Episode 8 – Otaku Elf

I guess we can presume that Otaku Elf takes place in an alternate reality where seemingly all the enshrined local deities in Japan are reverse-isekai’d elves. It’s amusing enough as a pretense for rotating in a regular selection of funny guest stars to bounce off our main characters, although it does make me question the historical elements in all of this. The edutainment asides in the show still playoff real-world accurate history and culture, with little-to-no influence from the fact that fancy fantasy ladies were being summoned left and right across the country’s shrines. It’s not the biggest deal in a light, fluffy show like this, but something I still can’t help thinking about.

Not that my mind needed to wander during this week’s episode, because, to be sure, this was a fine, fun little episode. As I alluded to, we are introduced to another new elf/miko pair, Haira, Uramimi’s deity, and Isuzu, the Instagram idol. There’s initially some mild-seeming antagonism between Elda and Haira, alongside the brief tease that they might be sisters, but it eventually settles into something else: Elda and Koito might have a more functional working relationship than they thought! Haira might put on the airs of being the high-effort opposite of Elda, someone who doesn’t even need her miko tagging along with her at first. But in true subversive comedy fashion, it quickly emerges that she’s just as much a disaster as our resident Otaku Elf, just in a different and potentially far more destructive manner, thanks to outlandish gambling addiction.

I can take exaggerated depictions of unhealthy behavior for comedy purposes in my shows. You can scroll my Twitter feed and see how much of a fan I am of funny and cool alcoholic bassist Kikuri Hiroi from Bocchi the Rock! So I’m fine taking Haira’s crippling gambling compulsion as a comic bit in this context, even as the writing makes clear between her behavior and Isuzu having to deal with it—what a nightmare it would be in a real-life context. It also makes for an entertaining swerve into showing that. While their presence might be comforting for the people of their shrines’ regions, putting these elves up on reverent pedestals might not be the best idea. This would, presumably, be the purpose of the mikos’ closeness to them.

That’s the angle that this episode of Otaku Elf uses to arrive at codifying Elda and Koito’s relationship through the context of Haira and Isuzu’s. It’s been remarked on by other characters before, but despite their barbs, our central Takamimi duo are rather in-sync, as we see them immediately and wordlessly start working together to diffuse the tense situation brewing between Haira and Isuzu. As comes out in Isuzu’s later interactions with Koito, much of the demonstrative disparity here seems to come from Isuzu, despite her willingness to scold her charge, still harboring some strong idolization for her particular elf. Her origin story is similar to Koito’s early imprinting on Elda before she learned what her elf was actually like, and Isuzu even keeps a collection of valued photo prints of Haira! Koito, comparatively, treats Elda more generally like a co-worker, a roommate, or more valuably, a genuine friend.

This episode’s ideas turn back to that take on the relationship for its ending, in a now-customary moment of emotional realness. Isuzu muses on the short time the Miko spend with their elves, and how that might affect their feelings in the long run, something Koito has already come to understand about Elda. Her resolution to walk beside the Takamimi deity, reinforced via a flashback to their trip to Tokyo Skytree, is shown not just as the best way to manage Elda’s more, uh, eccentric behaviors but also the best thing she can do for her out of genuine compassion. Elda’s already got all the worshippers she needs, so a true companion to spend her days with is the best additional offering she can receive.

As much as the themes brought up are here to flesh out our main characters, it’s not like the guest stars or other material in this episode feels too secondary. There are still plenty of great gags brought about by Haira’s messy tendencies, enhanced by voice actress Mamiko Noto selling the role with all her “Ara Ara”s. It also provides an opportunity for just a couple of edutainment segments, and they’re interesting ones on the subject of Edo-era gambling and early iterations of idol culture. As with the other cultural contexts, the latter is especially illuminating in showing how ingrained some appeals are even across hundreds of years, from teahouse girls to Instagram idols. This makes for a more successful introduction of new characters than when we met Yolde and Himawari. But perhaps that’s less to do with the characters themselves and more just on account of having better settled into what Otaku Elf is doing as a series, thematically, and how it’s framing all that around the central relationship of our main characters. That is, it’s just a sign of the show becoming stronger as it’s gone on.

Rating:

Otaku Elf is currently streaming on
HIDIVE.

Chris is keeping busy keeping up with the new anime season, and is excited to have you along. You can also find him writing about other stuff over on his blog, as well as spamming fanart retweets on his Twitter, for however much longer that lasts.