At this moment, studio trigger has become a household name among anime fans – it kicked things off with the energetic “Kill la Kill” and set the stage for Netflix like little witch academia and Cyberpunk: Edgerunnersnow recently, Delicious food in the dungeon.
You’ll instantly recognize the Trigger series because of the unique flair the studio brings to its characters, who often have big, bold, exaggerated expressions, complemented by animation that I can only describe as quirky. All of which makes the prospect of it tackling the currently airing Delicious in the Dungeon incredibly exciting, but while I loved the first few episodes, they felt like they were missing something; but thankfully Yes, Delicious in Dungeon Episode 3 manages to capture Studio Trigger’s classic magic.
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I don’t blame Trigger at all for keeping the first few episodes low-key, after all not much happens in them, it’s mostly about establishing the world and introducing all the characters. There’s also very little action, so why spend all your budget on things you don’t need? You can even find some good cooking classes. It did make me wonder if we’d see some animation to really solidify it as a “Studio Trigger” show that a lot of people would enjoy, and the show’s third episode certainly delivered.
The premise is a pretty classic fantasy story: Our team of adventurers need to get somewhere, but unfortunately, there’s a corridor filled with unkillable living armor that prevents them from getting to the next location. Helpfully, Rais, the crew’s warrior, had been killed by a suit of living armor before (don’t worry, this is a fantasy world, resurrection is no problem), and it was also his first death, so a traumatic one.
Of course, this leads to a confrontation with various living armors, the first time the show has seen real action. Rais donned a unique suit of living armor for most of the episode, and it’s honestly one of the best animations I’ve ever seen of two armored knights going up against each other. One of the best ways to describe Trigger at its best is fluid, where everything is moving, like the moving forms have no fixed shape. The animation makes the metal pieces look almost springy, which is a delicious fit in the cartoonish world of Dungeons.
The animated sequences where the rest of the crew fend off the grunts are also great – the team’s elf mage, Marcil, has some incredible faces throughout the manga, and series director Ichigo Sugano really helped bring those to life perfectly in life. Those familiar with Shinchan, a classic comedy manga that is more popular in Japan than in the West, may feel some of the same looseness. You just have to take a look at the clip from the latest episode below to see what I mean. The fact that Sugano has worked with Shin Chan before is no surprise.
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This particular clip is easily my favorite of the episode, and it’s a sequence that really highlights the power of animation as it takes a simple scene of Laois and his sister running and creates a purely moments of unfiltered childhood joy. Impossible movement. It’s only January, but those 10 seconds of animation may very well become my favorite animation of the year.
What I’ve loved about Trigger’s work for so long is that it’s not afraid to get weird, whether it’s the angles of bodies positioned into dominant shapes that fill the screen, or faces that convey more emotion in a single still frame than a few minutes of live action, or Concepts that no one else would ever come up with, there just wasn’t a studio like Trigger. I doubt every subsequent episode will be like this one, but it makes me believe that a series as special as Delicious in the Dungeon is in the hands of a team like Studio Trigger.