Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!

Episode 7

On the eve of the Black Death unleashing hell on earth in the 1340s, the Great Famine of 1315–22 set the stage for it. To put a long story short (and I seriously can't emphasize enough that this is the condensed version of the story—there's plenty of writing out there that goes into more detail if you're interested), Northern Europe experienced exceptionally heavy rains that cut deeply into their crop yields. In addition to giving humans less to eat, this in turn also meant that their livestock had less to eat as well—so it wasn't just crops, in this way it affected meat as well. In their desperation, people were said to have turned to eating (amongst other things) dirt, pets, horses, and other people. Infanticide, *anthropophagy, and necrophagia are only some of the things you'll encounter if you read further into this dark chapter.

*”Cannibalism” is another word you'll often see in place of this one that you're more likely to be familiar with. But I'm a bit of a pedant, and “cannibalism” can mean anything eating anything of the same species as it, whereas “anthropophagy” refers specifically to humans eating other humans. Also, in the context of humans, sometimes the phrase “cannibalism” has a spiritual or ritualistic subtext, which is extremely not the case here. In this case, this was humans eating humans purely out of desperation.

It's hard to estimate how many deaths were caused directly by the Great Famine—let alone indirectly, especially considering that the Black Death was only going to happen a little over 20 years later. Many people who managed to survive this visit from Famine were doomed to instead be killed by the hands—or rather, the bubos—of Pestilence in due time. There's plenty of asterisk-filled disagreements amongst historians on the matter of the Great Famine's death toll, but it's not unusual to see numbers ranging anywhere from 5–25% of the populations of the affected areas.

I bring this up to illustrate how desperation comes hand-in-hand with famine—a point which is at the heart of this week's episode of MM. We've heard rumblings about a famine that broke out at some point that wasn't too deep in the past, in which at least some (although it sounds like many) people resorted to eating monster meat—something they'd otherwise find unthinkable, whether for spiritual reasons (animism), or practical reasons (if the meat isn't prepared correctly, at best you'll leave with an advanced case of tummy ache-itis). And this week, we finally learned more about it… sort of.

I doubt this anime is going to get into the weeds about specific causes for the famine, but however mysteriously, it happened and it resulted in the king (Aristide's brother) agreeing to make the most of the monsters being slain by Aristide—including, by the looks of it, monster meat to at least some extent. Details are unclear (and again: I'm skeptical the anime is going to go into detail about this), but I… guess the famine somehow ended at some point? Maybe it had something to do with monster meat, maybe it didn't? This is something we, again, haven't heard the details on.

Also unclear is how far this famine stretched out—if this is the same famine that Melphiera mentioned off-hand earlier in the series (but I'm assuming it is), and how long it lasted. By extension of that, it's also still unclear where Melphiera's mother fits into this. We know that the famine happened 17 years ago, but we also don't know if this was something that was, say, one really bad harvest that soon bounced back, or an issue that painstakingly stretched across many years like the Great Famine did.

As though the series is actively trying to make things even more unclear, I'm not sure we've heard specific ages for Melphiera or Aristide. I've assumed Melphiera was meant to be probably no older than her early 20s, given how the series kicked off with all the discourse over her still not being married. We know that Melphiera's mother died when she was young, but not so young that she can't remember her. If I had to guess, Melphiera looks somewhere between ages 7–10 when thinking back to her mother's death. Revisiting episode 5 (where we learned more about Melphiera's mother) it's not specific about whether or not Melphiera's mother died before, during, or after the famine. Revisiting episode 3, Melphiera says that her mother's research saved people during the famine, but that's about it—that still doesn't tell us specifically when she was conducting her research (before or during the famine), nor when she stopped (before, during, or after).

I guess it's possible that Melphiera is considerably older than I'd expect—say, her mid or late 20s. Really, with the available information, it's the only way things make sense. And yet, given anime's general (and strong) preference for younger protagonists (and no mention of her age beyond “boohoo she's not married yet”), I can't help but question whether or not I'm getting the right read on the timeline. Don't get me wrong though: I'd love to see more anime with protagonists in this age range since we don't get as many, so I think it'd be cool if this is indeed the case.

The timeline this anime has built up is, suffice to say, muddy and confusing. And I'd say that's a pretty key part to all this, considering how it seems like this famine was a huge deal and is directly tied to a lot (but not all) of the negative associations people have with monster meat, and by extension of that, Melphiera's mother's research. This is probably the hundredth time I've said this, but only because it's undoubtedly the biggest criticism I have for this show so far: It's overthinking things way too hard. A famine could make for an interesting wrinkle to add to all this, but only if this anime wanted to commit to it. And I'm not sure an only somewhat coherent timeline which also doesn't seem too interested in dwelling on this too much despite how big it could be, would constitute that commitment. I'd love to be wrong, but we're more than halfway into the series now, so I'm not getting my hopes up. And honestly, even if it did decide to elaborate more on this famine, I'm not sure I have the confidence in this series' writing to think that it would do a lot for the series by doing that. At this point, I think its best bet would be to just give us more episodes along the lines of last week's, but ideally with better visuals. More food and cute, fluffy romance, and less, well, everything else.

This anime shines its brightest in episodes like last week's where it's not thinking too hard, and just showing off the main characters bonding over their shared love of unconventional food—which I hope it returns to next week. I don't usually say “the less story, the better” but sadly, I think that's become the case for MM here. I liked it enough at first, but its flavor is one that seems to be getting worse the longer it lingers.

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Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.