AKA: エルフさんは痩せられない。; Erufu-san wa Yaserarenai

Genre: Comedy (allegedly)/Fanservice (definitely)

Length: Television series, 14 episodes, 12 minutes each

Distributor: Currently licensed by Sentai Filmworks, available streaming on HiDive.

Content Rating: TV-MA (Nudity.)

Related Series: N/A

Also Recommended: Monster Musume

Notes: Based on manga by Synecdoche, published by Wani Books/Akitashoten (and in English by Seven Seas Entertainment)

Rating:

Plus-Size Elf

Synopsis

Tomoatsu Naoe (he's described as an "osteopathic massage therapist" per Wiki) discovers that the new client at his wellness clinic is an elf (named Elfuda- there's a persistent lack of imagination in this show; this is just the beginning.) Soon, Naoe encounters many other overweight females from fantasy and folklore, who he tries to help with diet and exercise programs.

Review

First, I have to confess that I actually read the manga this is based on for a while. I can't blame that on a youthful indiscretion, since the manga's not that old, and I'm certainly not that YOUNG.

Second, I hope nothing I say here is taken as fat-shaming. That's certainly not my intention, besides the fact that, at five feet ten and 230 pounds, my OWN physique is nothing to brag about.

And yet this show's obsession with Fat Fantasy Female Fanservice is so weird. (That's 4F, which is what all these ladies would be declared on U.S. Army physicals.) Even Naoe's female boss at the clinic is stocky. Bellies here are as protruding as boobs, and every opportunity is taken to make the cast naked; it might just be finally seeing this in color that explains it, but I'd swear that their boobs, bellies, and butts are even bigger here than in the manga. (Poor Kuroeda is given a particularly exaggerated butt. A Dark Elf (and convenience-store clerk) who practices magic, she was (usually) the most sensible of the females here, and the one character I kind of liked in the manga.)

Characterization? Are you kidding? All we ever find out about Elfuda, the French-fry loving main female protagonist, is that she favors using a bow and arrow, and that food in her world is bland, which is why she's become addicted to our caloric, high-fat foods. (OK, we also DO find out she has an aunt with a drill sergeant personality.) The show gives us even less of the backstories of the rest of its cast; instead, it just keeps bringing onstage NEW obese women from folklore and mythology, and gives them maybe one particular personality trait each. Some of the women's having weight problems makes no sense. A plant woman named Kusahanda, for example; does she just get too much sunlight? (And if THAT'S it, Naoe's having everyone exercise in the park on sunny days wouldn't seem the best strategy.) And then there's Honeda, a mage who survived as just a skeleton, but created a magical body around herself; couldn't she just magically make it a slender body?

The story tries to create some interest with a recurring antagonist, but she's a mortifying mess of mangled mythology. Satyrs are, traditionally, half-male, half-horse, and all horniness; but the "satyr" here is just a devil-girl (red color, tail, etc.) who feeds on the indulgences of others (in THIS show, it's usually indulgence in food), but flees in embarrassment when she sees anybody naked, so she never lasts long with THIS bunch.

About that: some of these women are natural enemies, so they easily slip, Ikki Tousen style, into clothes-destroying fights, with a predictable outcome. (Or, sometimes, they just split their seams.) But I wouldn't think there would be that much of an audience into Fat Fantasy Female Fanservice Fetish (OK, we're up to FIVE F's now.) For ME, what an adaptation of this manga proves is that sooner or later EVERY manga gets an anime, even if there isn't much really THERE; and, indeed, the dearth of actual story here is amply demonstrated by the fact that, at 12 minutes per "episode", the 14 "episodes" here would only add up to 7 standard-length episodes.

Episode 14, by the way, has a plotline that I'd swear was stolen from a Girls Bravo manga. Yes, I've occasionally experienced some manga even more tasteless than THIS show, but honestly in THIS case it was probably THIS show's best plot.

The music is... simply horrible. The ED, in particular, starts with an annoying chant, and it suddenly switches to an even MORE annoying chant just before the end.

The Rec is one Stig liked, which sounds like it's much more substantial than THIS.

I'm not sure what the audience for this IS. I think I probably hoped the manga would become more interesting, but it never did. I got up to five F's on this show, but it deserves ANOTHER one. — Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: Graphic nudity (though genitals are censored, as expected) throughout, though no sex. HiDive says TV-MA, and I can't argue with that.