Now that they’re back in the desert ruins, Kazuhiro and Marie execute a plan to rescue the catlike boy, who we now know is named Mewi (Rico Sasaki). Kazuhiro scouts ahead to locate and rescue Mewi while Marie summons fire spirits to distract and whittle away at the sea serpent Mewi is able to summon with a magic stone. I’m liking how these two essentially have prep time, since they’re able to brainstorm while in Japan. Now that’s what I called overpowered.
I want to say I much prefer the slice of life stuff set in Japan over the fantasy land adventures but I’m still not even halfway through the show and I did enjoy the first adventure with the dragon a fair amount. I guess this particular adventure is simply not clicking for me. To start off, I kind of just don’t care about Mewi. The episode does provide his backstory, revealing the discrimination his people face and the death of his grandfather at the hands of the bandits who kidnapped and enslaved him. It helps but not by much since it’s at the last minute and it’s at such odds with the general tone of the show.
The bigger detriment though is the animation. I feel a little bad about harping on Zero-G’s quality but they’re not known for action sequences and it shows here. All the fighting in this episode feels pretty barebones. I get that action isn’t the big selling point of Ms. Elf! but seeing as it still indulges in it, I don’t think that’s a good enough excuse. On the flipside though, the action is at least a little more interesting this episode. It’s funny how the bandits feel blindsided by this one kid, unaware that Kazuhiro is actually an adult so he’s smart and mature enough to figure out what they’re up to. Also, in an ocean of fantasy anime with overpowered, it’s kind of refreshing that Kazuhiro isn’t like that at all. There’s clear limitations to his abilities, most notably the weight limit on his short-range teleportation skill, which forces him to ditch his sword so that he can teleport Mewi with him.
I appreciate that Marie gets to use her spirit magic in combat. Having fire spirits to distract the serpent while she herself stays hidden with an invisibility spell is a pretty solid plan. What’s kind of weird then is that you see it a couple times and Marie sort of just disappears until after the fight is over. She doesn’t even help Kazuhiro escape with Mewi. You could argue that there just aren’t any spirits for her to work with but that just comes across as contrived and uncreative.
The bandits call it quits when the serpent turns on them. While I’m assuming that’s the last we seem of them, it is stated that the bandits are still at large so it’s entirely possible that they may come back. Mewi makes amends with the serpent by offering up his magic stone. It’s not explained why the serpent would want the stone but this is nevertheless a nice redemption scene in which Mewi makes up for manipulating the serpent to harm others, even if that wasn’t really his fault. The serpent then disappears into the sand; in doing so, an undiscovered labyrinth is revealed to Kazuhiro and Marie. I did enjoy the first bout of dungeon crawling in the show so fingers crossed, the fantasy side of things might pick up with this.
One big bummer is Kazuhiro handing off Mewi to the authorities. I imagine Mewi will show up again and we learn he’s living a better life now but part of me would’ve loved to see Kazuhiro and Marie take care of him for a little bit and maybe even take him to Japan. Seeing as Marie looks the same over there, the same must apply for Mewi and that just sounds like a shenanigan worth exploring.
Watch Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! on Crunchyroll
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