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
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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.
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Dec 30, 2014
Elfen Lied
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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 ... |
