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Those Who Hunt Elves: Volume 1, Ready, Set - Strip!
by Luis Reyes  
Those Who Hunt Elves volume 1 box
huntelves1-01
huntelves1-02
review ratings information
synopsis
Episode 1: "Those Who Hunt Elves Attack"

A strongman, a Hollywood actress, and an armed, precocious pre-teen with a T-74 Tank, all caught in a mystical world, attempt to find the five elves who bear five different tattoos, each a fragment of a spell that could send the trio back to our own world. Their search takes them to the outskirts of a village under the heel and toe of a pirate band of fish-men bullying the villagers into revealing the location of a magical elf allegedly harbored by them. More out of their own interest in stripping down the elf for her tattoo, the heroic trio descends on the lot.

Episode 2: "An Invincible Team Is Formed"

Backtracking from episode one, Celcia discovers that she must etch the spell that will send the trio home onto her own, naked body. Of course, Celcia gets distracted by the oafish Junpei, who is extremely excited about the prospect of seeing the priestess au naturale, and the spell gets quinsected, sent off to five different corners of the realm as tattoos on five different elven bodies. Thus Junpei, Airi and Ritsuko, much to the chagrin of Celcia, set out on a quest to strip down every elf they see in the hopes that they'll be able to recover the spell that will send them home. Celcia, however, follows, intent to help them covertly as her open support for their plan might be seen as an affront to the elven community.

Episode 3: "The Red One Or The Blue One?"

A time bomb aboard a school cart stirs panic in a small village, but Mistress Deall saves the day in a cliché of luck as she chooses the red wire over the blue wire. On the other side of the city, at a restaurant, Junpei stirs panic in a colossal case of mistaken identity. The whole trio is arrested and charged as terrorists, but not before the real terrorists attack. And with the distrustful Mistress Deall being the elf they're looking for, it behooves the heroes to help the city battle the insidiously evil "skeletons." However, Deall's ego may not let things go smoothly as she is irrationally committed to being the one to eradicate the skeletons.

Episode 4: "The Search For The 1000th Fighter"

An elven assassin, Rapier, assailed by her intended victim turns the tables and completes her job, marking 999 fatalities. "One more to go," she mutters mysteriously as she flees into the night. Of course the trio lumbers into yet another village after yet another elf to strip down. Rapier is their prey, however before the action can get too heated, she's exposed as not actually having another spell fragment. However, Junpei is already intent on fighting Rapier, and if she fails to defeat him, she'll have to start again from 0. And to add insult to injury, some of her enemies don't want to stand idly by.

Episode 5: "The Addition of the Fifth Fiend"

Looking for tank fuel, Airi and Junpei wander into a village marauded by a giant teddy bear, which ends up being the displaced spirit of a cat. Junpei wants to use it to replace the tank, but the villagers want it dead. The villagers win, however, attempts to rob the bear of life simply releases the spirit of the cat to possess another form. Meanwhile, Ritsuko waxes emotional about her tank, which is stuck, fuelless on a precarious stone bridge.

Episode 6: "The Most Horrible Spell of All Time"

An assemblage of elven females, weeping like a support group, complains to elven high priestess Annette about being exposed to the world in the trio's all holy search for the spell fragments. The high priestess expresses doubts about Celcia's motives to the male priests who assures her that Celcia's loyalties are certainly with the Elven people. Annette isn't convinced. She pleads with Celcia to stop Junpei, Airi and Ritsuko, turn against them to save the Elven females from humiliation (not necessarily the bubonic plague). Celcia's refusal drives Annette to take things into her own hands.

review
Cheeky, swash buckling, campy and tethered to its original conceit like a dog in a yard, Those Who Hunt Elves develops slowly and unimpressively despite its typical anime bells and whistles. Straight as an arrow, and as constant as a Yorkshire housewife, Junpei, Airi, and Ritsuko remain glued to their objective, unfettered by the injustices and dynamics of the world around them - granted, they must if they are to get back to their own world, but at some point deep in the latter half of episodes on this first disc it becomes painfully apparent that the only thing that will change in subsequent episodes is the setting.

Though basted in enough pubescent juices to impregnate a horde of elephants, the premise amuses enough. The three foreigners straight from Tokyo must strip the clothing from every elf they meet (and, suspiciously, every last one of them is a supple, nubile female as curvatious as she is sassy) in search of fragments of an ancient pagan spell that will send Junpei, Airi and Ritsuko back to Japantown number one - plenty of opportunity for ribald anime hi jinks, teasing young adolescents with snatches of elven sexuality. (Oh yeah. Bring it on my pointy-eared mama. Daddy's got a broadsword for you to sheath). The rest of the plot elements are malleable, yielding to whatever will facilitate the most shouting and fighting.

Most of the humor derives from the grand daddy of all anime gimmicks, the childish short temper. Elves dislike being stripped of their clothing but instead of calling down legions of litigious leaches to suffocate Junpei in sexual harassment summonses, they grow red with anger and slap. The creators of the show, though, have other gimmicks in their bag 'o mediocre tricks. Junpei likes curry. Is there a joke? Well no, he just really likes curry and will go to great lengths to get it. Funny lengths? No, just great lengths. Airi is vain. Why? Because she is a Hollywood actress. And how is that funny? Well, it isn't really. Sometimes it's used as a device in the story, though? True, however I wouldn't get too optimistic about that being a benefit to the show. Genuinely inspired humor does rear its sheepish head when it comes to the monsters of the series. A band of villainous fish-men terrorize a village spouting lines like, "You have the gills to serve me fried fish" and, "Your little brother is going to sleep with us." Also, several emaciation jokes hurled at some devilish looking skeleton warriors in the third episode elicit some chuckles.

The monsters also represent the best designs of the series, the fish men rendered with an ingenious blending of terrestrial and the aquatic. The skeletons invoke an impressively detailed skeleton dragon toward the end of the second episode.

But aside from a dollop of design sophistication and a smidgen of wry wit, this anime plods along desperate to be something bigger than what it is at the moment, a vehicle of slapstick. What might save the series, though, is the relationship between the school uniform clad teen girl Ritsuko and her tank, which is possessed by the spirit of a dead cat in episode five. And in the last episode, the trio of foreigners is able to at least convince the most skeptical of the elven community that their quest isn't meant to humiliate elves, but rather simply get home - that doesn't mean that they're not a collection of selfish, arrogant flops representing some of the worst of our world's values.



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