HikariJake said: Lobinde said: I've started watching it now. Jeez, this is so edgy. There must have been a shitload of linkin park AMVs made for this anime when it was new. My first impression is basically what I expected: edgy edge edge with retard moe ecchi, but I am capable of enjoying that, so I'm going to keep watching. The word 'edgy' needs to die. Well that's how I feel. Maybe my thoughts will become more developed when I've finished watching. |
ghstindashamploo said: literaturenerd said: 4. "artificial depth" really has little meaning. It could at least be argued for NGE or Xenosaga with FREQUENT random references to Jungian psychology or Gnostic Christianity that in NGE's case never contribute to the story and in Xeno's case only on rare occasion have a point. Elfen Lied doesn't actually do anything that pretentious to try add depth it doesn't have. The director/writers and the fanbase have both written about the depth in this show. There little to none as far as I can tell. Hell, the genre of this show is allegedly "psychological horror, drama." It's pretentious af and outside of the show comments by the director and other staff all allude to supposed depth. The fact that you didn't even notice their sad attempts only serves to prove my point. Read my first post in this topic, it is exactly about how different opinions on this matter are born. ghstindashamploo said: literaturenerd said: 6. Aryanagi makes multiple factual mistakes in his review What mistakes? Don't see any. 1. "Lucy and other diclonius were born to kill humans, just like the wolf is born to prey on the sheep. It's in their genes, it's a natural instinct. Now if a man were to cage a wolf and let his sheep roam free, it wouldn't be discrimination, but an act of defence. The same logic is for elfen lied, where most diclonius are caged up and kept in miserable states so that they don't end up wiping out the human race. This is not racisms, neither is this discrimination, it's just simple self defence." It's debatable if it truly is their instinct. Before the scene with the puppy depicted Lucy snapping and lashing out she was subjected to long period of cruel bullying at the hands of those kids that she killed, she was also beeg discriminated against by the orphanage staff and before that abandoned by her parents (this is what she knew anyway), yet during her interaction with the girl who later informed the bullies about the existence of the puppy and Lucy attachment to it Luvy shown absolutely no signs of any aggression - if anything she was the most understanding and compassionate out of the kids we saw at the orphanage. Similarly Nana never displayed any sort of urge to kill humans, instead being one of the least aggressive people on the show. As for the fact that dicloni often killed their parents when young - they simply had extremely dangerous powers and no clue as to what it means to use them. Not because they were killer mutants with genetic programming to wipe humans but because they were children. Human children often display disturbing behavior due to their lack of empathy and understanding of concepts such as harm and death, it isn't treated as a problem because before they grow up and can unknowingly harm anyone they gain the experience to comprehend they should not do so, and who cares if along the way they have some fun with killing insects or some other small animals. Dicloni were exactly the same as human children in that aspect, only they also had the power to inflict harm on humans just as easily as on insects long before anyone taught them not to. When a human kid carelessly sets fire to the house and causes deaths no one (sane) tries to make it so all human children are imprisoned before certain age as an act of self defense, but here those were not "children" but "dicloni" so it was okay to do with them anything, including preemptive executions... It was simply convenient to take an easy way and label them as "born mass murderers" and based on genetic difference perform a cleansing that likely result3ed in much more dicloni being killed (at birth or in the lab) than the number of humans whose deaths justified this action. This difference of treatment justified by "they are something else than us" is an example of discrimination. As for dicloni from the lab going on a rampage almost always when they had the chance - they were raised since infancy like animals, experimented on and brutalized by the staff that spared no effort in driving home the point that the girls aren't humans and because of that humans have the right to do with them as they see fit... They were raised as monsters, by the monsters. How are their violent tendencies supposed to be a proof of genetics? In fact the only ones who proven capable of restraining themselves (Nana and to an extent Lucy) were the ones who unlike the others were at least in part treated as humans, which is a proof that their behaviour is a result of upbringing rather than instincts. 2. "Then the secret military group sends another diclonius to capture Lucy. It is to be noted that Lucy is the queen of diclonius specie, and as a queen, she has the ability to order other diclonius to do her bidding. What kind of a "secret" organisation sends an inferior being of the same species to take out its queen, specially when the queen has the ability to order the other around at her bidding through telekinesis?" Yeah. Lucy was the dicloni queen. No. She didn't had the ability to command other members of her species so the whole above argument is pulled out of where the sun doesn't shine. 3."as the second diclonius has been known for its sheer hate for humanity to the point of killing any human at sight." This would have meant so much more if not for the fact that she saw the first human (and first anything since she was kept in total darkness her entire life) mere hours before. 4. " The character designs are repetitive to the point where three character have the same hair colour. At least give them some more distinguishable features ffs?" I assume that by those three characters the author means dicloni. I hardly see problem in this, in fact to me it seems like the mutation was used as an excuse to give dicloni unusual hair color to bring some diversity to the cast which otherwise have fairly limited variety in that respect (because they are supposed to be not only humans but also almost entirely Japanese, not even natural blond or red should be expected there). After looking for all those holes in the anime would it really made the author of the review happier if the cast had all the colors of the rainbow in their hair for no reason at all? As for the rest of the review, I agree with some points (because yes, EL indeed has many holes) while I disagree with others (because anyone who has the will to look can find depth in it) and I believe that most of those disagreements (-the ones pointed above) come from the way we judged Elfen Lied based on what I referred to at the begining of this post. |
| New profile design sucks. |
literaturenerd said: The channel knew what it was putting on air, it just did not care who watched their channel. ExTamplier said: I lived in European part of Russia, but the channel was popular (still is I think, it called 2x2) in many places. It actually led to many scandals and angry moms. I can imagine it must have caused some anger! Back when we had video stores in the US, clerks would sometimes put hentai and violent anime in the children's section because they thought "cartoons are cartoons", but the US is very careful about what we put on TV. In the video store example, the store could simply place the blame on the parent, but a network might get sued if they put something that controversial in a children's block with Rugrats. I think the Russian network guys probably figured that cartoons hadn't changed since they were kids and didn't even bother to check. THAT would be an interesting version of Elfen Lied! Lucy wheres a bowler hat and plays an accordion to sing about how sad it is that her birthday comes only once a year. lol! My parents honestly did not bother by the shows they had. |
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| To be honest, this was one of my early intros into anime along with Death Note. I do notice some of the plots now that I am older, and I watched it around... five to six years ago. I think it's shock value for something of the day was what lead it into having a cult following. It would be nice to get a reboot of the animated series to maybe get the second season it needed. Regardless it has it's pros and cons. Isn't going to stop me from liking it. |
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| @HikariJake Sorry, I acknowledge your passion but I'm not really invested in this topic enough to respond seriously to your angry unsolicited rant. Take comfort in the fact that I watch everything with an open mind but Elfen Lied is hands down the worst anime I've ever watched. No amount of rhetoric will convince me otherwise. I may give it another go sometime in the future. It is stated in the show that Diclonius are born with the desire to kill humans. And I'm pretty sure Diclonius have the power to force humans to birth Diclonius offspring. And I thought the purpose of the sterile Diclonius that are birthed by humans was to infect more humans to birth more Diclonius. But of course this point about Diclonius having this predatory relationship with humans is contradicted several times throughout the show so who knows. The writing is just bad. Btw "pandering" doesn't denote sexual attraction. @Karharot Don't understand your abstract idea of "critical points." That's not the way that I personally watch anime or anything for that matter. But out of curiosity what "critical point" in Elfen Lied did I miss? |
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| I don't know, I dropped it. xD It just felt common place to me. Must have been pretty popular when it first came out. |
TheFourthWall said: Considering that our tastes are pretty similar you need to go back and finish it.I don't know, I dropped it. xD It just felt common place to me. Must have been pretty popular when it first came out. |
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| Because Elfen Lied is one of the first gore anime series out there. People loved the anime series like Tokyo Ghoul or When They Cry, loved Elfen Lied as well. So that way, Elfen Lied became really popular even if its old. |
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ExTamplier said: TheFourthWall said: Considering that our tastes are pretty similar you need to go back and finish it.I don't know, I dropped it. xD It just felt common place to me. Must have been pretty popular when it first came out. Oh wow, that's the highest compatibility with anyone as of yet. Will do so. |
ghstindashamploo said: @Karharot Don't understand your abstract idea of "critical points." That's not the way that I personally watch anime or anything for that matter. But out of curiosity what "critical point" in Elfen Lied did I miss? By "critical point" I did not mean any specific scene in the show but rather a moment when you, as a viewer, start to have a clear opinion on whether you like what you are watching or not. Which moment in particular it is depends solely on you, but my point is that after you make that clear initial opinion it will affect the rest of what you see - if you don't like it then you are not going to bother sifting through it in order to find depth that is present (and as a result will dismiss the content as shallow), if you like it you can by yourself discover depths that the authors never even planned on (and as a result will be pleased by the high quality of what you saw). |
| New profile design sucks. |
| How exactly do unlikeable characters ruin the anime? If you want to only see what you like to see, go watch ecchi harem crap. |
| Be thankful for the wisdom granted to you. |
| Its been around 2-3 years since I've watched this show, so I have little memory of what happened. I think its popular because its one of the few anime with forced drama that got accepted by people because it was one of the first of its kind. And its not 'high rated' anymore. Either way, I loved it when I watched it. If I watch it again now, I'd probably lower my score. Even though it's forced drama, it has a great story overall. I would still like this anime whenever I watch it. |
 Hisoka said: True love is finding someone whose demons play well with yours. Illumi said: . |
| It relies on shock value. Some people love it, some people hate it. It's basically an exploitation movie in anime form. The opening song is popular so I think that's how most people discover the series. |
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| because it was good, storywise and everything for the time it was released. |
literaturenerd said: The massive difference in not only plot but tone, themes, and overall feel between the manga and anime caused a broken base that was unprepared to defend against a critical onslaught. Although the old anime ratings sites like Animenewsnetwork and IMDB still have it has pretty highly rated, it got torn a new asshole on /a/ and reddit anime, which transferred to MAL and hummingbird. Once the generation that used those sources came of age and the anime fans born roughly 87-92 stopped hanging out on anime sites, it was open hunting on EL fans. It is easy to kick a defenseless anime with no fans because you have no fear of backlash and getting flamed. I personally HATE Code Geass, but I rarely bring it up because it is so popular. I gave it a negative review once, lost friends, and got it taken down for not being objective enough. I'll review it again some day, but I sure haven't been in a hurry to do so. Yeah true. It was the change of content from source that made it a target for hate. A pretty neat example being SAO as well. On the other hand, its hard to generate hate towards an original series which becomes popular (Code Geass) :p |
Hisoka said: True love is finding someone whose demons play well with yours. Illumi said: . |
One said: Yeah true. It was the change of content from source that made it a target for hate. I watched it without knowing that they changed the content, and I still didn't like it. Not to mention, I've watched other shows that deviated from the source material and enjoyed them. I thought Elfen Lied was just bad in general, regardless of the changes. |
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| Blood, gore, and one likable character. I use to love the anime when I Was younger but when I figured out what they did and the crap anime ending....I was like," Yeah no fuck this shit." |
| I haven't updated in years but now I have changed that. I'll be free soon. |
| Cus Lucy best waifu |
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| I'm currently reading the manga and this is proabably one of the worst stories I've ever experienced. First of all I really expected this to be extremely dark and edgy, similar to Tokyo Ghoul or whatever (which would be bad enough), but for the most part it's actually just a shitty harem/romcom with some occasional gore in between. Now I remember why I never finished the anime years ago, I only cared for the violence, and 80% of Elfen Lied simply aren't violent. Of course when it actually is violent, it's one of the most fucked up things ever. Also can someone explain to me why Elfen Lied has so many disgusting fetishes tagged on? Rape, incest, little naked girls getting tortured, highschool girls wearing diapers, Nyu literally pissing herself, like what the hell? |
literaturenerd said: 1. Why is it highly rated? It isn't. It is rated a 7.98 below Naruto and even Bleach. The vastly inferior Mirai Nikki is rated an 8.22. 2. Why is it popular? Among current anime fans, it isn't. It is the official go-to punching bag of every otaku born from 1995-2005. Yet the same newfags think Code Geass is a God Tier anime. 3. Why is this such a gateway anime? It was never intended to be a gateway anime! The people who liked Elfen Lied, didn't first watch it at age 6 because their elder sibling was being a jackass and forced them to watch it. For Otaku born 1985-1991, that anime for us was Evangelion...and we fucking HATED it. That's why every anime forum in the late 90s/early 2000s called Eva garbage. That is why Elfen Lied is rated higher on animenewsnetwork, the site people used before MAL and was last used in about 2006. Watch Bennet the Sage's review on Eva. That's what everyone said about Eva in my peer group, even though it wasn't really fair and we focused on snarking more than actually appreciating what Eva did well. 4. Why was it ever popular? Yes it had flaws, but it actually did some things really well. It dealt with themes like "is repentance and forgiveness possible for even the most horrible crimes?" We were used to Punisher style characters who only killed "bad guys" but we weren't used to someone who killed innocents, but then actually felt deep remorse and searched for penance, ultimately being reborn and getting a 2nd chance. It showed the dark sides of humanity that we don't feel comfortable discussing: pedophilia, animal cruelty, human experimentation, discrimination, etc. Most anime didn't try address those topics and most still don't. We were used to X-men where humans discriminate against mutants for no reason, yet children with ungodly powers and undeveloped restraint somehow never kill people. Only a few mutants are clear cut bad guys and everything is purely a Manichean good and evil. Elfen Lied had flaws in its execution, but was a fucking MASTERPIECE compared to X-men! It showed the extremely uncomfortable and un-PC truth about how society would likely react to a new race that actually is physically stronger and more dangerous, developing great strength at a young, still emotionally undeveloped age. After Eric Frien shot and murdered 2 police officers and fled into the woods in an attempt to re-enact Rambo, police punched him the face and took him in alive despite the fact he never surrendered and was armed with 3 guns at the time. Why didn't they just shoot him 87 times? Because they hadn't been brainwashed into seeing him as a "beast" with the strength of "Hulk Hogan" who is impossible to take down without shooting dozens of times. Police looked at a vicious double murderer and they saw McLovin, and weren't scared. "We don't need to shoot this guy, he's a joke! lol" Same with James Holmes, Jared Loughner, and countless others. Police see black youths and instead of McLovin they see Broli. "Quick, empty your clips before he kills us all with his bare hands! It's the legendary Super Saiyan!!!" Diclonius mutants are euthanized, kept in labs, horrifically experimented on, and kept naked to deny them any semblance of humanity...which are all things humans have actually done before to each other. This is all while having characters like Kurama who ARE given sympathy and shown to actually believe his actions are right. Both humans and mutants are shown to have both good (Nana, Kouta) and bad (the Kakuzawas, Tomoo) members. Usually discrimination in anime or Western cartoons wasn't given such balance...and honestly they still don't for the most part, with some exceptions like Eve no Jikan. 5. Is Elfen Lied really THAT bad of an anime? No. not really. Stop taking 4chan seriously kids! It was never meant to be serious, or the place where you go to learn how to "fit in" online and what anime to love and which to hate. Instead of trying to become an "anime elite" in 5 minutes by learning to regurgitate praise and hate for given series, actually watch anime and understand that gaining real expertise takes time. It is more than just learning to say Angel Beats and Elfen Lied are cancer and Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the greatest! That is indeed quite a good take on the subject which we usually be evasive from in this pc culture ... |
sodomized said: It's original. this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| probably because of the gore, pacing and story. also nudity |
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| It is popular alright but from my years of experience here in MAL, 7.70 isn't really a high score. For the most part, having an 8 rating and above means it's generally loved by the userbase. 7 is divided opinion which Elfen Lied falls to while 6 below is regarded as bad. |
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monsterrelic said: I felt the both main character Kouta and yuka were just really dumb and pretty much had no character development at all or any substance for that matter. Ahem, Kouta is not the MC, Lucy is. |
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| Tbh I kinda liked the series too despite Kouta and his cousin being utterly moronic characters. Except for the edgelordy wheel-chair girl at the end the dynamic between the other characters was mostly solid and the main plot was interesting and original at the time. The gore and nudity probably helped it gain popularity especially in the west since quite frankly the west has always been a cesspit of closet perverts. I know since I've worked in media before and the obsession of western publishers with phallic objects and shapes and suspect boobies has always been mind boggling. Then again if you look at other anime from around that time neither aspect really stands out from its peers either. As far as the story went there were certainly quite a few plot holes or at the very least questions left unanswered and the world building was sorely lacking. That however could also be attributed to how it was adapted. After all back then it was pretty common for the anime adaption to deviate from the source material by a mile. I certainly could have done without the animal cruelty tho especially since it didn't add anything to the story. The bullies were already established as bullies and the girl was portrayed to blandly to provide any shock value regardless of how she betrayed her. The only point where this ties in in any meaningful way is when Lucy doesn't hurt the dog but rather cuts it free. But even that could be easily explained in any number of ways without the animal cruelty scene. After all it is established that their kind kills/displaces humans specifically it's never mentioned that they as a people care at all about any other kind of animal. So cutting the dog free could just be a random act of kindness without any meaning whatsoever. |
SliceOfHamJul 13, 2021 1:28 PM
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