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This anime is one of the worst I've ever seen. It provides us with a story about a dude who is sexually attracted to his clearly underage sister, and it follows their relationship of living together after being apart for so many years. I really don't mind that the story takes on taboo themes, the only problem is that it does a terrible job with them.

The characters start out fine. Koshiro, the older brother, is lonely and still living with his dad and he hasn't accomplished much with his life. Nanoka, the underage little sister, is bright, cheerful, and wants to spend time with ... her older brother after being reunited with him after so long. The father is old and is completely oblivious to what is going on between them, and so they start to spend time with each other and the lonely older brother begins to have feelings for his underage little sister. First off this is gross and cringey, a great way to push your audience away. And then the little sister, who is obviously confused about how to handle the hormonal changes in her body, begins to return his feelings!

Anyways, it doesn't end well and all I could think was that I regretted my decision to watch this anime. We see this man spiral down into disaster and making terrible decisions the entire time and he suffers zero consequences from them. It's just absolutely unbelievable. The only positive scene from the entire series is that his co worker figures out what's going on and she lets him know what a horrible thing he's doing. Finally some consequences but that is literally the extent of his consequences. The reason why incest and pedophilia are taboo is because they will lead individuals and society into literal disaster. It was unbelievable how the movie was almost celebrating their relationship. Just garbage.

If you are thinking about watching this because you're like me and you saw that quite a few people have favorited it, then don't because I saw it for you and can tell you the moral of the story: don't raise your sons to be unsocialized and incompetent freaks and don't raise your daughters to not be weary of unsocialized and incompetent freak men. But seriously it's disgusting so do yourself a favor and don't watch it.

I found this to be a relatively unique anime and it was executed well enough, but there were also some major problems and I found myself confused about many elements of the characterization.

The premise is easily one of the best parts about the anime: very creative yet quite simple. The presentation of the world is also done very well with stunning views and beautiful saturated colors. I love how the girls are made of crystals and gemstones, although there are some logical fallacies that come with that premise but it's not a problem, I can easily suspend my disbelief for that.

However the characterization ... confused me. Many of the characters would all of a sudden do something or say something that seemed very odd, random, and not consistent with their established character. There are also a lot of characters and it seems that the creators were trying to give each character some screen time and characterization but there just was not enough time to do this so some of the characters ended up confusing.

Even some of the more important characters who have a lot of screen time were inconsistent or not well established. Phos was annoying sometimes and when her character changes, it's unclear whether it is due to memory loss or her trauma. Sensei had some character elements hinted about him, but it wasn't executed very well so when there is a reveal about him, it seems strange and out of left field. Not sure what Alex's other personality was all about and what the point of that is at all. Cinnabar seems to be an important character but she is given very little character development for the large amount of screen time she's given. Every time we see her she's doing the exact same thing and saying the exact same thing, and whenever she comes in contact with Phos she does the same exact thing every time. Bort also gets a lot of screen time but her character seems incomplete and oddly one-dimensional. There are just many specific issues with the characters and it slightly takes away from the viewing experience.

There were a couple things I had issues with concerning the visuals. Firstly I'm not the biggest fan of CGI anime, but that's not really that big of a deal, the characters just have very unnatural movements. But the other issue is that it seemed like they were trying to be creative with the composition of each scene but it was unsuccessful at times. For example the view would switch to a wide shot and the characters in the frame would be placed at the very edge of the screen or the corner for no seemingly good reason. And this happened so often that I started to take notice and get annoyed by it. There were no stunning backgrounds or moments of isolation that needed to be conveyed in these shots, they were just jarring and strange. But on the positive end, the character designs were great and the world was stunning especially with the use of saturated colors.

Just as a side note, some of the edits were strange where they would linger too long on a moment. The opening and ending were both painfully mediocre, although some of the soundtracks were great and invoked the necessary moods. And I can't believe they ended the season on such a sudden and jarring cliffhanger. I will be very upset if there isn't another season coming.

Overall I highly enjoyed it and would give it a 7. I could easily see myself giving the second season (if there is one) a higher score if they do a good job with it.

*I'm not basing this review on the source material for this story, the change in the production studio, or anything other than the story standing alone on it's own*

Overall this movie is very enjoyable, with great fluid animation, appealing character design, and an overall compelling story.

The story is this movie's strongest and weakest point. The concept is great and extremely thought provoking, and it often makes allusions to other works and ideas which I loved. The world this movie is set in is very well built and established. The characters are often traveling and moving around and there are some complex political conflicts between ... and within nations and groups, which is presented in a way that isn't so complicated that the viewer gets lost. Very well done in that aspect.

We travel through the plot from the perspective of the main character and with him we come to understand human nature in the context of responsibility and freedom. The stance the movie takes on this subject doesn't interest me as much as how the movie simply brings this idea to the table for discussion. That was one of the aspects of the movie that bothered me, I just wish it went full out on the unfolding of the story and the conflict between the characters and the conflict within the characters instead of spending time making their personal commentary on the subjects. Another criticism I have is that there are some plot discontinuities and the actual concept of the "genocidal organ" seems pretty baseless and kinda boring, not that I'm a psychologist or anything. But these criticisms aren't too significant in light of how happy I am with what this movie did right with the main theme of how freedom comes with responsibility that you have to be willing to bear.

I highly enjoyed the characters from their designs to their personalities and struggles. They have flaws, make discoveries throughout the story, and have genuine thoughts and reactions. Their personalities are probably the weakest part because the story focuses on how the characters are relevant in the plot, although there are a few scenes that feature the characters in an everyday normal situation, and those scenes were great for their characterization, I just wish there was just a little bit more of that. All of the relevant characters are memorable, but there are some minor characters that serve as plot facilitators who are not expanded upon, and most of these characters work perfectly fine in the story, only one or two of them I wish were expanded upon a little bit more.

As far as sound goes, they took a relatively minimalist approach to it, not having any outstanding standalone tracks, but simply having tracks that enhanced the scenes without making me wish for more. Overall I had no problem with the sound.

The visuals were almost outstanding including composition, animation quality, color scheme, and design. The only issue I have is that there are a few short shots here and there where the animation isn't as good as the rest of the movie, and are pretty jarring relative to the rest of the visuals. But besides that, the quality is great, and the fight/action scenes are composed and executed extremely well, making the action easy to follow and visually appealing, not to mention that these scenes have substance and meaning that relates to the story and themes, they are not just hollow and visually appealing for the sake of cool fight scenes.

I think the themes of freedom and responsibility as well as the topic of terrorism are relevant in our current world, so I would personally give it an 8/10. It's a great movie that is entertaining and thought provoking, I definitely recommend it.

*Just for reference: I watched this anime without having read the manga beforehand and I also watched this subbed.

This is definitely not an anime for kids, there is a lot of nudity as well as people being torn to pieces and having their dismembered limbs and head flying through the air with the nice accompaniment of blood splattering everywhere, so if torn up bodies bother you I would suggest staying clear of this particular anime. In fact the first 10 minutes of the first episode is essentially a naked girl hacking up people everywhere, and the first time I attempted to watch this anime a ... while back I stopped after the first 2 minutes so just be sure that you're prepared for that going into this anime.

One aspect of this anime that kept me going, even throughout the parts that really annoyed me, was definitely the storyline. The character relationships and the motivation behind each character made for a good story and that was the most enjoyable part of Elfen Lied to me.

Now on to the parts that annoyed the heck out of me. My gosh the characters were so incredibly annoying, I hated every character except for one, and for the sake of avoiding spoilers I won't talk about him, and he isn't even a major character. As interesting as the premise of each character was, I still cringed at the execution of the character interactions, and for goodness sakes please just get rid of the harem, it was unnecessary and it was annoying enough to take away from the story and the themes being presented in each character. I am certain there are better ways to show jealousy and parental love without making every character a whiny and annoying prick.

The animation was pretty darn mediocre, I mean kudos on the details in the hacked up bodies, sure, but it's painfully easy to spot the lazy animation, so nothing special about it.

The music however was really great, they mostly played variations of the same song in every episode which got borderline repetitive, but still is was a really beautiful song so I didn't mind.

Throughout watching this I got the vibe that it deserved a rating of 7 rather than the 8 that I gave it, but I enjoyed the way this show was ended so I decided to bump it up to an 8.