The main characters of Those Who Hunt Elves are three "Elf Hunters" named Junpei Ryuzouji, Ritsuko Inoue, and Airi Komiyama. Somehow, they ended up stranded in a sword and sorcery world after coming there from Japan. An elf named Mistress Celcia Marie Claire tries to transport to three back to their world, but is distracted while reciting the spell; the spell book pages divide out into five different directions, and the words on these pages ended up on the skin of five elves. In order to return home, the group must find the five elves; they have to determine whether they've found the right elf by stripping off their clothes.
Junpei is a strong young man with an incredible fighting ability and is the muscle of the group. He is also the only male in the group. He is obsessed with curry, and is also infatuated with Airi. From what I've seen, Junpei comes across as a bit of a parody of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star due to his looks and his strength; this is also mixed with a parody of Goku from the Dragon Ball franchise, due to his love of eating.
Airi is a beautiful and talented actress. She is known to don disguises in order to get out of situations that require brains more than brawn. Airi also has an ability to quickly and accurately assess situations and to plan for their outcomes. She carries a Katana sword and a makeup compact kit.
Ritsuko Inoue is a high school girl and military otaku. She drives and maintains a tank, which the group uses to travel across the countryside as they search for elves. During the series, the tank is possessed by the spirit of a cat known as Mihke. Ritsuko is also a sniper at times, and is the one who will set landmines and booby traps. She also carries various types of guns around.
Mistress Celcia Marie Claire ends up joining the group and tries to help them get back to their own world, because they have been causing a lot of trouble in her world. She has a knack for transforming into animals and getting stuck in animal form. Celcia also has a circular device that is supposed to detect the five elves with the markings. While the device does find elves, it only ever seems to find the elves that don't have markings. To me, this device seems to be a parody of the Dragon Radar from Dragon Ball.
While the concept of stripping elves makes up the humor of the series and sounds risque on the surface, it's actually more on the ridiculous side. For the most part, there's actually very little nudity in this series. The humor in the series is amusing, and I think it has the potential to appeal to viewers who like anime series like The Slayers.
Personally, I would recommend Those Who Hunt Elves to anime viewers who are 15 or 16 years of age and older.
| Those Who Hunt Elves | 12 | 1996 | Kazuyoshi Katayama | Group TAC | Sentai Filmworks |
| Those Who Hunt Elves 2 | 12 | 1997 | Kazuyoshi Katayama | Group TAC | Sentai Filmworks |
