Elfen Lied

ELFIN LIED

A 13 part anime based on a 107 chapter manga about a girl with horns, the future of humanity and the power of emotions. 

OVERVIEW - The series is set around a girl with horns called "Lucy" who is part of a new race of humanity known as "Diclonius", Identified by their horns and the ability to manipulate "Invisible arms" known as "Vectors". Lucy escapes the facility she is being kept in at the start, but due to a head trauma taken in the escape develops an innocent, child-like new personality. It is while she is in that state she is found by the male protagonist, Kouta and his Cousin, Yuka. Sometimes billed as a "horror" story, presumably by western reviewers biased by the "slasher" genre its more accurate to call this an "Action" story, as it is more based in that direction than a Japanese horror. 

REVIEW - I chose to review this anime based on a friends recommendation, So had no real information to its background before this. My initial thought when I found out such an extensive Manga had been compressed into such a short series was "what will they skip?" as often leaving things out of an anime taken from another source leads to confusing elements, unresolved plot points and under-developed characters. 

The anime as a whole has a completed story to it, with a couple of loose ends that may have been left for potential sequels and/or OVA's, but wraps most of its points up fairly well. Its premise is interesting, and one often covered in sci-fi style stories, in that there is an emerging "new species of humanity" and the conflict between the current human race and the new one is the central plot point here. Its interesting to note that its never made exactly clear why the diclonius so easily and quickly take to killing humans but several ideas/concepts as to why present themselves, one being that it is a part of their nature, to kill and replace humanity as the dominant species on the planet, another being that its because of the treatment of diclonius children is so harsh, most killed at birth or taken away to a secret research facility where they are essentially tortured for "experimentation" into their abilities. The fact that all but one diclonius are described as sterile and unable to reproduce except by "infecting" humans who's children are then born as "Slipelit" (the majority of the diclonius are of this type) considered to be "drones" and only the "Queen" being able to reproduce normally is questioned by the existance of the male diclonius characters, a father and son. 

The series is highly graphic in its depictions of violence, nudity and abuse, with the opening ten minutes or so of the anime featuring a naked teenage girl killing dozens of people by decapitation or dismemberment. There's also scenes of animal cruelty and child-rape, and while the actual acts of these are commited "off-screen" its left with no doubt as to what actually happens. This is done however to highlight the brutality that humans can inflict on each other and to things they consider "different" as that is a major theme of the series, so while it may be graphic and unsettling to see, it is not in my opinion gratuitous or done simply to shock/offend and cause controversy. 

My major concern with the series is how its characters are portrayed. In part due to writing (maybe because of the truncated aspect of the series) and in part due to the voice-acting its very hard to actually form any kind of attachment to them. All of them seem to be extremely disturbed mentally yet act as though nothing is every wrong for the most part. While Kouta has some level of excuse, being hospitalised for a year after the cause of his trauma and forgetting and/or re-inventing all the reasons, most of the others simply dont, or it isnt explained as to why. I'll give some examples of this. 

Kouta - almost bi-polar personality, given to massively overblown acts of charity but will lose his temper at the drop of a hat, only to get over it in a few minutes. 

Yuka - appears as a cute, calm and sweet girl for the most part, but has a overly severe jealous reaction to any female who gets near Kouta, for whom she's held a crush on for over 8 years and never acted upon it. 

Mayu - A runaway child, living on the streets for an undisclosed period of time (presumably short however) after escaping from her rapist step-father and a mother who cared more about her new husband, becomes a balanced, caring normal girl within days/weeks of being helped by Kouta and Yuka. 

I wont include the diclonius in the examples because of the whole "Nature/nurture" aspect of their violent and sociopathic behaviours, however almost all the characters feel very one-dimensional, serving as mearly ways to express the plot rather than people wrapped up in the events.

The style is also somewhat odd, with the characters appearing more like early 90's styles of animation rather than the early 2000's when it aired, From what I have found out that was a deliberate choice of the studio, but it is strange to see. One aspect I found interesting was the "Obvious CG is obvious" being used to good effect, with all the "invisible arms" of the vectors being produced in CG, helping give them an "out of place" feel that actually added to the immersion, rather than breaking it like it often can. 

A very cut-and-dry story, with a touch of attempted redemption by a couple of the characters, it wont suit everyone's tastes but if you're in the mood for a good action series with some interesting plot points, graphic violence and a question or two about the cruelty of humanity its well worth a look. 

SUMMARY -

Story - The concept behind this story is pretty good, and I would imagine the manga, having more "room" as it were, to develop characters and the plot in more depth would be quite a good read. As the anime goes however it feels lacking and very rushed in some places, with the characters odd behaviours mentioned above and the never-really-explored motives of the "bad guys" contributing to that feeling. My biggest concern is the relationship between Kouta and Lucy/Nyuu (her child-like personality) especially in the last episode when his full memory returns, revealing Lucy to be the killer of his father and sister and all he does is say "you murdered my family and i can never forgive you, but the girl from my past, and Nyuu, i like" then the two kiss... seriously NO resolution to issues, problems or regret, he's just making out with the person who killed his family... The score isnt high because of things like this, but isnt low because the overal plot and story is actually ok, a case of a great idea poorly executed 5/10

Production -Reasonably well done, with no real major flaws, odd animation styles cropping up for no reason etc, and making use of the out-of-place aspect of early-mid 2000's CG animation to enhance the areas it was used in rather than take from them, it also doesnt really do anything spectacular, breaks no real ground or adds anything new. A good "workhorse" style production 5/10

Music -I am unable to really comment on the opening or closing themes, as the only version of this anime I was able to locate had been truncated to remove them. The theme used over and over, the song from the music box, is apparently the opening theme, and as such its a good aspect, working in the opening theme can really help cement that theme into the series and shows the piece was likely chosen or specifically written for the anime. The insert/score is again, reasonable. Well used to enhance scenes but with nothing really standing out my only gripe would be that it sounds like a lot of the piano parts were performed by someone with lead hands, with the piano overly powerful at oddly innapprotiate moments. Again, an average score in this respect. 5/10

Accessability - With the exception of the traditional Japanese Inn which serves as the home for the main characters, there's very little "Uniquely Japanese" moments in the series, even with being set in a very scenic part of Japan. As such the show scores well here 9/10

Overall Impression - This is an anime I would love to see re-made. The core concept, the potential in the characters and the overal progression of the story all could be so much more than the series shows. Taken at face value I would rate this as a run-of-the-mill anime, not so bad it must be avoided, but not so amazing it must be seen, but if it was even just twice as long, with better scripting and voice-acting it really could have been something well worth hunting down to see. A missed oppotunity really. 7/10

Final Score - 31/50