Any adventuring party is only as good as its members, and the main party of Delicious in Dungeon, both the manga by Ryōko Kui and the Studio Trigger adaptation simulcasting on Netflix, is no exception. There’s the awkward leader, Laios, a human fighter; prickly lockpick Chilchuck, a half-foot rogue; the picky Marcille, an elven mage; and Senshi, a hermetic chef and a dwarven fighter.
With these four leads to choose from, fans have decided that Senshi is the sex symbol of Delicious in Dungeon, and honestly, I can’t say they’re wrong.
Delicious in Dungeon follows the party’s adventures in a seemingly infinite subterranean dungeon full of monsters as they travel toward one goal: reaching and defeating the great red dragon fast enough to rescue Laios’ sister from its belly before she is digested. The hitch is that Laios, Marcille, and Chilchuck are too cash-poor to buy supplies, and so resort to cooking and eating monsters.
Almost immediately after resolving to cook their first dungeon meal, the three run into a dwarven warrior named Senshi, who just happens to be an accomplished dungeon chef. His ax may be dull and dinged, but his mithril chef’s knife is expertly honed, his shield is actually a large wok, and he’s eager to share everything he knows about cooking, eating, and even farming in the dungeon.
How do we get from the slightly oblivious cooking Senshi to the swoon-worthy sexy Senshi? The origin can probably be traced back to how the Delicious in Dungeon manga itself invites the reader to… consider Senshi’s anatomy in a way that it doesn’t for the other members of the party. Senshi is dressed in a not atypical way for a pulp fantasy warrior: a leather breastplate trimmed with fur and fortified with metal plates, which combines mobility with protection by including a leather skirt reaching the knees, and, below the knees, sandals and metal greaves.
What’s less typical in Senshi’s mode of dress is how often we get to see the loincloth (another pulp fantasy staple!) under that armor skirt. At this point, every Delicious in Dungeon fan is familiar with the Senshi Upskirt.
Senshi’s copious panty shots are a staple of the manga, and one that Studio Trigger appears to have considered vital to its adaptation, even to the point of adding views of Senshi’s crotch to scenes where he was originally more covered.
There’s more to Senshi than how lovingly his package is drawn, and fans are appreciative of that as well. Senshi is really enthusiastic about bread, and environmentally conscious in his golem farming (cleaning the dungeon’s latrines for fertilizer). He’s stuck in his ways but open to learning new things — like rudimentary trap manipulation from Chilchuck and soap-making from Marcille. And he shows a history of respectful cross-species communication in his relationship with the dungeon’s otherwise despised orc inhabitants.
Overall, he’s kind and steadfast, he’s a great cook, and he frequently counsels his companions on the importance of eating balanced meals. To some fans, Senshi has become the voice in their heads that reminds them to eat right even when they don’t feel like it.
And when considering Senshi’s appeal, the way Ryōko Kui draws him in pinups and moments of serious emotion shouldn’t be ignored either.
This is not a funny little guy, this is a whole-ass man — or, er, dwarf. It takes a true cartoonist’s eye to keep a character recognizable no matter the level of detail, and to use the right level of detail for the right moment.
Truly, Senshi’s sex appeal is Delicious in Dungeon in a microcosm. A story can be a comedic cooking manga, and a horror-fantasy epic about consumption and being consumed, at the same time. Sharing a home-cooked meal with friends can be a necessary work of bodily maintenance and a profound act of mutual care. A dungeon can be a dangerous realm of aggressive horrors and a thriving, beautiful ecosystem. Flesh can be the delicious fuel of our lives, the raw materials of necromancy, and the very bodies of our most beloved family and friends. We all contain both the mundane and the sublime.
And Senshi can be a hairy little weirdo who keeps getting knocked over so that his panties are on display for the whole world, and a well-hung cooking daddy with an expertly coiffed beard at the same time.
