Story-wise you have a promising premise. A mutated form of human, Diclonius are captured and kept for study by mankind. Think evil x-men. Not Magneto "I'm actually not that bad evil", but "You are in my way, I'm going to remove your limbs evil". There's an overtone of "Who is the real bad guy here", Humans or Diclonius? But that falls a bit short when it appears that the Diclonius are pretty much the enemy of mankind, showing a complete lack of human emotion when they are severing heads or removing limbs. The story follows the story of psychopathic Diclonius Lucy as she is shot during her escape. She washes up on a beach with no memories and reverts to a childlike persona who can't speak, and is found and adopted into the home of our two main characters. Who don't particularly find it strange that there's a girl with horns...
I think thats maybe the problem I have with the characters. They didn't have the depth (or common sense intelligence) I'd expect from such a popular series. With the exception of Lucy the main girls are pretty much interchangeable stock personalities who all kinda have a crush on Kouta. And have a real penchant for taking baths together. Most of the "depth" given to our main characters come from their pasts. Now if a character is poorly written I'm not sure a disturbing backstory really compensates for it.
As for Lucy, she alternates between psychopathic and braindead. Although I found her psychopathic personality to be much more preferable, I guess I would have just liked to have seen more of an "inbetween", some sort of conflict perhaps.
As the story goes on we find out there is a history between certain characters. And more Diclonius are introduced to add a welcome change to their one dimensional evil nature. I've went pretty hard on this series so far, so I'll give credit where it's due. As the history of the characters are revealed it does manage to hit the dark notes it aims for as troubled pasts of the characters are all horribly traumatic in nature.
I have to mention it has a great opening theme, it's haunting latin opera soundtrack is used throughout the series, maybe a tad too much, but it really captures the moments when the anime is at it's best. Dark and disturbing. The artwork is fantastic in the backgrounds, although kinda lacking with the character animations.
Also it's violence isn't always gratuitous, but serves a purpose. The invisible limbs that can shoot out and tear a person to pieces had me constantly feeling uneasy whenever a Diclonius was on screen because I never knew what they might do.
In the end, I actually found myself enjoying a fair portion of the anime. Despite it's flaws it has a certain ambition I respect with it's blend of violence, gore, humor, nudity. But it's weak characters and inability to strike an real emotional cord had me feeling apathetic towards it's conclusion. I'd recommend this series for anyone who isn't afraid of anime with an extreme nature, it will certainly test the boundaries of what you can handle.
