Elfen Lied Review

In this week’s ABC Challenge Review, E is for Elfen Lied. This is my first real cheat in the ABC Challenge. Elfen Lied is a very popular anime series, that most people who have seen it remember quite well. I decided earlier this week that I wanted to something for Halloween. I thought since I briefly mentioned my thoughts on Liang Qi as a psychotic character during my Canaan Review, that I would do a list of the best psychotic cartoon characters. In order to kill two birds with one stone, I thought I would do research for that while reviewing for the ABC Challenge. I thought Elfen Lied and next week’s show which I’ve already picked out, would be good places to start. So I bring you my review of Elfen Lied. Spoilers ahead.

Basic Plot

Elfen Lied starts with a vastly powerful girl of a mutated humanoid species known as Diclonius named Lucy escaping from an asylum that experiments on the Diclonii. The Diclonii physically look like humans except for two horn-like protrusions on their head. They also have use of invisible arms known as vectors. Vectors have the capability to both impact objects,  pass through them, and deadliest of all slice them up. The only limitations on the vectors is range and differing power levels. Lucy is a special Diclonius because she is the only one capable of reproducing. Lucy during the escape gets shot in the head which causes a split in her personality. There’s Lucy who’s a blood thirsty killing machine and there’s Nyu which is completely innocent and would not hurt a fly. Your main male character, Kouta, has recently moved to Kamakura to begin college. His cousin, Yuka, offers him a place to stay while he’s going there. During a walk on beach Yuka and Kouta find Nyu. Kouta had met Lucy several years before and befriended her, but both were amnesic and didn’t remember that meeting. It’s revealed that the final straw in her being a killing machine was seeing him with Yuka after he lied and said his cousin was a boy. In her rage, she killed his father and sister right in front of him which caused his amnesia. Back in the present, several attempts are made to either bring Lucy in or kill her. All of these fail. In the end, she gets into a bloody battle with several heavily armed guards. The result of which we do not see.

Commentary

Elfen Lied at its core is a love story. Albeit a very messed up one. The point Lucy finally loses all control of her desire to kill is when she finds out Kouta was with his female cousin at a festival. Know note, she had killed people before at that point and was struggling with her desire to kill but she wasn’t completely over the line yet. I’m not including the brief friendship she has in the OVA, because she had already lost all faith in humanity at that point and was fighting her desire to kill. Lucy from the first time she held an extensive conversation with Kouta was in love with him. Kouta, in turn, loved Lucy as well. The weird part is that even after everything that had happened they still loved each other to a certain extent. She believed she should never be with him given the things she’s done. And he admitted even though he still loved the little girl from back then he could never forgive her for what happened. Some people claim parallels to Romeo and Juliet given they are star-crossed lovers destined to never be together. I personally don’t see it this way, but I can understand where people are coming from. I think that Lucy and Kouta were more in control of their situation than Romeo and Juliet were. Their problems stem directly from her inability to control the evil inner voice inside of her. Which led to her killing the people he cared about.

This show begs the question of nature vs nurture. The Diclonius are said to have a predisposition for violence and killing. In fact, they say that the Diclonii as soon as the they get their vectors will kill their parents. The state of Lucy’s mind agrees with this as well, given that when she was a kid, she was fighting the desire to kill everyone. Eventually, losing to that. Her mind almost rationalized the killing of Kouta so that he wouldn’t have an opportunity to hurt her. Which interestingly enough he ended up doing anyway. The other weird part is that they don’t kill anything that is not human like a dog. So does mean they have a natural disposition to hate humans? I don’t really know. If you look at the situations the Diclonii were in, much of their hatred for the human race is almost justified. Lucy, for example, constantly bullied because she had horns. The bullying went so far as to kill her only friend in her dog. This was the event that set off her vectors and her contempt for the human race. And apparently, her situation was not atypical for a Diclonius. Additionally, the experiments performed on them were just torture. Some experiments had them chained up and shot with varying levels of force to test how strong their vectors are. Other Diclonii were in holding tanks for their entire lives. Can you understand the isolation that goes with never seeing another person? That is just horrible. So was it their treatment by humans or is it just in their DNA to kill humans?

Another aside, all of the main characters’ lives suck in Elfen Lied. We’ve talked about Lucy ad nauseam, so I won’t go any further on that. Nana was one of the tortured Diclonii. She ended up clinging to the director the research asylum as her ‘Papa’ because he was the closest thing to positive interaction she had. Now note, although he did care about her he was still the one torturing her. Mayu, a 13-year-old girl, was the victim of molestation from her step-father. Her mother instead of doing something about it got angry at her. She also gave a great statement along the lines of, “because of you he doesn’t touch me.” What mother says something like that. While I don’t condone ignoring it, acknowledging it but complaining that your husband isn’t with you because he has your daughter is just horrible. Mayu would rather live homeless than be in the same house as those two. And personally I don’t blame her either. Better yet, her parents never looked for her and signed her over to a complete stranger with no questions asked. Admitted Kouta and Yuka are better parental options but still they didn’t fight it at all. Kouta’s we also discussed a bit as well. Just to recap though, the girl he loves kills his father and sister in front of him. The event is so traumatic he doesn’t remember much from his life prior to it. Actually, he doesn’t remember the event either. The only he remembers is telling his sister he hates her just before her death, for which is constantly giving him pain. Yuka’s life is definitely the least traumatic, but is still not great. She basically gave up living when she was 10 because the boy she loved was no longer there for her. She spent the next 8 years basically waiting for him to come back. Which he doesn’t until he’s ends up  going to college there. There is an implication that she specifically went to the school he goes to because she knew he was going there. She could have gone to a better school but didn’t because of this. Her life is basically stagnant because of her love, that he only somewhat reciprocates. And no saying he likes her is not the same as when he told Lucy he loved her.

Now, I’m going to voice my personal bias towards Elfen Lied. A lot of people consider Elfen Lied to be one of the best anime of all time, I do not fit into this category. Now, I will admit of the anime I have reviewed, it’s probably the best, but I don’t put Elfen Lied on as high of a pedestal as most. The problem I have is that Elfen Lied felt unfinished. Did they sort of bow tie it? Yes, but it felt like the 2nd season that never happened should have happened. There’s a lot of additional depth in the manga of Elfen Lied that is not available to you in a 13 episode season. A lot of people also claim, “Oh it’s such a sad ending, I cry every time.” Is the last episode pretty sad? Yes it is, but I’ve never personally had the urge to cry while watching it. Now again I don’t emote very much anyway, so I’m not really the best judge, but still that was worth a note. As a guy and someone who watches and enjoys Game of Thrones, I don’t mind some fan service and blood, but at points it’s completely ridiculous on this show. The very first scene is a naked Lucy killing dozens of guards while escaping from the asylum. Blood and guts splatter everywhere. It’s actually kind of awesome, but it seems like they were highlighting the breasts and the blood way too much and skimping out on actual the story line. Again that was just at points. The pacing was also very inconsistent. It was slow and methodical to begin with then it felt very rushed at the end. This most likely had to do with being a 13 episode show for a manga that was probably at about 70 chapters or so when it came out. Which goes back to a 2nd season would have been nice to have. I still really like this show, I just wish they had gone into more depth on everything. It’s the same problem, I have with so many other series that get made into an anime well before being completed. They have to make their one season capture the major points of the series up to that point. However, the ending always feels unfinished.

Conclusions

Elfen Lied is a very unique experience. The story has a lot of untold depth to it. It’s not a show that the faint of heart can really watch, though. It’s one that digs straight into the core of our nature as humans. How do the actions we take effect those around us? It also has a very beautiful but very untimely love story with it. I suggest if you are looking for more adult themes in your cartoon experience to watch this one. Many people put it towards the top of their personal anime list. I do agree it is a great series. Personally, I think pacing is still flawed and the depth left something to be desired but I would still highly recommend it. For me personally, at some point I have to watch Elfen Lied’s spiritual successor in Brynhildr in the Darkness, to compare and contrast them. It might even make my experience with Elfen Lied better.