Elfen Lied

Lucy is a special breed of human referred to as "Diclonius," born with a short pair of horns and invisible telekinetic hands that lands her as a victim of inhumane scientific experimentation by the government. However, once circumstances present her an opportunity to escape, Lucy, corrupted by the confinement and torture, unleashes a torrent of bloodshed as she escapes her captors.

During her breakout, she receives a crippling head injury that leaves her with a split personality: someone with the mentality of a harmless child possessing limited speech capacity. In this state of instability, she stumbles upon two college students, Kouta and his cousin Yuka, who unknowingly take an injured fugitive into their care, unaware of her murderous tendencies. This act of kindness will change their lives, as they soon find themselves dragged into the shadowy world of government secrecy and conspiracy.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Elfen Lied is based on Lynn Okamoto's seinen manga series of the same name and premiered while the manga was still in publication. The anime follows the source material through the first 7 volumes, with several alterations to the story, and concludes with an exclusive ending. In an interview, director Mamoru Kanbe expressed his disappointment in having to 'condense' to story into 13 episodes and felt that more were needed to include significant plot details that would have made the series more emotive.

The artistic design of both the opening and ending sequences are heavily inspired by the works of Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. Colors and patterns resembling Klimt's distinct style were used and characters of the series were drawn to recreate several paintings from the artist’s golden period, including The Kiss (Lovers). The opening theme Lilium, which is sung in Ecclesiastical Latin, uses lyrics taken from The Bible, the Renaissance hymn Ave mundi spes Maria, as well as the alchemical compendium Theatrum Chemicum.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Elfen Lied
Side story:	Elfen Lied: Tooriame nite Arui wa, Shoujo wa Ikani Shite Sono Shinjou ni Itatta ka? - Regenschauer

Yamamoto, Maria
Japanese

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Staff

Tamura, Manabu

Producer

Morijiri, Kazuaki

Producer

Suzuki, Seiji

Assistant Producer

Kanbe, Mamoru

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

"Lilium" by Kumiko Noma

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Ending Theme

"Be Your Girl" by Chieko Kawabe

Reviews

Nov 20, 2023

ImNotAnOtaku1

Recommended

Death. Desolation. Guilt. Loss. Suffering. Depravity. A trip down the deepest, most harrowing aspects of the human condition. Elfen Lied is the one anime that was not afraid to reach extremes to tell a story.

Released in 2004, Elfen Lied still holds up quite decently to this day. While its animation and sound quality are obviously subpar to the average modern anime, it makes it up by having really great scenery and a fantastic plot and lore. A Diclonious, a humanoid being with "vectors", invisible hands, and a desire to exterminate the human race; this is the main focus of Elfen Lied's plot. The story focuses ... on Kota, a college student who moves to a town he used to visit as a kid, in which his cousin lives, and on Lucy, a diclonious who escapes the facility she's being held in.

Elfen Lied gives us a story that has no filters whatsoever, dealing with every single piece of depravity and darkness that our world has to offer. Murder, rape, child abuse, inhuman experimentation, animal abuse and other extremely dark topics come together and bind to shape the characters and the world in a way that explains the events that take place through the 13 episodes of the anime. While a good chunk of the appeal of Elfen Lied revolves around gore and nudity, these only complement the plot and work as a way to allow it to develop the way it does. The diclonious are a mutant race which are basically genetically coded to exterminate humans, but they're not unlike humans, as they also have feelings, emotions and desires. However, humans are known for being judgmental, and throughout the events of Clannad we see how diclonious are discriminated against, provoking their murderous instincts, which contrasts with their human condition.

The way Elfen Lied manages to be impactful is in the way its story is told. Its plot isn't rushed and the different aspects of its lore are explained gradually, as to not confuse the viewer. Our main character, Kota, lives through the trauma of his sister and father having died, while Lucy lives with the guilt of the things she has done to someone she loves. Kota and Lucy eventually meet, while Lucy develops a second personality after escaping the facility she was held captive in. As the story progresses, we get to know more about their past, and why they are who and how they are. The story then progressively introduces more characters, all of them with equally messed up backgrounds. Then, as everything moves forward, so do our characters, as Elfen Lied has a very good character development (for most characters, at least), as we see them change their ways of being and thinking at a coherent pace, unlike other animes which either rush it or delay it too much.

Elfen Lied's visuals are amazing, to be fair. The character design is quite good, with that of Lucy's (and her alter egos) having a huge meaning in the lore. The scenery and backgrounds still hold up very well to this day, with some real beauty in them. The gore is detailed and ludicrous, there's just a certain degree of satisfaction you get from watching the gory scenes throughout the anime (most of them, at least) due to how well they're made.

The voice acting is, for the most part, good, but the sound design tends to fall off a little bit, but that's probably because it's hard not to compare Elfen Lied to modern animes which a much greater production value. The soundtrack is one of Elfen Lied's strong points as well; while there aren't that many tracks in it, and a few of them are a bit overused (namely the main theme song), the atmosphere it helps create is great; the anime's atmosphere is thick and tense, it has a great power to transmit a sense of both melancholy and dread into the audience, fully enveloping them with the fucked up darkness the story isn't afraid to touch on. Very few animes manage to make someone feel as uneasy or emotionally impacted as this one.

The entirety of Elfen Lied also works greatly through its allegorical aspects; the story, lore, characters, imagery and else make a lot of reference to religion, to a point in which Elfen Lied can almost be interpreted as a metaphor for the Bible at times. The attention to detail throughout the whole show is amazing, although it's quite easy to miss when you don't pay attention. This results in the entire lore having great depth and an even greater impact than it already has.

Generally, I aim my reviews to those who've already watched an anime, as I tend to focus a lot on specific plot points, effectively spoiling the entire anime, however, I can't bring myself to do this with Elfen Lied, as I want this review to hopefully be read by someone who will be interested in watching the anime after reading it. If your heart can take this and your stomach can digest it, Elfen Lied is a must-watch.

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Dec 5, 2023

hmin0x

Mixed Feelings

This anime started out like a masterpiece, I believe the opening is a very good choice with great lyrics. And the opening scene is mysterious and creepy too. A big positive is how this anime isn't afraid of using nudity and gore to emphasize some points. Unfortunately after that there are very few scenes that leave the same emotional impact as the beginning. It felt very confusing following the story, I wouldn't say it's bad but it's not good either. It could've told a very mature and deep story about being an outcast and suffering abuse because of it but it just didn't which is ...

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Dec 7, 2023

Heib0n

Not Recommended

What a waste of time, this anime is nothing but a complete mess full of gore and nudity scenes which may be cool if you´re 12 years old, but if you are no longer a kid, and you want a good story, good animation or at least a little group of nice characters, I have bad news for you because everyone here is retarded or an asshole

Lucy is a sadistic bitch, but the series wants you to feel bad about how the evil humanity treats her (yeah, we´re assuming that she wasn´t killing everyone in a horrible way)
Kota doesn´t have any personality, he´s just there ...

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Elfen Lied

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