Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf!

Episode 4

There is one neat structural trick that is built right in to the premise of Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf!, which is the way that its protagonists essentially have to go back-and-forth between fun fantasy adventures in the isekai realm and cute slice-of-life adventures in modern Japan. It may not make for the most thrilling pacing, but it does mean that the show switches things up often and likely won't ever have to worry about getting stuck in the ruts of one genre or the other. Besides, the more cutesy slice-of-life stuff we get, the better, because holy hell is this elf adorable.

Let me be clear: I am biased as all hell when it comes to the subject matter of this episode. The opening scene is just Marie giving a cute little kitten some scritches, and it only becomes more laser-focused in its assault on the defenses from there. The crux of the story revolves around Kazuhiro taking Marie to a library to learn about the magic of picture books, but of course she still can barely speak Japanese, much less read it, so he naturally sets up an opportunity to read her some bedtime stories (also about magical cats, I must add). Reading fun stories out loud before bed after eating delicious Japanese food and watching fun old cartoons is literally how I ended up getting married to my beautiful librarian wife, you guys.

Wait, what's that? Marie's weapons-grade kawaii-no-jutsu instantly makes her best friends with Kazuhiro's nice librarian friend? What was I just saying about how susceptible I am to any conceivable media or art that even tangentially features a pretty librarian, y'all!? Come on! I'm pretty sure my Anime Critic License has sort of proviso mandating that I at least put up a pretense of objectivity.

Even the fanservice that this episode indulges in was operating exactly on my wavelength, because it was more funny than it was titillating (although there were plenty of those flopping around all over the place, too). Is it supremely, almost insultingly contrived that an experienced mage from a fantasy world where dragons and other terrifying abominations casually roam the land would be so terrified of a minor Japanese earthquake? Yes. Yes it is. Did I laugh out loud for at least two minutes straight when Kazuhiro responded to Marie's frightened cries of “Shake shake shake!” with a very different “Shake shake shake!” of his own? Also yes.

I am not going to sit here and pretend that Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! ever going to achieve a level of genuine artistry and narrative depth that will make it must-watch television. It can be cute-as-heck when it wants to be, and its leads share great chemistry together whether they are scouring ancient dungeons or engaging in the most chaste of Netflix-and-chill sessions. That's really all you need from a show like this.

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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 Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.