Manga / Plus-Sized Elf

Now with twenty percent more cheat days.

Plus-Sized Elf (Elf-san wa Yaserarenai, or "Ms. Elf Can't Lose Weight") is an ecchi comedy seinen manga series by Synecdoche, originally published by Wani Books from 2016 to 2020 on their Comic Gum site. The series was cancelled when Wani Books wound down Comic Gum, but Synecdoche brought it over to Akita Shoten, where it was relaunched as Shin Elf-san wa Yaserarenai, or "New Ms. Elf Can't Lose Weight", on LINE Manga. Seven Seas Entertainment have licensed both the original series and Shin for English publication, releasing Shin under the title Plus-Sized Elf: Second Helping!.

Naoe Tomoatsu is a massage therapist at the Smiley Boar clinic. Things are pretty normal for him there until one night when he gets a new client who happens to be an elf. This elf, named Elfuda, came to our world from another dimension and wants to go back. However, before she can go, she has to lose the weight she gained during her stay, which is very difficult due to her newly-gained addiction to french fries, so she wants Naoe's help slimming down. As he tries to help Elfuda keep her weight under control, Naoe meets other non-human women in a similar situation who also need his assistance.

An anime adaptation was confirmed to be in development on January 15th, 2024, and is expected to begin airing in July of that year.

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Plus-Sized Elf provides examples of:

• Acrofatic: Discussed by Medesa when she mentions that Elfuda is still as agile as a normal elf can be despite her overweight body. But considering all she has is a potbelly and slightly plumper thighs, it makes sense she’d still be somewhat swift despite being out of shape.
• Alien Catnip: French fries are this for Elfuda, to the point that she's stacked on a bit of extra weight from the greasy potato-based treats.
  • Noodles are this for the gorgon they meet; she loses control of her power over people disrespecting them.
  • Coffee is this for alraunes as they absorb it like ground soil, changing their personality.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": The non-human women tend to have names referencing their race: Elfuda is a homophone in Japanese for "is an elf", Kuroeda's name combines "kuro" (dark/black) and "eda", which also sounds somewhat like "is an elf", the first two Japanese characters in Kusohanada's name mean "flowering plant", fitting for a Plant Person, a.k.a an Alraune. Laika's name is similar to "raikansuroopu", the Japanese transliteration of "lycanthrope" (and may also be a Shout-Out to Laika, a stray dog who became the first animal to orbit the Earth), Mero's name comes from either "merrow" or "mermaid", Honeda's name includes the character for "bone", Gonda's name is a homophone in Japanese for "is a dragon", and includes the kanji for "snake", Hitome literally means "One Eye", Medesa, Eure and Suteno's names come from the original gorgon sisters Medusa, Euryale and Stheno, and Olga, Oku and Kobo's names all derive from their English species names (ogre, orc, and kobold, respectively).
• All Women Are Lustful: Naoe's boss, Ino, always tries to get him to go out for drinks with her, got him to wear a speedo that said big on it when on the beach, and once bought a small island that she plans to populate with a reverse harem for herself. Though she was fine with Naoe bringing his harem to it for now.
• Art Evolution: The art style has shifted quite a bit since the series began - the women are drawn noticeably curvier, and (while still quite plump) are drawn with larger butts, thighs and breasts to compensate.
• Art Shift: Kuroeda has a tendency to shift art styles when being serious or dramatic.
• Author Appeal: The author has produced a lot of erotic works featuring very Rubenesque women. This series, while being a lot less explicit than the others, continues that trend.
• Beach Episode:
  • Everyone goes to a gym's pool in chapter 7.
  • In chapters 21-22, Ino takes everyone to a beach on a deserted island.
• Benevolent Boss: Bar her coy sexual harassment towards Naoe, Ino is this towards him.
• Berserk Button: Most of the girls get angry if their fat is being brought up. Elfuda has a pretty thin skin when it comes to mockery or denying her fries. Medesa takes ramen very seriously, and hates seeing it ruined.
• Big Bad Wannabe:
  • The satyr acts as the closest thing to an antagonistic force, despite not really being a threat. Her reasons for her actions are weak, and her deeds are more akin to a troll than an actual villain
  • Likewise, the giant squid from chapters 21 and 22 does not pose that much of a threat, other than pulling innocents into the sands. Even when she comes back later with a human form, she still isn't much of a threat.
• Big Ball of Violence: Elfuda and Kuroeda go at it in chapter 5, and again in chapter 10. In chapter 5, after they've broken it up, there are clearly visible bruises, scratches, and even a bite mark. In chapter 10, they fight each other despite ostensibly uniting to defend Naoe from a satyr.
• Big Beautiful Woman: While the series focuses on the girls' attempts to lose weight, it's their plump features that are the source of most of the series' fanservice. All the monster girls have gained weight from their stay on Earth that have mostly gone to the right places, making them in a certain way quite attractive, with the best examples being Kuroeda and Oku, the former of whom has a more plump lower body while the latter is outright chubby but still quite attractive.
  • As the author’s art style has improved and evolved over time, most of the female characters look genuinely plus sized, such as Elfuda who in Shin looks much more rubenesque than she did beforehand.
• Big Eater: A common factor for most of the women is they are addicted to a specific type of food they binge eat like crazy.
• *Bleep*-dammit!: As is the norm in mature Japanese artwork, whenever the women are shown nude the only part of their bodies that is hidden is their genitals while their breasts and buttocks remain completely uncensored.
• The Boxing Episode: Chapter 17 has Naoe bring some of the girls to exercise in a boxing gym, where he reveals he practiced pugilism in college. This is also where Hitome is introduced, and once she meets Oga, the pair have an intense brawl fight due to their innate rivalry for each other.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Subverted with Kobo, who's actually a jerkass adult kobold who only looks like a child.
• Casual Interdimensional Travel: Any being can travel to and from the other world by means of... a sliding door in an old WWII bunker. The reason Elfuda needs to slim down is because the portal will only accept someone for a return trip if they're the same weight they were when they originally crossed over.
• Censor Steam: In the sauna chapter (#5), the nipples and genitals of the sauna visitors are covered by steam.
• Chubby Chaser: Naoe admits he is one and in the first chapter is daydreaming about Ino's voluptuous body and if she got plumper. However despite his taste for chubby women, he is really diligent in his work so he does his best to have the girls adopt a healthy lifestyle and slim down. Yet the reason he never acts on his tastes and acts more romantically with Elfuda or the other monster girls is due to a dream eater known as Oneiros feeding on his dreams and desires while he sleeps, thus keeping that part of him suppressed.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Dark elves wear special clothes to boost magical abilities, and in order for the clothes to work they have to be able to properly fit in them, which is a problem for Kuroeda, who's gotten too big for hers.
• Clothing Damage: Rather frequent. If not for Fanservice, then for humor.
• Cool Shades: Elfuda's aunt wears some during their beach volley ball game.
• Corner of Woe:
  • Oga's reaction when the others don't want to spar with her in chapter 17.
  • Naoe has the same reaction when Honeda asks why none of the girls have lost weight.
  Naoe: That's because I'm bad at my job.
• Covered in Scars: Elfuda's aunt; a shower scene shows she sports scars almost everywhere.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: A coffee-drunk Kusohanada beats Elfuda with ease.
• Cute Monster Girl: Given the type of manga this is, of course this would be the standard for all the female characters introduced. Even the girls from more traditionally monstrous races, like ogres, cyclopes, orcs, and lycanthropes, look very attractive and beautiful.
• Cyclops: One's introduced in chapter 17, and she's even taller than Oga and has a very stocky physique, as fitting another member of the titan tribe. They borrow a bit from Harryhausen-style cyclopes, having a single small horn above the eye. They're good with their hands, and many are known as master blacksmiths in the other world.
• Debut Queue: The first few chapters each introduce at least one member of the recurring cast.
• Defiled Forever: Naoe's reaction after his encounter with a drunk-on-coffee Kusohanada.
• Dem Bones: Skeletons are a type of undead, people who in their dying moments hold hatred, regret, or other strong negative feelings in their hearts, resulting in the magic power in their bodies turning them undead; by letting go of those emotions, they can finally move on. They don't necessarily have to have been human in life. They can easily survive being disassembled and reassembled, though they can't automatically do it themselves. They have an invisible, intangible body which they can make visible to others through magic.
• Dimensional Traveler: So far, all the non-human characters have used a portal to get to our world, but, due to its strangely specific rules about maintaining their appearance when they came, are stuck on Earth for the time being.
• Edutainment Show: While the series is largely comedic and fanservicey, Naoe does give out actual diet and exercise advice at least once a chapter.
• Engrish: The manga's own translation of its title is "Elf can't on a diet".
• Erotic Dream: Naoe has a dream in Chapter 10 about Elfuda in a bikini lying on a mountain of fries which inadvertently exposes the Satyr inflicting it on him, but whether it was intended to be one is hard to determine.
• Eyes Out of Sight:
  • Laika's eyes are covered by her bangs in all her forms.
  • Hitome hides her single eye under her bangs.
• Fantastic Racism: Forest elves and dark elves hate each other. Elfuda claims it's because dark elves are inherently evil but Kuroeda denies her claim as forest elf propaganda. Both types of elf look down on orcs.
• Fattening the Victim:
  • In chapter 10, Naoe starts mysteriously putting on weight, and finds out it's due to the influence of a mischievous satyr who's been enchanting him into sleep-eating all night so she can feed off his "desire". Unfortunately, after driving off the trickster he has to lose the excess weight the old-fashioned way. Meanwhile Satero, having been humilated by Elfuda and Naoe, starts planning her revenge...
  • Three chapters later, Satero disguises herself as a buxom manager of Bad Burger and successfully tempts Elfuda and Naoe with a year’s supply of free french fries. The pair quickly become hooked on the fries thanks to Satero casting an addictive enchantment on their meals (not to mention Elfuda having no self-control) and feeding them free fries everyday as they gain weight from this fattening diet. All so Satero can have her revenge and humiliate them once they grow too fat to wear any clothes. After weeks of eating nothing but french fries at Bad Burger, Elfuda becomes fattened up to the point that the outfit she wore at the start of the chapter is the only set of clothes left that can barely fit around her now plump and portly body. The same goes for Naoe as well, who becomes just as big as Elfuda. Yet the tubby duo almost don’t seem to care much or even notice how fat they’ve become and just want to keep eating more fries until Kuroeda and Oga snap them out of their french fry bliss and make them aware of the Satyr’s trickery. Thankfully after her scheme blows up in her face, Naoe and Elfuda are able to slim down to normal and lose the extra weight. Well except for Elfuda who's stuck with a potbelly once again.
• Fauns and Satyrs: Satyrs here are more akin to Succubi and Incubi than their traditional depiction; they're demonic-looking humanoids with horns and a tail, but without the typical goat legs, and feed off others' desires, magically hypnotizing people to stimulate their desires, then forcing them to act them out.
• Food Chains: An inversion, where it’s the magical creatures becoming stuck in the human world from eating too much human fast food and gaining weight as a result.
• Formerly Fat:
  • Medesa's sisters used to be incredibly fat, to the point where she described them as being as round as balls. Their relentless searching for her after she left home burned all their fat away, turning them quite slim and curvy. To return home, they need to regain all their weight, but due to their strong metabolisms they're finding this more difficult than expected.
  • Oku was pretty stout, even amongst other orcs, and had gone to Earth to slim down. But after learning about dieting, Oku began a regimen at the pool to exercise and lost enough weight where she became slender yet voluptuous. But after the pool closed for the winter, Oku didn’t know how to maintain her diet regimen and eventually became chubby again.
• Formerly Fit: Elfuda, Oga, Hitome somewhat, Elfuda's aunt and Kuroeda. Implied for most of the remaining cast.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Most of the female characters wear clothes that highlight all their figures' plumper curves. This is actually a problem for Kuroeda, since her clothes were form-fitting before she came to our world, and certain parts of her body have gotten too big for them. Since they boost her power, she literally can't go home until she loses enough weight to fit back into her old outfit.
• Fountain of Youth: Kuroeda creates a weight-loss drug and wants to try it on Elfuda. Before she can manage it, Naoe has some of it, mistaking it for a soft drink, but rather than causing weight loss it causes a physical regression to childhood.
• Fun T-Shirt: Elfuda likes wearing t-shirts with food references, especially when it comes to fries or potatoes.
• Gag Censor: Chibi-esque versions of the girls' faces are used to cover up their nipples ^note  in the magazine version at least and genitals when they get exposed.
• Girlish Pigtails: Kobo, accentuating her child-like appearance.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Ino invited Satero with the rest of the girls and Naoe to her private island despite the satyr being more an antagonist.
• Golem: Kuroeda normally has six child-size golems to help her out with her convenience store job, but without her wizard attire she can only have one.
• Go Through Me: Naoe gets himself between Elfuda and her aunt when her aunt's training and diet is clearly unhealthy. He doesn't even blink when she swings at him rationalizing that if Ooeda really cares for her niece she wouldn't hurt him.
• Green Thumb: Elves can hear the voice of nature, finding out what plants are saying, but because Earth has no magical power, they can only hear it faintly. Alraune have a greater affinity with nature, and can freely manipulate plants, moving them around, healing them, and transforming them into any other type of plant entirely.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl:
  • Ino, to the point Naoe tries to avoid going in bars with her since she drinks for hours and gets even more gropey when drunk (not that Naoe minds).
  • Oga as well, who loves to go barhopping and enjoy beer as much as possible, but inevitably it led to her getting a beer belly.
• The Heart:
  • Naoe is the one calming most disputes, and he convinces Kobo to stop bullying children. Oga even tells Satero she doesn't care if she takes revenge on Elfuda by making her fat, but takes issue with attacking the human’s waistline.
  • Oku is one of the kindest characters amongst the monster girls and is always pretty calm and friendly despite others like Kureoda and Elfuda making comments about her being a orc. Yet over time that prejudice has died down as in Shin Elfuda has become more friendly with Oku than when they first met.
• Height Angst: Gonda doesn't appreciate being told she's short for a dragon.
• Heroic BSoD: Oga has a minor and comedic breakdown upon discovering Kobo's actually an adult rather than a child she can dote on.
• Hey, You!: Elfuda keeps addressing Naoe as "human".
• Hobbits: Small humanoids with pointy ears. With their ears covered, they can pass as human children.
• I Ate WHAT?!: Elfuda faints upon Mero informing her the salmon eggs she ate are actually mermaid eggs. Specifically, Mero's mermaid eggs. They really were salmon eggs. Mero just wanted to yank Elfuda's chain.
• Identical Stranger: Oku with her ears hidden and with a slender yet well endowed figure looks near identical to Naoe's boss Ino; Naoe even mistakes the former for the latter. Even after gaining weight, Oku vaguely resembles a chubbier Ino.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Chapters are called 'appointments', reflecting Naoe's job as a therapist.
• Improbably Female Cast: Naoe is the only male with any relevance in the story. All of the people he's met that came from the other dimension just happen to be female.
• Knight Templar Big Sister: Medesa's sisters have a smothering level of protectiveness towards her, with them showing up in person to completely crush the bodies and spirits of the other monster girls due to catching them making their sister cry.
• Lazy Bum: A few of the girls aren't particularly active, due to the earth lifestyle making them quite lazy. Which no doubt had a major factor in making them all overweight when accounting for their less than stellar diets. Which forces Naoe to find activities to shape them up to exercise more. Elfuda got so lazy at one point she stopped doing her hair and left it loose.
• Male Gaze: Anyone who's read it can tell the manga does this repeatedly. For example, Kuroeda's butt gets a lot of focus in her case.
• Magic Music: Mero's singing causes hallucinations, confusion and hypnosis in those without magic resistance.
• Meaningful Name: The "Nao" in Naoe's name can be read as "ordinary", and "Tomoatsu" can be read as "warm/kind friend" or "thick/heavy friend". Oga's name is written with the character for "male" or "manliness", reflecting her physique and speech patterns, the individual kanji in Laika's name translate as "to depend on" and "increase/addition", and the last character in Hobi's name means "help" or "assist", referencing her legion of followers.
• Medusa: Gorgons look almost identical to humans, but their eyes have snakelike pupils, and when they get emotional, their hair turns white and the snakelike fangs in their mouth start showing. They can fire Eye Beams that turn things to stone, which they can reverse with their tears, and wear glasses to restrain their powers. When pressured to the point they lose control of their emotions, their hair takes over in self-defense and turns into snakes. (When Medesa gets worked up, she loses control of her power, and her glasses fly off; whether that's just her, or gorgons in general, is unclear.)
• Monster Roommate: Naoe lives with elves Elfuda and her aunt Oeda, as well as manticore Nekono in Shin Elf-san.
• Muggles Do It Better:
  • In Elfuda's magical world, all meals are extremely basic with no cooking techniques beyond grilling or boiling existing, seasonings as simple as salt and pepper are extremely expensive, and the elves' vegetarian diets consists of nothing but raw vegetables. As such, Elfuda and the rest of the female cast prefer Earth food due to its much wider array of choices.
  • We also have better body care techniques in our world, as well as ways to lose weight and get pretty athletic with enough time and effort. This is slightly less impressive, though, when you consider why exactly we needed them in the first place.
• Mundane Object Amazement:
  • Elfuda is obsessed with french fries and is shocked that something so tasty can be labeled as "junk food" in our world. This is because in her world, seasoning of any kind can only be afforded by the very rich, so food for most people tastes extremely bland.
  • Oku's tribe has a secret legendary technique passed down from generation to generation that allows orcs to lose weight. She learns the technique almost immediately after arriving on Earth because here it's known as dieting. However the only one Oku knows is swimming and once the pool where she used to work out was closed, she had no other way to keep her daily diet and regained all the weight she lost.
• My Beloved Smother: Ogre females in general have a powerful maternal instinct. So much so that even when Oga knows Kobo isn't a child, she still treats her like one. It gets even worse when she meets a de-aged Naoe and deludes herself into believing she gave birth to him.
• Nice Guy: Naoe only gets angry when Elfuda doesn't take her diet seriously (which is all the time) and even then he calms down fast. He instantly forgives Kuroeda for de-aging him by accident.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Despite having all of the typical trappings of a harem series, romance is very rarely if ever brought up. None of the girls ever show any romantic interest in Naoe at all, and vice-versa. Even Elfuda, who lives with Naoe, has nothing resembling romantic tension with him. At best she’s an affectionate best friend to Naoe. So as far as Naoe and the girls are concerned, he's just their care provider and good friend, nothing more.
  • As if to drive the point home, the only times at which the idea of romantic interest is directly broached are entirely within dream sequences that are played strictly for laughs.
  • Ino is not shy about the fact that she finds Naoe very attractive, and albeit she's coy and playful with him, it's shown that it doesn't go beyond sexual attraction and Naoe tends to avoid her advances.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Oga, especially when she is in full mama mode. She also manhandles the others occasionally and even pats Naoe for no real reason.
• Older Than They Look: Kobolds here look less like small adults and more like actual children.
• Once per Episode: Elfuda will eat fries or mention eating fries in a chapter. It's her thing.
• One-Hour Work Week: Elfuda's occupation is "self-employed", same as Oga and the girls that don't have obvious jobs yet still afford their vices.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: In chapter 33, which introduces Medesa's sisters, their names are never mentioned, with Medesa only calling them Big Sis and 2nd Big Sis and the sisters themselves being too enraged at the other monster girls to bother telling them their actual names. Chapter 37 finally gives their names as Suteno and Eure.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: Medesa's glasses, which are marked with concentric black circles.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons have a human form with draconic traits, including horns, pointy ears, a tail, a few scales under the eyes, and a forked tongue. Their eyes default to being large and black, with the sclera just visible around them. They're cold-blooded, meaning they rely on the environment to regulate their body temperature; if they get too cold, they hibernate. They use higher-dimensional magic, making telepathy easy for them. They're known for collecting treasure, although not necessarily what other species would think of as treasure.
• Our Elves Are Different: There are at least three different kinds of elves: forest elves, who are light skinned blondes, live in forests and largely rely heavily on their archery skills or swordsmanship like Oeda, dark elves, who have brown skin, red eyes, silver hair, and are more adept in magic, and orcs, who are a stocky, red haired, pig eared/tailed race and are physically the strongest of the elves yet are still considered "pig elves" by the other two clans.
• Our Fairies Are Different: They're human-size, with pointy ears and butterfly wings, and are very close to elves. Yet not much else is known given the only one seen is basically a skeletal ghost.
• Our Manticores Are Spinier: Manticores are huge cats with feline faces and saber-teeth, and lack the stinger tails the species is usually known for. They're also huge; Nekoda is a fairly young one and is still the size of a lion. Their ability to shrink to housecat size or take a human form seem to be new information in-series.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: Mermaids have fish tails in place of legs, sharp teeth, and fin-shaped ears. However, with a drop of mermaid tears or small amount of maca extract (the latter being way more plentiful) they can temporarily transform their tails into legs.
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Other than a pair of small horns ogres look human. Granted most of them are very tall (Oga is seven feet tall and Hitome is eight feet tall) and muscular. They are part of the titan species, who're notorious in testing their strength against other titans. When Oga sees Hitome, they start to beat the crap out of each other. Hitome also mentions that Titans like her and Oga change their size for living cost and avoiding accidental destruction and Oga is actually fourteen feet tall.
• Our Orcs Are Different: Orcs look mostly human, aside from having pig ears and a pig tail (and a snout, in the case of male orcs). Most of them are stout and have issues losing weight. They also take after one of the orc origins in Tolkien's Legendarium in being a variant of elves, albeit as a natural subspecies rather than being converted from them.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Lycanthropes are shapeshifters who can change between three forms: a Little Bit Beastly form with dog ears and tail, a humanoid dog form, and a full dog form. Their natural form is the humanoid dog form.
• Plant Person: Alraunes, like Kusohanada, are plants that look and act human. They have flowers that sprout out of their bodies, but those can easily be mistaken as ornaments so long as the flowers don't absorb too much sunlight, water, and other nutrients since they can get very large and heavy. They also turn into gyaru when they drink coffee, since absorbing nutrients and water can temporarily affect their personality.
• P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: While Naoe is the protagonist of the series, most of the covers and promotional materials focus on the girls, usually Elfuda.
• Pretty Freeloader: The living situation for most of the girls isn't shown, but Elfuda, Oeda, and Nekoda all but live at Naoe's apartment later on in the series, with other characters frequently popping in whenever they please. Becomes a plot point in Shin, as the stress of living in such a cramped space causes Naoe to gain weight, necessitating a move to a larger apartment.
• Retired Badass: Elfuda; after the great war in her world she went to the human world for fries and to laze it up, resulting in her becoming overweight. But she still has really sharp reflexes and is pretty good with her bow.
• School Swimsuit: All the women in chapter 7.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: More by function than by intention. By virtue of their differing societal mores and customs, most of the otherworldy women in the manga have a rather cavalier attitude towards being naked, particularly in front of Naoe, and it's shown that they're not always aware or caring of its sexual aspect. As such, they're naked a LOT of the time.
• Shapeshifting: In Shin chapter 10, Suteno works with Oneiros to bring the gathered energies of Naoe’s dreams into reality and alter her body so it'll be easier for her to gain weight and go home. However, due to Naoe having a nightmare involving Oga and Hitome where he frantically wished to be “bigger", instead of growing plumper, Suteno becomes a lot taller and more voluptuous.
• Shout-Out:
  • In the first chapter, when Naoe concludes that Elfuda is an elf, his mental image is Deedlit.
  • Oga's first appearance in the sauna mirrors a panel of Baki the Grappler with Yujiro "the Ogre" Hanma.
  • At the end of Chapter 16, upon seeing Gonda's tail, Naoe passes out from his fear of reptiles. In the background, a drawing of Naoe in armor in a slumped over position can be seen: this is meant to echo the legendary Gut Punch of Tomorrow's Joe in which the main character passes out in the ring (and soon dies from internal hemorrhaging).
  • In the same chapter, when Kuroeda says "Just as planned", she takes on a look very similar to that of Light from Death Note.
    • The official translation has her say it's "according to keikaku" and adding "keikaku means plan".
  • Kusahanada's sand sculpture in chapter 21 is a creepily smiling flower with a pedestal marked "Howdy".
  • Shin chapter 8, as a detective parody, has a number of shout-outs to various detective media:
    • The writing on Elfuda's shirt on page 2, "Potato Kara Hajimaru Mystery", is a reference to one of the opening themes for The Kindaichi Case Files live-action series, "Kiss Kara Hajimaru Mystery". Later on, Kobo quotes main character Hajime Kindaichi's Character Catchphrase, "In the name of my grandpa!", saying "In the name of my grandma..."
    • On page 3, Kobo channels Shinichi Kudo, while on page 10 she channels Columbo.
• Shown Their Work: The entire premise of Elfuda's weight crisis shows what happens when a person who once had a low-calorie diet and came from a hard workload environment is introduced into a more sedentary lifestyle with high-calorie foods - namely, that person getting out of shape from lack of activity alongside lack of willingness to work out anymore. This tends to happen to some former athletes and even retired soldiers who wind up overweight due to eating large amounts of food, without having a proper workout regimen to burn off the excess calories and keep them fit.
• Squishy Wizard: Kuroeda is the best magic user of the cast but is among the most out of shape. Elfuda is fat from eating too much fries but she still trains a lot while Kuroeda has great self control when it comes to food but spends most of her time behind a counter which bloats her lower body.
• Status Quo Is God: It does not matter if any of the cast properly lose their excess and get to a weight they're happy with. Inevitably they'll rebound and put the weight back on within the chapter or the next to keep the story going. It goes the other way too, where if on the rare occasion excessive fattening occurs, they'll eventually be back to a normal/overweight size.
• The Stoic: Elfuda's aunt never really changes facial expression even when she is admonishing people and can do yoga during the middle of a fight without breaking poses.
• Super Drowning Skills: Neither Elfuda or Kuroeda can swim. The Beach Episode showed that neither Elfuda's aunt, Honeda and Mero in her human form can either.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: Chapter 9 is mostly about the girls attempting (and failing) to tell each other scary stories... until Mero ends it by telling an actually scary story in which she catches a severed head (which is illustrated in a disturbing amount of detail) while fishing.
• Swallowed Whole: Is implied to happen to Naoe by a gyaru venus fly-trap Kusohanada in chapter 28. He was spit back out before anything bad could happen to him beyond losing his clothes and getting slightly traumatized, though.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Elfuda and Kuroeda aren't good at working together, preferring to fight each other instead.
• Temporary Bulk Change:
  • In chapter 10, Naoe starts mysteriously putting on weight, and finds out it's due to the influence of a mischievous satyr who's been enchanting him into sleep-eating all night so she can feed off his "desire". Unfortunately, he has to lose the excess weight the old-fashioned way.
  • In chapter 13, Elfuda wins a year's worth of free fries at Bad Burger, and both she and Naoe get fat (moreso than usual in Elfuda's case) from stuffing themselves with fries, thanks to an addictive enchantment cast by the satyr girl from chapter 10. Thankfully the duo lose the weight and slim back down to normal, but Elfuda is once again stuck with a potbelly.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • French fries for Elfuda. She flat out calls them sacred and she carries some around everywhere.
  • Ice creams for Elfuda's aunt. She is constantly seeing eating one in her introduction arc.
  • Ramen for Medesa, who eats it three times a day for her main meals.
  • Naoe is something of a coffee expert; he has pretty much everything short of a kettle on him at all time.
• Training from Hell: When Elfuda's aunt arrives in the human world to bring her niece back, the former puts the latter in this and a (excessively) restricted diet to make her lose weight and go back to their home world. It doesn't work.
• Truth in Television: When Elfuda says that spices were extremely expensive back home, that's actually historically accurate- salt used to be priced more than gold (which is where we get the word "salary" and the phrase "worth his salt," referring to how much salt it would take to buy someone), and spice trade was, and remains, lucrative even today.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Elfuda and Kuroeda bicker and fight a lot but also act like close friends at times.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: When Oga had to throw up during a run because of a hangover, the vomit was first replaced by a rain of sparkles and the next panel was replaced by a child's drawing of sunshine and sunflowers and the monster girls' plea "let's stop for a bit, please".
• Wardrobe Malfunction: A lot of the weight Kuroeda gained went to her butt and thighs, so whenever she tries to wear the magic enhancing outfit, the thong and thigh boots give out and get shredded. Her work pants also gave out when she tried doing lunges and squats.
• Weight Woe: Most of the women Naoe meets are trying to lose the weight they've gained from their diet in our world.
  • Elfuda wants to lose weight so she can get back to her world. Though she quickly modifies that to wanting to find a way to manage her waistline so she can gain and lose weight easily in order to travel to Earth for french fries and still freely go back to her world.
  • Kuroeda wants to slim down so she can fit in magic enhancing clothes.
  • Oga's ashamed of her beer belly she got from drinking too much alcohol.
  • Oku was constantly bullied because of her stout figure, and being an orc, most of whom are naturally stout, means it's much harder for her to slim down.
  • Hitome despite being already stocky wants to lose the weight she gained so it doesn’t affect her boxing skills.
  • Naoe sometimes freaks out over his weight, as shown in chapter 10.
• Weirdness Magnet: After meeting Elfuda, Naoe bumps into other non-human characters that need his help usually by sheer coincidence.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Naoe's been scared of reptiles ever since he was bitten by a snake when he was a kid.
• Wrong Assumption: Oga assumes Naoe's brought the girls to a sauna in chapter 29, and gets the others to prepare accordingly by stripping naked; it turns out he's actually brought them to a 'hot yoga' place.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Elfuda's main motive for dieting is that the magic portal between her world and Earth requires that you be the same weight going back as you did coming through. However, Elfuda seemingly prefers staying on Earth and only remains in her world for a few days at a time before coming back, so it's less of a major concern and more her simply wishing to freely travel between worlds whenever she wishes.

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