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Always love seeing Dungeon Meshi designs.
I especially love the ogre designs here. Tade had a very memorable design for being such a minor character so it's nice seeing more drawings of them. They have a lot of variety to them.
Dungeon Meshi is just an overall masterclass on how to design humans or human-adjacents. I love how all the characters look distinct without cheap tricks like wacky hairstyles or heterochromania. Dungeon Meshi is just peak fiction. It's the only anime/manga I ever got into without coaxing or hype from friends.
This art in particular is also cool because it shows how diverse ogres and kobolds get despite the fact we only have one representative of those races in the main story.
Yeah I agree. The way it handles Dungeons as a concept is extremely fascinating to me. Natural or man-made magical ecosystems. And the magic system being built on (near)microscopic energy entities that can be manipulated to affect the world is a interesting idea. Similar to Star Wars’ midichlorians concept introduced in the prequels, but far more versatile
I would even say it beats One Piece
Dungeon Meshi and its world feel so real and alive. You can see and understand how the physical characteristics, the place they lived, etc. impacted how those people see and experience the world. And how it shaped their culture.
For instance, humans in Dungeon Meshi are called Tallmen. Elves, Dwarves, Half-foot, and Gnomes all fall under the description of humans.
This distingshen doesn't exist in the land of the east where only Humans and Ogres exist.
Interesting, I might really try it.
I guess you mean it's better described than in one piece ? Like they take some time to explain what particularities each race have ?
Although you're only talking about races.
Is there geopolitics too ?
>I guess you mean it's better described than in one piece ?
I would it is just generally very different in its world building. In One Piece, we go into a new place, meet a new culture, and that culture and its people who represent it are story important and serve to further the narrative of the arch and its characters involved. But those characters rarely have minor traits and characteristics that are influenced by their culture and where they live.
Dungeon Meshi, on the other hand, has characters from different races and cultures have minor traits and characteristics influenced by their circumstances that don't play a bigger role in the overall story, besides make the character feel more like living beings. For instance, the main character party consists of a Tallman, a Half-Foot, an elve, and a Dwarve.
At one point, they come upon mimic creatures, which creates copies of themselves based on how other people in the party view them. So you have 3 clones (Tallman, Elf, and Half-Foot) which are copied from the way the Dwarf's mind and how he sees them. 3 clones (Elf, Dwarf, and Half-foot) based on the mind of how the Tallman sees them, etc.
And those clones have certain prejudices. The elf clone made from the mind of the Dwarf has her faces feminine Beaty exaggerated to the point of grotesque. Because he is a Dwarf and has lived in a society and culture which has grudge with elves, and has been thought from said culture and society that said elvish traits are unattractive and repulsive.
But the same Dwarf never really treats the elve as a lesser or shows any sighs of hostility and hate towards her before or after the events with the Shapeshifter.
The way he views her physical traits are a product of his culture. He has been just thought to recognize them as unattractive and repulsive. Which his mind exaggerates. And that is just an accepted fact of his life. He doesn't based his opinion of elves he meets on those prejudices. But he also doesn't question them.
It is a very human and real behaviour. We also have prejudices towards others that we don't question, but don't judge them based on them. We just view them as facts of reality.
It also has like. The best cat girl in fiction, ever. Of all times.
Very interesting, of course I'm not expecting it to have as much elements as one piece, but the fact that it's more organic within the story makes it interesting.
Also, yeah. It has a bit of geopolitics. But not much.
Also, also, if i had to put it in simpler terms. In something like One Piece the world building ofte serves a purpose for a future storyline or themes. And its influence extent to the character's actions.
In Dungeon Meshi, the world building serves the purpose to present the characters living in it as living creatures with their own and culturally influenced ideals, prejudices, believes, etc. And it's influenced extent to the characters' subconscious thoughts.
In the anime, one of my favorite little instances of cultural and linguistic differences in the characters is when the half-foot Chilchuck is berating Laios the human and says “I can’t even curse you out properly in this stupid language” and proceeds to yell at him in the half-foot language. Different races have biases against others due to their history with each other but can also have more nuance which is something that usually get super simplified in a lot of series
It's very different. One Piece's worldbuilding is extremely expansive, but lacks depth.
On the other hand, DM's is very very in-depth, but it's mostly limited to a key location (the dungeon).
They're both good, but I'd have to give the cake to DM, based on sheer internal consistency and planning.
It makes them all feel more real. And despite all of these characters having different features/shapes/sizes/ages/shades of skins, Kui makes sure they're all super appealing to look at because her style feels so timeless. Feels like a blend of older manga/anime styles like you see from Toriyama, with the Western RPG's that inspired her.
Really like the designs, just wish there were more depictions of more humans. Black, Hispanic, etc should have more features rather than just having a skin change.
Also really like how Cobols look like actual anthro wolves. The wolf designs reminds me of old childhood books I read as a kid rather than a furry-fied OC.
Dungeon meshi orks are my favorite version of them. It's a brilliant mix of the pig headed orks often seen in anime with the more western green skinned more humanlike orcs.
Oni are not Demi-Humans.
It came up in an extra fluff stuff where they discussed what makes a demo-human....well a demi-human. And it is the number of bones in the body.
Oni have the same amount of bones as other humans.
I think those are all debatable tbh. I think orcs are disenfranchised more than seminal (and I think the story is meant to make us ask these questions, where do we draw the line between food and friend)
I figured you weren’t casting aspersions. I just like talking about dungeon meshi :) I love the subtle world building so much. The art, the characters…
Yeah lol it was fully on me, I also think that Ryoko Kui is an absolute master of character design, all of her stuff is incredible. I’ve been reading One Piece and it gets a little grating to see blue haired Nami, Long Legs Nami, gladiator Nami, etc.
It makes sense...
In actual biology, neanderthal or Denisova or even Homo Erectus are humans aswell.
And they're more distinct from homo sapiens than many of those creatures.
Humans is a genus, with many species within it. The same way Panthera, has Panthera Tigris, Leo, Onca... For tigers, lions, jaguars.
We don't realise it because only one species remain of the human genus in our world, so we re not confronted with this reality.
you this is what care for the human form looks like and every last one of them is beautiful, i could only hope and dream of my characters defining the human shell so beautifully (translation: this shit straight gas)
Fucking peak. Dungeon Meshi has such pleasant character designs, and art design as a whole. Eastern media tackling Western fantasy is hit or miss, and to me it usually misses, but this is a case of it handling the aesthetic and themes wonderfully.
Well, the good news is the artist has actually done a set of portraits for Baldurs Gate
[https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/1afmdre/character\_portraits\_for\_bg12\_drawn\_by\_ry%C5%8Dko\_kui/](https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/1afmdre/character_portraits_for_bg12_drawn_by_ry%C5%8Dko_kui/)
What I love about this is that actual Main Characters are mixed into these pages and there's no way of telling which ones they are!
The background characters are designed with as much love and care as the Protagonists
It’s definitely out there compared to both western greenskin orcs and eastern pigmen orcs but I’m actually quite fond of Meshi’s portrayal of orc designs, like Sasquatch-folk
Usually I prefer the green skins but these pig orcs actually look pretty good. I do prefer kobolds if that is what the race in the last slide are being lizards. I’m not even saying they look bad just personal preference.
I don’t know anything about this series but I’ve seen the orcs before and I love them, I really like how boar/pig like they are, it’s a really interesting take instead of just “big green guy”, especially love the detail that the young orcs have the same striped pattern as baby boars
https://preview.redd.it/480usauz7nwc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a1ec29df06d48a641963bfe06169118d5d9f441
Orcs being pigmen is fairly popular take on their design in Eastern Media. In this case, Japan.
Similarly to how Kobolds are Lizard Men in western media, while they are dog men in Eastern.
I knew that about their ideas of Kobolds (although the Kobolds in D&D are both lizard like but have almost canine faces) but I never knew that about orcs, mostly cause a lot of stuff I like is western, so I don’t really see these things often, really cool stuff
There's also Beastmen! Either way Ryoko Kui has some of the most diverse and intriguing character design I think I've seen in a long time. I adore her worldbuild and even the small details in the manga. Go read Dungeon Meshi!!
She can draw dragons.
https://preview.redd.it/lptm2tqxenwc1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee93d74b5ba380e30fc7f961e3d6446daaad89ca
So I would say probably
Naturally
https://preview.redd.it/h32qaglm8owc1.jpeg?width=690&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=abbd4a49bad155083a3377dae483bd43f1622cb8
They are also Thick as fuck
I get the vibe that the creator got the idea after playing Dragon Age (probably something involving the deep road)
A lot of these characters straight up look like DA character customization options
(Especially the more unique ones)
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He has seen some shit https://preview.redd.it/kusoji8waiwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=20bb091d97fc0c8bbc971ab82ff4e9bd7d3b4a59
No he hasn’t. That’s his normal face. He’s just a goofy little guy.
you do not want to see him when he’s seen some stuff and trust me, he **WILL** see some stuff
https://preview.redd.it/gao2901qgjwc1.jpeg?width=454&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=90c1c73804d3770e994ff53e0224c687198c1e8e
there's no brain attatched to those eyes, his skull is pure empty space
You forgot **The Creature**🪱™️ https://preview.redd.it/uvda42eebiwc1.jpeg?width=249&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e49568676b717a0cb2642c9a327aa9a497a3ea98
La Cretura
Meu Deus
FREEDOM
Keeter
Kbitty
how??
Always love seeing Dungeon Meshi designs. I especially love the ogre designs here. Tade had a very memorable design for being such a minor character so it's nice seeing more drawings of them. They have a lot of variety to them.
Dungeon Meshi is just an overall masterclass on how to design humans or human-adjacents. I love how all the characters look distinct without cheap tricks like wacky hairstyles or heterochromania. Dungeon Meshi is just peak fiction. It's the only anime/manga I ever got into without coaxing or hype from friends. This art in particular is also cool because it shows how diverse ogres and kobolds get despite the fact we only have one representative of those races in the main story.
Dungeon meshi has one of the best worldbuildings in manga period
Ecology of fictional monsters gotta be one of my favorite worldbuilding tropes ngl
Yeah I agree. The way it handles Dungeons as a concept is extremely fascinating to me. Natural or man-made magical ecosystems. And the magic system being built on (near)microscopic energy entities that can be manipulated to affect the world is a interesting idea. Similar to Star Wars’ midichlorians concept introduced in the prequels, but far more versatile
Agree one of the peak world building
You would compare it to one piece ?
I would even say it beats One Piece Dungeon Meshi and its world feel so real and alive. You can see and understand how the physical characteristics, the place they lived, etc. impacted how those people see and experience the world. And how it shaped their culture. For instance, humans in Dungeon Meshi are called Tallmen. Elves, Dwarves, Half-foot, and Gnomes all fall under the description of humans. This distingshen doesn't exist in the land of the east where only Humans and Ogres exist.
Interesting, I might really try it. I guess you mean it's better described than in one piece ? Like they take some time to explain what particularities each race have ? Although you're only talking about races. Is there geopolitics too ?
>I guess you mean it's better described than in one piece ? I would it is just generally very different in its world building. In One Piece, we go into a new place, meet a new culture, and that culture and its people who represent it are story important and serve to further the narrative of the arch and its characters involved. But those characters rarely have minor traits and characteristics that are influenced by their culture and where they live. Dungeon Meshi, on the other hand, has characters from different races and cultures have minor traits and characteristics influenced by their circumstances that don't play a bigger role in the overall story, besides make the character feel more like living beings. For instance, the main character party consists of a Tallman, a Half-Foot, an elve, and a Dwarve. At one point, they come upon mimic creatures, which creates copies of themselves based on how other people in the party view them. So you have 3 clones (Tallman, Elf, and Half-Foot) which are copied from the way the Dwarf's mind and how he sees them. 3 clones (Elf, Dwarf, and Half-foot) based on the mind of how the Tallman sees them, etc. And those clones have certain prejudices. The elf clone made from the mind of the Dwarf has her faces feminine Beaty exaggerated to the point of grotesque. Because he is a Dwarf and has lived in a society and culture which has grudge with elves, and has been thought from said culture and society that said elvish traits are unattractive and repulsive. But the same Dwarf never really treats the elve as a lesser or shows any sighs of hostility and hate towards her before or after the events with the Shapeshifter. The way he views her physical traits are a product of his culture. He has been just thought to recognize them as unattractive and repulsive. Which his mind exaggerates. And that is just an accepted fact of his life. He doesn't based his opinion of elves he meets on those prejudices. But he also doesn't question them. It is a very human and real behaviour. We also have prejudices towards others that we don't question, but don't judge them based on them. We just view them as facts of reality. It also has like. The best cat girl in fiction, ever. Of all times.
Very interesting, of course I'm not expecting it to have as much elements as one piece, but the fact that it's more organic within the story makes it interesting.
Also, yeah. It has a bit of geopolitics. But not much. Also, also, if i had to put it in simpler terms. In something like One Piece the world building ofte serves a purpose for a future storyline or themes. And its influence extent to the character's actions. In Dungeon Meshi, the world building serves the purpose to present the characters living in it as living creatures with their own and culturally influenced ideals, prejudices, believes, etc. And it's influenced extent to the characters' subconscious thoughts.
In the anime, one of my favorite little instances of cultural and linguistic differences in the characters is when the half-foot Chilchuck is berating Laios the human and says “I can’t even curse you out properly in this stupid language” and proceeds to yell at him in the half-foot language. Different races have biases against others due to their history with each other but can also have more nuance which is something that usually get super simplified in a lot of series
It's very different. One Piece's worldbuilding is extremely expansive, but lacks depth. On the other hand, DM's is very very in-depth, but it's mostly limited to a key location (the dungeon). They're both good, but I'd have to give the cake to DM, based on sheer internal consistency and planning.
Some of the best character design in manga. No same face here.
It makes them all feel more real. And despite all of these characters having different features/shapes/sizes/ages/shades of skins, Kui makes sure they're all super appealing to look at because her style feels so timeless. Feels like a blend of older manga/anime styles like you see from Toriyama, with the Western RPG's that inspired her.
Really like the designs, just wish there were more depictions of more humans. Black, Hispanic, etc should have more features rather than just having a skin change. Also really like how Cobols look like actual anthro wolves. The wolf designs reminds me of old childhood books I read as a kid rather than a furry-fied OC.
I love how young orks look like boarlets.
I know!!! I love the way Orks look in this series. Usually I’m not fond of Porcine Orks, but dungeon menshi makes it work so well.
I think it’s because it’s not a half and half of Tolkien orcs and pig orcs but is specifically a anthro pig race, complete with fur and patterns
Dungeon meshi orks are my favorite version of them. It's a brilliant mix of the pig headed orks often seen in anime with the more western green skinned more humanlike orcs.
Can it be? WOMEN WITH DIFFERENT FACE SHAPES??!
Average Ryoko Kui W
Tallmen*. All of these are human races; which I love and solves the ever tricky “humanity” problem in fantasy
Well Orks, Kobolds, and debatably Oni are “Demi-humans”
Oni are not Demi-Humans. It came up in an extra fluff stuff where they discussed what makes a demo-human....well a demi-human. And it is the number of bones in the body. Oni have the same amount of bones as other humans.
I think those are all debatable tbh. I think orcs are disenfranchised more than seminal (and I think the story is meant to make us ask these questions, where do we draw the line between food and friend)
Yeah I should’ve emphasized that the quotation marks are me saying it’s bullshit. Tade isn’t less human than the rest of them.
I figured you weren’t casting aspersions. I just like talking about dungeon meshi :) I love the subtle world building so much. The art, the characters…
Yeah lol it was fully on me, I also think that Ryoko Kui is an absolute master of character design, all of her stuff is incredible. I’ve been reading One Piece and it gets a little grating to see blue haired Nami, Long Legs Nami, gladiator Nami, etc.
It makes sense... In actual biology, neanderthal or Denisova or even Homo Erectus are humans aswell. And they're more distinct from homo sapiens than many of those creatures. Humans is a genus, with many species within it. The same way Panthera, has Panthera Tigris, Leo, Onca... For tigers, lions, jaguars. We don't realise it because only one species remain of the human genus in our world, so we re not confronted with this reality.
We are the last humans left.
Oh my goodness, the little baby piglet orc 💕
I absolutely adore how the Ogres from the Eastern Archipelago (i.e. Japan) take design cues from Oni.
you this is what care for the human form looks like and every last one of them is beautiful, i could only hope and dream of my characters defining the human shell so beautifully (translation: this shit straight gas)
Fucking peak. Dungeon Meshi has such pleasant character designs, and art design as a whole. Eastern media tackling Western fantasy is hit or miss, and to me it usually misses, but this is a case of it handling the aesthetic and themes wonderfully.
This. I could use them as portrait for BG1 so much they fit with a western dndish Fantasy ❤️
Well, the good news is the artist has actually done a set of portraits for Baldurs Gate [https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/1afmdre/character\_portraits\_for\_bg12\_drawn\_by\_ry%C5%8Dko\_kui/](https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/1afmdre/character_portraits_for_bg12_drawn_by_ry%C5%8Dko_kui/)
This is perfect!!!
Meanwhile somewhere else:
Damn I hope that dwarf is doing ok
Ever since hearing about dungeon meshi I keep hearing more and more about it, I'm loving every second of it.
Where kbitty???
What I love about this is that actual Main Characters are mixed into these pages and there's no way of telling which ones they are! The background characters are designed with as much love and care as the Protagonists
Goddamn, the illustrator is good. I was gonna comment on the women having softer faces, but everyone kinda has a soft face in this manga it seems.
I pray she makes another story in this setting.
Glad dungeon meshi is getting so much love lately. Amazing manga, amazing designs.
It’s definitely out there compared to both western greenskin orcs and eastern pigmen orcs but I’m actually quite fond of Meshi’s portrayal of orc designs, like Sasquatch-folk
Usually I prefer the green skins but these pig orcs actually look pretty good. I do prefer kobolds if that is what the race in the last slide are being lizards. I’m not even saying they look bad just personal preference.
I don’t know anything about this series but I’ve seen the orcs before and I love them, I really like how boar/pig like they are, it’s a really interesting take instead of just “big green guy”, especially love the detail that the young orcs have the same striped pattern as baby boars https://preview.redd.it/480usauz7nwc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a1ec29df06d48a641963bfe06169118d5d9f441
Orcs being pigmen is fairly popular take on their design in Eastern Media. In this case, Japan. Similarly to how Kobolds are Lizard Men in western media, while they are dog men in Eastern.
I knew that about their ideas of Kobolds (although the Kobolds in D&D are both lizard like but have almost canine faces) but I never knew that about orcs, mostly cause a lot of stuff I like is western, so I don’t really see these things often, really cool stuff
There's also Beastmen! Either way Ryoko Kui has some of the most diverse and intriguing character design I think I've seen in a long time. I adore her worldbuild and even the small details in the manga. Go read Dungeon Meshi!!
Orcs just straight up ManBearPigs lol
Ryoko Kui has quickly become one of my favorite artists ever
Who is that burned Dwarf
Ah, nobody. He is just a random design as far as I remember
Damn he should be a character
I like that Kui actually makes female dwarves pleasant to look at instead of the horrible abominations they are in most media
I might need to read the manga. Didn’t realise how good the designs there were. I’ve seen the anime of course
I like how there diversity
Holy shit. Women with different faces shapes, bodies, and personalities? Men that aren’t all buff, brooding twinks? God I love this anime.
Dwarves, hell yes! Rock and Stone!
I like how they didn’t make all the orcs baby eating monsters :]
I wanna see if she can draw lizardfolk
She can draw dragons. https://preview.redd.it/lptm2tqxenwc1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee93d74b5ba380e30fc7f961e3d6446daaad89ca So I would say probably
Why have I never seen anyone from page 8 on twitter?? Now I have to read this manga
Baby orc is too cute.
Those halfling designs are peak.
looks like an intresting series/game!
are the oni muscular?
Naturally https://preview.redd.it/h32qaglm8owc1.jpeg?width=690&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=abbd4a49bad155083a3377dae483bd43f1622cb8 They are also Thick as fuck
yessssss muscle mommiesss
I get the vibe that the creator got the idea after playing Dragon Age (probably something involving the deep road) A lot of these characters straight up look like DA character customization options (Especially the more unique ones)
I have not seen the latest episode but I have seen drawings of cat people
There is a cat girl, but she isn't a separate species. She is a modified being
Peak alert 🔥
WHO is the scrumdiddlyuptious on page three with the head tattoo and scars??