So far almost all the screen time has been spent with our main quartet, Laios, Chilchuck, Marcille and Senshi.
We met some orcs, and Kabru's party has had two short minisodes. Farlin has also been around in flashbacks. But aside from that, the cast is still quite small.
The OP teases that the eventual character count will rise well past two dozen, but I though it might be fun to facilitate some discussions based on what we've seen of the main group so far, before the next episode introduces several more significant members of the cast.
Hard to say because I like the cast as a whole. Even the side characters.
But if I had to pick one, I guess that it would be Marcille. Book-smart without a shred of practicality, willing to learn and bend her preconceptions, I can get why Falyn took a liking of her.
Truly one of the big reasons I adore the story so much. Not a single character is a miss, every single one has some thought put in, so they feel like there's more to them than whatever we see on-screen.
Marcy is my favorite as well, but the difference between her and the entire remaining cast is not large.
In so many series you groan when screen time is wasted on characters you don't care about, but Dungeon Meshi could spend a full episode on any one of its characters and I would feel no need to complain.
I fully agree with that. For plenty series there's always that feeling, that the writers barely thought about the characters; sometimes the main cast, sometimes the support. Dungeon Meshi though? Sometimes I get the feeling that the Ryoko Kui spends a whole night writing a character, then at sunrise she holds her head and say "I can't add all of this to the manga! It's too much detail! Wait I didn't decide the colour of his cousin's childhood puppy yet."