I don’t believe Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! is the first reverse isekai anime where an elf girl travels to our world. At the top of my head, Otaku Elf did that beforehand. I suppose that’s isekai for you. There’s so much of it out there that there’s bound to be intersections. That didn’t really stop me from enjoying the premiere of Ms. Elf, however. It looks pretty promising in its own right and coming off of mostly underwhelming isekai and fantasy premieres, getting to this show honestly felt like a breath of fresh air.
Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! begins with salaryman Kazuhiro Kitase (Yūsuke Kobayashi) hitting the hay after a day of work. In his dreams, Kazuhiro is seemingly able to travel to a fantasy land, where he is an adventurer under the alias “Kazuhiho” (a misspelling he accidentally made of his name when he was little). Kazuhiro is good friends with an elven sorcerer named Emilia Mariabelle (Kaede Hondo) or “Marie” for short and the two often go on adventurers together. One day, while exploring a dungeon, Kazuhiro and Marie get cornered by a powerful dragon. Kazuhiro uses himself to shield Marie from the dragon’s fiery breath, as dying in the other world only results in him returning to his world. The following morning, Kazuhiro discovers he can also travel between worlds with anyone he touches as he has accidentally brought Marie along with him.
The premiere isn’t very heavy on plot. That said, I think it does a solid job providing a wholesome experience for the viewer to enjoy. Even the dungeon crawling in the first half of the episode has a pleasant atmosphere to it. Much of Kazuhiro and Marie’s adventure is dedicated to their lunch break. The only potential threat they run into before the dragon is a lizardman and in an amusing bit of misdirection, it’s revealed that Kazuhiro can speak the lizardman’s language and the two of them are actually buddies. Once Marie travels to Japan, the show really cranks up the dial on the wholesomeness. Marie has a lot of cute reactions throughout the second half, particularly when she tries out the food in a restaurant and sees the cherry blossoms around the city. Part of me thinks Marie gets over the shock of being in another world a little too quickly but her excitement over the situation is understandable and a little infectious.
About the only thing in the episode that felt weird is the physical age difference between Kazuhiro’s appearances in the two worlds. While Kazuhiro is 25 years old, he ages slower in the fantasy world so he appears 10 years younger over there. Even if that makes sense, it’d be more straightforward if Kazuhiro simply looks the same in whichever world he’s in. Where this could be a necessary detail is if it affects Kazuhiro’s relationship with Marie. Like, as Marie inevitably falls in love with Kazuhiro and vice versa, will it matter to either of them that Kazuhiro looks older or younger? Chances are, I’m overthinking this and this is just an odd detail the original creator decided to put in for whatever reason.
Watch Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! on Crunchyroll
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