Recently, I’ve been catching up on Dungeon Meshi, and I’ve been entertained by how Marcille reacts to Laios’ dietary ideas in the dungeon. Her panicky and rather frantic personality is so opposite of Frieren. As if it’s not apparent enough, each of them has their own quirks.

Frieren loves weird magic spells, procrastinate almost everything for months, and enjoy her own company. So much so, she was oblivious to Himmel’s attention years ago when they were in an adventuring party together. However, Frieren is still at least more sociable than Elda from Otaku Elf.

If we think about it, the elves in recent anime are far from the typical fantasy elves. Elves, in these past few seasons, have been receiving a new-found love in the community. Where the usual elves of fantasy world are often mystical, sacred, or even evilish in nature, what we’ve gotten so far are some of the quirkiest elves ever.

In anime and western media, they do have a bit of difference. I think anime elves are more playful compared to the other. This is true even in older anime. I finished watching Record of Lodoss War (the 1990 one) a few weeks ago, and in that anime there is the best anime elf so far, Deedlit. To me, she shows the best of a character with a charming personality blended in the typical elven myths and stories.

How Elves Are Usually Depicted Anyway?

Elves have been associated to mystical tropes since the earliest of its depiction in literature. As I was doing the research for this, what tickled me is that elves were thought to be the possible cause of a sudden twitching in an old English medical text.

The elves like we know today might be closer to those in Norse mythology. They even have terms for two contrasting type of elves, Dökkálfar (Dark Elves) and Ljósálfar (Light Elves). Just like in Record of Lodoss War with Deedlit who is a high elf, and Pirotess who is a dark elf.

Of course, modern media like anime takes inspiration from myths and folklore. But, some are more faithful to the olden legends, so to speak. For example, Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel in LOTR pretty much exudes the expected sacredness and beauty a traditional elf would have.

However, anime is more playful with their idea of elves. There are no shortage of elves with the typical anime tropes like the tsundere. Take Elga from Isekai Ojisan for instance. She’s a tsundere, but with her full name Suzailgiererzegalnelvzegilreagranzelga Elga, there is a bit of “classic mythical elf” trope in her.

Plus, she wields ancient artifact armor and weapon. Still, when it comes to today’s elves, they’re just so different from those who preceded them. Let me explain for a bit.

Today’s Elves Are Way More Relatable

Now, elves feel more like a group of people we could stumble upon anywhere, in random bars, perhaps. If anything, they are more relatable than ever. We might admire elves like Deedlit and Galadriel, but I see less way we can say, “she’s just like me” in them.

Some people are picky eaters, some are introverts who enjoy their figurines. Some would just hyperfixate on their hobby and by the time they “wake up” they’re already sixty, so are our elves in these anime I’ve mentioned.

Frieren, Marcille, and Elda are much more relatable. If we had to eat monster meat, of course, we would have the same reactions as Marcille’s. If we have lived for a thousand years, of course, we’d think of time differently, like Frieren. And for some people, spending the day the way Elda does, staying inside and not meeting anyone, sound like heaven.

What does raising their relatability do to elves? Does it simply make them more captivating to the audience? Are we taking advantage from the parasocial fans who get overly attached to the characters? Not really, in my humble opinion, making these elves more relatable means highlighting very human stories.

Humanizing The Long Ears Folk

The big thing with relatability is what kind of audience the anime is trying to bring in. We don’t live in a fantasy world, so of course, all the relatable problems will be humans problem.

Frieren touches themes of grief, death, and regret. Something heavy, yet every one of us will or have experienced them at one point in our lives. Despite that, this anime lightheartedly shows the usual daily life of hers. It adds to the relatability, after all.

By showing her not able to wake up early, fumbling the best man to ever lived, really makes her feels very human. After all, those are common issues that we have as regular people. Even if she’s supposed to be a thousand years old great mage, there is an imperfect side of her that we can all see, relate, and empathize.

Losing The Mythical Aura

There is one downside in twisting the usual elf trope. In old stories, we mostly see them shrouded in a mythical aura. Take Skyrim for example, the high elves are the most attuned with magic, thus the Thalmor often see themselves to be superior to others. The dunmer, or dark elves, have to live with a curse after the event of Oblivion. And, the wood elves are a tribe of ritualistic cannibalism lorewise. There is so much lore to discover behind the elves of Tamriel.

There is something creepy yet enticing in each type of elves in Skyrim. The feeling that I get from them is like when I first learned about the lore of Predator and the blooding ritual, especially when it comes to the wood elves. It’s something that lacks or even outright nonexistent with the relatable elves.

Maybe, this is an inevitable trade-off. When we strip the myth out of fantasy characters, they’ll appear as the human who wrote them. If there is an anime that showcases the daily life of a mythical elf, the elf would have extremely different lifestyle and culture, rendering them to sound out of touch from humanities.