ExplanationEpisode 6 of the anime features a lingering shot where Senshi is boiling the mimic and sitting patiently next to the stove waiting for it to cook, with the cooking fire crackling behind him. Given that the shot is very open with a lot of empty space around Senshi and the fire, it became popular to photoshop in other characters sitting next to him. Alternatively, some fans cut Senshi out of the image and pasted him in elsewhere.
  • Senshi wants you to eat a balanced diet! ^ExplanationSenshi being used as a way to vehicle good eating habit messages, or appearing as a spiritual mentor to people who are not eating like they should.
  • Falin's dragon dick.^{Explanation (spoilers)}After Falin's resurrection as a draconic chimera, a number of people have taken note of the fact that that the dragon half of the chimera was specifically a male dragon—combine that with a few shots that show a very clear bulge between her back legs, and you have a lot of people joking about her having "new equipment", so to speak. The revelation at the ending that she kept at least some aspects of her chimera form didn't help.
  • Girlfailure. ^Explanation A memetic description of Marcille.
  • Izutsumi (Izutsumi). ^Explanation A written form of a reoccurring joke in the manga of Izutsumi's thoughts being only a picture of herself, formatted in the style of the Vriska (Vriska) meme from Homestuck.
  • Cancelling the manga to play Baldur's Gate III. ^Explanation Ryoko Kui, the manga's author, is a fan of the Baldur's Gate series, so when the manga ended a month after Baldur's Gate III was released, people joked that she quit writing the manga to play it.
  • They seemed like they were childhood friends or something.^ExplanationKabru's evaluation of Marcille and Falin's relationship in chapter 33, shown alongside a flashback of him watching Marcille fuss over Falin. Given the immense Ship Tease between the two girls, it became a meme that Kabru was comically oblivious to the true romantic nature of their relationship, and that he had actually been spying on them while they were on a date. A couple of fanart even has Marcille and Falin outright kissing and Kabru still failing to see the exact nature of their relationship.
  • Breasting boobily^{Explanation (spoilers)}A term for the jiggle physics caused by walking down stairs or jumping. During Chimera Falin's introduction, there's a shot where she jumps down from a building and the camera focuses on her upper body, displaying a rather prominent example of this. The show's following of queer women were rather delighted, but the part that makes the scene particularily memetic is that this is happening while Falin crushes Maizuru underfoot like an insect.
  • North American Marcille ^ExplanationA nickname by Japanese fans given to one of the Marcille imposters, so called because she looks like an American cartoon character from the late 80s.
  • "I'm into fat bitches"^ExplanationA fictitious quote attached to Marcille, depicting her as a Chubby Chaser (usually towards Falin)
• Moe:
  • You could count on one hand the number of fans who don't want to hug cute, Nice Girl Tade.
  • Senshi as a halfling is really adorable. Especially when he gets teary-eyed when Marcille scolds him for putting healing salves into the food. Everyone else in the party quickly begs for Marcille to have mercy.
• Moral Event Horizon: If the Lunatic Magician doesn't cross it for what he does to Falin, he definitely does when it's revealed what he did to the residents of the Golden Kingdom. Namely cursing them with immortality and ruthlessly executing any who try to escape.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • One of the creatures Team Touden eat is a gigantic parasite that Senshi cuts out of the kraken. We see it wriggling under the kraken's skin and everything. Then, eating it raw gives Laios his own parasite that spends the night burrowing into the walls of his stomach. Bleugh!
  • One of the supplementary omakes clarifies that the fairies the Canaries use like magical walkie-talkies are actually a homunculus created from a fermented mixture of ingredients that include semen and horse manure, and the embryo-like humanoid requires injections of blood every day for forty weeks straight before it's viable ^noteThis is in fact how Paracelsus claimed to have created a homunculus in real life. Marcille is absolutely revolted by the process and disgusted by the Canaries touching the fairies like they aren't made out of the vapor that comes off fermented semen and poop.
  • The world guide has Holm explaining how undines are tended and helped to grow. They need regular infusions of mana, which can be transferred through touch, but they prefer it in liquid form. Kabru immediately asks for clarification, and Holm says dungeon water, monster blood... or the bodily fluids of humans, going on to say that the age, race, etc makes a real difference. Kabru has one of his usual reaction shots - that is, he retains a polite smile and doesn't respond - and then, when Mikbell and Kuro are enjoying a shower provided by Holm's undine, Kabru keeps Rin from joining them.
• Nightmare Retardant: As creepy or scary as some of the dungeon monsters are, it's hard to stay intimidated after you see them cooked into delicious Food Porn.
• One True Threesome: Laios/Marcille and Falin/Marcille are both incredibly popular ships, so logically the next step in fandom is to have both Toudens share Marcille.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Farcille (Falin/Marcille)
  • Laishuro (Laios/Shuro)
  • Labru (Laios/Kabru)
  • Kikimari (Kiki/Namari)
  • Laimar (Laios/Marcille)
• Shocking Moments:
  • Laios allowing the Red Dragon to bite off his leg so he can maneuver close enough to stab it in its weak point.
  • Falin reappearing as a monstrous dragon chimera.
  • Thistle summoning Chimera Falin to the first level. Any hopes of Team Touden keeping her chimera form under wraps are completely out of the bag now.
  • Laios killing his own sister by suffocating her to death. Even knowing she can be resurrected doesn't make the scene any less heart-wrenching to both the characters and readers.
  • Marcille releasing the Winged Lion and becoming the dungeon's new lord.
• Self-Fanservice:
  • While Laios is already built like a wrestler in the manga, he is often drawn a bit more muscular, and in art with modern clothes, tight fitting shirts. He is rarely given a six pack though.
  • Falin is also occasionally drawn as a Big Beautiful Woman, likely due to the baggy clothing she usually wears (official artwork of her in other outfits show that while she has a larger frame and broader shoulders than most other female characters, she isn't overweight at all).
• Slow-Paced Beginning: It takes a while for the series to get going due to the Gag Series episodic feel at the start where Team Touden is mainly just going around the dungeon's first floors killing and eating whatever monster they come across. It only starts to delve into deeper storytelling once they encounter Zon the orc chief in Chapter 9, and Kabru's party gets introduced in Chapter 10. The Red Dragon arc is where things really get kicked up a notch.
• Spiritual Adaptation: The entire manga is one big love letter to Wizardry, most notably the dungeon crawling aspect and of course, the very existence of the Mad Sorcerer.
• Squick:
  • Senshi's beard being so caked with monster blood and fat that it actually nullifies magic.
  • When the Red Dragon is biting through Laios's leg, it makes an audible crunching sound. Worse, when Marcille uses her healing magic to reattach it after the fight, he complains that it's itching. On the inside.
• Starboarding: It's very easy to interpret Laios as having a crush on Shuro but not realising it since, well, he's Laios. If he does, then obviously Shuro doesn't return it since he a) is in love with Falin and b) is very much heterosexual. A post-series omake certainly encourages the impression that Laios has a crush; when waiting to see Falin's answer to Shuro's proposal, Laios says that if he was Falin, he would say yes.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The English translation of the manga originally transliterated the Lunatic Magician's name as "Sissel", as it wasn't until the Adventurer's Bible released that spelled out his name in plain, clear English as "Thistle" (they also referred to him with she/her pronouns originally). Rather than change it, they revised the Adventurer's Bible entry in the English translation to make it seem as though it was always Sissel, rather than admit the original translation was a mistake (as the fan translations for the manga have frequently done). Most fans consider the official translation sticking with "Sissel" rather than changing it to the accurate "Thistle" to be a stupid choice (considering "Sissel" is a nonsense word while "Thistle" is the actual name of the flower he's named after).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Fionil, the teary-eyed elf found with a newbie party on the second floor, is the only elf aside from Marcille shown in a dungeon-delving party (the Canaries don't count as their reason for going into dungeons is very different). Marcille is quite insistent on helping Fionil's injured companion, which could be a suggestion that she knows her and wants to help, but that's the only sign. The World Guide shares that in fact she's a half-elf like Marcille and only thirteen years older than her. She was sent to the Island on behalf of the Western Elves to keep an eye on things for them and wasn't supposed to join a party and go into the dungeon at all, so when the Canaries come she lies low. This doesn't really show in the manga itself - she looks nervous standing with Donni as he volunteers as a character witness for Laios to Flamela, but that's about it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Senshi is largely stoic and keeps many of his thoughts to himself, staying quiet a lot when the other characters bicker or chat. These thoughts are elaborated on to a degree in his journal, included in the world guide, which reveals a previously invisible degree of Teeth-Clenched Teamwork and hidden disdain involved in his working with the Touden party. Not only was he even more uneasy about magic than he let on, he felt a degree of Fantastic Racism and despised Laios and Marcille for employing a "child" like Chilchuck in the dungeon, and resolved these issues himself, by himself. The first edition of the world guide had his journal be up to date at the time; the second covered the rest of the series but didn't reveal as much showing a little bit about his succubus while still keeping its identity concealed and a bit more about his plans for after the end of the series.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: The manga has been commonly referred to by readers as one of the most motivational reads they've ever had as far as actually going through with eating healthy meals and improving daily habits.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Kensuke is quite adorable for a stalk-eyed, squishy mollusc monster.
  • Leed the orc captain. She looks like other orcs, fat, muscular, with pig-like features. But she's also drawn with some cute features like a round face and big eyes.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Dryads and Elves all look androgynous, and it can be hard to tell which are males unless the story explicitly states it (characters familiar with elves don't seem to have any trouble telling genders apart, but those who aren't sometimes struggle).
  • The group of dryads the party encounter in the 4th level has three with breasts and one without, otherwise being identical. Weirdly, those with breasts are the ones with pollen, making them the true males.
  • "The Canaries" can easily be mistaken as an Amazon Brigade, but Captain Mithrun and Lycion are men. In a gender-bend of the Canaries in a supplementary drawing, the differences are minimal. Mithrun and Lycion have small breasts, everyone else doesn't, and Lycion wears very slightly more clothing - the only prominent difference is their respective heights changing. The author apologizes to the audience for the drawing not being very striking.
  • The Mad Sorcerer, Thistle, is also rather ambiguous for a while due to his long hair, short, slender build, and skirt, before it's eventually confirmed he's male. The official English release of the manga implies that this trope is in play in-universe, with characters having to remind themselves that he is male.
  • Mickbell, the half-foot in Kabru's party, is actually male in the original Japanese and in the World Guide (but is referred to as a female in the English release). The ponytail and childlike facial features don't help matters. In a gender-swap of the party shown in supplementary drawings, Mickbell looks exactly the same.
  • Kabru himself tends to be mistaken as a girl by those who aren't familiar with the series, due to his slim build and androgynous-looking face. This happens most often with newcomers to the fandom who are sapphic women, as they frequently express disappointment that Kabru isn't actually female like they thought.
• The Woobie: Poor, poor Falin. As if getting eaten by the Red Dragon isn't bad enough, no sooner has she been resurrected than the Lunatic Magician takes control of her and mutates her into a monstrous, mindless chimera, then forces her to attack her own brother and their True Companions, followed by her brother mercy killing her via asphyxiation. Poor girl just can't catch a break.

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