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 had a doggone good time binging all of Campfire Cooking's first season in just a mere two days, so you can imagine my excitement when it came to watching this new season's first episode. All of the cozy culinary vibes from the previous season are intact here, and even with the introduction of a new character, there's nothing that this episode does that moves the needle in a whole new direction. And it's all the better for it.

First, the characters. Mukohda, as your typical isekai protagonist, doesn't have a lot of personality outside of being a good cook. Normally, I'd say this is bad character writing, and it doesn't help that he dons the same black hair and green clothing I've seen from so many other isekai protagonists. None of this matters thanks to the delectable meals he cooks (seriously, I want to DEVOUR those spring rolls) and the bond he shares with the great wolf Fenrir, who is less of a majestic, legendary beast and more like a big ol' woofer who begs for treats. I'm sure I'm not the first to point this out, but it's a still gag I never get tired of, and it's satisfying to see another iteration of it pulled right out of the gate.

The episode's opening moments quickly reintroduce Mukohda and Fel, and they argue about food in a way that feels like an old married couple would. Fel not only begs for his food as usual, but now he complains about how Mukohda doesn't treat him like the legendary beast he is. It's so funny to see Fel have an ego like that--he might have the strength of a divine wolf, but at heart, he's still a puppy ever so reliant on his master to throw him a bone. Of course, Fel has to have a foodgasm every time he noms down on a big bowl of food, and honestly? Relatable.

Sui, the adorable slime, is there too, and while they're not given much to do this time around, they're not lingering in the background to rack up moe points either. A petite, wiseacre of a dragon, Mukohda christens Dora-chan, makes his entrance here, and while he wasn't given the grandest entrance ever, I'm still looking forward to seeing how he jives with this isekai posse. The plot of this episode was pretty standard. The gang slices up some tarantulas in the woods, they go cooking, and then they go off to a town market. That is fine by me. I appreciate how the corpse of the earth dragon from last season is pulled out of Mukohda's item inventory for continuity's sake, as I did the idea of turning all of the slain tarantulas into raw meat for cooking.

Granted, eating arachnids is very much not my forte, but in this post-Haachama world, I guess anything is possible (IYKYK). The post-credits sketch involving the world's goddesses is the weakest part of the episode, since it is just this show's take on Kaonosuba's Aqua. I don't have a lot of room to complain, though, since it doesn't interrupt the comedic flow of the episode. Overall, I'm very excited for this series' cour to officially end so I can once again feast on Campfire Cooking's second season like a delectable three-course meal I've been starving for.

This episode felt like a downgrade compared to the last episode. Most of it plays out the same old song and dance: Mukohda, Fel, Sui, and Dora-chan arrive in town for something to do, they cook and eat delicious food together, and then the goddesses intervene at the episode's end in exchange for some more sustenance. In between these events are plot points that have potential, but end up being more filler-y than the cream found in an Oreo.

Dora-chan was introduced in the last episode, only to linger in the background in this episode. It's almost like he's barely there, which is a shame considering how he's still a relatively new character and his personality isn't quite fleshed out yet. I suppose it's hard to flesh out one character when you've got a new elf character, Elrand, making an entrance, although I'm sure there's a more delicate way of juggling these two things, especially when Elrand has an eccentric fascination for dragons.

Speaking of dragons, Mukohda finally pulls the entire Earth Dragon out of his Item Box for this episode. Great, so will it finally be put to some good use? Well, yes. And no. Elrand gets very, very excited upon seeing the Earth Dragon in all of its mastodonian glory, but can't seem to cut into it with his mithril knife. It feels like a bit of a tease to whip out this monstrosity only to not really use it. Maybe it'll be used in another episode. For now, it feels like it's just kicking the can down the road.

There's also a dungeon that the squad is supposed to explore. For a guy who ain't exactly jumping up and down from his seat in anticipation of the obligatory dungeon crawl episode found in so many fantasy anime, I was surprised at how I was looking forward to this one. But once again, that concept is tossed aside to make room for other hijinks. There are not one but two cooking segments in this episode. The food still looks as good as ever, although I felt like having only one would have been enough. The same gag from season one of Mukohda and Fel being stopped by puzzled guards outside of the city appears here in this episode, and it feels lazy. Even the blocking and framing look the same. The potential dungeon crawl is pushed to the side again by the bit involving our useless goddesses. Just before I could roll my eyes a mere forty-five degrees, the anime introduces two manly gods to bless Sui, Fel, and Dora-chan with some new upgrades and abilities. Could this have been done at the beginning of the next episode and not the end of this one? Maybe. Still, it was a nice change of pace, to say the least.

Writing this piece makes me sound like I disliked this episode. I didn't. It's not like I expected something plot-heavy; after all, this is only the second episode in what is probably one of the least confrontational anime of the season. There's still enough cozy fun to nom on, and I'm sure it will lead to something. But like with a dish that even Fel is initially skeptical about, I just wish there was a little bit more meat here.

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.

Campfire Cooking's second course of the season serves up a plate of delayed gratification… at least for poor, hungry Fels who can't wait to sink his fangs into a mountain of moist, dripping Earth Dragon meat. Sadly, he's foiled at every turn as not even the worryingly enthusiastic guildmaster Elrand can cut through the dragon's tough, scaly hide, his precious, shiny mithril knife snapping cleanly in two.

Elrand is one of those flamboyantly irritating side characters with one main personality trait: orgasmic obsession. He grunts and groans with barely restrained excitement at the thought of vivisecting a dragon, after spending hundreds of years studying them from textbooks of dubious veracity. His attempts to woo pixie dragon Dora-chan fall completely flat, the diminutive fantasy reptile utterly repulsed by this squealing weirdo. Elrand is like if the worst aspects of Dungeon Meshi's Laios and Marcille were mashed together in unholy bodily communion, The Fly-style. The characters find him irritating and uncomfortable to be around, and so do I.

Thankfully, while Elrand fails to flay the dragon corpse, Mukohda and his menagerie of familiars chill out by cooking more magical food from an online convenience store. Both main dishes look delicious as usual. I've got to try one of those Genghis Khan wok things myself. It's quite funny that although Fels, Dora-chan, and Sui (who, adorably, wants to go “pew pew pew”) are all desperate to crush some monsters in the city's dungeon, Mukohda can distract them all with food. The main reason they entered familiar contracts with him was to fill their various-sized bellies, after all.

We see a bit more of the deities following Mukohda's exploits, including two new male gods whose blessings are sure to facilitate yet more chaos for our intrepid itinerant chef further down the line. With a new blacksmithing skill, Sui can now spit out deadly, powerful blades, making him an all-round adorable little multi-skilled murder-blob, while increasing Fel's aggression and martial strength by 50% sounds like a terrifying prospect. Even at the end of all this, Fels is no closer to a full belly of dragon meat, and I feel a little of his impatience, even if this isn't the kind of show in which rapid plot progression should be expected. It's meant to be relaxing and low-stakes. I kind of wish we hadn't spent so long with the creepy Elran,d though, and I worry he'll slither back to ejaculate suspicious noises all through next week's episode too.

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