Elf to Shuryoushi no Item Koubou

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Story is about a young looking old elf girl and a human adventuring together.

Girl is an item maker. Due to her long life as an elf, she have lot of experience and really good at it. She makes items such as Night Vision Eye Drops, Fire Resistant pendants etc .. To make items she needs ingredients and raw materials and to gather those, she goes on various adventures with her human friend. As they go on their adventures, we are able to read and observe sweet interactions, and a beautiful world.

World building is breath talking. If you monitor closely, each panel gives plethora ... of information and details. It is mesmerizing. Dragons, unique fruits, Pandora like places (from Avatar movie), herbs, places and many other things ...

Most selling point according to me is world building and wholesome story. If you want to purify your soul or exotic creatures and adventures excite you, you would wanna read this manga.

This is also on of those unique fantasy adventure manga where girl is NOT just a side character acting as wish fulfillment of main character. Character dynamics is sweet, wholesome and extensive. You can observe their reactions, their feeling and art is able to capture all those subtle emotions.

Human guy is a good cook and he cooks lot of new things. Even when cooking is not main theme, you'll get a lot of it. So if you are into it, it might be your thing.

There is no harem and ecchi stuff.


I'm a sucker for fantasy adventure world building so i'm gonna give it 9/10.

At first look, this seemed like a promising short (just 5 volumes) tale, unfortunately everything lacks depth. The characters, the world around them, and the plot they find themselves in; everything is as shallow as a puddle from a light drizzle. One might think it might be because of the short length, but it is definitely not because of that. It is the feeble storytelling just trying to agglomerate some ideas from current fantasy manga trends. The initial chapters give an impression that it might be a slow-life kind of story with magic, but everything goes downhill once the drama and the adventure are set ... in.

The most interesting point of this manga is the item crafting. Despite being a great idea to center a fable, it just isn't able to carry the story by itself. The idea of gathering, trading, and stocking materials in a fantasy setting to create magical items is very appealing. Unfortunately it is put aside after the initial chapters, only appearing here and there later. What we get instead is a dull romance of a couple and their unimaginative quest to help each other. The relationship between the two main characters is incredibly dry and lacks any sense of weightiness. Since they barely have personalities, it is no wonder their relationship has any profundity. The author could have explored the age gap or the race difference, but since the society around them is almost non-existent, it is a non-issue. There is barely any world building since the whole manga centers around Magritte's (main female protagonist) surroundings and the dungeon. They might go to some other places, but there is no attempt to flesh out either the world or the characters inhabiting it.

After the author gives up the attempt to center the story around item crafting and focuses on the adventure of trying to save Yura (main male protagonist), the manga displays shockingly bland action scenes that lack any vibrancy. Action is clearly not the author's forte, therefore it baffles me that so much of the manga is used to expose this weak point.

If you are a fan of the fantasy or romance genre, there isn't much here. You can definitely find much better literature and comics that deal with the same ideas offered here, but with much more depth. This should have been just an iyashikei in a fantasy setting set to the theme of item crafting. Sometimes less is more.