English Dub Review: Delicious in Dungeon “Ice Golem/Barometz”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Izutsumi proves to be a useful ally despite her lousy table manners—and aversion to eating monsters.  But the crew’s kindness slowly opens her up.

Our Take:

Laios’s crew gained a new member during their second quest to rescue Falin, a cursed beastman girl named Izutsumi.  Izutsumi, previously known as Asebi, was one of Shuro’s party members but decided to join Laios’ party because she believed they knew how to remove her curse.  Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in the previous episode, Izutsumi isn’t the type of person who’s as well-mannered and friendly as her former teammates.  This is further proven in this week’s episode, where Izutsumi’s ungrateful attitude continues to get on people’s nerves, including Chilchuck.  Her pickiness over the monster food doesn’t help much either, as she retaliates against others who refuse to take no for an answer by scratching their faces.

However, despite her short-tempered personality, Izutsumi is surprisingly quite reliable for the group, as her incredible reflexes help the team conquer more of the monsters they encounter.  One of them is the ice golem, powered by the cross frozen in its body, which Chilchuck and Izutsumi destroyed together.  They also come across a pack of dire wolves guarding a sheep-like plant known as a Barometz.  Izutsumi plans to leave the wolves for the group to take care of, but it almost cost her her life when one of the wolves bit her arm.  Thankfully, Marcille was there to assist Izutsumi in a time of need.

I was worried about how the show would handle Izutsumi as a new member of Laios’ party in this episode. Her self-centeredness and picky attitude could make or break the remaining episodes of the season, especially when she’s focused on removing her curse. Luckily, the episode provided enough moments to make her personality tolerable and even amusing. One such moment involves Marcille informing Izutsumi about doing things she doesn’t like to achieve her goals, including eating monster food to survive. Another moment is the flashback depicting Izutsumi remembering her former teammate wanting to be helpful, which could inspire her to do the same for her new friends.  It’s more than enough to make me tolerate Izutsumi’s presence as we make our way towards the season’s conclusion.