Those Who Hunt Elves
When I originally heard the title of this series, Those Who Hunt Elves, I thought of burly guys going through the forest, bows in hand, arrows ready, looking for elves to slay and taking upon a terrible curse as a result. However, Those Who Hunt Elves is actually a comedy, and a pretty funny one at that. Four people have been transported by Mistress Celcia from earth to an alternative world, filled with strange people and, most importantly, elves. While trying to return them to Japan, Celcia, a powerful and influential elven sorceress, makes a mistake, causing fragments of the magic spell to split and fly away onto the skin of other hapless elves on the planet. These spell fragments can appear anywhere on the body of an elf, so, naturally, the only way to be certain if an elf has a spell fragment or not is to see her naked*.
OK, so the plot is contrived and sounds it could veer off into some very scary territory. AFAIK, no full nudity is actually shown in the series – there’s always something covering up the group’s victims at least a little bit. Junpei, Ritsuko, and Airi seem genuinely embarrassed by their actions – which, of course, is the whole humor of the show. They quickly gain a feared reputation as a terrible gang, Those Who Hunt Elves, and their actual, less violent appearance tends to throw off the other characters in the series.
Calling the universe that Those Who Hunt Elves inhabit surreal is grossly underestimating just how weird it can be. Talking fish, sharks, and wolves go up against a tank with a few personality quirks of its own. A wish gone awry creates a giant talking rooster. Celcia accidentally curses herself into various animal forms.
Note that two series, Those Who Hunt Elves and Those Who Hunt Elves II, are available; both of them have the same quality and are similar to one another.
*There DO seem to be male elves in Those Who Hunt Elves, but they’re few and far between and never shown as a target of the group’s efforts. I can’t fault the series for this – male nudity just wouldn’t work as well in the show’s formula, especially with Ritsuko and Airi.
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