Many gamers relax with their favorite dungeon crawler after a long day at the office. But what if a dungeon is your office building? That’s the premise behind the new summer anime Dungeon People (Dungeon no Naka no Hito), a relaxing slice-of-life story about the people who make the dungeons work. The character designs (Hiromi Nakayama from Odd Taxi) and art direction (Kenji Katou from My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer) match the fluffy mood of watching an office setting, except it’s behind the walls of a labyrinth and coworkers are golems and monsters. And the dungeon’s Final Boss is, literally, the dungeon’s boss!
Besides the chill atmosphere, why should you watch the Dungeon People manga adaptation from studio OLM? Read on for more reasons.
Dungeon People Are Adorable
I mentioned above that the character designs match the fluffy mood. In addition to fitting within the slice-of-life and healing anime genres, Dungeon People is a cute-girls-do-cute-things anime. Lead cast members Clay (Sayaka Senbongi, Marcille Donato from Delicious in Dungeon) and Belle (Sayumi Suzushiro, Ami Tsuruga from The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses) are young women becoming friendly toward each other as they perform the daily tasks of refilling dungeon chests, resetting traps, and replacing monsters after adventurers dispatch them.
Belle, who adventurers face in the deepest dungeon level as the Final Boss, has had nothing to do because no one has made it past the lower floors. But a floor boss accidentally damaged a wall as he fought Clay, a high-level Thief Class, letting the dungeon’s secrets out. Belle immediately recruited Clay to work for her!
Clay meets the other dungeon people, realizing that monsters can talk, golems appreciate hard work, and other adventurers work behind the scenes to keep a dungeon in working order. The lonely Belle would love to have Clay as her friend after work, but Clay would prefer to keep things professional. Good policy!
Dungeon People Maintain Essential Infrastructure
Adventuring is a pillar of a fantasy world’s economy. Instead of the marketplace, blacksmith, or farm, an adventurer’s workplace is in the wilderness or a dungeon. In the Dungeon People setting, dungeons recruit administrators from former adventurers and guild masters. Clay is a thief, and Belle tells her the dungeon’s former boss was the Master of the Thieves Guild. There’s so much that happens behind the scenes that regular adventurers have no idea. Clay will learn how monsters respawn, how dungeons’ layouts periodically change, and how the dungeon economy works. Dungeon People is the cuter counterpart to Spice and Wolf if you like fluffy world-building from a civil engineering perspective.
A Family Mystery Will Drive the Plot
Clay’s father, Brance (Akio Ootsuka, Batou from Ghost in the Shell), was a master thief who disappeared in the same dungeon his daughter explored. Clay aims to find out what happened to him three years ago. After she discovers the dungeon administrator and employees, Clay realizes Belle should have answers. Is that true? Clay tested the Final Boss to see if Belle could defeat her father. She thinks, “Yes.” But was Belle the dungeon boss three years ago? And do other dungeons operate like this one? Answers will slowly come during the summer season for Dungeon People.
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Thank you for reading this post about cute girls doing dungeon things. Dungeon People streams on Hidive in Japanese audio and multiple language subtitles. What do you think? Does a relaxing dungeon crawl look like it’s for you? Let us know in the comments below.
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