Elfen Lied

An anime can be critically successful for many reasons, it could be due to a well written and engaging plot, innovative ideas that are perfectly handled or even have a deep plot revolving around thought-provoking themes. More so, "depth" has been a cause for the critical success of many anime over the course of time for example "The Tatami Galaxy", but for a show to have a level of depth is not an easy task for any writer. However, superficial depth can be achieved easily and even more easily confused for genuine depth. Such superficial depth ranges from cheap shock factor to random philosophical questions that ... have no relations to the core plot or characters and Elfen Lied is a prime example of such superficial depth.

The harem genre has never been an interesting or innovative genre in terms of plot and character since the beginning of time. Most harem shows consist of a bland protagonist surrounded by fetish fulfilling bimbos, who are head over heels for the bland protagonist for the most stupid reasons. Pandering, useless fan service, and sometimes being an insult to one's intellect; most harem shows lose all entertainment value to a mature audience. The mass production of such shows led to the belief that "anime" is only meant for kids and adolescent teens and have nothing of value to offer for someone more mature. However, this notion surprisingly changed after the release of the infamous, Elfen Lied an original story written by Okamoto Lynn which got a one cour anime adaptation, produced by studio ARMS who are also famous for producing other works like Ikkitousen, a ton of hentai titles and Genshiken.

At first glance, Elfen Lied is anything but a harem. The show starts with 10 minutes of outright nudity and gore which leaves the viewer in a state of utter shock and terror. These 10 minutes were enough to drive away the weak-hearted. However, after these ten minutes, the story is just a hackneyed amalgamation of cliche, plot devices, plot conveniences, plot holes, and last but not the least some "smart" and fetish pandering wrapped up into a harem. Plot conveniences and cliche are in abundance, for example, Lucy, loses her memory (amnesia cliche) when shot with a bullet in the head with a magnum sniper and floats down to a beach. One would expect the military to be present there, anticipating her arrival on several shores as she is indeed a top secret project and above that a threat to the human race, but she conveniently meets up with her one and only friend she ever had, Kouta. The author tries to handle pandering with different tricks such as using "horns" for cat ears(Kemenomimi). The whole amnesia cliche is further used as a plot device and conveniently too which involves Lucy, regaining her memories and her other personality whenever the plot asks for it and reverting back to her childlike personality whenever the plot asks for it. As the story progresses the writer cleverly turns what could have been a genuinely mature story about racism and discrimination into a cunning little harem. Every female character introduced is forced upon with some miserable past. It almost seems like the writer is a misogynistic sadist who creates female characters just to torture them. One would expect the writer to use these angst-filled backstories to weave up an emotional tale but fails at doing so as how forced these backstories come off and the overall lack of any development of the character doesn't help either. The story also tries to be dark but only fails as it's an edgy mess due to the abundant amount of unnecessary fan service and the whole over the top nature of the show.

Many claim this certain title, Elfen Lied, to be "deep", though I fail to understand why. It touches upon the concepts of racism and discrimination in the most superficial way possible. 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 defense. 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 defense. This is not depth, this is just ridiculous and superficial handling of a theme that could have been done well.

The plot progression in Elfen Lied can be only described as utterly stupid. As mentioned before, a "TOP SECRET PROJECT" washes through the sea only to land upon some beach where there are no military personnel to take care of such an important event. Then the couple who encounter Lucy, a naked girl with random horns, takes her home, because yeah, when you meet naked a creature with horns, you take her home and give her a nickname as if it were a stray dog, instead of going to the police to report the event. The military sends the worst soldier to find Lucy. Seriously, what kind of a soldier goes ahead and beats up his own comrade when going up against a man killing diclonius. Then the secret military group sends another diclonius to capture Lucy. It is to be noted that Lucy is the queen of diclonius species, and as a queen, she has the ability to order other diclonius to do her bidding. What kind of a "secret" organization 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? After this attempt fails they send in another diclonius because, yes, when "plan A" fails, you repeat "plan A" again. This organization must be run by a bunch of retards. And when one thinks of it, it's even more stupid as the second diclonius has been known for its sheer hate for humanity to the point of killing any human at sight. What kind of a secret organization sends in such a creature to an inhabited area with the ulterior motive of "saving humans"? Is this some sort of joke? Kouta later finds out that it was Lucy who had killed his entire family and ends up forgiving her in the blink of an eye. Completely logical.

The show is comprised of two clear phases. One phase where Lucy regains her memory where the anime becomes edgy and over the top. The other phase is when Lucy is in her amnesia mode where the anime becomes a Harem/SOL. The writers tried hard to make her cute but she is nothing more than pathetic. Roaming around naked for fanservice to the point where she needs help to even change her panties.The changes between these two phases depend absolutely on the convenience of the plot and we yet don't know when she decides to be a pokemon and when a mindless yandere.

The characters are the blandest bunch of characters to be ever written and this might not even be an exaggeration. One would expect to have sympathetic feelings towards Lucy due to her tragic past, but everything is so "plot convenient" that the tragedies seem fake and lose any impact if possible and come out extremely forced. Other than Lucy, every character is just a bland stereotype. Kouta is your generic harem lead and Yuka is the "imouto in love with her brother" archetype. Oh! you thought the bullshit ended with random gore and nudity ? You're wrong, the writers also decide to introduce an incest romance subplot that goes nowhere and just add to the convoluted mess. Other than Lucy and Yuka every other female in the show is a stupid loli as if the "clever fan service" wasn't enough already. There's no development to any of the characters. To sum it up all, the characters are just a bunch of retards and lolis who lack development and any core personality.

The opening sequence is probably the best part of the whole show. With the beautiful soundtrack "Lilium" there are some artistic scenes which have no damn relation to the convoluted mess of a plot. The ost is nothing special either and a bunch of them are reused and rehashed constantly but yet fail to be anything memorable. The art and animation is rather average and have nothing special about it. The show lacks aesthetics and any sort of artistic detail. The only details that are probably put in, is during the gore scenes where the disturbing images of the bones of the characters can be seen. The character designs are repetitive to the point where three characters have the same hair color. At least give them some more distinguishable features ffs?

Despite trying to be deep, Elfen Lied fails horribly by only touching on its themes very superficially hence lacking any message at the end of the day. It transforms itself into a generic harem with its seemingly "clever" tricks to fool the audience that it's something mature, but at the end of the day, it's just another mindless harem. Also, a useless incest romance subplot that goes nowhere (why is this such a big thing in Japan?) The characters lack personality or development and the art and music is nothing particularly special either. It tries to make up for its flaws with the help of conveniences, cliches, mindless gore and nudity which only worsen the show and makes it "edgy" as all hell. This show might appeal to a gore fan, an imouto incest fanatic, a lolicon, a misogynist or a mindless harem lover. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

Let me start off by saying that this is an anime I have avoided for a long time. Though the show has many fans, I'd essentially kicked it under the rug because I felt that it was too “mature” for me. (Mind you, this was when I was in middle school, and a mere panty shot made me feel uncomfortable.) HOWEVER, last week, I sat down and watched all thirteen episodes over a period of four days, and I have quite a bit to say about the series. Some of my commentary might stray dangerously close to /butthurt rant/ territory, so bear with me. ...

Let's discuss the technicalities of the show. Order of business numero uno: dub/sub. For this particular show, I suggest you stick to the original Japanese. Because the dub is ear-gratingly bad. The Japanese is a little lack-luster from what I can tell, but the English dub is comprised of extremely wooden acting and irritating voices all around, so the choice isn't exactly hard to make. Second: Elfen Lied has a lovely musical score, one that highlights the bloody scenes of the series very well. Most notable is the haunting OP song, “Lilium”, around which many a (melo)dramatic moment in the series is based. Third: the animation is bright and fluid, though it lags a little here and there. Visually and musically, the series is mostly solid. Peel back the first few layers of the onion, however, and you'll see that Elfen Lied has several gaping problems.

First of all, the story is dark, yes. It contains themes of betrayal, child abuse, bullying, rape, torture, abandonment, and other such cheerful plot points. The producers claim that it is meant to criticize the dark side of human nature. As I see it, however, it doesn't do this very well at all. In fact, the only thing Elfen Lied does do very well is /divert your attention/. The waterfalls of blood, severed limbs, and naked girls that the series is notorious for are so occupying to most viewers that they forget to examine the “big picture”. The show basically thrusts tear-rending scenes of cruelty in your face and expects that you'll ignore its many deeper flaws. Because if you think for a bit and brush away the gore-fest that is the surface of Elfen Lied, you'll realize that there is nothing there. The series was most likely intended to manipulate you into overlooking its utter lack of a point.

The plot, which supposedly focuses on the Diclonii and their attempts to wipe out the human race, goes nowhere at all. Instead, the plotline is unevenly divided, with a large chunk of the series revolving around the “mystery” behind Lucy's relationship with the ever-clueless Kouta, another prominent chunk--of course--focusing on the sad backstories of all the wonderful girls that eventually gravitate towards the loser (It should be pretty evident by now that I strongly dislike Kouta and the entire concept of his character), and a smaller chunk attempting to shed light on how the Diclonii came to be and the Institute's affiliation with the murderous beings. Instead of developing this meager third chunk, the writers chose to exploit the moe aspect of the show, giving it a completely unremarkable main plot. Think about it. How many times have we seen the “Lame-looking guy generously adopts several virtuous girls into his house and protects them from danger, soon discovering that they all have tragic pasts and are each falling madly in love with him” scenario? This scenario only works well with a fantastic setting, unusual characters, or masterful storytelling; none of which Elfen Lied has.

Because the writers halfway-introduced the Institute and its evil plans for the Diclonii, and then left this idea hanging like a dog's tongue on a summer day, the ending of the series feels incomplete and pointless. Not much of anything happens at the end, actually, except for the bloody deaths of many bystanders (nothing new), and a /sad romantic moment/.

In summation, Elfen Lied is a series that is best to watch with your brain turned off. It's the one way you'll get any sort of satisfaction from a show that, really, only has aesthetic value. It has numerous plot holes and is entirely generic in terms of its storyline: take any average moe title, pepper it with a smattering of gore and nudity, and you'll have Elfen Lied. If you truly want to depress yourself with a well-done portrayal of the darkness of humanity, I suggest you pick up something along the lines of “Now and Then, Here and There”.

Elfen Lied is not, in my opinion, the masterpiece that a chunk of viewers perceive it to be. In fact, I found it to be a shallow bundle of harem tropes and plot devices. In summation: It was pure bullcrap. Now, I don't mean to imply that Elfen Lied will seem this banal to everyone. As long as you don't start the anime expecting to find within it deep and controversial messages, then you will probably be a happy camper.

Story
After what I would consider a fairly disturbing opening scene, I expected this series to be fairly interesting. We have a young woman who has just escaped from a high security government facility, where she was apparently held against her will. And it is quite obvious from the brutal massacre that ensues that she is a very troubled individual with plenty of hate for the human race, and perhaps deservedly so. Then after she is essentially shot off of a cliff by a sniper under the direction the director of the facility, she ends up on the shore of the beach where she runs into ... Kohta and Yuka. Still naked. And this is where the story starts to disappoint me. The writers of this show then decided, after creating such an interesting character, they needed to turn her, through the ever-so-convenient plot device of memory loss, into some sort of mentally challenged child with the body of a young adult who can only utter the phrase "Nyu." And she has horns that suspiciously look like cat ears. Soon after, more girls come to join Kohta's new "family," and yes, you get to see most of them naked.
Besides what's going on in front of the viewer's eyes, there is an ongoing plot in the background about the Diclonius race. I actually found this plot pretty intriguing as well, but it unfortunately takes a back seat to the character drama, which was... somewhat lacking. But I'll get into that later.
The main reason why I rated the story so low is because it's so contrived. Nearly everything feels like it's essentially forced to happen, and even in the rare instance that the story doesn't feel really forced, I still find it hard to take a show that still holds onto the harem and fanservice cliches seriously.

Art/Animation
I had no problem with the visuals. They were competently done. Although the only noteworthy artwork, in my opinion, is the opening, which is just beautiful.

Sound
I actually thought the music was really good. Lillium, in its various incarnations, is quite the haunting tune. It worked especially well as background music to help set the mood during the show's somewhat frequent depictions of human cruelty. My main problem, though, is that this is one of only a few tracks used throughout the whole show. So you can imagine that it would get a bit repetitive.

Character
This is where I had my biggest bone to pick with this series. Most of the characters came off as either unrealistic caricatures of who they were meant to represent, weren't fully realized or came off as pathetic excuses for fanservice. For more specific examples, read on.
Kohta is pretty much your typical harem anime protagonist, a total pushover whose shoes any pervert can fit into. However, I actually blame this more on the original manga creator than on anyone else. He does offer some depth, but he is also very unrealistic. I don't expect fictional characters to act completely like real people, but they need to have a certain amount of believability. Any sane, real human being would gladly turn in a lost, naked girl to the police and give a homeless girl pants if she is obviously lacking some. A normal person would definitely not want to turn their home into some bizarre sort of orphanage. And anybody with a brain would definitely be able to notice that their cousin wanted them, especially when she was making such obvious advances on you.
Yuka is... well, Yuka is the kind of cousin who wants you. Really badly. Where most girls her age have most likely outgrown any crushes they once had on relatives, she is content with longing for her wimpy, pushover of a cousin. I'm sorry, but why was this needed in the story, especially when there was already a love interest for Kohta?
Nyu is pretty much worthless. As a split personality, her only purpose was to limit the carnage caused by Lucy and serve as a rather pathetic excuse for fanservice.
Mayu and her back story were fairly interesting ideas, but it just seemed as if it was for shock value and an excuse to get her to walk around without pants. The writers of the show could have done a lot more with her, but they just chose not to.
Nana and Kurama were also good characters, and they brought up some interesting questions. But did we really need to see her naked?
Lucy, on the other hand, was the meat of the story and, at least in my eyes, was much more of a main character than Kohta could ever be. I thought the flashback to her past was really well done and I admit I did feel sorry for her, even if half the time she was a sadistic murderer and the other half what amounted to a naked child.
So to summarize the character section, Lucy is what boosts character up to a five. The other people involved in her story is what keeps it a five.

Enjoyment
Now, did I enjoy this series? On occasion. But it was very hard to watch, and I only kept watching because everyone else seemed to think this was some sort of masterpiece. I will admit, I did enjoy the blood and gore, as well as Lucy's back story. But I couldn't help noticing all of the flaws that this show had. And the fanservice was so over-the-top that it was gross. I really don't need to see naked fourteen-year-olds, and even when the fanservice involved older characters, it wasn't very tastefully done and was way too .

Overall
Elfen Lied could have been a good horror series, with plenty of violence and nudity. But instead it tried to be something more, and fell flat on its face.

To be frank this series was a massive disappointment on every level. I heard great things about from many people and anime sites. Basically this show is a glorified harem horror train wreck with fancy music.

To start none of the character reactions seem natural. Everything seems awkward and stupid. The characters themselves are all either insane or incredibly stupid (some are both). It's hard to get into depth without ruining anything so I will make an example. Imagine if the characters in Excel Saga's actions were all taken in a serious light. That is how stupid these characters are. Then there is this convoluted ... storyline that goes in so many different directions that it makes no sense. Then there is the stupid romance element of the thing. It's as if they try to make the most illogical couple possible. Overall this show seems like it was created by a person with no actual goal in sight. He just throws out boobs and blood and expects it to be good. Which it most definitely isn't. If all you want in your anime is blood and boobs this is the anime for you...just whatever you do don;t listen to a word these people have to say.

Basically this is a piece of garbage covered in blood. But hey at least the music is good. I gotta admit that much.

STORY:
The story for Elfen Lied is supposedly an emotional journey that revealed all the deepest, darkest pieces of humanity and was supposed to give some poignant commentary on human nature and all that jazz. And although those are things that have certainly been done many times before, it can still be nice to see when done well. And yet, Elfen Lied really didn't do all that great of job of doing even that. All they really did was just kept showing you people being mistreated, and then it just stopped there. I mean, there were a few instances when something that might of been ... of substance began to develop but they were either cut off and the story shifted off into something else or it was just too shallow to ever really materialize into something. Honestly, they only thing I gathered from all this was that some people are big meanies, but there might be a nice kid in a bed and breakfast who makes out with his cousin that might take care of you. Other than that there was nothing really very tangible to take away from this. And with that being the good part, that left the rest/ majority of the series as just pulp, which consisted of soap-opera drama, Hollywood twists and sooper kool meat head action.

Despite all that, I still had hope because this was supposed to be an emotional anime, and human emotion is a beautiful thing even if the message behind it all is pretty shallow, but yet again, I was disappointed. I should have been moved after seeing a few of the scenes I saw, but I just wasn't because after seeing so many loved ones get their heads cut off and seeing so many people cry, watching those scenes was just like watching someone sneeze. They definitely needed to reel back in and remind us what real life looked like every once in a while for the sake of dynamic.

And lastly, I want to discuss one of the more talked about subjects regarding Elfen Lied’s story, and that’s the subject of the violence/nudity. I cast my vote in this area for it being more perversion than anything else. I was actually pretty disgusted at it at times. I can sort of understand the point of view of it being necessary, but I think it crossed a few lines. What was necessary (to a plot that is superficial by itself) was the fact that people were being killed, and that alone is an ugly enough thing to get a point across. What wasn’t necessary was the whole, maiming, disemboweling, eye gouging, and exploding. All that was there for one obvious reason, and that was shock value. As for the sexual part, I had a hard time justifying that. Actually depicting very young girls, or older girls who were just acting like little girls, naked and for the most part covered in blood in suggestive situations is pretty unnecessary. I mean, did every girl that had breasts HAVE to get their clothes ripped off when they fought? Did they HAVE to depict a little girl taking her clothes off for her step-dad? I didn’t really think so. There have been better stories that did a better job of making a character look sub-human without showing even a fraction of what Elfen Lied showed.

ANIMATION:
This isn't really something that generally holds much weight unless it's the focal point of a series. It's nothing to scorn, but it's really just the same recycled style/quality you see in so many series.

CHARACTERS:
The worst part of Elfen Lied. The characters are garbage. They are so cliche and so overboard, they almost insult the intelligence of the viewer, as if we couldn't tell that Bando was short tempered and callous without either threatening the life or punching the faces of every single person he comes in contact with. All the characters are extremely unrealistic and act in ways no real person in today's society would ever act. Like a four year old girl who talks like a James Bond villain? Or elementary school boys who bully their classmates by smashing their puppies faces in with bottles? Teenagers who find naked women lying on beaches and takes them home to live with them without exchanging hardly any words? Besides all that, there weren't many cliches that weren't used in the daily dialogue from the characters. It was actually pretty painful.

ENJOYMENT: Eh.This is subjective. I know there are things that people enjoy purely because of their niche, which isn't a bad thing. That could easily be the case for this one. If you appreciate and enjoy innovation and artistic integrity, I'd suggest skipping this one.

There really is a lot more to be said about this series, but I think I'm going to stop here. I'm really baffled at how many people gush about this anime. One good thing, is that it confirmed that I should never take heed to an animetard's suggestions.

(Spoilers below!)

The main focus of the series seems to be the main character's harem (with more focus on 2 of them) consisting of his cousin, a similarly-aged mentally deficient girl who is secretly not mentally deficient, and 2 underaged girls. If I recall.

The series focuses a lot on the underage girls being sexually/emotionally abused, the weird incestuous relationship between the main character and his cousin (which they portray doing things that I might think warrant an M rating), the youngest girl in the bunch running away from home due to being sexually abused by her step father, and the other underage girl being mercilessly butchered ... and having her limbs cut off over and over as if it was some kind of running slap stick gag throughout the entire series.

The series repeatedly uses children to pull at your heart strings and make you feel a connection with characters that are about as well polished as driftwood. These characters exist only as props to be thrown under a bus to make you feel sympathetic and sad. They do not themselves possess any kind of personality beyond some kind of quirk or weird infatuation. There's "the raped girl," the "emotionally deficient girl with stockholm syndrome," the "brooding girl who only wants to be loved." You know, the classics!

I'd say the grossest aspect of this series is the use of gore for shock value. Small children are mutilating each other left and right. Though there is an in-universe explanation for why they are so violent, you're left wondering if you care if there is an in-universe explanation. To me, the gore exists because someone wanted to make a really edgy series full of gore and violence for sake of gore and violence.

Think of Gantz, but with 10 year old girls. And instead of killing aliens, they're killing other 10 year old girls. By ripping their heads off.

Elfen Lied is an anime that many consider controversial. It's bloody, gory, perverted and just plain fucked up. Now I've seen some messed up animations in the past and I'm usually not against the stuff when it's in good taste. That is the biggest flaw Elfen Lied has: it's never in good taste. I'm sure someone at some point has implored you to watch this work. If that is the case, and you have not yet watched it then I beg you: DON'T.

Story: 1/10 (If I could give this a 0, I would)
What good can be said of Elfen Lied's story? It's a story. That's ... it. It's overtly complicated, totally unbelievable, and tries way too hard. Two people find a girl with horns and take her in. She can only say her name and gets naked too often. Then she goes nuts and kills people. All because it's her nature. And it's full of plot holes that once you realize, you can't forget. I'd point them out, but they could be spoilers.

Art: 3/10
The art is just mediocre as all hell. Everyone has the same face unless they're an adult apparently. The animation is also pretty bad and that's not a good combination. The "vectors" are the dumbest looking power I've ever seen in an animation. I laughed every time I saw them used. Maybe it's just the way they were drawn.

Sound: 6/10
The composer did his job. The opening is great, and probably the only good thing about the animated work. The score is nice and consistent. The voice acting on the other hand, japanese or english, is just bad.

Character: 1/10 (again, 0)
By far the largest offense of Elfen Lied is character development. It's either not there or it's much too forced. And what bothered me most is just the overall mood of the characters. To put it simply, if you are a bit character, YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON. NO EXCEPTIONS. One example is a group of elementary school kids beating the ever-loving hell out of a dog with no remorse whatsoever. I went to elementary school and I don't remember that many serial killers in training. They acted like supervillians. Am I just supposed to believe these kids are all just pure evil at that early an age?

Enjoyment: 1/10 (AGAIN, 0)
None. I just felt awkward the whole time. I don't know why I finished it, probably because once I've started an anime I don't like to drop it. Regardless, the series is full of awkward moments that only made me uncomfortable. As much as this was supposed to make me care, all it did was isolate me further. Not because it shocked me, trust me I've seen worse. It was just... awkward.

Overall: 1
The worst and most overrated anime I have ever seen. I don't understand how anyone could enjoy this piece of crap show. I apologize if I'm offending anyone, but you'd have to be a complete moron to actually like this irredeemable load of garbage.

No. You know what? I DON'T apologize. If you liked Elfen Lied, you have no taste and you need to be institutionalized.

This review is for those who have seen the whole series. Spoilers Abound! If you stopped watching after the first episode you don’t belong here.

EL was a phenomenon in the history of Japanese anime that should have never been. To be frank EL is a really bad anime. At best it is mediocre and at worst it is trash. Personally, I find mediocre to be VERY generous if not unreasonable, but I really think EL is just terrible. So why was EL so popular? What I am absolutely certain of is this: predominantly spreading by word of mouth, EL’s insane popularity is tied to two ... things: The over the top explicit content and its ability to manipulate people’s emotions.

This highly rated “masterpiece” of an anime was sold by its insane fan base as one of the best anime ever made. Don’t make me laugh! This is not the best anime ever made. Okay, maybe it is just a good horror title. No. Good horror frightens people, often relying on the audience’s imagination. Bad horror just grosses people out with too much information. EL is gory, repulsive, twisted, and downright sadistic, but never frightening. It often grosses you out just for the sake of shock value. Combined with this kind of gore is nudity up the wazoo and a little pedophilia. When you look past all the blood, guts, and the nudity you see lots of bad writing, clichéd plot devices like memory loss, lots of flashbacks, a veiled harem plot device, fetishes, over use of lolicon, and tons and tons of fanservice. The fanservice is deliberate and utterly shameless. For instance Yuka allowed herself to be groped by Nyuu for several minutes while doing nothing but blushing and weakly saying “I said no”. This kind of pathetic fanservice is one of the worst traits of this show. After all the typical stereotypes, clichés, contrived coincidences, boob rubs, panty shots, the dead puppy, and the stupid Nyuu peeing on the floor I was left gasping for air by this shows unrelenting attempts to get me to swallow this garbage.

If you have stayed with me for this long then you will find out why I think so poorly of this anime.

Story:

EL revolves around the relationships, interactions, and emotions between humans and the Diclonii, a mutant species similar to humans except for the two horns on the head (suspiciously resembling fury ears) and “vectors”, transparent telekinetically controlled arms that can manipulate and cut objects. The show is centered on the Diclonius girl Lucy who was rejected by human beings and subsequently wants revenge.

In Episode 1 a naked Lucy escapes from a high security research laboratory and in the process brutally dismembers a lot of people, including several unarmed innocent bystanders. But one lucky son of a gun gets a head shot at her and here is where a really dumb plot twist occurs. Lucy (wearing a metallic helmet) is shot in the head with a .50 caliber anti-tank rifle. A .50 caliber anti-tank rife! Instead of destroying her skull, the bullet actually knocks off her helmet, and she falls into the sea still alive, but the impact caused her to develop a secondary, child-like personality known as Nyuu. She is then found, solemnly standing in the water like a statue, by Kouta and his cousin Yuka, both around age nineteen. Blessed with stupidity, Kouta and Yuka decide to take naked, injured, babyish Lucy/Nyuu to their home and inevitably make her a part of their family. Kouta names her Nyuu because that is the only word she says. Nyuu’s language consists of nyuu nyuu nyuu and NYUU NYUU NYUU, which demonstrates how much her behave resembles that of a humanoid Pokémon than anything else (think about it, Lucy = Mewtwo and Nyuu = Mew). This sets things up for the thing I hate the most about this anime – the highly contrived romance subplot.

The Romance Subplot:

EL has the worst display of romance I have ever seen in an anime. The love triangle that forms around Kouta, Lucy/Nyuu, and Yuka is - at times - even more unbearable to watch than the gratuitous violence and nudity. The romantic relationship between Kouta and Yuka is obnoxious, contrived, and stupid. Kouta’s relationship with Lucy/Nyuu is ridiculous, contrived, and implausible. Yuka has had feelings for Kouta since childhood. She last saw him at age ten putting about eight or nine years between then and now. After all this time she wants to get together with her cousin… how naïve and obnoxious is that? That was a rhetorical question. I have no sympathy for cousin x cousin relationships and the writers had the gall to put something like that in here and forcible try to convince me to care in the least about it. I have to wonder why this love relationship is even here in the first place. Wasn’t the whole point to convince us that Kouta and Lucy/Nyuu could actually have a relationship; yet his cousin has to fall in love with him too? As overly contrived as that was the next relationship is even more so as Kouta’s relationship with Lucy/Nyuu is straight up implausible and ridiculous. Lucy is after all the "Eve" of her species, and if she becomes pregnant she would be able to exterminate the human race…well, insist that just dandy? But even after she tells Kouta she killed his father and sister when he was ten, he still has feelings for her. Even though he cannot forgive her for what she did he just cannot get over her. I would also add that ten year old Kouta only knew Lucy for about three days – hardly enough time to develop any meaningful relationship let along a romantic one. Again Lucy/Nyuu was only around the house for a few days when the relationship between her and Kouta starts to blossom. The show actually takes this rubbish seriously and expects the view to take it equally as seriously. The fact this show tried so hard to convince me to sympathies with these relationships actually made me feel insulted.

Much of the story progresses thanks to the contrived coincidences. It was a coincidence that Kouta and Yuka found Lucy on the beach. Once it's revealed that Lucy and Kouta met as children, it gets even harder to believe that Lucy washing up on that beach would coincide perfectly with Kouta's return to that village for the first time in years. It was also a coincidence that Kouta and Lucy met in the forest to begin with. Lucy meeting that dog in the forest was a coincidence. Mayu finding Kouta’s umbrella on the beach was a coincidence. But of course, the writers, in their infinite wisdom, do not want you to actually think while watching lest it distracts you from lapping this stuff up.

Art/Animation:

The animation was good, but nothing special and certainly not deserving the amount of hype and praise it received. I thought it could be a lot better… after all it was released in 2004 so it was entirely possible. I think they just wasted money on these ridiculous over the top violent and cutesy/ecchi scenes. The only noteworthy artwork, in my opinion, was the opening and the nature scenery. The opening was in a style adapted from the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918).

Characters:

I am not sure if my biggest bone to pick with this show was the stupid romance subplot or these awful characters. The characters are mostly made out of cardboard that contained flashbacks and stupidity and connected to each by contrived coincidences. The characters were completely unrealistic for the serious roles they were trying to play and fell flat on their faces in the process. Some were pathetic excuses for fanservice and others were completely forgettable. For more specific examples, please read on.

Kouta: Kouta is flat, bland, stupid, and dense. By the end of the series he has some depth to him, but he becomes incredibly unrealistic. Although I do not expect fictional characters to act and think like real people, but they need to have a certain amount of believability. Any sane, real human being would turn in a lost, naked girl to the police and give a homeless girl pants if she is obviously lacking some. Need I also mention that BOTH Kouta and Yuka should be blamed for letting Lucy/Nyuu prance around the house in her panties for several episodes. The fact they did not give her pants for awhile was just so glaring. He is dense because he is oblivious to the advances of his cousin.

Yuka: Why I had to suffer through this cousin x cousin crap escapes me. There was already a love interest for Kouta anyway so this was completely unnecessary. I know. I know… it was in the manga. Speak of which I found out Kouta marries her and they have a child whom they name Nyuu. That poor poor child!

Lucy: Lucy is the meat of this story, but I found her back story not very convincing. In her flashback we find out she has been picked on by this boy who calls her non-human, makes fun of her horns, and ultimately kills the puppy she befriended. She also felt betrayed by Kouta because he lied to her about the gender of his cousin – he told her his cousin was a boy. She really has an extraordinary obsession with Kouta that is pretty sad to watch. Please do not think I do not have a heart. Being picked on, being told you’re not human, having your puppy bludgeoned to death, and being lied to are really really sad things. This is undeniable. My problem is all this stuff is just not acceptable that it warrants the destruction of humanity, let alone the slaughtering of innocent people at a festival. After all Lucy killed Kouta’s sister and father all because of a lie. Are we supposed to take that seriously? Is one lie worth two people’s lives? No it is not! Actually, she killed even more innocent people at the festival.

Nyuu: Nyuu is pretty much worthless. As a split personality, her only purpose was to limit the carnage caused by Lucy and serve as a rather pathetic excuse for fanservice.

Mayu: Mayu is the only character I sympathized with the most. I found the story of her past very sad. However, we only knew about her pedophile stepfather through a flashback and if it was not for that I think I would have seen her as a normal young girl. In my opinion, this flashback is a poor excuse for character development. However, the scene of her eating bread crumbs from the bakery was sad.

Nana and Mr. Kurama: What they did with Mr. Kurama, Nana and Mariko in episode 10 was well done I must say. It brought up some interesting questions and it showed us the awful treatment the Diclonii suffered in the Research Institute where they were being subjected to torture. For the record what the Institute did was just wrong and they really screwed things up, but I do not believe the Diclonii are morally superior to humans. After all they are humans – with a few special features.

Sound:

I sound like a broken record here, but “Lilium” by Kumiko Noma was a very good song and a pleasure to listen to. That said I am fearful that EL completely ruined this song for me because every time I hear it I am reminded of this show. As for the rest of the score, with everything going on in the show, I found it hard to even pay attention to the music. I think they tried to compensate for this by repeating “Lilium” quite a few times and it did help set the tone for those scenes of human cruelty. But, honestly, this one song could not carry the whole show.

Enjoyment:

I got absolutely nothing out of watching this show. The only thing I liked was “Lilium” but I could have listened to that on YouTube and not have bothered watching the show in the first place. It is a bad sign when the only thing you enjoyed in a show was the opening theme song! When the show was done all I had left was a bunch of twisted negative feelings inside me reminding me of how I felt after leaving the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. I did not laugh because nothing was funny. I did not cry because the show wouldn’t stop strangling me with it repulsiveness. I am not being overly dramatic about this. I am serious!

It really boggles my mind that anyone could use the words EL and masterpiece in the same sentence. This goes for the following words: cool, good, great, awesome, amazing, satisfactory, moving, acceptable, profound, superb, fresh, masturbate, and jack off.

Overall:

Ultimately, everything was so contrived in this show it was painful if not suffocating to watch. I could not believe how forced everything was. It had hanging plot threads, terrible writing, and bad characters. EL is all slosh and pathos with very little depth or meaning. Like I wrote before EL really does not want you to think about what you are watching. Everything is spoon feed to you in an unnatural fashion that if you were to use your brain for even a moment the emotional climax scenes would be exposed for morally repulsive, irresponsible, and entirely stupid decisions on the part of most characters played off as really beautiful scarifies. No amount of blood, boobs, panties, and beautiful music can change this show from what it is – an angsty teen horror and moe drama – into something more mature let alone profound. Frankly I would NEVER recommend this show to anyone.

Feedback greatly appreciated by both ‘Helpful’ and ‘Not Helpful” voters!

Oh god, where do I start? The forced drama? The angsty pretentious hipster garbage? The lackluster storyline? The one dimensional characters? Elfen lied is an abysmal, bottom of the barrel anime that serves no purpose other than to ooh and aah the crowd with oodles of gore and frequent nudity. Story you say? What story? There is none. Elfen lied can't tell a good story so it tries to compensate for this by adding in excessive blood and gore, extreme violence, almost constant nudity, fetishist appeal and absurdity. I did however somewhat enjoy the art, it was certainly one of the better aspects of this ... blatant failure of a series. Things looked a little grainy, but all in all it was decent. I think the art is the only good things about this otherwise atrocious series. One of the things I hate most about this overhyped series is not just its pretentious fanbase, but also that Elfen lied TRIES TOO hard to make you think that it's deep, when it really is as shallow as can be. Also, the problem with the nudity in the series isn't that there IS nudity, but that it's there for no particular reason, along with rediculous levels of blood and gore. These are the two quintessential reasons why elfen lieds fans believe it's their first "real" anime, probably because they've only seen what airs on adult swim. But honestly, I could forgive all of that if there wasn't so much forced drama. The puppy scene was rediculously forced. It was in no way "deep" or "thoughtful" it was just forced. I cannot think of one big redeeming quality of this horrible anime. Do yourself a favor and watch higurashi instead.

I just can't rank it higher except I would give it a perfect 10 in terms of the perfect horror. But as I found this outrageously popular series is purely excessive at best.

Now I don't doubt it is the perfect the setting and the perfect situation to stage a horror film. If you love Horror than this is the series for you. If you are partial or just looking for something with depth this probably isn't for you. I don't doubt Elfen Lied has some serious depth in the story, however I'm far to distracted by the endless amounts of blood and gore and violence.

I ... can understand why but I frankly don't think it's needed. Sadly that is all a series like Elfen Lied has going for it is the pure shock factor. It shocks the audience with the gore and violence and the nudity but in the end it doesn't do a series justice. Shock series last for a time but they don't last forever, and that is what I see for Elfen Lied. A shock series that will last until another shock series comes along. It's how all horror works and it's probably how this will work. Of course I could be wrong and Elfen Lied will become a classic but we'll see.

Now on some positive notes, the acting in Japanese is splendid. While Lucy is of course the coldblooded murder machine Nyuu is her adorable child-like split personality. I haven't seen it dubbed so I don't know how the dub was. The opening theme is perhaps the best I've ever heard. An operatic song in Latin is just perfect even for a series like this. Not to mention provides the perfect eerie atmosphere, especially when it goes over to the male chorus. The whole music score is perfect for this series. Animation quality is excellent.

Overall Elfen Lied has it's appeal if you love horror. It's not a story for the faint of heart or the squeamish. If you can look past the 100% excess of Gore and Fanservice you may find you like it. If you don't you will find it like me, a noisy, gore and fan service festival. Nothing more.

After watching Elfen Lied I had a lot of questions. Above them all being what exactly did I just watch? What was it trying to accomplish? Is it a romance? An action show? An ecchi harem thing? A psychological drama? The show could be all of these things, but I was left feeling as if it failed at being any of them.

Character-1

I say for a romance to be successful the audience must at least like the characters. The characters in Elfen Lied are much too easy to hate. From their irrational decisions to cardboard personalities every character is frustrating to watch and hard to care ... about. So, I was left unable to enjoy the romance of Elfen Lied.

Art- 6

The art was nothing special, looked good enough though. Character designs could have been more creative. I like action shows that have great art and interesting fight scenes. While descent on the art side of things, Elfen Lied's fight scenes are more often then not one sided and bland. Then there's the blood everywhere. Not at all scary, and if anything it's gross. I can see people enjoying the action in Elfen Lied though. But because it's dispersed between all of the romance and drama I wouldn't recommend the show to anyone based solely on the action.

Other things to look at would be the ecchi/harem-ish aspects of the show, also the source of it's comedy. I believe there's nothing special or inventive about the various situations and didn't find them very funny. Then there is the, quite random, nudity everywhere. So if you like action, blood, harems, and random nudity you should give Elfen Lied a shot.

Sound-6

Lillium is cool and anything else they bother to play is decent. Voice acting is average.

Story-2

What ticks me off about the story besides it not being complete is that there was something interesting going on. I hate to be disappointed and that's what Elfen Lied gave me. The primary focus of the story seems to be the psychological drama aspects of the show. Which is hard to take seriously with the random nudity and silly ecchi scenes. The subject matter they deal with is nothing new, some secret organization and mutants, but my interest had been piqued. Then the logic of Elfen Lied slapped me in the face.

In Elfen Lied the characters are either good or bad, and there are an awful lot more bad characters. It's fine to explore the evil within people, but Elfen Lied doesn't do that. It rather shows you people doing evil things. I know there are not that many sociopaths in the world. Then with the incomplete story too much is left unexplained. It's so extreme it's unforgivable.

What Elfen Lied often accomplishes with it's story is tugging at people's heart strings. Now I don't have a heart of ice, many movies and series have left me in tears, but Elfen Lied even failed to impress me there. I just found myself incapable of empathizing with the terrible characters; some gained my pity, but that had no effect on me.

Enjoyment- 3

I can see the appeal of the show, but in many ways it just wasn't my thing.

Overall- 4

To sum all of this up, Elfen Lied failed to impress me and I found the show to be below average. For all of the people who love this show, I can see why. But if you expect everyone else to love the show as well, then you're crazy. Elfen Lied is just not for everyone. I say it's all up to your taste and interpretation.

Elfen Lied.

When I watched this series for the first time under the recommendation by a friend, I was certainly intrigued and curious at the world surrounding Lucy and the first episode established the tone I expected for the rest of the show. I liked the contrasts between the different Diclonius and psyche behind their varying personalities and hidden pasts. Now refreshed from watching Elfen Lied a 2nd time. I have painfully succumb to the realization of how misguided my initial opinions of the series were from the first viewing.

Character and Plot Development. (1.5) The direction, tone and brutality of the first episode is intriguing and ... sets up the interest to keep watching the series. Sadly as more characters are introduced and more plot points added to the story, the more insulted you become as a viewer because plot holes become much more evident that you'll begin to wonder how you did not notice this sooner.The lack of characterization for each Diclonius, leaves a lot of room for development but sadly there doesn't appear to be any except for their dependence on others. This leads to the supporting cast to push the story along as the main Diclonius, Lucy, is one of the most useless MC's to date. As a matter of convenience the creators decided to activate Lucy's memories and personality only when it is absolutely needed which is irritating to distinguish the huge contrast of her character from absolute uselessness to completely bad-ass and demonic. This only points out the contrived and simplistic intentions of the other Diclonius'. To sum the characters and plot of Elfen Lied, its a harem blood-bath battle royale for the exploits of the female body. (Weird description, I know)

Art, Sound and Action. (4.5) I was entrapped by the theme song, it can be interpreted in some many ways and sets the tone for an innocent blood-bath. (you could almost forgive their actions with this song) Sadly nothing else to do with the soundtrack comes close to creating any feeling for the situations in the series which may be linked to the poor plot and characters. The art seemed to have faded as the show progressed. Again when compared to the first episode, it seems the animation lost its flare but as mentioned previously this may be due to the lack of plot development. Action seems solid, again I hate repeating myself but excluding the first episode the action scenes just don't seem to match its brutality which is disappointing. Still watchable though.

Well, Elfen Lied is really hard to judge given its popularity. I can only see its position on MAL due to the unique ethos and unflinching pain to inflict on both its story and its audience. Its certainly a unique work of art but not necessarily a good one. It has the three B elements of any show that seems to by default have success in the anime and general media medium: Boobs, Babes and Blood. You should really watch it all regardless of the negative connotations in this review. It's only worth is that it's "unique." For those readers that are undecided, I recommend watching the first episode alone without continuing onto the rest of the show.

The thirst for gore is real. It's so real in fact that writers and producers are willing to push themselves over the limit to achieve it. Within that thin success rate, there’s a positively memorable storyline, serious cast, and dramatic terror to bring chills down your spine. Yet there is a higher chance of them ruining their good potential to the point where you can’t help but question whether or not to take it seriously. This brings us Elfen Lied, a show infamously known for its use of violence and nudity to get their points across.

The two reasons Elfen Lied should receive praise is ... for its touch on discrimination and constant violence. As the story progresses, it is proven how Diclonius are poorly mistreated and their low status in society. Lucy makes her debut in the very beginning with her dramatically violent performance to show the dangers of the Diclonius. Blood splatters. Bodies are ripped apart. Heads and other body parts are chopped off throughout the entire show. Sounds like the perfect horror, right? No, it’s not. It gets even better. By that I mean, the writing gets so ridiculous that it throws several LOL moments in your face.

Lucy develops this split personality turning her from this dangerous creature to a helpless girl with the mind of a toddler. The split personality is not what makes the show bad. If anything, this idea is helpful for a horror as a deception to other characters to hide that person’s true form. But it’s how Elfen Lied uses this idea that downgrades this show. At first glance, you might assume Lucy’s a catgirl. No, those aren’t cat ears. Those are horns as all Diclonius have. No, she’s not meowing. She’s simply saying the only word she knows how to speak, which also becomes her given name “Nyuu.” When you add a nude girl who can only say one word, doesn’t know how to use the bathroom or even dress herself, along with a lonely teenage virgin boy in one house together, what do you get? Poorly written characters, an unavoidable harem, and in short, a desperate cry for help.

The harem aspect of Elfen Lied may not seem entirely bad, considering there’s no love fest between Kyota and the girls he takes in because of their tragic stories. The problem lies with the love triangle. When Kyota and his cousin Yuka find Lucy nude on the beach and decide to take her in, later comes unnecessary fanservice and an opportunity for a love triangle to develop. Lucy grasps this mentality that it’s fun to grope other girls’ breasts and have hers squeezed by Kyota as well. Oddly enough, all of the girls have their own stories, except Yuka. The only thing revealed about Yuka is her obsession with Kyota and how she vocally express her sexual cravings to him.

Elfen Lied cannot stick to their story to truly glorify their mascots of terror, the Diclonius. They are born in normal human bodies, but what hilariously happens later? You have mannequin arms and legs flying at the screen from these mutated people who can reattach and function these usually worthless plastic body parts as if they were technological. They have a telekinesis power consisting of invisible arms to give them all the glory, but they pass by several opportunities to show off the goods. With no exception to Lucy who happily kills armies of men when given the chance, other villains are too incompetent for their own good despite being more powerful. They’re all held in a secret lab for inhumane experiments and to prevent them from destroying mankind. If they are released from prison for a brief moment, you’d expect immediate full-blown chaos. Too bad they don’t reach their full potential of being such dangerous creatures.

Despite the shock factors, there’s a horribly written script with illogical expressions that cannot be taken seriously. Characters strongly lack common sense and make the stupidest decisions as if they’re asking for trouble. This leads to hilarious deaths though. Characters play dead and either come back numerous times to get a last word or fully recovers. Some of the lines, especially the "I'm going to die a virgin" messages, are hilarious. The main relationships are explained with backstories and seems understandable towards the characters’ current status. However, characters act too calm during shock factors, and most scenes becomes a disappointment as a result.

The art and sound usually save an anime from being a complete disaster, but alas Elfen Lied couldn’t fulfill in this department either. The voices of the MCs in both English and Japanese were so plain and dull with a “Let’s get this over with” type of tone. They didn’t have the appropriate emotion for a certain scene, and it made it hard to follow. In the most drastic or sad situations, a character gracefully recites his or her lines while holding a smile on his or her face. A scene will show them choking up or sobbing, but all they say are their lines in an emotionless tone.

The character and background designs were kind of plain. As explained earlier, it is easy to mistake the horns of the Diclonius for cat ears. There were stills with only movement from the MCs. The settings didn’t have much detail. On the other hand, the sound effects were on-key. Dark music played in the background to suit horror scenes. The OP was good, especially since it connected to the main story. The ED was highly unattractive as it pushed the harem aspect even more with its lyrics: “Maybe, baby, I wanna be your girl.” That was completely unnecessary and an awful way to end an episode.

Once again, this is yet another show with great potential and completely ruined it with unnecessary fanservice, incompetent characters, and illogical scenes. Instead of an innovative plot and critically well-done masterpiece, it was a pitifully written script that throws the goofiest incidents in your face. Even with the recent show, Gokukoku no Brynhildr, we can pretty much conclude that VAP and Arms are failures at anime adaptations for Lynn Okamoto's works.

There comes a time in every man's life when he has to stand up to the world and say "NO." Elfen Lied is a favorite of the anime community, and very few people have the balls to call it out for being a total piece of crap.

Sure, it starts out more or less acceptable, with some naked chick wandering around decapitating people with her psychic powers, but sadly, by the fifth or sixth episode it has completely degenerated into generic harem shit. If you've seen Love Hina or Shuffle, just imagine those series, but with psychic decapitations and underage boobies. Sound good? If you answered ... "yes," a top-secret government eugenics taskforce is headed to your house for extermination.

Elfen Lied tries to shock you with flashback scenes showing some really depraved and psychotic violence, but its way too calculated. During the loli molestation scene, I actually burst out laughing, not because child molesters are funny (even though they are, of course), but because it was fakking pathetic how low the series's creators were willing to go to toy with my emotions. Sorry charlie, but I had to read Elie Weasle's Night at least 8 or 9 times in middle school, so showing some little punk kicking a dog to death ain't gonna cut it.

And the characters. zomg, the characters. There are two or three: the totally generic, clueless, retarded harem idiot who sees nothing wrong with taking random girls in off of the street and then lying to the police to protect them. His cousin (1st degree I'm sure) who wants to bang him, and is possibly the most annoying character in this annoying series. All she does is bitch, bitch, bitch. Seriously I think the only reason I finished this series was because I privately hoped Nyu would psychically decapitate her. She's like Chi Chi from DBZ but bitchier and with more screen time. Ah yes, and lets not forget Nyu. She drives the "hero" (fag) of the story mad with love by... what... rolling on the ground and saying "NYU" repeatedly. Well, I guess any bitch would look pretty good compared to the obnoxious cousin. Oh yeah there are a couple loli characters but they're just there to be "cute" and make you feel sorry for them, who gives a damn.

The worst part about this awful series is it's deceitfulness. The first few episodes set up Elfen Lied to be a brutal, goretastic apocalyptic battle between some new race of humans with awesome psychic powers and regular guys, who have .50 caliber weapons but still suck. Sadly, the idiots who created this series chose to fag it up with a bunch of harem nonsense and crap shock scenes. Maybe the manga is better, not that I'd waste time reading it after being subjected to this disaster.

Jesus christ what a fucking mess this show was.

One thing i've learned about the anime community, is that the anime community loves edgy shit, which is probably the only reason Elfen lied doesn't have a 5-6 rating on MAL, the problem with Elfen Lied is it tries to carry the show on a tidal wave of gore and other edgy things and that's pretty much all there is to it.

The problem with this is, the gore loses its charm about 5 minutes in, because they throw so much at you in the beginning, it completely numbs anything else. They should have taken a page out ... of the book from Evangelion, which barely goes that heavy on gore, but when it fucking does, they don't hold back.

Story 2/10

Like I said, the story tries to carry itself on gore, which is why the story was half assed and rushed. The ending was awful and it feels like nothing was resolved. I hear the manga is better in terms of story and I'm sure i'd watch a remake by a different studio, but as it stands the story is not good, it's not decent, it's bad.

Art 6/10. The opening had some pretty nice visuals but the animation itself was nothing very special and pretty standard for anime's around that time

Sound 8/10 I think the sound was the only decent part about this show. It had some really good music at times and the opening is stellar (depending on your taste, i enjoyed how unique it was)

Character 1/10 The characters were easily the worst part about this show. I have never been so thoroughly annoyed by every single fucking character in a show. EVERY SINGLE ONE, THERE ISN'T A SINGLE DECENT OR WELL WRITTEN CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE SHOW. LITERALLY.

Let's start with MC, MC is MC and he's generic as they come

Lucy is really annoying too, the Nyu side of her, at least. It seem's the only reason the Nyu side is even in this is because neck beard bait. That's literally it. Let's not forget the pee scene, though. Her other "personalities" or whatever were decent enough.

There is also Yuka, which should have never existed in the show, so let's not talk about her.

Enjoyment 2/10

Because of the opening

Overall 1/10

I think the best thing I got out of this show was cancer.

I think I hated Elfen Lied for all of the reasons the directors intended it for it to be good. Like how Lucy is basically a serial killer but shes suppose to be a more innocent than the people she kills and the overall message is suppose to show how cruel humanity can be to things they don't understand. For me shes just a serial killer. You ever seen the movie Se7en? The killer in that followed the same message but he was never thought of anything less than a psycho, which was the whole point he was still as messed up as the world.

The ... characters are also just to manipulative, even though I'm pretty sure that's how they intended to make them. They constantly show how horrible humanity is but there's not one opposing character who's willing to stop them. Like how did the head of the company or whatever is housing all the Diclonius get so successful? And even if you're going to accept that with no back story how the hell are you suppose to believe that they can create a disease that makes people grow invisible arms that can cut anything 6 feet away from them and also builds an inner evil devil in their minds telling them to kill all humans? How is any of the plot legal in any way? Were no surveys taken asking the public if it was a good idea to inject pregnant women with a disease that has a 99% chance of killing their baby but if they are the 1% that survive they are bound to become government experiments and eventually was weapons......no one tried to oppose any of this? Everyone is just to innocent and just frankly needs to grow some balls and stick it to the man.

Then there's a 7 year old girl who gets raped, has her puppy taken away, is homeless and eats dog food but she serves absolutely no purpose to anything. Befriending one of the Diclonius who also serves no purpose after she is defeated is NOT necessary, they are both nothing but a plot devices used as an excuse to show that this show has heart.

*Spoilers*(maybe?)...I also really don't get the ending, how is it possible for Lucy to infect every girl in Japan by the end of the night? Judging from an earlier episode she can implant a seed in women from her invisible arms but the only way it seems possible to infect every girl in Japan is for her to run around, stopping for every girl she sees and plant a seed in them. But it's not like she's Sonic and has super speed she runs like a normal human..so how? Please tell me I missed something. On another note Kouta also just seems to just give in and accept the fact that his girlfriend is going to kill herself without really giving it any second thought.

Story: Putting the overall message aside the story is again way to manipulative. They skip how Lucy got into the facility she was at in the beginning of the first episode(But it's retold in a scrapped together OVA episode). They also skip how Nana grows to like that doctor guy, one moment she wants to kill her...the next...nope. The plot also seems to contradict itself. If the whole plan was to build an army of Diclonius whats the point of hunting one down when they escape? Not to mention sending the only two you have to kill it, eventually all 3 will just kill eachother...What's the point?

Art: Shiny. Colorful. But the color makes the gore laughable.

Sound:....Why do we have this? Music maybe? Piano pieces are nice but the opening warns you that you're in for some messed up shit.

Character: WAY to manipulative. They just mope about everything but they need to stand up for themselves. Where's the challenge?

Enjoyment: The fact that people are easily fooled by all the plot devices makes me sick.

Overall: In conclusion I think this show has way to much control of it's overall message and really fails to challenge itself. Even with the pretty animation, the children, killing sprees and adult themes there's just no opposing side. Skip this and watch the movies Se7en or District 9. Same message but much more thought provoking and innovating.

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Elfen Lied: a series that had been touted to me by some as one of the goriest animes ever, an anime that was thought-provoking and psychological. Seemed right up my street, what with my love of Higurashi and Black Lagoon. Yet, alas: while the first claim may have been partially true, the latter...are not. To put it shortly: the anime builds itself up to be, and tries to be, something far, FAR greater than it actually achieves.
##THIS IS ALL PERSONAL OPINION!##

Story - 4/10
Whilst nothing special [a murderous other race with immense killing power?! Good grief, how original!], the plot did intrigue me. The idea of ... the vectors piqued my interest at the start - invisible hands as weapons? Sounds pretty neat - and, indeed, the first 5 or so minutes of the first episode did live up to the gore claims. It lay down the idea that Lucy was a brutal, emotionless killing machine, and, more importantly, that this anime was not going to fuck around with action scenes. It also gave us an idea of the race - how the Diclonius were born via virus, which I found a pretty neat concept rather than 'HURR DURR THEY CAME FROM NOWHERE' [AoT anyone?].The story from then on was pretty well-defined in the first episode - capture Lucy, and bring her back, because blahblah she's gonna kill everybody. Even the introduction, with it's haunting, sombre song, hinted at a deeper, darker anime experience, something that wasn't going to be normal.
And then it all went to shit.
The plot's presence throughout the series is very weak due to the lack of main characters actually involved in influencing that plot [I'll get to that later]. From this first episode of brutal, raw action, Elfen Lied becomes a cheesy slice of life when Lucy/'Nyu' joins Yuka and Kohta, two cousins, after washing up on the beach. She learns to eat [because Nyu is dumb as a sack of bricks...but more on that], goes shopping, embarrasses herself, gets Kohta to grope her, makes Yuka jealous as she flirts with Kohta - all cliches of a slice-of-life anime. If you skipped the first 10 minutes, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was any other rom-com anime.
More characters that don't actually advance the plot [cough...Mayu...] are introduced, and, ultimately, due to the need for the audience to get acquainted with all these boring-ass characters, there's an extreme lack of plot development until the later episodes [10/11 - out of 13!]. The only time the plot moves forward is when the research lab sends another person or test subject out to find Lucy. which happens 3 distinct times throughout the series [soldier guy, Nana and #35 - and even that's stupid because if it failed the first time, why do it again?!]. Nobody - not Lucy, not Kohta, not Mayu, not Yuka, not even Nana when she joins the happy-go-merry harem house - contributes to the plot because NONE OF THEM HAVE AN ESTABLISHED GOAL. Most of the characters are all just kind of....there. The direction and objective of these characters are nonexistent; we know next to nothing about them, let alone how the hell they are actually important to the story.
And even when the plot does move along, it's incredibly formulaic. Either it's Lucy/Nana having a showdown with somebody [usually on the beach] with nothing significant being accomplished, and/or it's somebody new being welcomed into the harem! Elfen Lied got very boring very quickly, with numerous tedious slice-of-life scenes that didn't add to character development in any way, and predictable, repeated patterns by the only people who actually progressed the plot - sending person after person after Lucy. It does pick up somewhat in the last 2 episodes when everything comes to a head, but even then, that's the result of sending yet another Diclonius after Lucy - and the end result is very ambiguous, vague and...rushed.
It's very hard to talk about Elfen Lied's plot without experiencing it for yourself: it's extremely convoluted and rushed, things that need to be explained aren't [I would have loved to know more about how the Diclonius virus spreads and how Lucy and Nana, etc, got infected - but nope]. There is no psychological or thought-provoking stimulus in the plot - they could have done something with the Diclonius and racism, or developed the theme of stigma against them for their horns, or developed the emotional impact of them becoming very attached to the research director [as Nana and #35 did, which was by far the most touching plot point for me - despite having nothing to do with our main character].The finer details are skipped over; motives for certain characters wanting to contain or spread the virus are kept secret, Lucy's backstory amounts to 'sad orphan' with no real depth to make us feel for her, and as for Kohta, Mayu and Yuka - they provide no help with the story whatsoever. Regardless of their actions, they are powerless in terms of influencing the story; merely creating more annoying slice-of-life scenes and a...very bizzare [and quickly forgotten] incest subplot.
Ultimately, Elfen Lied's story is rushed and weak, consisting mostly of slice-of-life scenes with the occasional angsty-flashback or 'I HATE HUMANS' monologue from Lucy. It's just...almost nonexistent right after the first episode, until the powers that be decide to hurry it up a little. Paced and executed very poorly with little to no thought-provoking moments and pseudo-psychological thoughts about the Diclonius 'oh no it's so sad they have to be locked up!!! ;A;' And very little action scenes, differing greatly from what was promised in the first episode.

Art - 5/10
Nothing special, it was 2004. Backgrounds were mediocre, animation ranged from OK to lazy, with, in one case, Mayu moving and talking to Wanta as people shown walking stayed static, right next to her. There were no standout animation moments, though perhaps the most memorable were in the first episode - the one thing I do commend the anime for is for its unashamed display of gore and its explicitness in doing so.

Sound - 5/10
Opening wasn't the type of music I'd expected, which was very nice in a way, but a classical aria isn't something you want to keep on hearing over and over every time you sit through opening credits. It didn't really add anything or get me pumped up for the anime, though when used in episode 13 near the end, achieved a far greater emotional effect. Ending song was....completely stupid, and a happy/upbeat song like that doesn't fit the tone of the anime in any way, shape, or form. It was quite jarring to finish an episode which had culminated in one or several people dying, only to hear that upbeat guitar melody to ruin what little mood there had been.

Characters - 3/10

And now comes my main problem with Elfen Lied - most of the characters are absolute dumbasses. Cookie-cutter stereotypes with little or no backstory or goal, objective - hell, we don't even know what these characters like or dislike; as I've said before, they're just...there, floating around. The plot doesn't revolve around most of them for any part of the anime: the only time Kohta actually advances the plot is when he takes in Mayu. I'll post my thoughts of each character and WHY they were so awful now:
Kohta is a generic, oblivious harem lead [tells both his sister and Lucy that he loves them - what a player], and is by far the STUPIDEST lead I've ever seen. Not only does he fail to realise that the HORNED, PINK-HAIRED GIRL he saw as a child was THE SAME AS LUCY, A HORNED, PINK-HAIRED GIRL, [how many horned girls with pink hair does this guy see to not realize that they're the same person?], whenever Lucy runs out, does anything, goes into her 'psychotic' mode, his reaction amounts to 'LUCY WHY', never pursuing, y'know, where the fuck she came from or who is after her? He just accepts fucking EVERYTHING - when Nana turns up and attacks Lucy he's like 'Oh okay nope nothing wrong here' - he doesn't even seem remotely surprised that another horned girl has turned up! Dumb, stupid, and completely useless.
Yuka is the typical 'desu imouto in love with her sibling desu' - cookie cutter and doesn't have anything to do with Lucy - the only action she takes in the series is bloody kissing Kohta which...helps nothing. The contrived, fetish-pandering otaku subplot didn't add to either of their characters or, indeed, the plot. Again, stupid and completely useless.
Lucy - ah, Lucy. We're supposed to feel sorry for her due to her DARK AND EDGY PAST and we know that's the reason for her acting out and killing humans because SHE HATES THEM ZOMFG but this is done in such a cliched, unthoughtful way - bullied and abused? Check. Experimented on? Check - that we don't actually care. Well, at least, I didn't. We don't know anything about Lucy's character apart from her DARK AND EDGY PAST so how are we supposed to feel sorry for her? Elfen Lied tries to use flashbacks and Lucy herself to persuade us to feel sorry for her DARK AND EDGY PAST but there's so much of her brooding that it just gets tedious, and it doesn't have any emotional weight or meaning - the monologues are just thrown around to make the series darker and edgier and even moar tragic zomfg such a dark animu desu! If we knew anything about Lucy other than her overdone-as-hell, brainless backstory, that would certainly be a step towards character development - but there is none. Not to mention, Lucy as 'Nyu' is another stupid, otaku-pandering stereotype - the cute, defenseless kemonomimi [because let's be honest, is there any other reason the horns look like cat ears?] and even more useless - playing straight into the harem girl lovers' hands to try and contrive some stupid, out of place fanservice.
Mayu is the one [along with Nana and #35] that I actually felt sorry for - her backstory wasn't original, but it was dealt with delicately and not shoved in our face every 5 minutes. She wasn't mopey throughout the entire series, and although she wasn't actually helpful or original, she was more relatable than any other character in the series because her story had some emotion to it. How she went to the bakers to get scraps to feed her dog, how she hid out on the beach - all indicators that she was poor and homeless, but she never had a monologue or speech screaming I AM POOR AND HOMELESS! FEEL FOR ME! Nana and #35 too - their relationship with Kurama was mentioned a few times throughout, and especially the flashback showing #35 as Kurama's daughter and his conflicted thoughts towards killing her - that was a damn sight better than ANGST ANGST HUMANS ANGST. The last few episodes were quite touching, actually, with them - #35 and Kurama's last scene was very poignant due to the fact there was an established relationship between them that wasn't stupid or cliched, it was rational and reasonable - for Elfen Lied logic.
Nana was mostly otaku fodder, with all the desirable traits a lolicon could want, but still had a little more emotional weight behind her than Kohta or Yuka, whose backstories amounted to little more than 'my sister died, but I can't remember it because I'm sad about it'. Most of the characters were very unlikeable, very one dimensional, and even though some were good, they weren't important to the plot, story or grand scheme of things. Lucy, Kohta and Yuka should have been the most fleshed-out, yet it was the character introduced in the last 2 episodes that I felt most for.

Enjoyment - 4/10
Started off quite high at the beginning and dropped way, way down - the slice of life and harem settings were completely boring and tedious to watch, and the last 2 episodes weren't enough to completely pique my interest back up.
Overall - 4/10
I wouldn't watch Elfen Lied if you're going to expect a psychological masterpiece. It has false depth with meaningless backstories that add nothing, tries to be 'psychological' about the 'contentious issue' of containing the Diclonius, which is actually just self-defense and logical - overall, it's an amalgamation of genres and the plot is mostly lost in the too-long, don't-care flashbacks, backstories, and slice-of-life scenes. The plot only moves when it feels like it - there's not a sense of urgency or tension that there should be in an action/drama anime that's about recapturing a psychotic killer. I'd watch it to judge the experience for yourself, as it's very hard to sum up in words, but watch it for the few-and-far-between gory action scenes; everything else has been done much better elsewhere. Oh, and stay away if you hate harems or slice-of-life.

There is this misconception in the anime community that if a show is filled to the brim with death, bloodshed and nudity then it is mature and deep. While, certainly, these shows are not intended for the viewing of a child, if a show solely relies on shock factor and edge, while neglecting characters and narrative, then it is anything but mature since it can't keep your attention without desperately throwing blood and death in your face. Akame ga Kill is the prime example of this. It's a show in which its characters are consistently killed in violent and gruesome ways with no shortage of ... torture scenes and head decapitations, but that's all it has since it doesn't have any interesting characters or a good story to back it up and it feels like it was written by an edgy twelve-year-old who thinks that a mature story is one in which you throw a bunch of guts and tits onto the screen. How do I know this? Well, when I was a rather stupid teenager, I too used to write stories of a similar nature, with edgy titles such as "From Tears To Death". If I had them today, I would link them in some way, since I'm sure it would make for great entertainment to read and laugh at such a horrible attempt at being mature since all I did was throw horrible death, after horrible death at the reader.

And it's not like shock factor or edginess will completely ruin a narrative either. Berserk is an amazing series that has some really messed up elements contained in it, such as a rape horse, constant arm, leg and head amputations and witnessing Guts, as a child, being sexually molested by a man. All of these events are pretty fucked up and are shocking, but, the show has interesting characters and a great story to back it up, transforming from an edgy story written by a fourteen-year-old to a respectable and critically acclaimed series. Think of it as edge done right, if you will. Unfortunately, when it comes to Elfen Lied, it feels like an older Akame ga Kill, using shock factor in a way to manipulate the audience into feeling something for the characters instead of building them up while at the same time, having a completely rushed and rather messy narrative.

The story of Elfen Lied begins in a science facility of some kind in which our main protagonist, or, to be more literal, our antagonist, Lucy, is being held captive. For, you see, Lucy is not no ordinary human being but is instead part of a new breed called the Diclonius, whose natural instinct is to kill the regular humans. Each one of them has these long, arm like-things that pertude out of their bodies which the show refers to as Vectors, which are capable of ripping apart a human very easily. Each Diclonius has different features and different vector characteristics, all of which are CGI, but, for the time, and even by today's standards still look pretty damn good! Anyway, Lucy is the queen of this new race, and the first scene of the show she escapes the facility, causing a crap tone of bloodshed, which reminds me of the first Pokemon movie of all things, a strange comparison I know, but trust me, they're similar aside from, y'know, the naked chick and the constant blood and death.

The opening seven minutes of this show are great and it sets things up perfectly. Its full of death, a ton of body parts flying around, and combined with Lucy's slow, almost Terminator like walk and the music, the opening scene is still is one of my favorite opening scenes for any show ever. Unfortunately the rest of the show is terrible. Anywhore, as Lucy makes her away outside, she is hit by a bullet to the head, which doesn't kill her and she falls into the ocean below. At this point, Lucy has developed a split personality, one side that still retains her normal, murderer instincts and the other that is a cute, speechless girl that has no recollection of who or what she is, but, honestly, this feels more like a plot device rather than an event of circumstance, I'll get into that a little later. Lucy washes up on the beach, where she is found by two people. Kouta, who is as interesting as paint drying and his cousin called Yuka who is thirsty for some of that Kouta dick...despite being cousins!

DING DING! Do you hear that? It's the incest alarms going off for yet another shitty show! Why do all shows of this nature have to either have some loli shit or incest subtext? It's just not needed and they hardly even develop this theme in this show, and, in the manga, it's even heavily implied that they get married and have kids! But, I'm getting sidetracked now. Kouta and Yuka keep Lucy in their home, much like a cat since she literally pisses the floor and the rest of the show features the scientist dudes trying to get Lucy back by sending the military out as well as other Diclonius which were cloned from Lucy. Now, I have a LOT of problems with this narrative, so let's go through them, so make sure you got your popcorn ready!

First of all the narrative is far too full of random conveniences, the biggest being that Kouta knew Lucy back when they were children, and, because he witnessed the death of his little sister before his eyes, has suppressed these memories, so it makes sense why he doesn't remember her, but that's not my gripe with this element. Kouta moved away from this area where Lucy eventually washes up many years ago and the exact day in which he moves back and just so happens to be walking across the beach, is also the exact time in which Lucy escapes and meets with him again. I know that, especially in the anime medium, we're supposed to extend our suspension of disbelief but this is way too convenient and ends up being a glaring issue for me. Another glaring act of convenience is Lucy's sudden bursts of amnesia. Now, the first time she changes, it makes sense at least, since she was abused and it does feel pretty satisfying to see her beat the everlasting hell out of some ass-hole solider, but her amnesia seems to work whenever it feels like it and is just pretty inconsistent all the way around.

Another issue is that it doesn't make any sense for fellow Diconius to be going after Lucy when they establish that it is part of their nature to kill humans; it's ingrained in their instincts, much like how a cat hunts birds or something and, not only that, but Lucy is their queen so it doesn't make much sense how they can go against her! And the show does expect you to feel sorry for Lucy but it comes across as forced since they just constantly resort to using forced drama and irrational decisions. The show's biggest problem is victimising young children in an attempt at emotional manipulation and is used as a substitution for character development rather than trying to build up a character with actual themes and development. Lucy, as a child, butchers children and kills hundreds and the show expects us to buy into the fact that she innocent and is only a victim of circumstance by presenting black and white, totally one dimensional villain type character such as children who beat a puppy to death. Sure, that is horrible, but the show expects us to root for Lucy who then slaughters them all and then goes on to run away from the police, breaking into innocent people's homes and eats from their fridges. Lucy seems like the villain, and I know you can argue that she was just a child and had no choice but to do so but this obvious victimisation is such a lazy and cheap way to make us feel for this character since the show hardly gives me no reason to care much for her beyond this. The only thing I like about Lucy is that she kills people, which is why I think she would better as a central antagonist without all of this forced drama.

Not only that, but most of the time the story is just boring. A large amount of the show is about people just sitting and talking, all of which hardly adds anything to the characters and we never learn anything more about them. The only entertaining thing in the show is watching the fights just to see some bloodshed. It makes for a good guilty pleasure but my entertainment of these scenes is not derivative of wondering if the characters will survive or not, in fact I don't care who lives since everyone is so boring, I watch it just for some gore and blood: that's it. You don't watch Elfen Lied for any deep or mature theme exploration, just trash tier fanservice. It feels like a 70s grind house flick, and when looking at the show from this angle, it's not too bad but don't expect anything more than this. And, in it's not like this entire show is completely devoid of originality or interesting themes. Hell, it attempts to comment on the horrible and downright unfair structures of society and highlights the dark side of both society and humanity; it's just that, unfortunately, these themes are hardly even developed and many plot points are just left and forgotten, most notably since endings differ for the anime and the original manga. The manga does develop things a little more but is just as narratively broken and annoying.

The characters are all one dimensional and predictably boring that there is hardly any point in going through any of them. The only one I kind of liked was Bando, the badass and complete ass-hole solider character who gets the crap kicked out of him constantly but somehow always manages to survive. All of them lack any depth and the few characters they do attempt to develop don't really change very much; they all lack substance. The side characters are perhaps the worst thing about the show since I find them to all be so god damn annoying and forgettable.

The art and animation are the ones in which Elfen Lied manages best. The opening song is great, albeit pretty pretentious for a show at this level of trashiness. The soundtrack as a whole is pretty good but the voice acting still leaves some things to be desired. Both the Japanese and English voice acting are pretty choppy. As previously stated, the CG was pretty good for the time, and the animation and art design are both decent, with some moments where it really shines, particularly during the fight scenes. The character designs are pretty typical and unoriginal aside from Lucy and everything feels rather 'meh'.

In conclusion Elfen Lied is nothing more than a terrible train wreck; no matter how hard we try and look away we just can't. It's awful. It tries way too hard to be something it isn't is and fails with a completely terrible narrative, boring characters and believes that being as edgy as possible counts as having a good anime. At the very least, this showcase that anime was not just for kids at least but ushered in numerous edgy, shock factor pieces of garbage, so thank you a lot for that, Studio Arms. Just go back to producing hentai...

Tits, blood and Lillium.

Director: Hey, I had an excellent idea.
Producer: Yeah?, What?
Director: Look, And if we create a series where the only thing that appear are nake girls blowing up everyone, scattering his brains for everywhere and trampling their heads?.
Producer: Oh, what a "masterful" idea. And tell me, what about the plot?
Director: Plot?, what the fuck cares?, All viewers will be watching the tits of the protagonist.
Producer: I see. Well, and the sound?
Director: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we hired a guy who has done a really good song. In fact, the song is so freakin' good that we will use it in all scenes, sometimes with ... vocals, sometimes not.
Producer: Okay, but try to do it "psychological" and with a "love story" or something like that, don't care if nobody believe this. After all, I'm sure that there will be a snob otaku that will try to make sense of all this shit.
Director: It's done!!

I know: Elfen Lied is a manga and not was made by "Producer and Director". This is just a satyrical review.

What grosses you out? Blood? Vomit? Waste? Road kill? I’m not one to get queasy so easily, but when it comes to the anime that I’m about to review right now, I honestly just want to hurl. Never before in my life have I ever seen so much blood, guts, and gore slathered all over the place, smeared over the wall like a bad paint job. Even being forewarned of this somehow didn’t deter me from watching this, but, in all honesty, I wish that I would have heeded these warnings, because what I witnessed during this 13 episode experience cannot be unseen.

-Story & Characters-
Taking ... place in modern-day Japan, our story tells us about humankind’s discovery of a new race of beings: The Diclonius. The Diclonius are a species of beings that have horns growing out of their heads, with a special power to summon several invisible arms called Vectors. However, while these Vectors are invisible to the human eye, the Diclonius can see them first-hand. The Diclonius (which are all females, for some reason), are highly feared by humans, and are confined in a research laboratory to run several tests and experiments. Our protagonist, Lucy, is one such Diclonius, who is considered to be the strongest of them all. She awakens from her slumber and somehow manages to escape her confinement, fully naked, wearing a helmet, and killing anyone and everyone in the laboratory using her Vectors. Preceding these events, Lucy manages to make her way outside the laboratory, only to be struck down by a sniper rifle, equipped with a special round, the only thing that can hurt the Diclonius.

Lucy awakens, washed ashore on a beach, saved by a pair of cousins, Kohta and Yuka. Oddly enough, however, Lucy seems to have taken another persona (A much kinder and cuter one, at that), but can only say one word: “Nyu.” Kohta decides to let the former Lucy into his own home so she can get herself together, and so that he and Yuka can learn about who Nyu really is.

Going into any further detail would only spoil the story, but let me put it to you this way: This story sucks. To be fair, the concept for the story is actually very cool and interesting, and the way that the humans behave when facing a Diclonius will leave the viewer on the edge of his seat. The backstories for some of the characters, especially Lucy, were also incredibly engaging, and left me wanting more. However, this is only during a couple of episodes: The rest of the story relies on brutal violence and twisted sexual themes and situations, including incest. Seriously, there are so many naked girls in this show that I completely lost count. And while that’s great for all of you perverted viewers out there, for people like me who want to experience the story, it feels too overbearing, forced, and ultimately offensive. I have never ever in my entire life seen so many naked girls within such a short of amount of time. The worst of it all, though, is that most of them are literally around 10 or 12 years old. If someone were to walk in on me watching this show, I’d be arrested for what they might perceive to be child pornography. To me, it feels as if the show felt that it was being mature by throwing in severed heads and naked girls.
This now leads me to the characters themselves: The characters are incredibly weak. While there are a few interesting characters, like Lucy and Nana, the rest of the cast are completely devoid of any personality. Kohta and Yuka in particular are incredibly bland. For the record, these two cousins, end up falling in love and kiss on screen. Great.

-Visuals & Sound-
This is one ugly show. I’m not even going to mince words with you, this show really looks like crap, even for the time. This came out in 2004, which isn’t even that old, and doesn’t even look as good as, say, Berserk, which came out in 1997. The characters are poorly drawn, no one looks unique, and the frame rate is choppy. This also includes the excessive use of bloodbaths and exploding splines, both of which look terrible.

The sound doesn’t fare much better. While the music is actually surprisingly great (I never got tired of “Be Your Girl”), the voice acting is absolutely dreadful. While there are maybe two or three decent voices, the majority of the actors sounded like they knew that this was just to make a quick buck, and didn’t really even try to make the characters sound the least bit convincing.

-Conclusion-
Elfen Lied sucks. This one of the absolute worst animes that I have ever seen in my life. I mean it, this is down there with School Days, a somehow worse show than Elfen Lied. While the concept of the story is very interesting, the execution falls flat on its face, trying its best to be dark and mature by throwing in excessive violence and naked young girls. The music is great, but the voice acting is terrible, and it’s just an eyesore to look at. Basically, for every step forward that Elfen Lied takes, it takes two steps (Hell, maybe even three) backward. I highly advise against watching this atrocity. Do yourself a favor: Skip this. What you see here cannot be unseen.

+Interesting story concept……
-…… that falls short in practice
+A couple of interesting characters……
-……followed by an overall bland cast
+Really great soundtrack
-Just plain ugly
-Terrible voice acting
-Excessive blood
-May as well be child pornography

Final Score:
3/10