The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2

Transported to another world, Japanese man Mukohda uses his magical “online shopping” skill, plus a seemingly bottomless magical inventory, to make all sorts of amazing food as he travels. He's joined on his travels by a group of intelligent animal familiars who love his cooking.

Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2 is based on a light novel series by Ren Eguchi and Masa. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

I'm not always the biggest fan of the isekai genre. In general, most entries bore me to tears, so it takes something special to make me sit up and take notice. In Campfire Cooking's case, it's MAPPA's inhuman ability to make every morsel of featured food look so damned appetising. In this episode, protagonist Mukohda whips up some grilled Venom Tarantula legs that are basically just like big lumps of crab meat. Now, I don't even like crustaceans or shellfish, but somehow MAPPA made even these fantasy abominations look delicious. Clearly, it's some kind of black magic.

Mukohda has one of those overpowered “cheat skills” we often see in modern isekai. In a way, his “online shopping skill” isn't that different from Reborn as a Vending Machine's Boxxo's abilities, except he doesn't need to transmogrify into various cuboidal appliances to summon suspiciously modern Japanese condiments. It's probably best not to question the logic of such plot contrivances, but I do wonder what a viewer entirely alien to the increasingly granular and obscure isekai genre might make of all this.

Campfire Cooking's other main strength is its slightly loopy magical familiar characters. Since arriving in this fantasy world, Mukohda's been gradually adding to his group of hangers-on/hungry pets. Fenrir/Fels is an enormous dire wolf with an appetite to match. Squishy slime blob Sui is adorable and worryingly omnivorous. Now, he has a third familiar in the form of tiny pixie dragon “Dora-chan”, who has been following our travellers around for a while, desperate for a taste of Mukohda's fragrant cooking. Dora-chan can't stand his new name, and I can't blame him. Mukohda's cooking skills vastly outclass his imagination.

This is a wonderfully cosy, low-stakes show, a fantasy travelogue and cooking showcase all in one comfy, colorful package. There's minimal drama, but plenty of gentle chuckles and intricate food porn. I'm surprised, yet very glad to welcome a second season, and so far it's off to a decent start. While it may not be to everyone's tastes, I'll lap up each subsequent episode with relish.