ボロボロのエルフさんを幸せにする薬売りさん
Boroboro no Elf-san o Shiawaseni suru Kusuriuri-san
The Apothecary Will Make This Battered Elf Happy Review

Back in June 2022, I wrote a piece about a web manga called The Apothecary Will Make This Battered Elf Happy. Since author Giba-chan has brought this lovely little manga to an end, I thought I’d now write a review of it.

The Story, in Brief

An apothecary named Allen Thildean (correct me if I’m wrong) visits a city shopkeeper and decides to purchase a horribly abused, unresponsive female elf after hearing her softly cry that she wants to go home. Carrying her back to his village, the apothecary begins treating her terrible wounds. He names the elf Reszurre. The elf’s health issues are compounded by the fact that someone had forced her to ingest a magic stone that was slowly poisoning her to death.

He sends word to his friend Adam, who specializes in physiology. They receive word to come, so Allen and the now communicative Reszurre make the long journey. Adam states that they have to amputate all of Reszurre’s limbs as they are beyond recovery. Reszurre agrees, so Adam procures an arm and a leg as replacement. This complete, Adam and Reszurre return to the village, where the elf works hard on rehabilitation. A dwarf friend of Allen makes a metal arm and leg for Reszurre’s other missing limbs.

Sometime later, another female elf named Idria shows up at the apothecary’s workshop. She’s the younger sister of Reszurre, who’s real name is Lumirea. Idria had been on the trail of someone giving up elf secrets. Since Lumirea is guilty, she has to return to her elf village. Allen vows to go with her since Lumirea is his patient.

At the elf village, Lumirea and Idria’s mom is happy to see Lumirea. The other elves are outraged over a human being there. However, an attack by the bandits responsible for initially kidnapping Lumirea attack. Allen helps defend the village, earning a pardon. This attack restored Lumirea’s memories. She vows to stay with Allen and wants to be known as Reszurre. Through magic, her body is restored. The two marry and live happily ever after.

A Simple, Familiar Story

The story of The Apothecary Will Make This Battered Elf Happy is a fairly simple one. It is also a familiar one, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The horrific abuse that Reszurre suffered makes her an immediate, sympathetic character. Mangaka Giba-chan seemed to delight in this aspect of the manga. To be honest, initially this put me off from wanting to read the series. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read something that seemed so dark and depressing. And yet Giba-chan’s artwork made me want to know Reszurre and the human who worked to save her.

That said, once Reszurre recovers enough to be able to speak, I really enjoyed her optimistic look on life. Yeah, she is concerned over the burden she might be placing on her human rescuer, but that only fires her up to work harder. To that end, there’s the familiar story of a rescued person falling in love with their rescuer and vice versa. And again, I had no problem with that. Sometimes, simple but familiar things work the best.

As to the apothecary, I liked him as a character. We learn just enough about his past to understand his desire to save this horrifically abused and thrown away elf woman.

Some Flaws

Most of the early chapters are only 1 page, but they are densely packed. As such, the story moves forward at a brisk enough pace. The only flaw might be that some elements from point A to point B are dropped, making things feel a bit too rush. But this mostly affects the manga toward the end of its run, and by then, Giba-chan is producing multi-page chapters.

I’m not sure if Giba-chan wanted to just be done with the story or not. Sometimes, a creator can become bored with a project, even if it is popular. And Giba-chan does a lot of other work and stories of sorts, though The Apothecary Will Make This Battered Elf Happy is the biggest work. It is a shame because while the last chapter is the longest, it basically boils down to, “And stuff happened, but everyone lived happily ever after.” And that was a bit of a bummer to me, even if I loved the ending.

Frankly, I would have loved for a more fleshed out story and world as a whole, but I am happy with what I got.

The H Back Story

Within the The Apothecary Will Make This Battered Elf Happy, Reszurre’s horrific backstory is not shown. We learn bits about it, but we don’t know why the people did these terrible things to her. However, Giba-chan apparently has a taste for the hentai, and so on Giba-chan’s Pixiv Fanbox page, the mangaka started telling this H back story. I wouldn’t have even known about it, except I wanted to support Giba-chan’s efforts with the main story.

That aside, I only mention this in case any of you decide to check out more of Giba-chan’s work. (Not sure if this person is a man or woman.) Though from what I understand, Pixiv/Fanbox are going to start banning most NSFW materials due to external pressure. But you can check out Giba-chan’s other works (no NSFW stuff so far) on Twitter –> https://twitter.com/gibagibagiba.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, The Apothecary Will Make This Battered Elf Happy has such a horrific feeling at the start, thanks to the viciously abused elf Reszurre. However, I enjoyed the simple yet familiar story of the an apothecary doing the right thing and trying to save her, eventually leading to the two leads falling in love.

Note: While the manga is available in digital form on Amazon Japan, they won’t allow gaijin to download it, at least, as of this posting.