Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2

Episode 11

There's been a lot of traveling on this show, hasn't there been? We've traversed through forests, dungeons, deserts that are inside of dungeons, and town after town after town. I'm amazed that it took the series this long to hit the beach. They say good things come to those who wait, and that's more than true with the penultimate episode of Campfire Cooking's second season.

This episode has all of the makings of a fun beach episode. The town Muhkoda, Fel, Sui, and Dora-chan enter looks like a cozy Mediterranean seaside resort town, and I really enjoy the house the gang stays in. It's a very fancy manor, even bigger and more elegant than the one from the previous few episodes, complete with a picturesque view of an elegant sunset touching down on the vast sea. Surprisingly, the gang didn't encounter any skeptical guards entering the town as they had previously. It's hopefully a sign that Campfire Cooking understands that the gag has run its course.

And yet, this is not your typical beach episode, because there's a giant kraken to fight. That means only one thing: calamari is on the menu! Even better is how the episode doesn't take too long to get to the fight. The gang stops in the new town, and they cook a delicious rice and meat meal. Instead of continuing to build things up from there and saving the fight for the very end, the kraken fight starts almost midway through the episode. And the gang has to fight it out at sea instead of the beach, using Sui's newfound power of gigantizing himself into the size of a boat for Muhkoda and Fel to surf on (Dora-chan being airborne obviously doesn't need this). Unexpectedly, the gang has to fight a couple of other sea monsters too, and of course they fell these leviathans very easily in a succession of one-hit KOs. It's a three-phase boss fight out at sea that has Sui landing the finishing blow, and it boasts animation that is about as good, if not better, than the boss fight down in the dungeon a few episodes ago. Predictable as it is, I was still hyped to see it all unfold.

Since this is a giant kraken we're talking about, its huge body can make enough food for the entire seatown to enjoy. I was half-expecting it to be fried based on personal preference alone — fried calamari with marinara will forever be the undefeated heavyweight champion of seafood appetizers in my book. But I forgot that Muhkoda is a grilling man now. I didn't really fry too many things before (although some of Campfire Cooking's denizens do recall Muhkoda's tasty chicken karaage towards the end of the episode). Still, I can't deny that having grilled kraken is the real way to go. And with some lemon garnish and cocktail sauce on the side, plus some tasty beer to go with it? Now that's amore, my friends.

Once more, we get an episode of Campfire Cooking that gives us the usual cozy and culinary flair we've grown accustomed to, with a dash of spicy action on the side. As for me, my foodie kick is as strong as ever, so I'd like to end this review with something that has become my favorite obsession this past year: the YouTube channel Devour Power TV, which features an adorable couple from New York City checking out some of the best munch spots the Big Apple and other cities have to offer. There's this recent video where they check out some fried fish dishes, and holy smoke, somebody needs to give me, like, 20 of these right now.

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Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.