Despite having obvious flaws, Elfen Lied is actually my favorite anime of all time. I am aware that this anime is quite divisive and giving it a high rating is the equivalent of blasphemy for many, but first hear me out on why I actually like this series. Many critics say it is only popular from the gore and nudity alone, but that isn't exactly accurate. Gantz came out the same year with even more gore and nudity and failed to achieve 1/10th Elfen Lied's fanbase. Certainly this series whether you personally love or hate it has something else it does that makes so many like it.
Story: 9/10
One thing I will admit is that due to time constraints, some of the back story is only in the manga. To make things more confusing the anime seems to have a few key differences in the timeline and in regards to the infamous mutants. This lack of information may confuse or flat out piss off some viewers. However, if you put on your thinking cap it actually isn't too bad in terms of being confusing and can be pieced together without too much difficulty. After all, this isn't a David Lynch film where the whole point is to sexually assault your brain. The following paragraph provides some backstory that may clear up some confusion regarding the mutants. Even ADV erroneously said they were created in a lab, which is completely wrong, so I think this may be warranted.
The story of Elfen Lied is that there is a rare mutation that grants powerful psychic abilities. However, this rather pleiotropic gene also curses the inheritor with red eyes and horns. Due to the horns, these mutants are called "Diclonius", which is Latin for 2 sprouts. Most born with this mutation over the centuries have died in infancy, but now a few called "queen Diclonius" have not only survived, but learned how to use their psychic powers to mutate human DNA and make them give birth to sterile mutants called "Silpelits". A government agency was created to study these mutants and isolate them for fear that the mutants could pose a threat to Mankind. The odd appearance of the mutants causes normal humans to treat them as monsters and most are abandoned by their parents the moment they are born and shipped off to orphanages. This rampant discrimination and hate often leads the mutants to become psychologically damaged and furious at humans. The mutants lash out and as you would expect from angry children given powerful weapons, they sometimes kill people in large numbers. This led the government to believe the mutants are simply evil and a threat that must be neutralized at all costs.
Another HUGE problem with Elfen Lied's otherwise quite decent story is that the first 2 episodes...kind of suck. It starts out with nothing but violence and an unnecessarily long jail break, when it is actually the psychological drama and dark romance that won over most of its fans. This kind of explains why unlike Gantz, Elfen Lied actually has female fans. The anime clearly should have started with the flashback episodes, but I digress. Allow me to summarize the first 2 episodes, so you can skip them if you quit this anime after hating the first episode. Honestly, this was a problem with Baccano and Monster as well. A number of good anime start surprisingly weak.
Our story is about a queen diclonius named Lucy, who spends most of episode 1 on a ridiculous prison break that leaves no less than 23 guards dead! She even kills 2 people by using telekinesis to hurl a pencil through their skulls! Lucy nearly escapes without a scratch, but ends up eventually being shot in the head with an anti-tank rifle. However, as a complete badass this isn't enough to kill Lucy, because she used her powers to greatly slow the bullet and change its trajectory at the last second. Lucy falls off a cliff and washes up on a beach in scenic Kamakura, where she is discovered naked and bleeding by 2 cousins named Kouta and Yuka. Kouta has an odd reaction to seeing Lucy and a brief image is flashed on the screen that heavily implies that Kouta has actually met Lucy before. Lucy seems to have brain damage from the bullet wound and is now only capable of saying the phrase Nyuu, which is a baby word and similar to the Japanese gyunyuu meaning milk. Kouta suggests taking this mysterious girl to the hospital, but Yuka suggests taking her home in order to get her cleaned up and dressed, likely in order to spare this girl's family from unnecessary shame. The cousins take this unusual girl home and later that night the girl now simply called "nyuu" angers Kouta by breaking a seashell that was a momento of his long dead little sister. Nyuu runs out of the house and towards the beach in order to find a new shell for Kouta. Meanwhile, the government research organization dispatches a group of elite soldiers to recapture Lucy. This includes a sadistic, loose cannon soldier named Bando that largely serves as the comic relief villain of this series.
Episode 2 begins when Kouta finds Nyuu at the beach and is moved that she is wading through freezing water in order to find a new shell. However, before Kouta can forgive the brain damaged Nyuu for unjustly yelling at her, he is attacked by Bando and knocked out. Bando could easily kill or capture Nyuu, but he decides to destroy his radio com rather than calling for backup and have some "fun" with her, much to the dismay of his strictly by the book partner, Satoh. Bando doesn't sexually assault her however, he simply tries to goad her into giving him a good duel and seems to have the energy and playful cruelty of child. Unfortunately for Bando, he hits Nyuu on the head and she reverts back to her normal self. Lucy brutally murders Satoh and using superior strategy makes quick work of Bando. She decides to taunt him and slowly torture him in revenge for the way he treated her a few moments earlier. However, before she can kill him she reverts back to Nyuu and leaves Bando bleeding on the beach with 1 arm cut off, one arm broken in multiple pieces and both his eyes gouged out! Nyuu returns home to find Kouta and he attempts rather awkwardly to dress Nyuu in dry clothes, causing anger and jealousy from his often psychotic cousin Yuka, who has a HUGE crush on him. Meanwhile, at the government lab we see a young girl chained to the wall in cruciform position with blood trickling from her temples. This anime Jesus wannabe is named #7 or Nana by the facility (George Costanza would be pleased that someone is named 7). That is the end of episode 2.
Character: 10/10
The main character is Lucy, who is a serial killer that we are actually meant to feel for. She has done horrible deeds, but feels tremendous guilt and wishes to repent for these misdeeds, which makes her sympathetic. Unlike Dexter or the Punisher, she isn't an incarnation of Texan justice that only kills bad guys. She is less Dexter and more Rodion Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment. Well...a watered down anime version, but still an excellent character for an anime! Lucy also develops a split personality named Nyuu that starts out like a small child and gives Lucy the opportunity of rebirth. I think the great writer Salman Rushdie said it best in Midnight's Children when explaining why writers keep resorting to rebirth via amnesia. Besides Christian rebirth and reincarnation, it is really all we writers have! Kouta seems like a generic harem lead at first, but we learn that there is more to him than meets the eye. He has a rather dark past and tries to protect all women he comes across after the tragic death of his little sister. He may not act rationally at times, but his extremely accepting and kindhearted nature represents the most positive portrayal of humanity in this entire series. Kouta acts as a foil for Lucy and eventually a romantic interest. This romance is in my opinion one of the most tear jerking and moving in all of anime. Kouta's kindness is actually able to get through all the anger and hatred that have built up in Lucy's heart. They are similar to The Phantom and Christine from Phantom of the Opera or as previously mentioned, Rodion and Sonya from Crime and Punishment. Nana is another interesting character who grew up isolated from the world, so she is very naive and appears quite foolish. However, she has unnatural kindness and her own kind of wisdom. She is tempted 3 times in the series to submit to anger and kill an opponent, but all times she refuses. She is a rare anime example of a character achetype that in literature is called a "yurodivy", much like Myshkin in The Idiot. There are lots of other characters, but this review is long enough already.
Sound: 10/10
The opening theme Lillium ranks as one of the greatest in all of anime. The background music is often creepy, disturbing, tense, and as I mentioned in my Gokukoku review reminds me somewhat of Arnold Schoenberg in its atonal style. Although Lillium is played a bit too often since it serves as Lucy's Leitmotif, the soundtrack is solid all around and I highly recommend it.
Art: 8/10
The art is quite good for 2004 and although it looks a tad dated now, the early use of CG for the vectors was quite impressive at the time. This was the beginning of the great migration of animation studios to South Korea where animators do quality work for dirt cheap, so it looked a SHIT load better than many 90s and 80s anime that were created in Japan with very strained budgets. Yes, I'm aware Studio ARMS made this anime. This is probably the best looking thing those schlockmeisters have ever produced.
Enjoyment: 10/10
The first episode will probably throw a lot of viewers off that this series is going to be nothing but gore and nudity. However, if you can make it past the tedious first couple episodes you will find an anime that goes all out and has a lot of heart. It is certainly not for everyone, but I really enjoyed it.
Overall: 10/10
"How Could this be considered good literature? EVERY CHARACTER IS INSANE!" - Vladimir Nabokov on the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
There are plenty of things Elfen Lied could be criticized for. The characters don't always behave in a realistic fashion and the plot often has coincidences and moments of fate that are unrealistic. Elfen Lied is heavy on the 19th century style melodrama. The gore is overdone and some of the nudity is completely pointless, especially when used for comedy scenes. The series is emotionally exploitative and tries to make you cry. The ending is also controversial because it is left somewhat open ended for viewer interpretation. All of those are entirely true! Does this make the series bad? I would actually argue... no. Some of the gore IS totally excessive, but it's trying to tell a rather dark tale with often disturbing scenes. Some of the nudity WAS pointless yes, but the mutants are actually kept naked in the facility to dehumanize them and make horrendous experimentation easier. This isn't exactly what I would call "fanservice". Furthermore, none of the nudity is actually pornographic, so if it offends you than that is your call, but please don't call it a porn. That's just not accurate. Some of the plot points aren't realistic and characters aren't always rational, but if that meant a work instantly "sucks" then most major writers prior to the early 1900s "sucked". Now let's look at some things Elfen Lied actually did well in my opinion. Elfen Lied has interesting themes of love, hatred, the nature of good and evil, discrimination, redemption, forgiveness, and even touches on social issues like child abuse and poor treatment of the homeless. Elfen Lied doesn't always offer answers to these questions and doesn't always hold the viewer's hand, but it does tend to lean one way if you analyze it. For example, Elfen Lied brings up the nature vs. nurture debate in terms of the mutants' violence, but doesn't give a definitive answer. It heavily implies nurture, but this is left to the viewer to decide. The series also strongly hints that any deeds no matter how evil can be repented for if the sinner truly feels remorse and wishes for redemption. Not exactly a message that we see very often in modern pop culture. The bad guys who do bad things must pay for them and die. Unfortunately, my home country of America is a highly pro death penalty country that emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation. That is one reason Americans often can't embrace a novel like Crime and Punishment or an anime like Elfen Lied. It is completely against our established viewpoints. Elfen Lied also scores points for having an interesting plot, great characters, a great soundtrack, and is to date the only anime to ever make me cry. I have seen over 800 anime! I cry like a bitch during that Kouta/Lucy scene in episode 13 every damn time! I like to think of it as the bizarre love child of Stan Lee's X-men with Gaston Lerioux's Phantom of the Opera and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
PS. I recommend watching the Japanese audio because the English dub is a very mixed bag. Some of the voice actors in English are great like Kira Vincent Davis and Jason Douglas, but others are so bad that it ruins dramatic scenes. Nana's English voice sounds like nails on a black board! Seriously, she has some of the worst acting I've seen in a major anime.
