haag.cristopher - 2013-08-11 20:59:53

Elfen Lied? Is it good?

Certainly it is not. It's not good, must say, it's really AWESOME. Also mixing some funny, romantic moments with lots of gore, this, Elfen Lied, may be, possibly, too raw or crude for some, specially for those not accostumed to jump from quite a romantic scene, to a mainly gore one. Yet so, it's amazing, and even more if you love action and taking-care romance. When I first saw it (watched it completely around 6 times, no joke,) i really loved it, and must say, psychologically, fell in love with Nyu (the Main char, for those who hadnt seen it yet), and made me cry in the end. And certainly, not lots of series made me cry... But this one, is really emotive.

And although it can be quite sad sometimes, yet it's a really awesome one, and should really be seen. Trust me, it's worth it. From the sounds to the characters, it's truly incredible. Really, really recommended!!

daisha07 - 2013-07-29 20:50:12

this anime is visually stunning it's music is soul tearing and it's story breath taking.

Many people love this anime but we all seem to take away are own personally enjoyment from it. For me it's the amazing way a story is told of a girl with two lives which could not be more polar opposite smashing together into one to form a complete person of both evil and violence and love and innocence!

For any one anime fan or not looking at watching this show i suggest you get a nice cold drink wrap up tight in your bed and let this show take you away.

Perrine x!x

gerhard.stamm - 2013-07-15 00:25:06

This is my first attempt in writing a review so please bear with me.If you were to list animes with lots of gore and nudity, then elfen lied would definitely be one of them. That alone summarizes the first five minutes of the series, as you will see nothing but a massive streak of gorefest. For many, this would be the perfect time to drop the show. However, if you can get passed this vivid scene, then you should be good to go…hopefully.Plot:The plot is pretty simple. To summarize in few words, main character Kouta, an average high school student, goes about his daily life until he notices an unconscious girl with horns on her head lying on the beach and using his best judgment, takes this unusual stranger to his house without notifying the police. As the series continues, we go deeper into who the girl is and how she fits into the picture. The story involves tragedies and themes that go outside the boundary of morality, which makes this anime different from others. These dark imageries are what really gets you into this series, and without them, the story wouldn’t be as appealing. In addition, the story is well-paced and does not drag too much, considering the fact that it’s only 13 episodes.Characters:The good thing about this show is that we get to see the kinds of childhood each character has lived through. Their depressing backstory is what allows the audience to sympathize with them and the producers did a great job doing that. There aren’t that many characters and not hard to remember. Each character does go through some phase of development as the series continued. On the other hand, many of the minor characters lose more screen time and are rendered useless to the plot afterwards. Some of the characters can get annoying at times and do stupid things you wouldn’t normally do in real life.Music:If there is one thing you can remember from this show (besides the blood and nudity), it’s the opening. The music sets a deep and dark overall tone which is essentially what you’ll feel as you watch this show. Besides the opening, there really isn’t much to say about the soundtrack. Nothing bad but nothing special either.Art/Animation:The art is pretty consistent throughout the show. Considering the fact it came out in 2004, I was surprised by how well done the artwork was, even during the bloody scenes. The animation is decent and is best done during the action scenes.Enjoyment:One thing I admire about this show is that it isn’t your average good characters beat bad characters plot. As you watch the experiences these characters go through, you witness the dark side of humanity, and that’s exactly what the show was aiming for. It touches on immoral acts such as animal cruelty, child molestation, and ostracizing, things that your typical animes wouldn’t dare to touch. My problem with this show is of course, the excessive use of blood and nudity, but honestly, it isn’t a bad show at all. Do I recommend watching it? Eh…if you had to watch one bloody anime, then sure. If you do watch it, I strongly suggest watching it all the way, and don’t the judge the show by the first episode.Overall, I give this show a 7/10.Again, this is my first time doing this, so feedback would be nice.

coleman.prosacco - 2013-06-30 06:13:14

I'll start off saying that I would at least give this anime the high 9s because there are still flaws but myanimelist.net doesnt have like "9.6", so i had to round up lol. To be honest, it rivals animes like Higurashi, especially cause it is done in 13 episodes, while higurashi was split into 2 seasons with 24 episodes each. The "sad" part to this series is that there is nudity but surprisingly, not much ecchi or at least not what I really consider as ecchi. I guess the nudity was more of a "dramatic effect". Anyways, I pretty much ignored the nudity during the series because I felt way too attracted to the story itself and the huge amount of blood/gore makes a pretty good coverup for the nudity, haha. Yeah.. this anime was a refreshing anime. I'm glad that I watched it.. I guess I was too absorbed into animes that portray the "perfect life".. and lets just say this anime shows how pathetic humans can be and how strong emotions are, but at the same time, humans can still bring a lot of good to the world.I didn't really like the VERY ending where there was a "shadow" of Nyu because I don't like when the anime leaves me guessing. If she's dead, she should stay dead. This anime isn't something that would give a "miracle". At times, Kohta was questionable as a male lead, but he pulled it off, somehow. Yuka was way too dull and annoying to be in the starring line up, so I wasn't too happy with her.In the end, there were some ups and downs. The story is what triumphed and some of the characters were lacking... well characteristics. I definately can't say I would give it a 10 but a 9 wouldn't cut it either.. so what to do?

winnifred32 - 2013-06-20 21:18:14

Ah Elfen Lied... probably the best manga I've ever read, and overall one of the best stories in general. After reading the manga, I was really hyped about the anime... and then I got mostly disappointed. But before that, lets look at the good stuff. As I said before, Elfen Lied has probably one of the best and most compelling stories ever. It even made me shed manly tears :D The characters are well written and feel as if they are actually real people.Too bad the anime only captures a small part of this, as it (the anime) was made before the manga finished. And when that happens, it mostly doesn't end well... yes I'm looking at you original Hellsing anime (long live the Ultimate OVA !!!!) Another good thing, expect the story and characters, is its music, especially the opening. The music compliments the anime and the things currently happening on screens, and adds to the overall experience. I also liked the many references to Gustav Klimt's artwork, especially The Kiss.As I already mentioned, the anime was made before the manga finished, it only has 13 episodes (plus an OVA) and finishes very quickly. The worst thing is that even if you haven't read the manga, you will still notice that the ending shouldn't have been there, and that there is a lot missing. And now the thing that bothered me the most in this anime, other than the story being cut short and the ending, is the voice acting. And by voice acting I don't just mean the dub, but also the original Japanese. The voice acting in both versions sounds stiff and is just mediocre. The biggest problem with the dub is that they tried mimicking the original voices, which weren't really good to begin with. The only role that stands out in both versions is Lucy. Now what to do if you haven't read the manga and won't be affected by the major story cut, but don't want to listen to mediocre voices ??? Well, if you can, watch the GERMAN dub. I'm serious, the voice acting in the German dub is just beautiful. Out of those three, the German was the only one I could fully enjoy.And now to my scores. I won't comment on the individual scores, but only on the overall score, as this anime needs more than just one. In comparison to the manga, it deserves only a 4. If you look at it as an individual entry, I give it a 7 for the Japanese and English versions (who lose points due to mediocre voice acting), and a 9 for the German version losing one point because of the abrupt and forced ending.

conn.maryam - 2013-06-07 20:14:01

Have you seen many psychological horror animes that truly scare the living wits out of you, not ones that are just mindless bloodbaths, but rather that has a story or plot to go along with it? This is what Elfen lied is, a psychological thriller/horror show that takes the word “scary” to a whole other meaning. As seen in the first two minutes of the show are proven to be a hacky and bloody mess of heads and limbs. Overtime, however, the show grows more on a plot and becomes rather enjoyable rather than just a mindless bloodbath.**Blood and gore - two factors that you need to prepare yourself when entering this anime. Cruelty and nudity - two accessories that are always present in this anime. If any of these things disgust or disinterest you, then reading this review is next to useless.**Elfen lied is about a mutant species of humans called Diclonius who want to live in the human world. The only issue is, aside from the fact they have horns (stubs), these Diclonius are out there to try and kill their own kind, and therefore cannot live peacefully with each other. This show is going to show you the life of Lucy, and how she is treated differently for being a Diclonii. The artwork used in this anime was not amazing. The main concern that I had was how “bright” the colors were. The colors were like very pleasing and friendly, unlike how a horror anime should be visualized. Preferable, darker, more eerie colors would have suited the atmosphere of this anime more appropriately. Because this anime is known for its mass amounts of blood and gore, looking at the color of the blood, it was too bright a red. With horror animes, something that is very important is the mood, or atmosphere in which it takes place, and just overall at the beginning. They managed to make the blood color match the atmosphere of being bright and welcoming, but rather they should have used a darker red blood alongside a darker atmosphere. The opening theme for this anime was brilliant. The slow pace and high “a cappella” voice just brought out the creepiness that was to be expected in this anime. The ending theme for this anime is a different story. It is way to “active” of a song for this type of anime. The ending song is just way to light-hearted and too fast paced unlike the opening theme. For the ending theme they should have done something equally as creepy as the opening theme in order to keep the right mood throughout the anime. There are two main characters that whom are very important in this anime. First one is Lucy [also known as Nyu], and the second one is Kouta (he allows Lucy to stay with him). Lucy is a very interesting characters because of her multiple personalities. Most of the time her personality is that of Nyu, which is very childlike, playful, friendly, but not of her age. Then there is her real personality; this is when she is Lucy. Lucy is a very mature woman who shows hatred and no empathy towards humans because of how she was treated in the past. Kouta is just seen as the ordinary character who has a heart made of gold. Kouta was always kind to everyone, even Lucy, regardless of her differences. Just as a side-note, Lucy and Kouta went way back, when they used to go to school together. Kouta was one of the few people who respected and treated Lucy as an equal. The thing that I really enjoyed about how they Lucy was her multiple personalities. Just that alone made a single, amazing character that was truly remarkable to watch throughout the show. A not as important character is Yuka, this is Kouta's cousin [ just for reference later on in this review].I would highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in watching a show full of blood and gore. You are most likely reading this and have read the disclaimer above, so I do not need to say much more about that. What I really liked about this anime was not just the mass amounts of blood and gore, but the story that followed. By creating a mutant human being, and showing how hard of a life she has/had is what truly made this such a wonderful anime to watch. **Small Spoiler**The most memorable scene that I could remember that is not blood and gore related was in the first episode. This was when Nyu broke the seashell that meant everything to Kouta, because it was the last thing that his sister left with him. What really made that scene amazing was when Yuka explained to him how he should not have such sad memories of his sister, and Nyu possible broke the shell because she saw how it made him sad. The only thing that I disliked about this anime was the colors as I said above. Other than that, I would highly recommend watching this anime.I hope you enjoyed reading this review, if you have any suggestions of what i should add please feel free to message me. If you want to talk about any other animes or want me to do more review please feel free to message me or friend request me.

dawn59 - 2013-06-01 15:10:47

This is my review of Elfen Lied. This doors not include the extra episode. Note that this is my opinion and it is not necessary the same as yours. Also:-.--.- SPOILER ALERT-.--.- THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. IT BASICALLY SPOILS THE COMPLETE ENDING!1. Art (6) and sound (5)The artwork and sound of an anime are normally not a selling point and are mostly used to support the plot and set the general atmosphere of an anime. If you look at that, it gets the job done. The artwork is not as good as seen in some recent anime's, but it's not bad either. The artwork actually suits the anime quite good, as it isn't too detailed, which is pretty good if you know about the huge amount of blood and nudity that this anime contains. About this nudity and gore, I would like to say that while there is a lot of it, it isn't as much as would think. The graphic level is not that high, I would say comparable with Baccano! The main reason why this is a really 'violent' is because of the story and the situations that are just wrong.The sounds and the background music are the same as with the artwork. The voice acting however is pretty bad. Not horrible, but worse than average. I think they didn't do a good job at portraying the characters.2. Characters (7)This is one of the better points of the anime. In this anime, all the characters have had some trauma or had a really bad experience. This makes the characters a lot more likeable than you would on first sight. No extraordinary stuff here, but just decent characters.3. Story (6)The story itself is not bad. It is a little cliché though: main character met other character in the childhood but forgot about her, then you have the childhood friend with a secret crush on the main guy and finally the girls that join later and are so not necessary. We also have the generic bad guys: mad scientist doing something because he is forced to by his boss who has a sick plan to rule the world. The story is fairly good until the ending. Despite the generic setting of the characters it does a good job at combining all of the background stories and moving the plot without too much plot holes.Then came the ending.I'm not alone and a few others agree with me on this (like HoldenReviews), but I believe that the ending of an anime is very important, not to say one of the most important things. An anime can only be as good as it's ending. Everyone has his or her own standards to consider a ending good, but for me, an ending must give me satisfaction. When I have watched the ending of a story I don't want to have important questions left open or just wanting more and knowing it will never come. I don't care if it's a happy or sad ending, as long as it isn't an open ending that leaves you wanting more. I liked the ending till the very last though. Spoilers: after the final fight, the girl and the boy (watch the anime for names!) stand together and look up to the sky and finally remember and forgive each other. Great. Happy ending! But then, for no apparent reason, the already wounded girl goes back to the fight and sacrifices herself (or so it seems). Yeah, I would like to know why, but still good ending. Sad ending! At this point the anime should have stopped. But it didn't:We are now a few months after the fight and her sacrifice. Life goes on, right? Somebody rings the door. Who could it be? Let's go see. When we come outside, we see the shadow of the dead girl. No, it can't be her! No way! Then the clock, which was broken during the whole series works. Let's look at the clock - hmmm, what could possibly happen next? - Oh! The shadow is gone and their is no one at the door. THE END!F*ck this shit! I don't want this! I want to know what happened! Why did she go back to the fight? How is it possible that the clock works? It she still alive? Or is it her spirit? In that case, how can it have a shadow? I WANT ANSWERS! But I'm screwed right?4. OverallI give this anime a 7 out of 10. It was quite enjoyable. And if the anime would have ended a few minutes earlier, it would have gotten a 8 or even a 9. So, despite the ending, I give this anime my official should watch stamp (not that this means anything, but let me feel important, would you?).

kyra19 - 2013-05-18 10:39:36

"Elfen Lied" has been nothing short of a phenomenon. There were no big budget promotions (like "Full Metal Alchemist" was promoted, for example), the manga wasn't exactly red hot property (like "Death Note" was, for example), but it was suddenly catapulted to fame in an incredibly short time in 2004. It's the kind of overnight success story that films and anime have been made from. But does it deserve all this hype? The short answer is no. The long answer is nooooooo. Only kidding - this review is the long answer, obviously :PWhen I first noticed "Elfen Lied" on an anime site, it was listed as horror. But the picture shown on the site (not the picture from the MAL page, by the way) was this typically cute, giant eyed little girl with pink hair. First thing that came to my mind was: WTF? Cute, seemingly innocent little girl with a dark side going around killing everyone? Little did I realise how close I'd struck to the truth. What I didn't anticipate was how far below its hype it turned out to be. To be fair, my initial impressions of "Elfen Lied" were actually pretty good. From the haunting melodies of its opening song "Lilium" and the combined gothic-anime style artwork, it seems to do everything right. The opening episode starts, and we are thrown straight into a blood bath, with heads and limbs flying in all directions curtesy of Lucy, a diclonius (a kind of mutant human) who is one of the central characters of the story. It was hard not pay attention. "Wow! I can feel this is going to be awesome!" I remember thinking to myself. But five minutes of ruthless massacre later, a extremely stereotypical ditzy secretary is introduced, who then promptly waltz in and trips over into the path of Lucy. I blinked as I tried to get to grips with this conflicting atmosphere, and at that point a small voice in the back of my head piped up: "What the hell is this?! A horror or a goofy comedy?!" ...and it's all downhill from there on. I should have known from the j-poppy ending theme that constrasted jarringly against the dark, forboding opening theme that something was wrong. Having been infected by the hype before hand, I was so convinced that this was going to be one of the greatest anime ever that I'd invited a friend of mine to watch this "masterpiece" with me. I'd sold it to her as this "really highly rated, brutal horror"... and we both watched with synchronised, slack jawed amazement as "Elfen Lied" descended from that potentially great horror themed show down to a, well, a bizarre horror of a show. (Ok, it's not actually *that* bad, but I just had to use that line :P)This anime is meant to be horror, and though the horror elements are there, the pr0n elements are almost as strong, if not stronger. I'd heard about the violence, but I wasn't expecting all the nudity. As a result of my lack of research, I had to suffer my friend continuously teasing me about my supposed enjoyment of the omnipresent fanservice. The amount of scenes containing unnecessary distasteful nudity is simply ludicrous. If people are hit, their clothes magically rips off their bodies often rendering them completely naked. All the female characters in here just love getting naked... any excuse, and off goes all their clothes, or at least enough to reveal body parts that underscore the ecchi nature of this anime if nothing else. If a person falls over, you can bet the scene will feature the best angle from which to view a panty shot as they fall. There're countless more examples, but it would take me all day to list them. It's so bad it got to the point where, given any situation, I found myself wondering how they're gonna squeeze fanservice out of it. For example, during a scene where the characters gets caught in the rain, I'd start thinking: oh dear, here we go again - I can feel a wet t-shirt scene approaching... they might even start stripping once they find shelter. And funnily enough, most of the time my wild guesses will turn out to be correct. The fanservice flies in from all directions, and even after the anime had already conditioned me to anticipate the worst, they'd still be able to turn up when I'm least expecting them. The prime talent of the creators appear to be able to convert any situation into pr0n.Now let's look at the horror aspects. It's impossible to talk about "Elfen Lied" without mentioning it. There's no denying that there is an incredible amount of blood and gore in here, but just how effective and appropriate are they? On one hand, the violence does serve its purpose to a certain extent. The sheer brutality of it and the fact that, like the fanservice, it can occur at any (and often unexpected) moment gives "Elfen Lied" a heightened sense of tension, anticipation, and enhances the viewing experience with a compelling edge. When all is said and done, the credentials of "Elfen Lied" as a horror is solidly cemented by all the violence. On the other hand, the violence of "Elfen Lied" is plasticky both in the visual sense and in the meaningful sense. Visually, the series is a bit of a one trick pony when it comes to violence - it's very direct, involves a lot of blood (sometimes too much), and the severed body parts often has the look of a dismantled toy body part to them. It all feels a little fake, and there's nothing as vivid and disturbing as some of the violence portrayed in the likes of "Berserk" and "Narutaru". Beneath the surface, it's pretty clear that the show's violence is mainly deployed as shock tactics, and so has very little actual meaning. Furthermore, "Elfen Lied" goes waaaay overboard with this tactics, and overuse of this often less-than-meaningful violence inevitably leads to a diminishment of its effectiveness. Unsurprisingly, after constantly being bombarded by the downpour of blood and severed limbs, I found myself numbing to them by the end, and they no longer affected me as much.To its credit, I think "Elfen Lied" has got some intriguing concepts to build on. Mutants with invisible, deadly vectors hands? Sounds interesting. Involvement of a secret research facility that has a sinister purpose behind it? Tell me more! But unfortunately, they don't appear to be particularly interested in telling me this story. Unlike the fanservice, plot points are hard to come by, to the extent that it's hard to tell whether there are big gaping holes in the plot or whether they just failed to explain it properly. By the end, all I'm left with are some half developed concepts, some giant question marks, and a hollow lasting impression. Instead of expanding on its interesting sci-fi premises, it chose to divert a significant proportion of its attention to something that vaguely resembles a teen drama (but an ultra violent one, remember!) Drama! Does that mean it poured blood, sweat and tears into developing some astoundingly good character interaction and development then? No. Whilst the sci-fi aspect of the story can be described as wasted potential, the drama aspect never really had any potential to begin with - because it's of the dreaded harem variety. People can try and kid themselves all they want but we all know you rarely get anything worthy of note originating from that particular genre... other than lame humour and cliched, laughably unrealistic romance and characters of course.And don't get me started on the characters... God they are so bad! If someone tries to strangle you for no reason, would you simply sit up afterwards and ask in a *conversational* way: "what did you do that for?" I doubt it. If it was me I'd be trying to get the hell away that person. If someone suddenly attacks your friend on sight for no apparent reason, and then tell you they did it just because they were hungry, would you believe such a lame ass excuse? My friend and I actually burst out laughing when we heard the excuse... then our mirth turned to astonishment as the dumbass in question not only accepted this sorry excuse of an excuse... but then proceeded to let the attacker into his house. (His house was already occupied by about 5 other girls by then, and yeah the attacker is is a girl. The harem aspect really starts to show at this point - man, how hard they had to twist the story and the character interactions just to get all those girls into the house :P) Okay I know that anime character aren't realistic in general, but did they even read the script themselves to see if the crap they churned out actually made sense on any level? The scientists are mostly a joke, the mercenary/security are practically useless... even the dog that featured briefly seem to be nothing but a plot device, abandoning its owner for no good reason other than so that it could interact with another character and garner sympathy from the viewers for the said character. I've heard of dogs being abandoned by it's owners before, but never the other way round! Kurama is one of the few bright spots of the cast. His dilemma is choosing the right thing to do between the contradicting feelings that arise from his different roles as a cold, rational scientist, a normal human being, and a father whose child is caught up in the thick of things. This is arguably the only thing in the anime that DOESN'T feel a) forced and manipulative, b) inconsistent with the character and the situation, and c) like a shallow, black and white, clear cut issue. But apart from Kurama, most of the characters in "Elfen Lied" are so ridiculous it's actually hilarious to watch in places. A pity the same can't be said for the bits that are genuinely meant to be funny (the harem comedy bits).People often harp on about how "Elfen Lied" is a deep anime that explores the ugly side of human nature. O rly? Call me cynical, but can you honestly expect much substance from an anime that's chock full of gratuitous fanservice and fetish based harem drama? Ok, that was a rhetorical question, but for those who are unconvinced, I'll put aside my prejudice for a moment here to properly address the issue. Let's take an example. One of the characters, Maya, has a tragic past that you would think would have a certain amount of impact on her life... but looking at her you would NEVER be able to guess it happened at all if it wasn't for the flashback that showed that event - "Let's design this really cheerful, likeable little girl. Oh! And we'll just shove in this flashback to tell people of her tragic past... and voila! She has depth!!" All traces of the affects of Maya's tragic past on her character magically vanish after the flashback, to the extent that I'd totally forgotten about it by the end of the series. Is this really exploring the so called social issues? No. It just smells suspiciously like a shortcut to gain the viewer's sympathy and a heavy handed approach to character development. What exactly are the profound messages this supposedly deep anime is trying to convey? That children can be cruel? Don't abuse children? Love conquers all? Don't piss off mutants that have dangerous powers? Sh*t happens? I'm not sure the makers even know themselves. Like the genre of this show, the messages - assuming it's trying to communicate anything - are a really bad contradicting mash up... and apart from Kurama's dilemma, almost everything monotonously boils down as an excuse for more cruelty and abuse. Worse, the countless abuse that happens in this anime has a stench of sadism about them - they are portrayed in such an over the top way that I couldn't help but get the impression that the producers are getting a kick out of it or something, which sickens me.And this is why I can't work out for the life of me why this show is so popular. It's blatently just a shallow ecchi/harem flick, and normally people are smart enough to realise these kind of show tends to suck - you don't see other ecchi harems floating around being touted as the greatest anime ever do you? The only thing that makes "Elfen Lied" stand out against its brethrens is its violence, so I'm forced to conclude that showering an anime with blood will fool people into think it's "hard hitting" and "profound". Given the atrocious and manipulative handling of the story and characters, this anime has no chance of ever becoming deep, but with a bit more effort it could have at least become a really good atmospheric horror/sci fi. A crying shame that, instead of focusing on those more intriguing aspects, the makers were apparently more interested in thinking up new ways of applying fanservice. Very few anime have been known to successfully mix up very contrasting feels - "Trigun" does it very well for one, but "Elfen Lied" is not one of those few. Whoever decided it would be a good idea to mix the horror with the inappropriate fanservice (that had my friend and I laughing out loud at times) and the harem comedy (which, in contrast, isn't very funny, but is amusing due to how absurd it all is) should be shot. Several times.

abelardo83 - 2013-03-20 04:25:16

I was fortunate enough to watch one of the most highly regarded and critically praised anime series, called Elfen Lied. Why this series has garnered so much popularity over the years is surely no surprise to anyone: ask anybody who watches anime on a regular basis about the bloodiest, most disturbing series and you’ll often get Elfen Lied as the answer. This series is far from a simple no-brainer gorefest, though, and those who dare give it a shot (it’s certainly not for those who can’t stomach this type of thing) may find themselves completely overwhelmed by its beautifully unique story and memorable characters. I should know, as I am one of them.

First thing’s first: let me give you a little insight on the plot of the series. Elfen Lied primarily focuses on the relationship between humans and the so-called Diclonius (humans with horns attached to their heads and equipped with invisible telekinetic arms). One of our main characters, Lucy, is a Diclonius girl who escapes from a research facility where those of her kind are held captive and experimented upon in violent ways. Make no mistake, these strange, yet intriguing beings are far from innocent – most of them do not back away from violence and getting on their bad side can often result in a bloodbath. After forcing her way out (and by that I mean violently dismembering and ripping the heads off of everyone that stands in the way), Lucy is shot in the very last moment by a sniper. The shot doesn’t entirely hit, but it does damage her head enough to cause a deep amnesia and split her personality in two parts. Not much time passes and Lucy is found on a nearby beach by Kohta and his cousin Yuka, but Lucy’s second personality, Nyu, has taken over and this results in her acting like a child and unable to remember anything that happened up to that point.

Most of the show focuses on Lucy’s stay with Kohta and Yuka and the hunt by those whom she evaded to recapture her. Calling Elfen Lied the bloodiest and goriest anime series ever made is more an opinion rather than a fact, but it is certainly up there. You can tell from the first ten minutes that it definitely lives up to its reputation: Lucy’s escape from the research facility is one of the most powerful and downright disturbing scenes I have ever since in any anime series and it contained more blood and violence than I was prepared for – and believe me, I was pretty prepared.

One of the first things which caught my attention when I started watching the series was its opening song, called Lilium, which is sung in Latin. I was immediately fascinated by its truly wonderful tone and the atmosphere which it evoked. The opening couldn’t have been more fitting, if you ask me. It really captures the essence of what this anime is about.

Elfen Lied may sport a brutal attitude and at times it seems as though there is little to stop it from going way over the edge with its graphic depictions of violence and gore, but beyond its hardened exterior lies a soft and sensible core. The relationships between characters are surprisingly genuine and feel really natural. Over the course of its running time we come to care for each and every character in a special way. No one is innocent here, but it’s the imperfections and the little things that each character says or the does that shapes them into perfectly developed characters. I wish I could say that Elfen Lied does all these things to perfection, but there are some noticeable flaws among these beautifully executed aspects. Some characters react in an odd way to a few things, which sometimes leads to confusion among the audience and incapability to connect with the particular scene when it happens. For example, a young girl discovers a brutally dismembered man on the beach and her reaction suggests that she thinks little of it. Such things really lead to confusion and sometimes ruin the moment. I don’t wanna spoil anything, so I’ll just say that Kohta goes through some extremely emotional situations during the last episodes and his reactions are underwhelming, to say the least.

With only thirteen episodes and one special original video animation, Elfen Lied is a relatively short anime series. The manga it is based on is said to continue beyond the series’ ending and offer a lot more backstory and information about some characters, though I have not read it and am therefore unable to comment on the matter. I will say this, though: as far as the anime is concerned, it does a great job at developing the characters and advancing the story in a satisfying manner for the audience.

Elfen Lied is most definitely not for the faint of heart. There are lots of scenes which depict violence against animals, incest and even sexual abuse. Even though the series is filled with controversy and gore, it does manage to deliver a really beautiful and emotional story filled with interesting, well-developed characters. I was a little bit disappointed with the open ending and the final episode overall, but it did little to make me forget about the rest of this spectacular anime series. If you feel like you’ve got the stomach for it, be sure to check it out as it will definitely leave a lasting mark on you. It certainly did so in my case.

drew84 - 2013-03-14 20:11:26

If found this anime entertaining to watch but overly gory. I don't mid at all when there is blood, but frequently, arms go flying! The english dubs where pretty bad, but subs are good. Minus occasional sick joke to lighten the mood, this anime was somewaht sad.