Elfen Lied: The Worst Thing I've Ever Seen

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

I'd often heard Elfen Lied brought up among people's favourite animes, or at least as something worth watching. It has a very respectable 8.3/10 on IMDB. I'd also seen its opening before which is actually really cool and innovative, it's a pretty and soothing song composed in Latin for the show. Unfortunately, Elfen Lied's merits end there and an anime should not be judged by its opening. 

 

The show itself is the trashiest, most intelligence-insulting bullshit I've ever put up with and the only reason I got through the 13 episodes was an intrigue as to what thorough depths of awful this could plunge to, the only depths it had. Elfen Lied feeds off of cheap gore and nudity (a good deal of which is prepubescent) and it's sad how prone people are to such obvious and base ploys. That's the essence of it. The truth to that is made rigorously clear in episode 1 and doesn't get much better, but I can provide some context below for further clarification of why I hated this show so very much (including spoilers if you were planning on watching this for whatever reason.) 

 

Lucy is the protagonist whom you're evidently supposed to have sympathy for as well as a vicious serial killer. She has "horns" (that bare a closer resemblance to cat ears), pink hair, and invisible arm weapons that cut people at will (and does she ever cut people!) She also has a love interest named Kohta (your average dude who befriends Lucy because she looks lonely). In spite of her love for him, Lucy hunts Kohta down on a train and decapitates his family in front of him and tears their limbs off for good measure as blood splatters everywhere, telling him she let him live because she likes him. Kohta is understandably upset, but loses memory of this until Lucy decapitates more people in front of him and his memory comes back. Kohta then takes Lucy in his arms and the following dialogue ensues, verbatim: 

Kohta: "DON'T GO"

Lucy: "But Kohta, I killed your family"

Kohta: "I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT."

Neither can I. They then make out by the sea to insipid leitmotifs, but Kohta ends up in an incestuous relationship with his cousin Yuka anyway. Other characters include puppies, simpering girls who do nothing, impotent soldiers who get murdered horribly, lots of innocent civilians for Lucy to murder horribly for no reason (including Kohta's family), and some bullies who die horribly after killing Lucy's puppy (the catalyst and entire justification for Lucy's multiple killing sprees.)             

 

In general I'm not a hater and am sorry to start off with such a negative review, I just *HATE HATE HATE* this. I'm definitely not as much of a connoisseur as some of you guys but when I hear good things about an anime for sure I'll check it out and most of the time I love it. Here're some 1-line good reviews on a more positive note. Death Note is my absolute favourite, I thought it was an awesome and suspenseful psychological thriller. I thought Attack On Titan's momentum was phenomenal (there's some gore there too but believe me, it's nowhere close to the extent of Elfen Lied's, it's clear that it's wrong, we're not supposed to feel bad for the titans because their puppies died, and there are people capable of standing up against them). I thought Naruto Shippuden had great character development and the Ninja War shitstorm was a great way to tie everything together. I loved Black Butler for the majestic scenery and attention to detail that goes into it, the brats I love to hate, and of course the handsome devilry.

 

I intend to check out Steins;gate, FMA: Brotherhood, Cowboy Bebop, and Code Geass when I get the time and will try to report back when I can on how that goes. :)

[iCherries]

There's your problem, you watched the anime.

The manga is a million times better, give it a go. If you want to make fun of the anime, watch the dub. That military guy's lines are pure gold.

[Tourmaline]

Have you ever looked into "Welcome to the NHK/NHK ni Youkoso?"

[Sleepy]

The reason that kept you watching the show was the same as mine, and overall it is in my black list as well.

 

The big selling point of the anime is supposed to be the weird combination of ecchi and extreme gore, and the impact it might have on the viewer. I personally was terribly perturbed when I saw it like, I think it was almost a decade ago already. I really was wary of everything for a while as I went around with my life, because of how meaningless and brutal and sudden most of those deaths were. At least that's the only real reason it stayed in my memory.

 

As far as story goes, I never went close to the manga, but an IRL friend that's a fan of the show had told me that the anime is pretty bad at explaining things in comparison. I did not quite understand everything that was going on, like how I was then told about a certain scene's meaning (spoiler alert): If you can recall near the latest episodes, Lucy did something that made a random passing college girl fall unconscious on the street one night. The scene has no dialogue and I was just focused in the fact that there wasn't a terrible death there.... Then my friend told me that's supposed to be the way in which those horned beings reproduced (well, not quite "reproducing" but when the girl whose brain was messed up by Lucy's invisible arms will give birth to a horned baby when the time for her to be pregnant comes). That's just to name an example.

 

It baffles me that the incestuous relationship of the main character was the main focus of concern for some people I talked with about the show. It was just dumb. I mean, hundreds of brutal and irrational deaths, and the promise that more beings that can do that roam around the world, and the main concern is that the cousin and him had a thing for each other. They could go have sex every night for all I care... Freaking lives being lost everywhere on whims and tantrums of these monsters.....

The story even for what it is suffers from issues as well. Lucy has a fight with an enemy that has like 26 arms, all larger, stronger, etc, yet she gets all beaten down on the floor a la Dragon Ball Z. For the standards of the show, I expected her to be ripped apart, and it would have been the only enjoyable execution to me. In fact, out of the seen monsters, Lucy was the most terrible and insensitive. The little girl with 26 arms seemed like she was sealed preemptively and showed to get stable when the guy who had some bond with her showed up (IIRC, it was a long time since I watched it so details escape). Then Nana: She was called a "special case" even though she seemed to be tortured on a regular basis and used for who knows what kind of experiments, and was covered in blood in her debut, yet nothing about her implies that she has any bloodthirst. She's the most humane one, and I dare say, the only character I remember liking at least a bit.

As mentioned, Lucy killed the guy's entire family in front of her. No amount of "I'm sorry" is enough. It kinda sounds like something Superman would have accidentally done in his youth that would have served to teach him the lesson of never losing control, but in Lucy's case, she's still a pretty crappy individual. Btw, her debut where she urinated herself, was it supposed to be "cute" in some way? Was it a bad excuse to get her into the house and into the family? I don't remember the details but I was grossed out by that, and IDK...





I think it is the "turn off your brain and watch it if you like pure gore" type of series. I was hearing about it a lot back in the day so decided to watch it thinking I wouldn't even flinch from whatever could be in store for me. I was young, easily shocked, and inexperienced. Would personally not watch again.

Have you ever looked into "Welcome to the NHK/NHK ni Youkoso?"

I liked "Welcome to the NHK" a ton, but as twisted as I will sound saying this: I disliked that Misaki is an actual innocent cute little girl in the anime. Much of what were bluffs and trolling moves from her manga counterpart were "the real thing" in the anime version.... She was like, too good. 

[Minato Sakai]

i liked it when i first saw, but after i watched it again, i didnt. if i want to watch something with gore, ill watch hellsing ultimate, because its fun and it doesnt take itself too seriously.

[Tentacruel]

I think I saw a small segment of it a long time ago on YouTube and was promptly scarred for life.  I have no desire to watch it.  I have not seen anything that has convinced me there's more to it than mindless shock value.  I actually kind of like Hellsing Ultimate, which is arguably just that.  Maybe the art-style suits it more, I don't know. 

[Sleepy]

Hellsing is different in the sense that...

 

-Often the deaths that happen are from people involved directly, like soldiers from one of the organizations and whatnot, and even when they are innocent victims, it is more to add weight to a character(s) than to cause shock value, and even then it is balanced out when Alucard goes to kick their asses.

Well there' is that issue with the Nazis going berserk over cities.... but you don't really see people brutally torn apart by the bombs, and deaths of non-background characters aren't just random sudden shock moments of blood-baths.

 

-Yes there is also gore, but it doesn't go out of its way to look terribly realistic. It can get detailed, but still cartoony.

 

It is definitely not the story that makes the difference since Hellsing is not really a masterpiece either, but I personally also found it more enjoyable overall.

[Susie]

i watched this a long time ago and ended up liking it, but that was back when i was an edgy 12 year old kid

 

lol @ 8.3/10 on IMBD, this series barely makes the 3.5/10 mark

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

It baffles me that the incestuous relationship of the main character was the main focus of concern for some people I talked with about the show. It was just dumb. I mean, hundreds of brutal and irrational deaths, and the promise that more beings that can do that roam around the world, and the main concern is that the cousin and him had a thing for each other. They could go have sex every night for all I care... Freaking lives being lost everywhere on whims and tantrums of these monsters…..

 

I quite agree. All the bloodied, headless, and limbless corpses Lucy left behind can't be loved or love anyone (making her doing it for lack of love all the more nonsensical), and it certainly makes more sense for Kohta to be with his cousin than the mass-murderer who butchered his family in front of him. He does choose [i]both[/i], though.

[Astro Dude]

I hate Gory anime so I agree this is terrible.

 

I will have Astro Man reverse time on the dead people's bodies so they will be alive again, and enhance their bodies so that if they get torn apart again, they can just be put back together.

[Fusion X. Denver]

I remember watching Elfen Lied thinking it was alright, but there was a lot of better shows out there. Looking back on all its attempts at disgust and shock value, it just comes off as insipid and gratuitous to me now.

 

I intend to check out Steins;gate, FMA: Brotherhood, Cowboy Bebop, and Code Geass when I get the time and will try to report back when I can on how that goes. :)

Literally love all 4 of these shows, you're in for a Thanksgiving feast's worth of treats.

[Thar]

Elfen Lied has NOTHING on School Days.