Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill

Episode 9

Alright, y'all, I think we've officially hit the point where I'm starting to lose patience with Campfire Cooking's whole shtick. I get that this is maybe more of a me issue, since it isn't like the show has drastically changed its approach to depicting Mukohda and Co.'s very laid back adventures. The gang is still cooking some cheap but delicious food as they navigate the RPG-styled scenarios of this world. Even when you take into account the very low bar of expectations for “stuff happening” in a show like this, though, “Hunting Quests Are All about Meat and Money” still feels like filler.

To the show's credit, it isn't like there's nothing of value to appreciate this week. The animators are certainly flexing during the cooking sequences, and the food looks as tasty as ever. There's also plenty of cute material for Fel and Sui; I was especially fond of when Sui used her goopy little nubs to help shred the banbanji chicken.

I'm not going to lie, though: I struggled to get through this episode without giving in to the constant temptation to check my phone, or even answer some work emails. The biggest problem with this whole episode is that pretty much every single scene is just a variation of stuff we've already seen before. The first half of the episode basically comes down to “We get even more confirmation that Fel is good at killing rare monsters, and Mukohda makes more money from the guild”, so unless you're really invested in seeing Mukohda get a free boost up to C-Rank, there's nothing much at all to say about it.

Even the cooking feels like it's falling back onto stale material, since Mukohda just ends up making karaage and tonkotsu again in the back half. Sure, those are both good foods, but the whole point of a cooking show is to see new, novel recipes get made, right? I'm not crazy for thinking that Campfire Cooking got a little lazy this week, am I?

Okay, fine, we did technically get one new-ish diversion: Instead of shopping with his magical Legally-Distinct-from-Amazon-But-Still-Totally-Amazon powers, Mukohda goes shopping in meat space instead. For, like, clothes and stuff. This could just be the leftover trauma of my being stuck with my father while he spent hours scouring our local Sears and JCPennys when I was younger, but I am not inclined to spend a full ten minutes with Mukohda and Lambert while they discuss the merits of different bags and shoes.

We get a glimpse of the new goddesses in the post-credits scene, which is…something? Yeah, I don't know, I'm running on empty here. Hopefully we'll at least get some new recipes next time. It'd be a shame for the season to end on a low note.

Rating:

Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.