Soundtrack Spotlight: Delicious in Dungeon

Delicious in Dungeon is a quirky little show based on a Japanse manga series that’s currently streaming on Netflix. It’s a beautifully animated fantasy adventure / dungeon crawler with an initial party of four unlikely heroes, looking to slay a dragon and win treasure. As logistical difficulties arise, the journey turns into a foodie’s experiment in cooking and then eating the different monsters they encounter with varying outcomes. It’s an oddball for sure and as one reviewer has remarked manages “a balance of body horror and comedy”. After watching the first three episodes, I confess it’s not my cup of coffee but that doesn’t mean I can’t write about some of its greatest assets here: the soundtrack.

The complete 78-track long soundtrack was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and Shunsuke Tsuchiya. Now, Yasunori Mitsuda needs no introductions at this point as most longterm gamers certainly know he is responsible for some of the greatest, most beloved and most covered videogame music in history. Many of my favorite JRPGs were made greater by his craft and his signature shines brightly through the music of Delicious in Dungeon. Shunsuke Tsuchiya too has been around for quite some time as a videogame composer.

It’s a delightful soundtrack full of classic fantasy themes, the mystery and the whimsy, the battle themes and the glorious victory. To genre fans it’s a warm blanket in a world of generic synth soundtrack that will soon succumb to the AI machine. You can find the full English playlist here  (or with Japanese original titles), it’s deliciousss!