Elfen Lied

Information of Anime

Diclonius, mutated homo sapiens which have two horns on their heads, are considered dangerous to the human society with they have telekinetic abilities.  The government makes a move in capturing the Diclonius race & lock them in laboratories to conduct some research on them.  One Diclonius named Lucy escapes, but gets shot in the head when she reaches her escape point.  Kouta & Yuka finds her at a beach near the ocean.  Because of the shot on her head, Lucy develops a second personality & can only say "Nyuu" which she is later named by Kouta.  However, Kouta & Yuka doesn't know who Nyuu really is.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Because Lucy is classified as one of the most dangerous Diclonius found, the government dispatches its army in hunting her down & capturing her alive.  They even send some Diclonius, such as Nana, to hunt Lucy down.  Because Kouta doesn't know why Nyuu is being hunt down, he protects her.  Not knowing what's going on Yuka gets upset over this situation due to the love she has for Kouta.  At times, Nyuu changes back to Lucy when she is alone & being chases down by the government.  As we see the show progressing, we learn something about Kouta's past & Lucy's as well.

Because of a certain incident involving Kouta's father's & sister death when he was young, he doesn't recall much about his past.  As we see him being around Nyuu as he thinks about his past, we see how Lucy is related to his past.  It turns out that they were childhood friends & Lucy killed Kouta's family out of jealously.  Because she loves Kouta so much, she doesn't kill him at any chances she gets.  Also, she doesn't want to hurt him or the family he's having with Nana & Mayu.  However, Kouta doesn't realize this until he see Lucy killing the government's army that was chasing down Nana for failing to be exterminated near the end of the show.   After eliminating most of the government army in the town, Lucy tells everything to Kouta who doesn't seem to care except that he can't forgive her actions.  The two separate as Lucy fights the army to the end & Kouta returning home.

The story ends with Kouta & the group living peacefully without Lucy.  When Kouta sees someone at the door, he tries to answer it until the old antique clock that was broken in the house rings again.  We don't see who was at the door.

My Personal Review

Elfen Lied is a very good series.  Nice plot & characters.  Plus, it's got a great mixture of cuteness & violence.  It took me a long time to get into it. When I heard & read about how much extreme gore it has, I was put off from it for a long time.  When I finally decided to watch it, I realized that I made a mistake in not watching it sooner.  Although the gore isn't that bad as I thought it would be, I would suggest some people to stay away from this if they can stay watching bodies being dismantled a lot.  Plus, it's a got a lot of nudity of women breasts.

Animation

The character designs are cute.  The characters have big eyes & nice small chubby faces.  However, all the girls here look pretty much the same.  The Diclonius are worse as they are exactly alike.  When Lucy cut her hair short, she almost looks like Nana but older.  The adults have a more mature look.  But, it's not so far off that it makes you think you are watching a different anime show.

The backgrounds are on the dull side.  It's not very detailed and seems like rough work.  But it's kind of a good thing since the setting takes place in an old town really.

The colours are mainly dull.  The outlines of the characters are pretty thick & heavy on the faces.  The brighter colours seems to be more flat & grainy at times.

The animation movements are pretty realistic & fluid.  There are times where it gets a bit choppy in the fight scenes.  Probably too intense.  But the show makes sure that the perverted parts run smoothly.  Good thing or a bad thing?  You decide.

Sound

The sound effect are a mixture of real & silliness.  The volume & projection is clear as you can hear bodies being blown apart & blood being splattered.

The seiyuus aren't too bad here.  It's above average in my view.  Nyuu sounds cute with her Nyuus.  But when she becomes Lucy, she sounds too much like a boy.  Maybe I'm too use to that seiyuu's voice in her past works where she does a lot of male roles.

The music has a lot of orchestral theme music.  It creates that eerie mood well with its dark tones.  I really like the opening theme, especially the music box version.  Makes me want to buy a music box with with tone.  The ending theme is a bit too joyful for the show.  Then again, we are talking about a show when cute girls are killing each other brutally.  It's still a great song though.

Story

It's nicely done on how Kouta & Lucy meet again after eight years where Kouta suffered an emotional shock from watching his family in front of him.  Kouta doesn't know he caring for the same killer that kill his family & other people around.  Watching him regain his memories is quite an exciting thing.  However, you do get the feeling that his past is linked to Lucy quite early in the show.  What wasn't predictable the fact that Nana's father isn't her biological one.  Seeing this near the end of the show is a bit of a shocker for me. 

The character relationships in the show is quite good as we see some jealously from Yuka for being too close to Nyuu.  Also, human emotions do run up a bit where we see a young Lucy developing a lot of feelings for Kouta to the point that she would kill just to be with him.

The elements in the show may be too gruesome for some.  Not only does it involve extreme graphic violence, it contains some other stuff that some people may not agree on.  It has puppy beatings, sexual harassment on a child, & child nudity.  Although you don't see the do beating or any sexual acts on children, it can be a turn off to some.  The amount of gore isn't too extreme as I thought.  Ero-anime OVAs are much worse than this.  However, the gore level seems to be more than enough for a TV show; especially if it's a late night one.

The ending of the show is a bit open where the mysterious girl at Kouta's door isn't revealed.  Probably like most people, it would be Lucy but the personality unknown.  It leaves it open for continuation as the president of the laboratory is obsessed in learning more about the Diclonius race to the point that he turns himself into one.  Nevertheless, it's not bad to end a good story.

Overall Conclusion

Elfen Lied would be something I would highly recommend watching.  Although the amount of gore isn't too bad as I thought, I can't highly recommend it very much to a lot of people since some may not be able to stomach it.  If you like your cuteness with some extreme violence or want to see some that combines those two elements together into a good story, watch Elfen Lied.

Elfen Lied slices in with an 8.5.  It's has a very good storyline for a show that uses cuteness with gore.  The character relationships is the key that make it good.  However, the story can be predictable at times even if you are watching this with no background of the series.  The amount of gore, themes, & nudity can be a turn off to some.  But I would advise that the level of gore isn't very high as some people proclaim it to be.

Last updated on December 26, 2007