The world-hopping man and his cute elf friend.
Kitase Kazuhiro is a normal 25-year-old salaryman with one strange talent: since he was a child, when he sleeps, he always dreams of being in a fantasy world where he can go on an adventure, and that world is persistent. Thus, his hobby is sleeping so he can always explore the world in his dreams. One day, he dreams about going on exploring a ruin with his elf friend Mariebelle (Marie for short), when they stumble upon a sleeping ancient arkdragon guarding her eggs. While trying to escape, the dragon wakes up, notices them, and proceeds to burn them to death, with Kazuhiro hugging Marie, trying to protect her...
And then he wakes back up in Japan, and upon looking at his own bed, he finds, lying by his side, Marie, buck-naked.
Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! (日本へようこそエルフさん, Nihon e Youkoso Elf-san) is a Fantasy/Slice of Life novel series by Makishima Suzuki, taking a twist to the typical Trapped in Another World formula by featuring a protagonist that can (mostly) freely cross the worlds, and put more focus on Slice of Life about having the fantasy inhabitant learning and enjoying life in Japan. Also Food Porn.
The series started out as a Web Serial Novel which was first released on Shousetsuka ni Narou in 2017; the original web novel (in Japanese) can be found here
. It was later published as a series of Light Novels in 2018 by Hobby Japan, with illustrations by Yappen. There is also a manga adaptation by Shimo Aono, which began serialization in Comic Fire in 2018. The light novels and the manga are both officially licensed in English by J-Novel Club. It was announced on December 27, 2023 that an anime adaptation is being developed.
Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf provides examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Everyone in the other world calls Kazuhiro Kazuhiho, due to him misspelling own name while setting himself up when he was a kid.
- Action Mom: Wridra is a badass dragon and mother of three.
- Adaptational Modesty: In the novel, when the dragon Wridra creates her draconian form, she always appears naked before she creates her own clothes using her ability. In the manga adaptation, however, Wridra is fully clothed right when she creates her draconian form.
- Beast Man: There seem to be a few beast species, with Lizard Folk and Nekos being the first shown.
- Can't Take Anything with You: Kazuhiro's powers seem to operate on the fact that when he appears in one world, he's going to be wearing the cloth he last wear on that worldnote . Since Marie (and the others later on) never came to Japan before Kazuhiro brought them over, they're naked when they're teleported to Japan for the first time.
- Catapult Nightmare: Kazuhiro and Maria woke up in Japan this way after they intentionally got themselves killed by monster summoned by the bandits later in Volume 1.
- Common Tongue: The other world has a standard communication language called Universal Language, although various species have their own language as well.
- Cunning Linguist: Kazuhiro took Language Proficiency skill in the other world, which allows him to learn various languages in the other world much faster than people normally could. This allows him to speak and befriend various "monster" races like lizardmen and dragons, and acts as a translator. He's also Marie's Japanese teacher. Wridra also counts, being able to pick up fluent Japanese within a mere half-day stay in Japan, while Marie is still struggling to speak Japanese with passable fluency even after a month.
- Cuteness Proximity: Marie really has a thing for cats. This extends to Mewi after the latter's rescued.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Given his relationship with Marie, it would be surprising to learn that on their first encounter, Marie actually killed Kazuhironote . Same goes with Wridra the magi-dragon, who burned both Kazuhiro and Marie to death yet later ends up forming a friendship with them.
- Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Kazuhiro's eyes make him look perpetually sleepy.
- The Drifter: Kazuhiro can afford to live like this in the other world since his food and shelter needs can be taken care of while he's in Japan. It's also due to his drive to explore the world and not wanting to work there.
- Everyone Can See It: Pretty much anyone who sees Kazuhiro and Marie together thinks they're a couple, regardless of what them saying otherwise.
- Familiar: After realizing that she won't be able to tag along with Kazuhiro and Marie to Aomori on the Shinkansen (since she arrived after they have already purchased their tickets), Wridra used her internal magic to create a cat Familiar to tag along the two on the trip, since she can share the cat's experience.
- Fanservice: Despite not being a big focus in the story itself (with little to no fanservicey black&white illustrations), the color illustrations, at least for the first 2 volumes, are the main girls being in various states of nakedness, and with one with Marie wearing clothes like she's a belly dancer.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: One of the main attraction of the series is seeing fantasy denizens Kazuhiro brought to Japan learning and adapting to modern Japanese life.
- Food as Bribe: After returning to the other world the first time with Marie, Kazuhiro managed to bribe Wridra with beer (and when she insists, bento) in order to placate her and to tell they're not here to kidnap her children, they just wanted to see her eggs.
- Food Porn: Various Earth foods are very well-describednote . This is justified by the fact that the other world's food quality is generally not great, partly due to lack of seasonings. Marie, Wridra, and others who tasted Earth food generally has quite extreme reaction when eating, sometimes bordering on Orgasmically Delicious. Also, food (and their containers) are the only items he's allowed to bring from Japan to the other world (and, after a bit of experimentation, the reverse). The manga adaptation also has even basic food like home-made katsudon and gyoza lovingly illustrated.
- From Roommates to Romance: After Kazuhiro accidentally teleports Marie back to Earth with him, Marie decides she likes Japan and starts living together with Kazuhiro at his apartment. They soon develop a strong and very obvious attraction to each other, but both are insecure to act on it. As of Volume 6, they're an Official Couple.
- Gorgeous Garment Generation: When Wridra initially arrives in Japan, the clothes Kazuhiro and Marie prepared for her doesn't fit (due to her tail getting in the way and that's she's a bit bigger than the clothes they had), so she repurposed her tail and horn (which are made of magic particles that she can control) into a gorgeous dress instead. She can also do this in the other world, since she always appears naked at first when the draconian form is formed, where her generated garment there is in a form of dress-shaped armor.
- Hide Your Otherness: Kazuhiro generally tells his guests to hide things that would be a telltale that they aren't humans when they're in Japan, to prevent others from freaking out.
- Hot Springs Episode: Earthside story in Volume 2 focuses on this, with Kazuhiro wanting to take Marie to an onsen after his neighbor's advice on vacation location, but due to a promise with Wridra, also ends up bringing her along.
- Immortal Immaturity: Marie, despite being over a hundred years old, can be quite childish in her behavior. Might have something to do with her being a Long-Lived elf. Kazuhiro thinks it's cute.
- Ineffectual Loner: Kazuhiro is not great at socializing with people. Due to his hobby and wanting to avoid keeping up his appearance, he has limited social circle in Japan, while in the other world he generally avoids settlements and live like a vagrant, since he wants to avoid working in both Japan and the other world at the same time, and he likes to explore. In fact, him bringing Marie to Japan ends up being the catalyst to change this, including in Japan where he starts befriending a librarian and her husband (who are his flat neighbour, as it turned out) after he took Marie to a library that he has visited a few times before, and start making him also appreciate Japan as much as the other world.
- Kissing Cousins: To Earth people who didn't know their real relationship, Kazuhiro and Marie's relationship seems like this, since Kazuhiro always introduces Marie as his cousin from another country and how they act are quite like boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Some anime and other TV shows Marie and Kazuhiro watch are real works that was not named nor the character names mentioned. For example, in Volume 4, the show's plot explanation clearly has the two watching Beauty and the Beast.
- Learnt English from Watching Television: Kazuhiro encourages Marie to read Japanese books and watch anime to help her learn Japanese.
- Level Grinding: In the 2nd part of Volume 1, Kazuhiro helps Marie with this, due to the sheer level difference between the two. This is done by where Kazuhiro purposefully not party up with her and relying on teleporting out of combat when the enemy's near dead so when Marie kills them it won't count as kill-steal, and since they're not in a party, she'll get full xp. Marie ends up complaining about how mind-numbingly boring and lonely it is. After the ordeal she tells Kazuhiro to always party up, grinding effectiveness be damned.
- Living Emotional Crutch: According to Kazuhiro's grandfather, Kazuhiro's mother is what's keeping him on Earth. Without her he might stay in the other world permanently.
- Mundane Utility:
- After learning the concept of evaporative cooling, Marie modifies water spirit she control to disperse mist to keep herself cool under the desert sun. After she managed to control water spirits in Japan, she does this in reverse: absorbing excess humidity, which Kazuhiro thinks could reduce electric bill.
- Kazuhiro's ability also has secondary advantage when going on an expedition: they don't need to keep guard while sleeping, since he and people he share his ability with is teleported to Japan, so no monsters can harm them. Also, they only need to bring absolutely minimal supplies for the day instead of large amount of rations for the whole trip (which, depending on the size of the target area, can take more than a month before at least part of area's safe enough to establish a permanent forward camp) since eating in Japan is persistent to the other world and, for some reason, food can be brought in from Japan, so fresh supplies can be brought in every day.
- Nerf: Wridra's draconian form only contains a fragment of her full dragon powers (lv 177 instead of ~1200). Even then she's still more than powerful against most people and monsters.
- Obliviously Evil: While not an evil person at all, Kazuhiro had fought in the other world's wars in the past. Since he thought it was a dream, he was fighting them for fun. After realizing it's not a dream, he starts regretting that choice and is reluctant to get himself involved in another war.
- Older Than They Look: Kazuhiro is 25 but his body in the other world is only around 15. Marie, being an elf, is also older than she looks, with her being at 104 years old. Wridra, however, takes the cake: her age is the the range of thousands but her draconian form looks like a sexy woman in her 20s-30s.
- One Character, Multiple Lives: Kazuhiro had been living out a different life in the fantasy world ever since he was a child in Japan, although he never considered his other life to be a reality until he teleported Marie into his bedroom. See also That Was Not a Dream below.
- Outside-Context Problem: Sven's Oracle ability should be able to keep track anything within its range, so this hits hard when Kazuhiro, Marie, and later Wridra somehow completely disappears from his ability, like they are completely gone from the world.
- Person of Mass Destruction: In a world where level ~70 is considered to be quite strong and very strong monsters have level in ranges of 100-200, Wridra's level is 1200. One time she was angered in the past, she ends up creating a lake. Even her draconian form, which is at level 177, is among some of the strongest monsters. In fact, she herself notes that she's closer to Physical God than anything, given that she's in a similar power range to some gods that the God of Travel deny her the access to his realm that's used for fast traveling.
- Power Copying: One of Kazuhiro's main skill other than his teleport and illusion copy is the ability to record movements in order for them to be executed earlier, which he can record both his own moves (for automation in repeated tasks) and other people's moves. This becomes particularly useful when he copies Sven's powerful kick move and uses it against the owner when he's disarmed.
- Race-Name Basis: Wridra is initially referred as "Lady Arkdragon" until she gives her name to Kazuhiro and Marie.
- Reactive Continuous Scream: When an earthquake happens in Japan, Marie was in a shower, and she runs to Kazuhiro screaming. This results in Kazuhiro following suit because she's hugging him while naked. The manga adaptation exaggerates this for comedy.
- Relationship Upgrade: Kazuhiro becomes an official couple with Marie and begins dating her in Volume 6 after confessing to her at the end of the previous volume.
- This gets taken a step further in the original WN, as they are officially engaged as of chapter 288. Though they have yet to select a date for their wedding.
- Relatively Flimsy Excuse: When in Japan, Kazuhiro lies about Marie being a foreign relative of his so people don't question why she's living with him. On the other hand, the way they act around each other makes people think they're Kissing Cousins.
- Resurrective Immortality: If Kazuhiro dies in the other world, he'll just wake up in Japan, and can go back to the world again when he falls asleep. This also extends to the people he is in physical contact with when they dies or falls asleep and brings them to Japan with him. He's not sure what would happen if he or Marie died in Japan, however, and he's in no rush to find that out.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: The other world operate on this principle, with people having their own levels, stats, and skills that can be viewed via status screen. It does create an interesting situation where since only ~30% of the population is literate, illiterate people would need to be helped by literate ones in order to understand their own status screen.
- Secret-Keeper: Kazuhiro's grandfather turns out to know about Kazuhiro's talent and the other world.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Despite already having a husband, Wridra doesn't seem to have any problem sleeping naked with Kazuhiro, or being naked in general.
- Shipper on Deck: Despite the incident mentioned in Shameless Fanservice Girl, Wridra absolutely ships Kazuhiro/Marie.
- The Sleepless: Played with: technically Kazuhiro and the others he brought over need to sleep, however when they're asleep on one world they're transported to the other. It has one interesting effect where when they sleep in the other world, they'll wake back up in the original world, and treated as if they slept on that world for the whole time, thus they'll never suffer any effects of sleep deprivation. This means that this trope is technically in effect, but they have to spend half the time on one world and the other half on the other.
- Slice of Life: The Earthside story focuses on this, with the people Kazuhiro brought along (initially Marie, then others) learning and enjoying life in Japan. In some circumstances the other world's story also has this.
- Summon Magic: Marie's specialty, Spirit Sorcery, where she summons spirits to do her bidding. This is very useful since they can be prepared before battle by loading them with spells beforehand thus cutting down casting time in battle, and sufficiently skilled Spirit Sorcerers can prepare multiple spirits at the same time.
- Teleport Spam: Kazuhiro's general fighting style, using it in combination with Doppelgänger Spin in order to screw with his enemies on which is the real him. It does have several limitations however: both of his feet has to be on the ground to initiate it, he must look in the direction he's teleporting to so attentive enemies can determine direction he's heading towards, there's weight limit on how much he can carry while teleporting (which is restrictive enough he has to forego wearing armor), and there's range limit.
- Title Drop: Kazuhiro drops the title when he welcomes the elf Marie to Japan.
- That Was Not a Dream: The premise of the series, where Kazuhiro discovered that the "dream" world isn't actually a dream at all, and that he actually teleported himself to the other world when he sleeps, although the reader don't discover the teleportation until Sven found that they disappeared from his Oracle sight completely, something that should have been impossible.
- Tracking Device: The blood stone that Wridra gave Kazuhiro is actually a tracking and listening device connected to her by her magic, since she found his ability to travel between worlds to be a very worrying power that someone might use for evil...which turns out not to be a problem since he's using it to, in her words, "eloping with a young elf girl". Marie is more annoyed by her being a peeping tom on their private moments than anything.
- Translator Microbes: Averted: unlike many other isekai works, language barrier is a big deal in this world, and one of Marie's struggles in Japan is trying to learn Japanese. Kazuhiro has much less problem with this due to him taking Language Proficiency skills in the other world which helped him learn new languages at accelerated pace, which also results in him acting as translator on occasions. Sven noted that generally learning monster languages is a fool's deal since they can only be realistically used during interrogation, with the monsters being too hostile in normal situation. Kazuhiro managed to get around hostility and actually is quite friendly to a number of them.
- Trapped in Another World: Played with, since Kazuhiro has the ability to travel between the worlds. Also, the people he brought from another world can also be brought back if they sleep with him again.
- Verbal Tic: Mewi, due to Marie's insistence when he's learning Universal Language, adds "mew" as a tic.
- Warp Whistle: Kazuhiro has an ability that he can use to quickly travel far distance by accessing the God of Travel's domain, which can be used once per day. Wridra says she can't benefit from this due to her power level being too similar to that of the God, who barred her from accessing it. Kazuhiro also notes that it's an ability that is rarely taken, generally only taken by Intrepid Merchants that want to do long-range, lightweight goods trading, given the weight limitation.
