Elfen Lied

I watched the first episode of this anime, and i felt sick to the bottom of my stomach.
I was utterly disgusted at the sheer amounts of violence in this anime.
Heads exploding, dismemberment, bodies being torn apart, bones, brains and intestines.
It was revolting.

I left it for a few months.
And i dared myself to watch it again.

I did, and the initial shock wore off, i was a bit tense, ill admit, but after my 3rd watching of it, i just forgot the violence.
this anime is so much more deeper than that.

Its by far the most mature anime in history.
It pushes your morals to the brink, with child abuse, animal cruelty, children being killed..ACH!
But underneath all of this.
You have the best storyline in history, with and ending that will make you scream and grab your monitor in panic.

The heartrending tale of a girl with a split personality, being chased by SWAT teams and the shady government.
she basically has 1 personality, which is her real, sadistic personality.
And the other, she has the mind of a 4 year old.

I cant describe this enough, you just simply HAVE to watch it.

But be warned, this anime pushes boundaries..seriously.
Im surprised its not banned...

Elfen Lied is an awesome anime; but, it is not without faults and has a few reasons for people to hate it. Most people, after watching the first episode, are incredibly shocked by the extremely graphic scenes and decide to stop watching right then. (I almost did too!) However, there is more to this anime than just blood and gore (as well as a fair amount of nudity, but, that is actually shown in a way to evoke tragic feelings - not supply fanservice). After continuing to watch a few more episodes, the more dark and depressing elements of this story are revealed. Several other graphic and heart-wrenching scenes are shown, and through them, we see the twisted and evil nature of humans. The series ends:

(well...i guess its ok if u open this spoiler...not much info in it, but i know if it was me i would want to be surprised by the ending)


Of course, this anime is not for everyone; it requires a very mature audience both to understand it, and withstand its brutal nature. The story is done excellently, and brings tears to your eyes. There are a few unanswered questions left at the end, but it does not diminish the power of the story. (the manga can be read, but it has an alternate ending)

The music is, at first, nothing special. However, once you have seen the final episode, you will see why it fits the anime so perfectly. Everytime i hear the opening song (Lilium) i am reminded of this anime and feel a little sad.

The main characters are all well done, and have great emotional depth within them. Truly, each of them has their own story to tell.

The animation in this series is perhaps my only big complaint. Although not strikingly terrible, not much detail is shown in the drawings.

Overall, even though the animation could have been better, the emotional depth of the storyline and characters more than makes up for it - which is why i give Elfen Lied a 5.0. If u want to watch a serious anime with a powerful theme on human nature, and can stomach all the graphic scenes, then this is the anime for you!

I really must admit that this anime has an absolutely fantastic storyline; it's complex, intriguing and moving. I was also really impressed with the character development. So many animes lack good character development (something that is crucial to the plot). The occasional violence does not really bother me (I mean it's animated, c'mon! XD) although I can understand why it is rated eighteen and up. You'll fall in love with the characters and fantastic scenery. I bought the first season on iTunes and practically watched the whole thing in one day. Yes it is very absorbing. So have fun and check it out.

- Daemonil

This anime is currently #1 on my list. This anime is much more than a gorefest, in fact, it happens to be one of the most emotional animes I have ever seen. The plot was very well developed, as were the characters. For a show to be able to imbue sadness within me is just sheer awesome, and not the type of awesome which people use in casual talk, but the real and genuine AWE – some!

For hours on end, I have watched the entire thirteen episodes in under one day. The plot was so intriguing and compelling – about a mutant with horns and vectors (invisible arms which can move at the speed of light and break virtually anything) who escapes from a highly guarded lab. This mutant happens to have a split personality, named “Nyu.”

Nyu is displayed to us as an innocent and totally loveable character who can literally only say the word ‘Nyu.’ This portion of her mind happens to take over, and when she gets hurt, even unintentionally, she turns into her “true self,” Lucy.

Completely different from Nyu, Lucy is a psychopath killer who has a horrible past with one of the main characters, Kouta, a newly enrolled college student. Lucy serves as a foil character to Nyu, which is truly amazing, for a single character to be foil within its own mind is obviously an intriguing concept.

The themes emanate as we progress into the later episodes. These are powerful themes, such as, alienation, isolation, regret, love, hatred, and even the true vitality of friendship. The symbolism in this anime, such as the seashell, builds a strong and powerful reminiscence of Kouta’s younger sister, who has passed away. The perfect blends of the emotions evoked out of the plot in general prove to be an amalgamation of what will turn out to be the perfect anime. Countless of times, I found myself teary eyed by the regretful past Lucy has bestowed upon Kouta.

Tragedy is the anime’s primary tone, and a perfect amount of comedic relief alleviates this.
In all candor, no matter how much I loved this anime, I do not have the right to say that it can be considered life changing. But pondering about it, I have come to the realization that it is not needed, for an experience such as that would most likely destroy the one thing which I loved so much – the spurts of both sadness and happiness this anime has constantly barraged at me.

It would be very imprudent to stop watching this anime at the very first episode only because of the gore, because it proves to be so much more than that. Have patience and delve youirself into the wonderful story it has to offer. Let yourself have an ambrosial experience by watching this anime.

My overall rating of this anime would have to be 11/10, because of how many effusions I have experienced just by watching it – from contentment to despondency, from humor to seriousness, and love to hatred. The experience is truly one to captivate.

This is a very graphic show, filled with blood, guts, gore, and body parts are being thrown around. They never really explain much about what created the Diclonius.
The artwork is bright and satanic in my thoughts, but is still somewhat medium budgeted it seems. Studio ARMS made this and they are known for their satanic nudity shows, and I have to say, I think this one is the more tasteful of the two, having a rather nice story even though it can be a little confusing. Although the characters backgrounds are well done and the premise is behind it (What little there is really) the voices feel much too bland in the English dub. Kohta feels like he is always in this rather don’t care attitude and really doesn’t keep him as the main character that he really should be.
The music is the best though, is perfect for the dark yet tranquil aspect of the show. One minute, it will have you in tears as the next moment; you have chills up your spine. This is a must see to me, though if you don’t like blood and guts, or even nudity, this is not yours. I do have to say that Sub is better then dub.

Elfen Lied had a easy to follow storyline and was very well animated. It portrayed a genre that is popular among most anime watchers. The music was beautiful and by far one of the best aspects of the show. It would be amazing if they could make another season, until then very good job to the person/people who created this anime & manga.

Elfen Lied is one of the best anime I have ever laid my eyes on. A truly deep and emotional sense lies within. It has a few happy moments and but mostly full heartbreaking ones and the opening music theme adds to the depressing emotion you will embody. When you have watched the series down to the end you will understand everything from episode one that you were confused about. It is filled with alot of important messages that are simple to interpret. This anime will have you in tears even if you have no feelings (TRUST ME). It will send your emotions sky-rocketing into the milky way of no return!! Its full of gory moments, so if you have are not comfortable with blood and violence I suggest that you don't watch it. But if you do watch it then you have nothing to lose. It is has a great story line! ^_^ ENJOY.

It is pretty clear in the first episode, that this girl is a or the bad guy (or girl in this case) of the series. She is akin to SIl from Species, the biggest difference is this girl clearly enjoys killing and murdering people. That is the only reason she could have and did, murder even people who were not threatening or even armed as she did in the first scene. In Species, Sil never did that. So Elfen is like a more evil version of Sil. Be warned it is very graphic. It is not necessarily a bad thing to have a series from the perspective of the bad guy, just understand that it is. In this case, that concept is crystal clear from the beginning.

I first came across Elfen Lied whilst looking for horror anime along with the when they cry series and ended up putting it off for a while as I had heard that most people stop watching after the first episode however when I did get onto watching it I loved it and it has influenced most of my quick sketches I do in my free time.
This anime was an adaption of a manga of the same name, and was released during the manga's production. It was originally 12 episodes long but a break away from the 11th episode was created after the manga's completion.

Elfen Lied is set in Kamakura, Japan and is based on creatures called Diclonius, a creature similar to a human apart from physical abnormalities such as horns, and different at the genetic level. One of these Diclonius escapes from Kanagawa prefecture but a ricocheted bullet causes her to create a second personality called Nyu.
Nyu is found by Kohta, who has just moved into a closed down restaurant, and his cousin Yuka.
From there more characters appear and the plot unravels but I wont spoil it for anyone who hasn't watched it.

I have to say that the main reason I am reviewing this is because of the recent Chobits review and how much things the two shows/manga have in common.
The story doesn't seem that original at first and due to the majority of the first episode containing Blood and nudity, it puts people off. But like most short anime, it becomes serious in the latter episodes and it has a lot of meaning.
One of the themes of the story-line is how a few events can drastically change a persons behavior which is shown in most of the characters, mainly the Diclonius.
It speaks of many of the darker things in humans' nature such as killing because of differences, domestic violence and even animal cruelty.

Unfortunately this anime didn't have anywhere near as much detail as the manga as it was released during the early manga chapters and only covers about half of the story-line which means less back-story and less characters.
As for the opening theme and ending theme, I loved them both.
The opening features artwork similar to Gustav Klimt's artwork and is definitely different to most anime openings.

For the ending they used the song be your girl which is one of my favorite songs as it seems reminiscent to songs I'd listen to as a child and also has artwork similar to Gustav Klimt's.

I personally think that this anime is underrated and apart from the cliffhanger ending and lack of back story which are problems caused by the time the anime was created and the length of the series, the anime is great and I recommend it to those who are able to stand anime blood(most of us are but there are the few who can't)
-Daggerd
-Rating 4/5
-Age Rating Teen +17
http://cecilsanimevisualnovelreview.blogspot.com/

I remember loving the music box. The music was phenomenal.

As for the rest of the anime, there was a lot of blood and gore, and partly I felt that it was needed, but then again, was it? I think with this anime and Gantz, the creator, wanted to make the audience appalled of what they were seeing in order to reevaluate the entire basis of the story. There's a reason for the hype, but one should not watch this anime unless you are prepared to actually understand the deeper meaning of it all. If you just want to see naked drawings of girls, and violence, obviously, it isn't the right time to be viewing it.