I know, I know – “What a way to start a review,” but I knew I had to give you guys a fair warning about what y’all be getting into with this one. Also, fair warning ahead again. If you've read my Fruits Basket review, first of all, thanks ever so much! Second of all, don’t expect this to be anywhere near as detailed as that as I am going to be slating this show so bad!
With that being said and if you’re still with me, let us begin. Otaku’s, Otakette’s & the Young’uns, welcome, to my slander, I MEAN REVIEW hehe of Elfen Lied. CUE THE MUSIC!!!
Of course, in the spirit of fairness as with all shows I’ll review, let’s start with History class:
Elfen Lied began life as a manga series created by Lynn Okamoto and was serialized from 2002 to 2005, consisting of 107 chapters. It was then adapted (in it’s entirety as I understand it) into a 13 episode anime series in 2004 by studio Arms who’s previous works include Ikkitousen & Genshiken 2 and was directed by Mamoru Kanbe who’s only real credible work besides this is Cardcaptor Sakura.
Story
The story of Elfen Lied opens up with probably one of the (most contradictory on my part) best openings I’ve ever seen in anime, with it’s immediate barrage of blood, nudity, dismemberments and genuinely great kills all within the first two minutes or so as we see one of our three main MAIN characters, Lucy, awakening, naked by the way (and wearing an awesome helmet), in a facility and subsequently proceeds to escape and destroy all things in her bloody, oh so bloody path. We see her doing this borderline genocide act of killing so many people with what appears to be invisible all-powerful….terrible C.G. ….. hands which elevates the show with a bit of mystery right from the get go, and it totally has you pumped. Your like, “FUCK YEAH MAN, I WANT MOOOOOORE!” Then as Lucy is just escaping, the guards put a cap in her head…helmet and it cascades her into the ocean. Then, oh then, the show just goes downhill. Actually not “goes downhill”, more like plummets, skyrockets, instant transmissions downhill and it doesn’t ever seem to find the bottom as Lucy then washes up ashore, still naked by the way, and we are introduced to out two remaining main MAIN characters, Kohta (I’ll get to him later, oh yes) & Yukia, his cousin (I’ll also get to this relationship later *rubs hands).
They find Lucy on the beach and decide to take her in and this is where this show makes it’s worst and easily most annoying mistake, apart from Kohta’s voice (LATER MAN, LATER GEEZ CONTAIN YOURSELF!). They decide to have Lucy have memory loss, which is okay on the surface, but Lucy also has lost all intelligence and the ability to speak, being subjected to just being able to say NOTHING!!!!!!!!! But….Nyu. Seriously, I cry myself to sleep at the mention of this word. Every fucking two seconds, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!!
Then the series progresses, with characters that you couldn’t give two shits about (and when they do introduce that one good characters, they kill him, TWICE), relationships that are pointless and so convenient that it hurts when I role my eyes and a story that thrice, makes no sense, doesn’t go anywhere and is left completely unexplained. Why is this? Oh I don’t know, maybe because they adapted AN 107 FUCKING MANGA INTO A 13 EPISODE SERIES THAT’S WHY. Damn, I really need to stop getting angry at this show.
Characters
Oh god, not the characters. I’m only going to touch on the two human characters, because everyone else done goofed.
Kohta
I’ll keep this short and sweet, calling this guy idiot is giving him too much credit. He’s also as dull as dust. Seriously the guy has nothing interesting to say, has no clue what’s going on even when it’s happening right in front of him and has THE WORST reactions to everything. His reactions, to seeing Lucy, naked by the way on the beach with horns sticking out of her head, is “Huh!” and it sounds like the kind of “Huh!” you’d give if you were just told that there were 13 teabags left in the cupboard, which trust me, is a mind-numbingly dull reaction. The only way this guy could be more idiot is if….I don’t know, he said something like, “PEOPLE DIE WHEN THEY ARE KILLED”. Don’t get me started on his dubbed voice pidfqEWOGALVREK ‘O;I’MJRT, just no!
Yukia
Now, Yukia, is the complete opposite of Kohta in that she actually has a brain, which works, how bout that shit! She actually has purpose to what she does and she certainly has (metaphorical) balls. BUT, she has one major flaw that completely ruins her character: unnecessary, boring, pointless, teenage jealousy romance BULLSHIT! She gets way too jealous of a borderline mindless alien child just because Kohta spends more time with her. Are you fucking kidding me!? Then she goes and tells Kohta that she loves him (to which he gives some awesomely boring response) and they share a loving kiss, but she still gets jealous. Stupid bitch. And this leads me to something I find very very wrong:
Kohta & Yukia, their cousins, family members, related through marriage or aunties/uncles whatever; and they start a relationship with each other? The fuck man?
I’ll just touch on Lucy by saying, DAYUM SON, that girl knows how to kill.
Art
It’s Moé, done horribly wrong. It’s really ugly and animations are just stiff and devoid of any fluidity, felt like watching an 80’s show, in 2004. Need I mention the C.G. arms?
Sound
Sound, what? I don’t actually think I noticed any music, that would even be considered, soundtrackable (coining that). I guess I can say the dub is one of the, if no the, worst dub I’ve heard if that’s any consolation.
Enjoyment
See that 3/10 overall score, that’s only there because of the kills in this anime, which are sort of the saving grace of the show as the kills are perfectly brutal and do a great job of pulling out the, “WOAH!”, gasps of appreciation from it’s viewers. Dismemberments, eye-gouging and borderline torture aplenty here.
In summary friends, this show sucks major balls, like Kamina sized balls. I do apologise for my attitude in this review, as I can imagine how it sounds when reading it, but his is how I honestly & critically think and feel of Elfen Lied. So please, accept my apology if it was a bit much. So, if you check this out thanks a bunch and hopefully my next review will be of something much, much better. Maybe Clannad or Attack on Titan, who knows. Until then take care guys & gals!
“How very rational, I’d expect nothing less from a Contractor”.
