3 out of 5

To be clear: this is still one of the most flat-out enjoyable, unique, and intelligent manga I’m reading, or have read. But this was also the first volume where I had to dig out the previous tankobon and review, wondering if I had missed something; Ryoko Kui’s cooking / RPG tale makes some dramatic story leaps herein, and though her art remains very clear, there’s a frequent use of keeping things off frame that takes some getting used to, and at least one instance where it’s incredibly puzzling that someone seems to be in a separate scene and then suddenly they’re in the same scene.

Absolutely a page turner, and filled with the high bar of laughs, action, and suddenly heartfelt moments we’ve come to appreciate. As to the latter, what I especially appreciate about those is how unschmaltzy they are: DiD is grounded by characters who all churn with their own internal logic, so “heartfelt” is relative to that – which is very human, and thus comes across as more sincere than tropey dramaturgy (all of this as translated by Taylor Engel, of course, so that’s either full credit for adding elements that aren’t in the source or – what I’d believe – that Engel is properly representing what’s in Kui’s art and text).

The focus here is surely the direct followup to our new dungeon lord’s actions, but fear not if you’re having trouble tracking that in the first chapter included, as that’s the first of several of the kind of narrative turns I’m talking about – Kui is advancing several storylines all at once, and instead of kind of shuffling between each, she takes each line to an ending point, then wraps back around. But even within that there’re a couple cutaways that can be a little unbalancing.

More charitably, I think this is a type of style that is earned – that is, it trusts the audience – and it’s just a bit of a shock when having a pause between tankobons as an American reader. While I still think some of the actual visual framing can be a bit questionable, rereading the previous book made me more ably appreciate the pace of this volume, so consider the rating relative to my initial experience, as I imagine a binge read would rate it a bit higher.