After all the feasting on Thursday, I imagine there are plenty of people out there considering taking up a diet to combat holiday-related weight gain. Funny enough, there's a food-related manga for that too!
PLUS-SIZED ELF (Elf-san ha Yaserarenai), by Synecdoche. First published in 2016 and first published in North America in 2018.
PLOT:
Naoe's skill as a massage therapist is put to the test when Elfuda comes into his office. She's an actual elf with a hopeless addiction to French fries, and because of that she's put on so much weight that she can't transport herself back home. The combination of Naoe's masterful hands and sensible advice eventually gets her (temporarily) back in shape, and soon enough Naoe finds himself called upon to help other magical beings, all of whom have fallen prey to delicious human delights and gained weight because of it.
STORY:
Remember when I raised my eyebrow about the potentially fetishy undertones of Manly Appetites? Well, that's got nothing on Plus-Sized Elf. There's nothing explicit to be found here, but this series's focus on bulging lady bits of all sorts and its particular story formula makes it clear that this is a premise that the reader is meant to get more than just sensible exercise advice from this manga.
Each chapter follows a fairly rigid formula: Naoe, our hapless blank slate of a protag, encounters some fantasy creature which also just so happens to be an attractive lady who only seems to gain weight in one particular spot (which is really not how weight-gain works, but that's not the point here). Naoe in turn offers good real-world advice on exercise and diet, along with the occasional massage. You see, Naoe practices osteopathy, a form of alternative medicine that puts an emphasis on massage and body manipulation to encourage lymph node function and muscle energy. Like most alternative medicine, it's total bullshit, but at least what Naoe practices is mostly harmless and the diet and exercise assistance he provides is based in good science and practical weight-loss.
So yeah, at heart this is basically a harem series without any romance, as Naoe is increasingly surrounded by attractive fantasy girls (and his equally attractive manager, who is a lush) who are dazzled by his niceness and depend upon him. Since there's no romantic element at play here (...yet), that keeps things from getting too competitive and annoying, but quite frankly I don't trust this series to keep itself from getting even more indulgent than it already is.
ART:
I'm sure it will not shock you in the least to learn that Synecdoche is largely an ero-manga artist by trade with a fondness for fatness. It definitely explains their approach to character design, which places all its emphasis on drawing cute elves and monster girls with lovingly drawn bits of lush, shiny plumpness thrust towards the reader, be it boob, butt, or gut. They veer dangerously close to their porn roots during the massage scenes, where the girls' expressions of discomfort and relief veer dangerously close to ahegao territory.
Horny stuff aside, Plus-Sized Elf trades a lot on big, goofy expressions, outrageous SFX, and a lot of silly message shirts for Elfuda for its particular brand of comedy. It can get a bit busy at points, but it mostly gets the job done. Ultimately, though, it's subservient to the story's need to ogle the ladies and their pudge at every possible turn.
PRESENTATION:
There's a couple of quick, unrelated side stories here that structurally feel like warm-ups for this particular manga. Both involve ordinary, nameless dudes who encounter pretty supernatural girls (an angel and a tanuki, respectively) in everyday scenarios.
RATING:
This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is ongoing in Japan with 7 volumes available. All 7 have been published and are currently in print.
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