Have you ever wanted to get isekai’d without truck-kun separating you from this life forever? Well, Kazuhiro is living the dream, literally. Every time he goes to sleep, he wakes up in a fantasy realm where he gets to kill monsters or, slightly unpleasantly, be killed by them, though thankfully this simply brings him back to Japan. What he likes to do the most though, is hang out with an elf sorcerer he met on one of his adventures. It’s not entirely clear if Maria genuinely likes him, but the delicious lunch boxes he brings always make it worth the trouble of tagging along with him. After a scary incident, Kazuhiro suddenly wakes up in his room and immediately notices that Maria has traveled back to Earth with him. With Maria in both Japan and the fantasy world, it seems like Kazuhiro will be able to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Whenever I see a boring character design for the MC, I quickly drop my expectations for an anime. Sure enough, in this first episode, Kazuhiro doesn’t seem like an interesting character, at least not yet. On the positive side, I find the premise pretty interesting, traveling back and forth to the isekai reality, and I like the color palette and soundtrack, as well as the voice acting. I can see why this series could turn out to be a decent comfort anime, mixing elements of the isekai and romcom genres. However, the attempt to keep everything low-stakes could turn out negatively as well. The only serious monster encounter in the fantasy world gets downplayed with a weird focus on Maria’s breasts, and back in the real world, Maria seems to take a liking to the MC a little bit too quickly. The episode is also filled with two “comedic” scenes where Maria doesn’t realize she’s naked, which usually doesn’t promise inspired storytelling in future episodes. I think it’s still possible for the anime to pick itself up, but I’ll rely on others to tell me about it if that time ever comes. As for me, I’m out.

Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! is streaming on Crunchyroll.