Episode 4 – Otaku Elf
How would you fee episode 4 of
Otaku Elf ?
Neighborhood rating: 3.9

That is getting out of hand; now there are two of them! The tip of final week’s Otaku Elf teased us with the arrival of one other reverse-isekai’d elf, this one performing as a patron deity within the Kansai area, and now Yolde has correctly arrived to hassle Elda and Koito. It is a formal sufficient introduction, whereby Yolde and her attendant Himawari cease by to talk for the primary half of this episode, with little battle other than some verbal spats and a recreation of tic-tac-toe. It is all about getting a deal with on the personalities of those new characters alongside the brand new sides they could carry out in our established forged.
I really feel like I ought to love Yolde as a result of she’s an cute, tiny, sharp-tongued darkish elf. In follow, nevertheless, I ponder if she’s totally dwelling as much as her entertaining potential. Her essential factor is throwing much more shrill petty tantrums than Elda can bask in, however since she appears like an precise baby fairly than a shrinking shut-in grownup, there is not any hole to propel the attraction. Sure, there’s the element that Yolde is, the truth is, the older of the 2 elves (by a single 12 months), however she hasn’t proven off another elements of her persona that may play off of that alleged extra mature positioning.
I am hoping we’ll see extra finished with Yolde because the collection goes on because the idea of Elda having one other elf she interacts with is a wonderfully pure addition to the dynamics of Otaku Elf. Koito herself even calls it out for us, questioning what sort of relationship these two share earlier than all we get is them performing like adversarial dipshits at one another. Certainly one of Elda’s essential parts of interacting with the individuals of her area is their mortality versus her everlasting standing. So the thought of how Elda would possibly get on with a fellow immortal is compelling, making it really feel far more squandered when all we get for now could be “They’ve stubbornly maintained a tic-tac-toe stalemate for hundreds of years.” A minimum of Koito establishes a friendship with Yolde’s miko Himawari, who reveals off as an entertaining embodiment of contradictions. She pointedly takes an reverse method to deal with her cost and seems to be a type of individuals who says much more in a textual content message than they do speaking in actual life. That is extra amusing in Otaku Elf‘s normal gentle approach than Yolde’s one-note outbursts.
Even the cultural edutainment stuff is dialed down alongside all these low-key, low-stakes introductory interactions. Yolde probably brings together with her the potential of elucidations on Kansai regional historical past. Nonetheless, in follow, all we get is a quick sequence of Elda correcting her on meals names. It leads into one of many little spats between the elves, knowledgeable by Yolde’s tiny inferiority complicated. It gives some relationship particulars by way of Yolde being seemingly the one particular person Elda is aware of methods to deal with. Which may consequence from the age talked about earlier, displaying that it takes Elda tons of of years to turn into accustomed sufficient to somebody to cope with them this fashion.
That theme runs into the opposite phase on this episode, with an sick Elda shirking from remedy by Akane, the newer physician from the world’s clinic. Elda’s attachment to the outdated, now retired physician from the technology she was used to demonstrates how her outbursts are extra adorably amusing for her character than Yolde’s extra cacophonic portrayal. It may very well be simply Ami Koshimizu‘s voice performing, she injects simply that correct amount of sympathetic power into her matches, and you already know these Elda Noises nonetheless carry some segments. A complete scene will get by on the weird, cute noise Elda makes when she sneezes; now that is confidence in your materials.
All the things else on this phase embodies that candy, flippantly chuckle-worthy power for Otaku Elf. Koito’s try to make porridge for Elda may have gone the extra typical route of her producing one thing gross and inedible. However even with the animation paying surprisingly spectacular consideration to particulars like her amateurish slicing of the inexperienced onions, it nonetheless winds up making for a extra sweetly amusing payoff of simply having Koito by accident make curry and Elda having fun with it anyway. It’s simply good, and reveals that even after making an attempt to introduce a foil within the type of Yolde, the Elda/Koito dynamic is irreplaceable as the center of the present.
Score:
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Chris is conserving busy maintaining with the brand new anime season, and is worked up to have you ever alongside. You may also discover him writing about different stuff over on his blog, in addition to spamming fanart retweets on his Twitter, for nevertheless for much longer that lasts.