The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!

Melphiera is an earl's daughter who's shunned by most of the nobility, thanks to rumors about her proclivity for monster-based cuisine. When she attends a party in hopes of finding someone to wed, she's attacked by a vicious monster—only to be saved by Aristide of Galbraith, feared as the "Blood-Mad Duke." He begins to take a liking to Melphiera…and before long, he's even interested in the "hobby" she never dared to tell anyone else.

Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! is based on the light novel series by author Kanata Hoshi and illustrator Peperon. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

I promise I'm not projecting, but it's very sweet watching a show about a couple coming together with a particular hyper-fixation. Cooking anime can be fun because it can also serve as a good introduction to the art of cooking itself. I found that anime can make the most mundane tasks very interesting. However, Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! came and said, “What if we swap out that potential relatability for the sake of going in a more quirky direction?” Instead of preparing regular dishes that you could do in your own kitchen, we're preparing meals using monsters as the main ingredients.

I wish this episode had delved a bit deeper into the specifics of preparing many of these meals. The premiere focused on the reactions to people eating the meals and discussing how they need to be cautious with the meat, rather than focusing on how they can actually be made. I do hope that's something the rest of the show does, because that feels like a missed opportunity—crafting unique cuisines and using unorthodox ingredients. However, I understand why the premiere took this approach because this isn't a standard cooking anime, but a romance at its core.

I was surprised at how much I bought the romance between our monster-eater Melphiera and Duke Aristide in this episode. I understand why people might feel put off by a girl prepping ingredients that should be dangerous. It reminds me a lot of when I would come across people who were afraid to try exotic foods because of what they heard was in them. Sometimes that caution can be understandable, but people are also, unfortunately, just that shallow. That makes it all the more rewarding when she comes across someone who takes a genuine interest in what she is doing. You can tell that this knight is very weird and quirky in his own way, which is nice. He's not just eye candy for the sake of it, but a similar odd personality that she can bounce off well with. Even if we don't get a lot of insight into the cooking angle of the show, if we continue to explore this romance thoroughly, I think I'll be more than satisfied.

So, remember what I said about “artless shoujo adaptations” in my review of A Star Brighter Than the Sun? It's only been an hour (let's pretend that I'm writing this right after the show went up), but here we have a perfect example of what I meant. Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! has a remarkably sauceless production, with mediocre animation and directing that betrays the director's barely extant resume. However, the meat of it may just be flavorful and abundant enough to make up for that.

It's always a matter for concern when an anime that's supposedly about food doesn't know how to animate people eating, and it became clear almost immediately that was what was happening here. In the opening scenes, Melphie is enjoying her lunch on a bench when a gentleman stops and asks for a bite (rude!). She very graciously offers him a bite, and he holds it up to his face while opening and closing his mouth. It kind of looks like what you do when a toddler hands you a lump of playdough and says it's a cupcake. Melphie chomps into her sandwich from the side. There are plenty of other instances of awkward, crappy, off-model animation where everything looks like it's being lit from all directions instead of using proper shading, but if you can't nail the eating animation in a show about food, what are you even doing?

There are other bits of weirdness, too, that speak to a story that wasn't sufficiently thought through from the start. If Melphie is a highborn lady, shouldn't it be her parents' responsibility to find her a fiancé? Why does she call what appears to be a military camp a “splendid pavilion,” and why is it so close to a matchmaking fete for members of the nobility? Is that guy's name really straight-up just “Chaos”?

But damn, do Melphie and Aristide, whom I have nicknamed Artie, have a rare chemistry. I could really feel their connection; when he shows curiosity for her monster-eating instead of judgment, the way she lights up is outright heart-warming. Too often in romances, I feel like the main couple has nothing in common, and once all the drama passes, they won't have anything to talk about or ways to spend time together. But already the two are connecting over something real and tangible. There's also a charming carnal element to their sense of mutual attraction; let's just say that when Artie takes off his shirt, monsters aren't the only meat Melphie has eyes for.

At risk of flagellating the metaphor past the point of meaninglessness: when the meat has this much sweetness and spice, who needs sauce? (Sweet, spicy meat? What are you even talking about, Caitlin?)