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The mangaka has managed to create a pure slice-of-life comedy manga that is exhausting to read, through sheer force of text-shouting and child-chaos. It's impressive in this respect.

There are some standout panels that are very emotive and striking. The child exhibits charming childlike weirdness that is missing from many manga children. And lightly sprinkled throughout, there are moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity.

Yet, for me personally, overall I feel rather lukewarm about it. It's fine. I probably won't continue with it.

This first volume is lighthearted and fun, and funnier than I expected. One particular joke made me laugh out loud even though I was alone.

The portrayal of the one (1) female character among the party of otherwise all men was frustrating; as the only woman, she is therefore the character who is melodramatically disgusted by eating monsters, who is insecure, who is always flagging behind the men and compelling the party to stop for a rest, etc. It's not great.

There is some hope that this might improve in future volumes, maybe, and at least her squeamishness also functions to make her the "relatable everyhuman" character for the reader, whose reactions are likely to be more like hers than like the other characters'.

In a vacuum, I do like her well enough. If the book had more than one female character, and said female characters had as much variety among them as the men, she could potentially be fine as a character. But she's the only one, and her portrayal is so different to the mens' in such a blatantly and stereotypically gendered way, so she just comes off as trope-tastic token girl #3000, at least in this first volume. And this is so heavy-handedly so that it's hard to see her as an individual underneath that.

Regardless, I was able to overlook that aspect to enjoy the manga overall, and I'm intrigued and hopeful about the subsequent volumes. This one is very much episodic - fight monster! Now eat monster! Yum! - which is enjoyable in its own right, but I hear tell that the series does develope some sort of cohesive story later on.

I recommend this for anyone who thinks the premise sounds fun, and especially for cooking and D&D nerds.

Straightforward and predictable, but surprisingly touching. Deals quite directly with grief, too, but in a way that doesn't turn it into a sad story overall. Pleasant absence of the worst of shonen-ai manga tropes, and not too overwhelmed with cooking details either. All wrapped up in a single short volume for a nice change of pace.