Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf!

Episode 6

If there's one thing you learn as an adult, it's the importance of having friends your age outside of romantic partnership. I am most definitely one of those guys who consider my wife to be my very best friend. I'm not just being sweet when I say that there's genuinely nobody I'd rather spend my time with when I've managed to snag a few precious hours of free time from the greedy claws of Adult Responsibilities. Still, she and I make sure there is time to hang out with other folks we can build friendships with. Unlike high school life, where social time is just a natural byproduct of childhood routine, you have to put in the work to make friends as a grownup. Fun outings, regular hang-out sessions, and even the occasional double date require effort to maintain, but that's just healthy living, right there!

I say all of this because, while you could easily accuse this episode of Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! as “merely” an excuse to have Marie act all wide-eyed and adorable about eating fancy French food, I prefer to see it as the show taking advantage of the fact that its protagonists are real adults (when they're in Japan, at least). Kazuhiro and Marie are for all intents-and-purpose a cohabiting couple, which means that this anime gets the rare privilege of telling the kinds of romance stories that come after all of the pining and confessing is out of the way. Sure, Marie and Kazuhiro haven't technically made things official, but c'mon. They sleep in the same bed every night, go on double dates with Kazuhiro's married friends, share career goals, and co-own a business. They're dating, folks.

I love that! I'm approaching my mid-30s, I've been married for ten years, and it's time that anime caters to my vanilla-as-hell romance kinks, dammit. When an episode boils down to “Our functioning adult couple goes out to a nice restaurant so Marie can make some adult friends that share her interests,” I'm fanning myself like a Minnesota soccer mom who finally got the boys out of the house long enough to dig into one of her latest Spicy BookTok Romantasy Recs (I hope Rebecca Silverman can forgive me for that one). Editor's Note:I'm watching you and your terrible portmanteaux, Beckett.

Could I see the show eventually running out of steam if it returns to the “Marie is just positively dumbstruck by yummy food” well too often? Sure, but today is not that day. I, too, would love to take my missus out to eat a fancy-schmancy French cruise, but I'm working with the salary of a freelance writer and public school educator, so I'll have to settle for vicariously living off of Kazuhiro and Marie's fun times. Plus, it's nice that Kazuhiro's library friend and her husband get to be characters. You don't see a supporting cast like this often in anime. I'm just relishing the opportunity to get attached to cartoons that have lives and emotions that make sense to my crusty old soul.

On the “fantasy” side of things, the only real development outside of a tease for the Dragon Lady's return is that mild conflict of Kazuhiro and Marie needing to level up their party's status to earn more dungeon-delving privileges from the local guilds. It's not interesting, nor does it factor much into this episode at all but I appreciate the way that the show is continuing to balance both halves of Kazuhiro and Marie's life together. If nothing else, we'll likely get a more permanent addition to the cast, which will only be a boon for Ms. Elf, both in regards to the series and the actual Miss Elf, who just wants to join Kazuhiro on more fun expeditions. Maybe our draconian friend will see fit to help our heroes out if she can get her claws on some more yummy bento boxes, eh?

Rating:

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.