Dungeon Meshi Settei

There’s just something extremely touching about watching Izutsumi work through a wide range of emotions when she sees Marcille cry for the first time.

She’s sleeping on Marcille’s lap when it happens—something she hadn’t willingly done since her human consciousness was subdued in the Golden Country.

Izutsumi was initially very embarrassed when she remembered showing Marcille such unbridled affection when her monster (cat) side had full control in Melini. But now, shortly after, she did it again without any fuss, seemingly over this embarrassment.

But when she notices Marcille crying—not crying expressive tears over a situation with low stakes, but tears of real sorrow and loss—Izutsumi physically recoils.

She reacts with the childlike fear and panic that one feels when someone they heavily rely on and trust (like a parent or teacher) shows vulnerability, doubt, or weakness. She lashes out, trying to use words of reproach to get Marcille to stop crying. Or, in childlike terms, to try to force Marcille’s pain go away.

When that doesn’t work, we see her physically struggle as she tries to sit by and wait it out. But Izutsumi can’t do it.

Marcille’s pain causes her so much intense distress that Izutsumi immediately offers physical affection as a response—something she has not done for anyone up to this point.

When Senshi told the party about his traumatic backstory, Izutsumi did not touch him. She did support him, tried to offer words of comfort, but she did not embrace him like the others did. Maybe she didn’t know how; maybe she didn’t have a proper example on what comforting someone looked like. But she saw all three of them reach for Senshi, she saw them hold him in their arms, and anchor him as he cried.

This is the first time another party member has cried out of sadness since that moment. It’s possible that she saw how the others helped Senshi, and maybe, subconsciously, she saw that it worked. That it made him feel better.

She is clearly unused to it, and has her own rollercoaster of emotions as Marcille gratefully accepts the comfort Izutsumi is offering her. But it helps. It helps Marcille immediately, and Izutsumi knows this.

These acts of vulnerability are foreign to her, and thus make her feel uncomfortable, but she lets Marcille lean on her afterwards anyway. She wanted Marcille to be okay, wanted it so badly, that she accidentally overcame an emotional obstacle she never even knew she had.

Having a Laios moment but thinking about the implications of Izutsumi. Do you think she could squeeze into impossibly smaller cracks? Like how cats can? And I wonder what her flexibility is compared to other tall men. lol I’m just imagining her forcing her way through the underside of a door

From how she moves I think she has above average flexibility for a tallman, I think possibly she works like a cat (if the head passes the rest of the body can too)

Speaking of cats the way they flip in the air is really interesting!

"The photos revealed that the cats turn over by twisting around the middle and rotating the front and back halves separately. By controlling the amount each part turns, they’re able achieve a net rotation while still keeping their total angular momentum constant."

Is this what Izutsumi is doing here? Her front does rotate first and is followed by her legs <3 (thought she wasn't upside down she fixes her position midair very well)

also look at this gif from wikipedia

Chimera Izutsumi 🐈‍⬛

IZUTSUMI IS HERE!! THE KIBBY IS REAL!!

Commented this in a youtube video but I wanna share it here cause more people should hear it, actually. (also op of the video was really nice about it once I pointed it out so wanna share it w more people)

"I’m actually really sad about your take on Izutsumi’s ‘picky eating’ esp after the praise for how Laios’s autism was handled. It was honestly so refreshing, when it's so often dismissed as childish, to see Izutsumi get treated with respect for it and have it accommodated as best they could. So often these things are glossed over in shows, and for a bit I thought our only take on it would be Marcilles cultural food hangups which would be treated as a flaw to be overcome. So seeing Izutsumi, and that the story would actually address this topic for once was… amazing, if scary as idk how it’ll be handled fully yet. I have a lot of difficulties with food from a lot of underlying mental health issues, most other ‘picky eaters’ do too (I’m sure Izutsumi with her cat nose and tongue and many on the spectrum can relate to the sensory hell certain foods can be, as one example). It's always been a huge source of shame and serious difficulty in my life, particularly because so many people view it the way you do in this review. With ridicule and seeing it as unreasonable, as just choosing to be difficult. But asking me or Izutsumi to “just get over it” because it's not convenient right now is every bit as unreasonable as asking Laios to “just take the hint/read the room”. It's just this behavior is from a disorder you don’t respect.

Sure yes it causes problems! Of course it would, disabilities do that! But honestly, as an anime only, I deeply hope that while Izutsumi becomes less selfish, she DOESN’T stop being a picky eater. That those two things are decoupled from one another! I am so sick of seeing it portrayed as some character flaw people just have to get over whenever it actually comes up. Having someone who doesn’t stop being a 'picky eater' but still has a healthy and respected relationship with food, in a show so focused on the philosophy and morality of food, would be amazing. I don't know if that's how the story will take it, but I hope it does. I'd be really sad to see it treated as a childish flaw here.

All this to say: seeing Izutsumi treated with respect for what food she can and can't eat, and through being treated with respect starting to work with Senshi and doing what she could to compromise, was every bit as therapeutic for me as the Laios/Shuro fight was for those on the spectrum. And I just wish people would treat that with a bit more respect and understanding."

What’s the difference between a dog and a wolf?

Sometimes I like to imagine Izutsumi sounds like me-mow from adventure time

"I'd never use it/its for someone else even if they wanted me to, it sounds like I'm saying they're not Human"

average it/its pronoun user:

Maybe its because I'm bitter or because I just left a fandom that reduced one of the main characters to a one off joke when the POINT is that they're complex but I hate how this fandom treats Izutsumi.

I hate how some people who interacted with the fandom before watching the anime thought that she didn't even speak because EVERYONE just draws her as a cute stupid cat whose personality is just being a cat

Again, maybe I'm just bitter, but I hate how the most common joke is the "Izutsumi: izutsumi" cause apparently no one can be bothered to actually consider her thoughts and feelings and personality.

Like yeah I'm not saying it can't be funny but it quickly becomes tiring when she's reduced to just that

Especially when her entire arc is about finding her identity as a person and as part of a community, finding a balance between her human and cat souls because she's both but also neither. Especially when canonically she's ashamed of the one time she behaved like just a silly little cat (golden kingdom)

rattles these two around in my head