A young woman with horns – who we later learn is a Diclonius (which is also, in fact, a genus of dinosaur, did you know that?) – escapes from a government facility. A shot to the head renders her infantile, only able to utter the word “nyu”. A pair of cousins encounter her and decide to take her home with them – perhaps they assumed she was a type of Pokemon? Nevertheless, the duo take her home, name her Nyu, and soon become entangled with the police. A question lingers at the back of the cousins’ and the anime viewer’s minds – who exactly is Nyu? Sounds interesting, right? Well, it’s also where this story goes downhill, because why would you take an injured young woman home with you? Who has horns, for that matter? To its credit, Elfen Lied also manages to bring up numerous extremely interesting points about humanity and society in general, for which I applaud it; however, it does this in a bad way and the entire anime screams bad execution.
One of the major things that bothered me about Elfen Lied was the characters. The bulk of them were flat and unlikable. Kouta was uninteresting and uninspired; while he had a couple good traits, he was essentially a dreary and dull character. Slapping girls is not going to get you anywhere in my good books, sorry. Yuka was all right, if a bit bland. Certainly not a stellar character. As for Lucy, my apologies, Lucy – Nyu got old very quickly, as well as, dare I say it, annoying. It’s rare I find a character to be truly irritating, but in this case I actually did. There are far more realistic and compelling ways to develop a split-personality. Chii from Chobits is a more interesting character. In addition, you don’t need to go around trying to get people to grope your breasts, or trying to hump people, for that matter. It’s not cute. At all. And I really don’t know about Kouta, but I personally don’t find anything sexy about a mentally disabled young woman. Speaking of which, the majority of characters seem to lack any common sense whatsoever – or even a semblance of a brain. Tell me, if you found a naked, bleeding girl who can only say “nyu” standing in the middle of the ocean, with horns sticking out of her head, would you take her home with you or would you take her to the hospital?
The only characters that I found myself growing attached to at all were Kurama, Mariko, and Nana – these three stole the show for me. Kurama should be getting an award for being the most fleshed-out, well developed character in the entire series – he was a joy to watch and I found him to be an extremely realistic character. Congratulations for making me cry, Kurama. I also found Nana and Mariko to be highly sympathetic characters as well, despite the latter having relatively little screen time and the former being a “stereotypical” happy-go-lucky naïve girl. I guess I just have a soft spot for those character types. Mayu was also very sympathetic, although this was in retrospect mostly due to the cruel background given to her.
The anime took few attempts to flesh out its characters. Kurama and Lucy are the soul exceptions. For instance, there is one character in particular, whose name is Bando. He is introduced not only as a violent individual but also as horrible a misogynist. At one point, he encounters the young girl I mentioned before, Mayu. As I watched their interaction, I could practically smell an appealing plot point; Bando would develop some sort of attachment or soft spot for little Mayu, and they would have a bond or relationship. This would have done wonders in not only increasing the depth in Bando’s character (he actually has a compassionate side! he actually has a heart!), but also adding some interest to the character relations in general. Alas, this did not happen, and Bando instead became violent toward Mayu, showing off his repugnant qualities. After this particular encounter, I don’t recall them ever seeing each other again. In other words: the anime seems to be afraid to jump out of stable little character molds. Giving Bando a relationship with Mayu would have made him a more likable and sympathetic character – hey, he may be a bastard, but look how great he is with Mayu.
Another problem with this anime is the nudity. Most fans of Elfen Lied claim that it is a “mature” anime, citing the copious amounts of nudity as proof of it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain that the true hallmark of a mature anime is a lack of nudity – or, if there is nudity, it is done tastefully (see Darker Than BLACK and Wolf’s Rain as examples). This is not the case in Elfen Lied. The presence of completely needless as well as senseless fan service manages to further cheapen the entire experience. I’m not saying that nudity is inherently “bad” (look at Wolf and Spice, a perfectly lovely anime), but it’s uncalled for here. At least ninety percent of the nudity is pointless and serves no purpose whatsoever. It’s also a bad idea to include fan service with nudity, as it simply degrades the anime. Conversely, as horrible as it sounds, the violence did not completely disturb me. Blood-C and Hellsing Ultimate are far more gory flicks (for the record, I do hate watching horror films and slasher flicks with real life actors; drawings and reality make a difference for me and my squeamishness).
And despite all its flaws in terms of plot, characters, presentation, and logic (don’t pull a, “hey, it’s anime, it’s not meant to be logical” argument on me), I’m giving Elfen Lied a…fairly high score of six. Why, you ask? Because it had some interesting points to discuss. It really succeeded in making me hate my fellow humankind (not that I didn’t already). It had a gorgeous soundtrack (the opening song is absolutely beautiful), and it had a premise that promised to be interesting. I feel bad giving it a rating of four, because I believe it deserves higher; I also believe it deserves higher than a five, because despite my many misgivings, I did find some parts interesting and even compelling. But I can’t give Elfen Lied anything higher than a six, because in my books, it simply doesn’t deserve it.
If Elfen Lied is already controversial for its nudity and violence, why not go the extra step? Elfen Lied could have brought up some truly fascinating topics for discussion and analysis, but it chooses not to. For instance, the Diclonius children that do not have a specific ability that allows them to pass on their genes to human beings are killed. Elfen Lied could have asked us the question of whether it is right or wrong to kill a child merely for what we perceive to be mental or physical defects – is it ethical to kill the baby who has Down Syndrome? Is it right to cull a child who may not be able to walk? Instead of taking this path, Elfen Lied briefly alludes to the fact that most of these Diclonius children would be completely normal if not for how the government treats them, before pushing the plot point aside. The other characters of Elfen Lied suffer the same treatment.
Mayu was sexually abused by her stepfather and rejected by her mother, who was jealous of the attention that her daughter received. Not only is this horrendously tragic, but this also sadly does happen in real life. We feel sad for Mayu – but only because the anime expects us to. There is no further development or exploration of Mayu’s character. Surely such a traumatic experience must have left its mark on her? But we aren’t privy to it – had we skipped over that scene, Mayu would simply be a shy, homeless girl. She isn’t given any development other than that. Perhaps she would be afraid of Kouta, who is male? Perhaps she would seek some sort of maternal comfort from Yuka? Perhaps she would be afraid of Kouta when he raises his voice? Maybe she has nightmares, or maybe she can’t sleep at night? There is no attempt to give this character any depth other than crudely slapping on a tragic past. Most of the other characters are the same. Lucy simply kills other human beings, even when they have shown her no hostility or desire to harm her. Yes, we understand that she is angry about her pet, but it’s oddly hard to be sympathetic for her when she goes to people’s houses and massacres them in order to take a shower and eat some food.
In addition to its poor execution overall, Elfen Lied also has some flaws with its voice acting and animation. While I have not seen the English dub for the anime and thus cannot vouch for it, I must say that the Japanese VAs sounded surprisingly bland. Even Noto Mamiko, the voice of Yuka, was weak, and I usually like her roles very much. It may have had something to do with the fact that I did not like the character she played that much, though. The poor voice acting is especially noticeable with the absolutely beautiful soundtrack Elfen Lied has, making it all the more a shame. Another shame is the art of Elfen Lied – it’s ugly at worst and passable at best. The characters are not pleasant to look at in the slightest, and the colour palettes of the show definitely leave something to be desired. The juxtaposition of enormous gooey eyes and gore might have been lessened by pretty drawings, but this is not the case. Top it off with the fact that the Diclonius’ horns look more like cat ears than anything else, and it’s clear it’s a whole lot of fan pandering.
Elfen Lied will definitely make you think, it’ll definitely make you sad, and it’ll definitely make you depressed to some extent. It paints a grotesque picture and it had the potential to be a truly psychological work of art. But I don’t think it’s a masterpiece by any means. The execution is too poor to be deemed as such, and the majority of the characters are simply uninspired and unlikable. It goes nowhere with its plot points or twists, and simply slaps them on without thinking. Tantalizing sub-plots are waved under your nose and then swept away as if they never existed. Overall, it’s a whole lot of cheap entertainment that had the possibility of being something more.
