How 'How To Love Your Elf Bride' Melted My Cold Heart

Can an anime about an evil demon lord who buys an elf slave bring us wholesome feels? You wouldn’t think so. But I watched An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride, and I’m totally loving it. Let’s see why this show might be the most wholesome romance anime of the season!

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The Basic Premise of How To Love Your Elf Wife

Zagan is a demon sorcerer with incredible power but zero social skills. He can be cruel and evil, but when we first meet him, he saves a female knight from being defiled, so we know he’s got a good heart. When his friend Barbaros drags him to a slave auction, he sees the beautiful slave elf Nephelia. It’s love at first sight for Zagan, and he buys her instantly.

Now he’s got a slave elf living with him…so what does he do next? He wants to get to know the girl better, but he has no experience with relationships. Nephelia is sure he’s going to torture her to death, but he does his best to reassure her that she’s safe with him despite the scary castle he lives in. Slowly the two get used to each other, and an adorably awkward love begins to bloom.

The Ultimate Wish-Fulfilment Anime?

One reason we love anime is that it gives us stories we want to see. For girls, it might be an anime about a girl who becomes the manager of a team of unruly male idols, all of whom inevitably fall for her. Or being a respected professional who’s married to a young bartender who loves cleaning the house and making exotic cocktails for her. Us guys might prefer stories of male main characters who acquire cheat-level powers that allow us to win the hearts of cute girls. Based on the popularity of How To Love Your Elf Bride on Twitter, it seems lots of anime fans would secretly like to live with a cute slave elf who’ll cook for them. Nephy is the ultimate wish fulfillment.

Oh, and she’s a virgin. Of course.

A Surprisingly Complex World

Although this is a romantic comedy about two awkward people slowly falling in love, the world the characters inhabit is surprisingly rich and complex. For example, the magic system used in the anime is well-defined and interesting. Also, we learn the backstory of both Zagan and Nephy, and how they each became lonely outcasts in their own worlds.

Don’t Say ‘Slave Elf’?

The Japanese title Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii? translates as “I, The Demon Lord, Took a Slave Elf As My Wife, But How Do I [Properly] Take Care Of Her?” The word Mederu / 愛でる has the kanji for “love” in it, but the meaning of the word is closer to “to appreciate the gentle beauty of a flower” or “to take in the cuteness of a puppy,” without any sexual connotation. The official English How To Love Your Elf Bride title nicely avoids the use of “slave” in the title, which is perceived as “not safe for Western audiences” by anime studios.

It is a little odd how “slave anime” has become a common category these days. Some of the more famous examples include:

The Rising of the Shield Hero
Isekai Meikyuu de Harem wo (or, How to Fuck Your Harem of Slave Elves)
How Not To Summon a Demon Lord
Death March to the Parallel World
Chained Soldier, aka Slave of the Magic Capital’s Elite Troops
Pokémon (haha)

In the end, the “getting a cute slave in another world” trope is just that, a trope. Like hot-headed young boys who must “get in the robot” and do battle with monsters, girls who yearn to be the Top Idol, and stories of characters who get reincarnated in another world where they can develop demon lord-level powers, this genre will have it day in the sun then fade away. Also, stories of slavery are generally confined to fantasy worlds that resemble the Middle Ages on Earth, and are quite divorced from our modern world.