English Dub Review: An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride “First Love Is Like a Nasty Disease That Everyone Catches Once; First Love with Social Anxiety Tastes a Lot Like Moldy Bread”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Evil sorcerer Zagan goes to a local auction and sees an elf slave woman, Nephy, up for bidding. He instantly falls in love with her and spends his entire fortune to get her, but realizes he doesn’t know how to talk to her. Nonetheless, he commits to helping her be free from her slave collar and she starts to take a liking to him as well.

OUR TAKE

It was quite nice of them to put out two episodes of this at once because I’d very much like to have covering this show be done as soon as possible! Not that it’s particularly bad or anything, in fact it’s perfectly adequate, but I kinda got thrown this show at the last minute so I’m not exactly going into it looking at it very fondly. Anyway, we’ve got a romcom in a fantasy setting with a master and slave dynamic, but both master and slave have the best of intentions and are pretty socially inept so it’s actually kind of endearing. That’s already a big step ahead of another romantic story I covered recently, where we understand where both people involved are mentally and how this bond is likely to develop and build up on. That said, I acknowledge that this other show had its main perspective from its female half of the couple while the guy was the one who was kind of an enigma, and here it’s the guy who is the point of view and the woman who we don’t get a clear look in her head for. Also in both cases, the one who we don’t get the POV has white hair, so that’s a neat coincidence.

However, in the second episode, we see more about how this budding relationship will be mutually beneficial for both of them. For Zagan, he has been socially isolated because of his great power and wealth, the latter of which he is now without and has chances to earn back by helping people, which he partially does to impress Nephy. For Nephy, she has been isolated because…well, she’s been a slave, and technically still is. But now she is with a good master who will look for ways to free her and show her more of the world. See, this is why slavery was GOOD, because sometimes there were GOOD slave owners who were attracted to their slaves and chose to free them because of that! Not all the time or most of the time, but enough that it justifies the whole system! Now, hopefully you understand those last two sentences were sarcastic, and check out this show while you’re at it. It’s starting out pretty adorable, and looks like it will be introducing some more characters and plotlines that will balance well with the ongoing development between Zangan and Nelphy. And please for the love of god believe me, I have healthy opinions and do not support slavery, it was just a joke!