The first moment we see our protagonist, Zagan the sorcerer, he’s saving a young lady from a rather unpleasant fellow. The man thought Zagan wouldn’t mind him hurting the poor girl because sorcerers are expected to sacrifice virgins for their experiments. But whether for practical or moral reasons, Zagan is against sacrificing people, so he quickly disposes of this wicked sorcerer. While Zagan is trying to make sure the girl makes it back home safely, his friend Barbaros shows up. Barbaros brings Zagan up to date on the latest gossip, including the death of an archdemon. They keep talking as they go along to a slave auction, where the first unfortunate individual to be sold is revealed to be a silver-haired elf girl, Nephelia. While she doesn’t seem to impress the crowd too much, Zagan is completely awestruck. With just one look, he’s completely in love with her. Luckily, he succeeds in buying her. The only problem is that Zagan doesn’t know how to talk to women, since he never thought female attention was worth the trouble before today. When he brings her to his ominous castle, their conversations don’t go as smoothly as he could have hoped. But while Zagan is trying to make the best impression possible, Nephy is simply grateful she’s probably not going to be killed or tortured by him. Can their love overcome his social awkwardness and her (justified) prejudice against evil sorcerers?

Before watching the premiere episode, I was a bit confused about what genre this anime could be categorized under, but I quickly realized this was a “the demon lord is not that evil and actually pretty chill” kinda anime. One thing you immediately notice, is that they’re going for a very big contrast between the cruelty of the world and the relaxed feeling you get from the main characters. Personally, I’m not usually a fan of dark comedy, but I did find myself laughing here a few times. The art, animation, and soundtrack are all of decent quality, but nothing special. The voice acting was solid though. It’s difficult for me to predict just from the first episode whether the rest of the anime will be any good. I’ve heard from others that the story is well written, so based on that I’m leaning more on the optimistic side. The one challenge this anime has to deal with though, is that the positive aspects have to be appealing enough to overcome the risk of becoming cliché with a plot like this. The next few episodes will show if the anime succeeds in this or not, and I might check them out to find out for myself.

An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride is streaming on Crunchyroll.