Those Who Hunt Elves: Ready, Set, Strip!by Barb Lien-CooperReviews may contain information that could be considered 'spoilers'. Readers should proceed at their own risk. Studio
Credits Grade: 7 The title, Those Who Hunt Elves, sounds a bit ominous, but the series itself is a lot more light hearted than the title suggests. The “hunting” part isn’t a “be wery wery quiet, I’m hunting elves” type of thing, but a slightly absurd plot device. The set up, as best I can explain it: three American types (an actress, a hefty stuntman, and a weapons expert) find themselves trapped in ancient mystical Japan or wherever (these DVDs never bother too much about specifics). Did I mention that whatever trapped them in the mystical past was also thoughtful enough to send a TANK with them? The tank is perhaps the funniest conceit in the DVD, as well as the most strangely practical - if I’m stuck in a mystic land, forget a sword, let me bring my tank with me (preferably with a lot of fuel and ammo). The three castaways are looking for a spell to bring them back to Hollywood. In order to do so, they have to find five special, magic elves (as opposed to your run-of-the-mill, Joe Six Pack ones) whose bodies have parts of a transport spell kind of tattooed on them. Since there’s no “magic elf with map” type clues that differentiate one elf from another, our three heroes are forced to strip every elf they find in order to see if he or she has a bit of the spell on their person. This leads to a lot of problems and embarrassment, as it’s darned hard to make “Sorry, miss, I need to take off your clothes now” sound like a decent proposal. While the running gag could have simply been offensive, I found it to be kind of funny.If you watch Those Who Hunt Elves straight through, as I did, it gets a bit same-y. If I’d taken time out between videos, I would have enjoyed the series more. Which isn’t to say I hated it. I especially liked our poor, shame-faced heroes. Oh, yeah, and the tank. The series trades broad laughs for smiles and likeability. While one wishes for a few real belly laughs of the Dirty Pair variety, the series is, for lack of a better term, companionable. I do wish that the “elves” that were strip searched weren’t all female. Surely there are men elves as well as women ones. I mean, how else do we get little (littler, I mean) elves? And, yeah, I’d like a bit more backstory and exposition on how these three heroes teamed up and got stuck in sword and sorcery land. It takes six episodes to get much of an explanation at all. But, these are minor kvetches, really. The likeability factor of the show is so high, you forgive its little misdemeanors. I would let older kids watch this video, as the nudity isn’t all that bad and is treated as a running gag. The 12 and up rating is pretty accurate. The extras are pretty standard, with the nice touches of character sketches and Clean Credit animation. My favorite feature, though, is that the language choice includes English, Japanese, and SPANISH. Since Spanish is spoken in so many homes in the US, I’m glad that ADV decided to add this language to the DVD. I hope it’s a trend that continues in more anime DVDs. I want as many kids and adults as possible to be able to appreciate anime. Written: April 25, 2002
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