In a world of fantastical beasts and adventurers, Alvin sets out on a journey to collect herbal plants. Along the way, he gets into a fight with a magical beast and would have been gored had a dark elf, Karla, not made herself known. Relieved, Alvin asks her for assistance to which she agrees but asks if he should be groveling to her first.
One accident leads to another when Alvin is accidentally cursed by Karla and is doomed to die if he were to step 300 meters away from her. So begins the hilarious journey of an annoyed warrior and a sharp-tongued dark elf who claims to be a healer.
Don't Hurt Me, My Healer! (Kono Healer, Mendokusai, literally "This Healer's a Handful") is a fantasy comedy manga written and illustrated by Tannen ni Hakko, which began serialization on the ComicWalker website in 2019. An anime adaptation was announced by Jumondou and premiered in April 2022.
The manga has examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: Karla claims to be a healer but she exhibits several traits that seem to be unbecoming of a holy cleric. For instance, Karla conjures monstrous tentacled abominations or nails voodoo dolls to walls when performing "healing" rituals.
- Assassin Outclassin': The old witch attempts to kill Alvin 4 times, but fails due to Karla's interference.
- Back for the Finale: Every monster Alvin and Karla encountered from Mostly Bear to the golem return to assist the party in stopping the enemy.
- Benevolent Monsters: Several of the monsters and demons that Karla and Alvin encounter end up being very approachable and often assist them of their own volition.
- Berserk Button: Mostly-Bear, who is revealed to be a female magi-beast, angrily lashes at Alvin when he accidentally called her "old."
- Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Karla is the boke, Alvin the tsukkomi.
- Butt-Monkey: Alvin is the receiver of insults from Karla and even other creatures don't give him a break.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Karla is a Dark Elf with Dark Magic, but she is healer in hero party… in theory.
- Failed a Spot Check: The entire beginner dungeon episode. Alvin fails to notice a trap door, and he fails into a pit. Afterwards, he pulls a suspicious lever and a pan falls on him. Finally, he steps on a giant button with a death symbol on it that triggers a crushing trap.
- Fountain of Youth: Karla tries to cook a dish and somehow performs a ritual to transform the old witch into a young woman.
- The Gadfly: The author pretty much designed Karla to provoke and insult Alvin for her own amusement.
- Gaslighting: Karla often is the perpetrator of this whenever she accuses Alvin of yelling at her or mistreating her for things she herself does.
- Giving Up the Ghost: This manages to happen to a side-character who already is a ghost in episode 10.
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: Alvin is fighting a bear and asks Karla for help. She accidentally curses him such that he will die if they are separated 300 meters apart. Thus, their adventures begin.
- Jerkass: Karla consistently berates Alvin for the littlest of things, to his chagrin.
- Mushroom Man: A mushroom man joins the party after defeating and pitying Alvin.
- No Face Under the Mask: Alvin's helmet always hides his face, and other characters also obscure his face. When the bear knocks his helmet off, there isn't any face there.
- Only Sane Man: Alvin has the patience of a saint to put up with Karla's unhelpfulness.
- Stealth Insult: Karla never directly insults Alvin, but she does it in a roundabout way.
- The Stoic: Karla's face is a default, expressionless one. This makes it hard to tell if she's being nice or insulting.
- Tentacled Terror: A "low level" tentacle monster with many eyes was summoned by Karla to prove her "healing" capabilities.
- Tsundere: Karla does genuinely enjoy Alvin's company and cares about him. Not that she would ever admit it in front of him.
