It turns out Delicious In Dungeon comes from an artist who was very much obsessed with Baldur's Gate - drawing the game's cast in their own art style.
Delicious In Dungeon debuted last week on Netflix, and it looks set to be the first proper anime banger of 2024. An adaptation of Ryoko Kui's manga series, it follows a group of adventurers that delve deep into terrifying dungeons, and learn there's a lot more to dungeons than slaying beasts - namely, chopping them all up and eating them in delicious dishes.
Shortly after the premiere, Polygon published an excellent article on Delicious In Dungeon, describing it as "Chef's Table meets Baldur's Gate." That comparison drew some pushback on social media, but as it turns out, Delicious In Dungeon artist and author Kui is actually a big fan of Baldur's Gate and CRPGs in general.
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BRZZZT WRONGO!Ryoko Kui loves Baldur's Gate and drew all of the portraits in her styleBaldur's Gate absolutely influenced this manga and now showCheckmate atheists pic.twitter.com/EKzSGKAzAAJanuary 5, 2024
Kui's love of Baldur's Gate is evidenced in the lovely cast portraits just above from the manga author. For the unfamiliar, these are the 25 characters that can join the player character in the original Baldur's Gate video game, proving Kui's adoration for the role-playing series extends multiple decades.
The Delicious In Dungeon manga was first published in 2014, a fair few years after Baldur's Gate first launched in 1998. In those 16 years, the Twitter user just above asserts, it's absolutely natural to assume the great CRPG series could have influenced how Kui approached Delicious In Dungeon.
This is all to say that yes, Baldur's Gate has influenced Delicious In Dungeon, and is in fact a very apt comparison for the new Netflix anime series. New episodes should drop every Thursday on the streaming service, and if you're interested in the manga series, it just wrapped up back in September 2023.
Read up on our guide to the best Netflix shows if you're after some other bangers to watch alongside Delicious In Dungeon.
