Bread Leftovers

 Say, Dungeon Meshi Maniacs.  Do you like monsters?  I mean really like them?  Of course you do!  You're reading a blog about making recipes from a manga about cooking monsters!  I play a slime on the Internet! We all love monsters here.  And this chapter finally gets to the most ubiquitous monsters in all of fantasy.  

 Orcs! One of my personal favorite creatures.  If you're even basically familiar with Western fantasy writing then you're familiar with orcs.  They are typically humanoid, look a little pig like in the face, intelligence levels vary, but they are always antagonistic.  This goes back to the guy who created the concept, J.R.R. Tolkien.  There are people FAR smarter than I and FAR better read in Tolkien than I am so I  know better than to bore you with details.  Not just evil but UGLY.  Though I will say I've always liked the Bullfrog Orcs from the Rankin Bass animated version.

So Tolkien inspired generations of fantasy writers that followed who, in turn, just took the Orc=Evil equation to heart.  If you needed a character to murder and not twist yourself up over it then make them an orc.  Even to the point that if you were playing Dungeon & Dragons the phrase, "You see some orcs" was always followed by an initiative check.  Even my favorite RPG, Shadowrun, wasn't immune from orc bias.  Yes, they were a playable race but they had negatives to intelligence.  Boo.  Orcs are cool!  And lucky for me Ryoko Kui seems to agree.  I mean, just look at these abs!

Oh my.  Did it suddenly get hot in here or is it just him?  The orcs in Dungeon Meshi are not just good looking but articulate and very family orientated.  They were also responsible for my first kackle of the series.

Poor Marcille.  I know how hard she works on her looks and these two were not biting. Oh, and yes they also murdered that dude laid out on the table.  Details, details.  What's interesting is while our heroes are making bread we learn a little about why orcs are even living in the dungeon to begin with.

Love the looks on the characters faces as the orc chieftain tells their history.  Laois and Chilchuck know the orc is speaking truth and if he gets mad they could be easily killed.  Marcille, however, decides to snap back.

 It's easy to tell someone to stop stealing from you after you've taken everything from them.  I don't want to cover the entire argument since you should really read the chapter for yourself.  We don't go into the actual history of this world and that's for the better.  It's a good diversion to build the world a little and introduce the orcs who do become important as the story moves along.  What I found fascinating was they story took the time to detour and think about the society they move through.  Why are the orcs down in that dungeon? Why were they driven there?  How do the people above view them?  So much information, even in the background, put out in ten pages.  Just great storytelling.

The story also covers something important to me personally.  That to truly understand someone you have to share a meal with them.  I love that all it took for the Orc Chieftain to see Laios not as a threat but as a potential alley was to literally break bread with him and talk about the future together.

So that's a quick talk about orcs and the historical issues they face not just in Dungeon Meshi but in fantasy in general.  Thanks for stopping by and be sure to come back next week as we finally...FINALLY get to one of the most highly anticipated entries.