Dungeon Meshi – Episode 19 Review

「山姥/夢魔」 (Yamanba/Muma)
“Hag/Nightmare”

I’ve been waiting on this chapter with considerable anticipation. Not that all the pieces are in place yet, but the new character introduced at the end of last week’s episode in an important one. She’s also involved in a lot of developments which I personally find highly entertaining, so it’s good to see Izutsumi (Kambe Mitsuho, who hasn’t had a lot of major roles) finally join the cast. She doesn’t exactly make a positive first impression on the rest of them team, however, threatening to kill Marcille if she doesn’t get what she wants.

In fact, this isn’t a first impression – Izutsumi was one of Shuro’s retainers. As for what she wants, it’s Marcille’s magic. Specifically, to remove the spells she says were cast on her. Izutsumi soon reveals a tail and cat ears, and the runes written on her neck<. This was done by black magic, which is of course strictly forbidden by both law and custom. But the cat girl knows that Marcille has dabbled in it, because she knows how Falin got the way she is. Which is, in a sense, not that different from how Izutsumi herself is.

You do feel sort of bad for Marcille, who bears this brand well and truly now – she’s the black magic woman. But you know, Marcille is not a child. She knew when she made her choice that she was doing something society disdains and the law forbids at the highest level. One suspects Marcille would have tried to help Izutsumi anyway simply if she’d asked. But this is not an easy request to comply with even under threat of harm. As Marcille explains, the soul is thought to be like an egg inside a shell. But because of black magic the cat girl – and Falin – are like two eggs in the same shell. And once mixed, they can never be truly separated again (at least not by any means Marcille is aware of).

Kitty also has quite a run-in with Senshi, normally pretty mild-mannered but not when you push the buttons Izutsumi found. The girl is obviously starving, and after scolding her not to scarf down the ration pellet Chilchuck gives her, Senshi volunteers to make her a hot meal wwhile complying with her “no monsters!” requirement. But this is a beastman, and her table manners reflect that. She doesn’t know how to hold a spoon properly, and tosses the mushrooms Senshi has included in his risotto onto the ground. This sets him off, and when the two of them really go at it her curse is activated. From Senshi’s perspective this is tough love, and sometimes wayward young’uns need tough love.

Marcille can’t do anything for Izutsumi. But the journey continues, even with no obvious hope for Falin either. There is still the Lunatic Magician, who even if he seems unlikely to offer any assistance from the goodness of his heart does seem the most likely to know how to separate two yolks. So joining up (yay!) is the best course for the cat girl for the moment. But there are few peaceful moments in this dungeon, and even after hostilities are halted there the group soon comes under attack from a monster. This time it’s a nightmare, and it attacks Marcille in her dreams.

How does one help someone being attacked by a nightmare? Falin once did so by entering victim Shuro’s dream, so Laios decides to do the same for Marcille. This proves to be something of a psychological profiling of Marcille. She feels guilt over what happened with Falin. She seems to fear more than anything losing the ones she loves as she lives her Elvish span of years, and it’s hinted that her father might have been a human. In her dreams she’s attacked by a Wurm (insert Freudian dream analysis here – Laios certainly does), and Laios tries to break the spell the invader has on her subconscious.

Nightmare or not, it always comes down to one question once the crisis has passed: “is it edible?”. Senshi is always one to say yes, and it turns out that nightmares are something like mussels (shellfish monsters seem extremely common in this mythology). And when the nightmares’ ingested dream materializes as a vision in the steam from the cookpot (which is actually rather morbid), we once again see that these people perceive reality in highly subjective ways.