Elf Co., Ltd.

Elf Co., Ltd. (株式会社エルフ) was founded on on 27 April 1989 in Tokyo by writer Masato Hiruta, programmer Atsushi Kanao, and illustrator Toshihiro Abiru, who had previously worked together at FairyTale. The company specialized in developing and publishing erotic games in various genres. Adult content in their games tends to be rather softcore; several Elf titles have been ported to console systems with adult scenes removed.

Elf's most popular games are the dating adventure Dōkyūsei (1992) and its sequels and spin-offs, as well as the role-playing game series Dragon Knight, the third installment of which has been officially translated into English and released in Western countries.

Elf as a company would eventually close down in October 2015. The publishing rights to most of their back catalogue of games went into the hands of DMM.com.