Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf!

Episode 12

Maybe it's because I spent a good chunk of this past week planning our long-overdue trip to Japan with a good friend of mine, but this season finale of Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! really hit me hard in the “Come and spend your hard-earned money on food and leisure in the land of the rising sun!” part of my brain. Taking a dip in the hot springs, visiting old castles, taking beautiful pictures of the cherry blossom trees, eating takoyaki with your gorgeous elf lady-friend; that's literally my lifelong dream! My wife even spent the better part of her childhood committing the poems of Tolkein's Mirkwood elves to memory, which means that this show is essentially a prophetic rundown of my personal destiny.

In all seriousness, this was an excellent finale for Ms. Elf, and that is mostly on account of the show doubling down on everything it does well. It's got the cuteness; it's got the chemistry; it's got the comedy; it's got some fun moments with Wridra the cat. Basically, you can take everything nice I said about last week's fun trip to the countryside and apply it to this finale, because it's just as sweet and just as entertaining. Really, if there is any downside at all to how much these last two episodes have focused on the Aomori excursion, it's that the “Dream World” half of the plot has been almost completely brushed to the wayside. That's fine by me, though; we reached a perfectly fine stopping point after the gang beat up Whatshisname a few weeks back.

With more time to focus on the “Real World” part of Ms. Elf, we get all of these wonderful opportunities for character development and mood setting. There are two obvious highlights that come from that, this week, with the first being the big kiss underneath the cherry blossoms. It's about as picture-perfect as you could ask for, which is fitting considering how much time Marie spends in this episode learning about photographs. It's funny: Reviewing this series alongside Blue Box really puts into focus what I'm looking for in my romance anime at this stage in my life. Don't get me wrong, all of the wistful pining in Blue Box is great for fitting into the usual mode of youthful romantic drama, but I can't help but appreciate when a show like Ms. Elf gives us an adorable leading couple and they are allowed to have their first kiss before the heat death of the universe begins to set in.

The other standout moment comes from Marie's bonding with Kazuhiro's grandpa. His knowledge of her elf-ears and the whole “Fantasy World” scenario was already telegraphed last week, but it's incredibly heartwarming to see Marie so overwhelmed with joy at the thought of getting to truly be herself with this nice old man who also happens to be the closest thing her boyfriend has to a dad. We also get more insight into how much Kazuhiro himself has changed for the better since meeting Marie, what with how gloomy and solitary he has been for most of his (waking) life.

In short, even though their adventures together have only just begun, this makes for a pretty darned perfect finale for the first arc of Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf!. As the episode comes to a close, Kazuhiro thinks to himself that his relationship with Marie “may have progressed a little.” All I could think was how, by anime standards, our boy has lapped home plate several times over compared to some of his peers. Congratulations, Kazuhiro. You've met the catch of a lifetime, and you've made it all the way to the “openly holding hands” stage of your relationship after just twelve episodes. At this point, we'll have to expect you and Ms. Elf to be expecting a Kazuhiro Jr. before the credits on Season 2.

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James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.