Nihon e Youkoso Elf-san.
Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf!

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This manga does a good job with worldbuilding and has good chemistry between it's two main leads with fun adventures and slice of life in between. While it suffers from a mediocrity in it's art style and weak supporting cast, the manga is certainly worth picking up if it has already caught your eye.

Story (8/10)

The premise of this manga's story is rather simple, but executed quite well. Since his childhood, Kazuhiro has been dreaming about a fantasy world where he spends his time adventuring. He is able to bring over certain items over such as bento and he returns to his world when ... he wakes up or dies. During one of his adventures with his elven adventuring companion Mariabelle, Kazuhiro inadvertently returns to his own world bringing Mariabelle with him. The manga has an interesting duel narrative with events in Kazuhiro's world focused more on slice of life and Mariabelle's reverse isekai experience, whereas the events in Mariabelle's are focused on adventure. The manga does a good job with world budling in the other world, but does fall into classic isekai tropes with adventures guilds and the like. I also found that the drama in the isekai world within the adventurer guild to be quite weak overall due to these characters receiving little characterization and more tangible conflicts being easily solved when the character Wrinda is present.

Characters (7/10)

The core cast of characters, that being Kazuhiro and Mariabelle have great chemistry. Supporting characters and antagonistic characters introduced generally do not have a tremendous amount of depth and generally fall flat and unmemorable. The only supporting character that is a step above the others in terms of personality would probably be Wrinda who joins Kazuhiro and Mariabelle regularly on their isekai and real world adventures taking a sort of onee-san archetype.

Art (7/10)

The art in this manga is mediocre. Nothing about the art style really sets it apart from the rest of the pack stylistically. The art style doesn't add or take away from my enjoyment of the manga. I personally feel like the artist does a better job drawing monsters and animals over people.

A decent isekai.

STORY (8/10)
Despite the first chapter being rather boring, it sets up the story well. The manga is about a dude who goes to another world in his dreams and can take certain things over to that side, such as his bento. So he packs lunch every day and goes to the other world to level up and grind experience and such.

One day, he dies in a dragon's nest. However, he did not die alone but instead with his elf friend Mary. When he wakes up due to dying in the dream world, he finds Mary next to him.

The story basically revolves ... around Mary getting used to life in Japan and their adventures going back to the dream world. It uses lighthearted banter to develop the world and philosophy behind these alternate realities and has cute interactions between the characters.

I like how the author pays a lot of attention to minor details, such as how food might not be as advanced in the other world because cooking has not been developed enough technologically due to everyone becoming an adventurer and fighting over stuff.

ART (9/10)
It's good. Kazuhito is a young single salaryman, not an age group you see too often in this medium. He takes on the role of an elder with Mary in his life as he teaches her what life in Japan is like. He looks happy most of the time because he is happy most of the time, and that's consistent enough for me.

Mary's reactions to things are cute, she's drawn well and not oversexualized like many elves are in fantasy manga. Her reactions to modern Japan are the highlights of this manga.

CHARACTER (7/10)
Kazuhito isn't an overpowered mc in the slightest, and this is one of the main reasons the story appeals to me. He does seem a little broken in some parts but this is explained by his unusually long lifespan relative to the dream world. His friendship with Mary seems to be genuine, despite all the jokes about it revolving around food, and he's an overall normal guy who acts normally.

Mary seems haughty at first, but she is revealed to be a good person—er, elf. This isn't to say that she's a cardboard cut-out tsundere, it's just that she seems to have this air of superiority (she does know more about the other world than Kazuhito, and she helps him in this aspect) that she immediately drops once she tastes Japanese food. She's also a proud magician and it's noted that she doesn't want to ride a car until she understands how it works, which is pretty impressive and fits well with her personality. Her reactions are pretty wholesome.

The dragon is relatively new to the manga but she seems like a rather fun character as well, although a bit cliche. The worldbuilding is consistent, though full of fantasy tropes, as expected.

ENJOYMENT (7/10)
I didn't particularly see any specific aspect of this manga that excels. Of course, this isn't to discredit Nihon e Youkoso Elf-san in any way, because it is a good manga on its own. But it's not anything groundbreaking, even though it is a well-rounded manga that I encourage you to check out if you're interested.

The comedy here is extremely weak. So many missed opportunities for reverse isekai jokes and yet they do nothing with it. Is eating food that tastes good supposed to be comedy now? I have no idea what they were thinking with this manga. It's like they couldn't decide between boring isekai adventure and boring isekai romance. There's a lot of action but it's completely forgettable. The characters are silly but there are no jokes. If they actually developed the romance seriously this could have been interesting, but apparently fighting random monsters is where the entertainment is at. It's obvious they took zero risk with this ... manga and it shows.