>>281921807
>How come some anonymous japanese woman has better sense of lore building, better character and story writing, better jokes, better concept and better art than 99% of the people working in the industry today?

I obviously can't speak for every anonymous Japanese woman, but Ryoko Kui has a strong appreciation for the aesthetic behind how people live, how things are made, and the mundanity that would still exist within fantasy. Before she did Dungeon Meshi she had already put together 3 short story anthologies that were all fantasy hypotheticals: Terrarium in Drawer, The Dragon's School is on Top of the Mountain, The Works of Ryoko Kui: Seven Little Sons of the Dragon, they're all great and you can read them on MangaDex.

She's also a "huge casual" fan of PC western rpgs: >>281921934 >>281924276 She doesn't play a lot of games, but she consumes a ton of second-hand content: Dwarf Fortress, Wizardry, Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, most Japanese fans of fantasy exposure to the genre tend to begin and end with Dragon Quest or mmorpgs. At the start of the series Dungeon Meshi was a lot more referential to pop-media, but over time when she got comfortable, she started using more material from folklore.