Funnily enough, as much as I like Otaku Elf, I can’t help but shake the feeling that I’m being personally attacked as I read or watch it…
It’s not particularly uncommon for the English licence holder to change the original Japanese title to something clearer and/or more concise for the English audience — see, for example, how Ya Boy Kongming! is called Kongming of the Party People in Japanese.
[And. for the record, I think ‘Kongming of the Party People’ is a better name…}
The original title of Otaku Elf is “Edomae Elf.” Apparently, “Edomae” means “Tokyo-style”, with the double meaning that the Elf in question both lives in Tokyo (previously called Edo) and arrived there in the Edo period.
Otaku Elf is perhaps less clever, but also has the benefit of both not being based on a Japanese pun most English people aren’t going to understand and clearly establishing that the Elf is question is a colossal nerd — ‘otaku‘ may not be a well-known term in general outside of Japan, but among anime fans, it’s a recogniseable term, to the point that I’m sure there are plenty of anime fans who would define themselves as otaku…
More on the whole ‘colossal nerd’ angle later.
Or, well, right now…
Now, you’d probably except an immortal Elf summoned from another world to serve as Tokyo’s guardian deity to be elegant and regal and dignified in such a way as to befit a goddess. And, yeah, the Elf now venerated as the goddess Takamimi Hime no Mikoto is largely believed by the community under her patronage to be exactly like that.
In reality, not so much…
Quick sidebar: “Takamimi Hime” means something like “Lady Tall-Ears” and “no Mikoto” is a suffix applied to the names of Japanese gods to indicate that they’re divine figures and means something like “the Exalted One” or “the Divine.” Taken all together, the name means something like “Her Majesty, the goddess of Tall-Ears Shrine.”
Despite the veneer of elegance and divine and lofty title, Takamimi Hime’s real name is Elda and in private, she’s an obsessive nerd and near-total recluse and prone to temper tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. Her facade of divine grace and elegance is at least helped by the fact that the only person allowed inside the temple’s inner sanctuary is Elda’s shrine maiden Koito.
Which, of course, means that Koito is basically the only person who gets to see the real Elda and is the only person who really has a true relationship with Elda the person and not Takamimi Hime no Mikoto the unseen goddess. Which actually creates a lot of heartwarming moments throughout the series.
Elda stays up all night binging video games and/or anime. She collects limited edition anime figurines. She does all of her shopping online so she doesn’t have to talk to people. She does Gunpla. A kid made fun of her ears 60 years ago and took it so poorly she hasn’t gotten over it or wanted to leave the shrine ever since.
Like I said, I was sitting there reading the manga feeling personally attacked…
Otaku Elf is actually one of the few manga-turned-anime where I actually read the manga first. I’d been aware of the anime since it debuted in the Spring of 2023, but put off watching it because it never got dubbed into English. Look, I’m not trying to start some stupid Sub vs. Dub slapfight here, but my personal preference is for dubs, so I can multitask more easily and watch while I’m doing something else.
Like, for example, writing the blog you’re reading right now.
Or doing Gunpla.
Or avoiding talking to people…
Now, technically, I’ve never actually done Gunpla. The Gun stands for “Gundam”,
and the only Japanese model kit I’ve built was an Escaflowne that
I bought because I thought it was an action figure…
And, well, events conspired for me to have some time to kill at the library while my parents were buying a new rug. Which, to be fair, really ties the room together. This was, incidentally, the same library trip that was also my introduction to the eminently enjoyable Fantasy story Goblins. I was looking through the manga section and found the first three volumes of Otaku Elf.
Worth noting that while the anime only got one season in 2023, the manga is still running as the time I first wrote this post. Also worth noting that the anime’s jaunty opening theme is super-duper catchy:
Feeling personally attacked aside, I’ve actually really enjoyed both versions of Otaku Elf.
Very little happens and most of the storylines are very much focused on mundane, everyday things, but it’s undeniably funny to see an Elf who’s ostensibly a goddess throwing a tantrum because Koito won’t let her drink another Red Bull (whereupon, she will drink a Monster, which is, of course, substantially different from a Red Bull) or get mad because she randomly drew a common figurine and she needs the rare one to complete her collection — or learn after the fact that the entire community came together to rig a lottery specifically so Elda is guaranteed to get the rare prize.
The particularly interesting aspect of Otaku Elf is that since Elda has been in Tokyo for 400 years, she has plenty of opportunities to talk about Tokyo has changed in that time in terms of culture and society. Of course, since she’s been an obsessive nerd that whole time, she has a lot of say about the various hobbies and pastimes that were popular in previous centuries, which does provide some pretty interesting historical tidbits.
The series introduces two other Elves also summoned by prominent figures of Japanese history to be the guardian deities of their domains. Like Elda, Yord and Haira’s shrine names refer to their ears: Yord is “Hiromimi” (Long-Ears) and Haira is “Uramimi” (Beautiful Ears).
This introduces some Compare & Contrast-based humour, since Yord and Haira have personalities that are completely different from Elda’s but are nevertheless at least as neurotic as Elda is. And their own put-upon mikos like Koito.
Yord is significantly more outgoing than Elda, but despite being older than Elda (by a year), she’s the most childish and immature (and shortest) of the three Elves. Haira is the oldest of the three and the most outwardly dignified but has major issues with gambling and her facade slips pretty quickly when she’s trying to hit people up for money.
Despite the fact that Otaku Elf is predicated on the dynamic between Elda and Koito leading to lots of funny moments, there’s actually a subtle but lingering sense of bittersweet melancholy just under the surface. Basically, since Elda is 400 years old and immortal, all of the human characters will are born, grow up, get old, and then die while she doesn’t really age or change.
For the most part, the series actually uses that fact to demonstrate how important Elda is to the community. While all of the humans living around the temple be born, grow up, get old, and then die, Elda will always be there at the heart of the community, providing a familiar presence and sense of continuity dating back 400, uniting the community both among its currently-living members and to their ancestors.
It’s actually really profound and touching for what is otherwise a pretty goofy, low-stakes slice-of-life series.
As you may lean from the “I feel personally attacked” thread that’s been running through this whole post, it is really easy to read Elda as autistic, especially when you are yourself autistic (incidentally).
Also, can we take a minute to admire her safety precautions while working with aerolised paints?
Otaku Elf: C2C and Sentai Filmworks.
Granted, there’s nothing that explicitly identifies Elda as autistic — not particularly surprising that she originally came from a Fantasy world that may not even have a concept of autism and has spent most of her time on Earth in an era where autism didn’t exist as a diagnosis (or where psychiatry existed as a discipline).
Plus, there’s the fact that Elda probably wouldn’t even want to see a psychiatrist for a diagnosis…
Again, fundamentally, Elda reminds me of me. And, yeah, a lot of the humour does come from Elda’s idiosyncrasies, but it never feels mean-spirited. And I think a big part of that is that, even though Elda, is a shut-in who tries not to interact with her people, there are still people in the series who are shown to care about her, support her, and understand and empasise with her despite those idiosyncrasies.
Like I said, Elda’s relationship with Koito is the emotional and narrative core the series. Even if Elda isn’t supposed to be actually autistic, I find it really moving that the series is doing so much to show how important it is for a character who’s at least autistic-coded enough to remind me of me to have a trusted best friend who sees, validates, and helps her.
It’s another aspect that’s shockingly profound and moving for an otherwise lighthearted series.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to build models and not talk to people…
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