Warning first: Contains GRAPHIC gore/blood and violence. FAR beyond the usual level of violence and blood in TV and anime, even of mature rating. Not for the faint of heart. Definitely NOT FOR KIDS. If you’re under 18, you should back out NOW – and if you don’t, don’t blame me.

Now that that’s out of the way:

The story of “Elfen Lied” is complex but well worth your time if you’re a mature viewer. The plot’s based on a unique concept, with an interesting background and some enthralling twists, deep, dark, and mysterious. The pace is steady and well to follow. However, the end is open and leaves quite a number of plot holes, leaving you either craving for more or feeling disappointed you even made the effort to watch. The manga still seems to go on, but I didn’t read it, so I wouldn’t know. What can help fill up some of the plot holes though is the OVA. Count out the end, the series is something to behold and can’t be replicated easily.

Despite its supernatural aspect, the whole story touches on real problems throughout the world. Also, there’s the underlying theme of beliefs and religion. If you don’t like to be drawn into conflicting stuff, you most probably won’t like this one, period.

The characters are individual, and their dynamics and development are definitely well-done for such a short series. Character backgrounds are well done too – I find myself drawn to the idea of one childhood mistake haunting the person forever. It’s easy to feel with the characters, and there’s an unusually wide spectrum of emotions for a series of this length. Some of the characters are horrifyingly crazy – instant changes from a cute, innocent, and quite clueless girl to a strong, cruel, and utterly emotionless woman. Takes some getting used to it, but in a cruel sense it’s captivating.

Genre-wise, there’s as wide a spectrum as with the emotions. First off, “Elfen Lied” could be famous for its content of horror and gore. It’s a definitely hardcore psychological thriller, with drama, suspense, mystery, action, its supernatural aspect, friendship, and a touch of romance, the latter two adding to more light-hearted moments. I am quite sure some people would count in ecchi since you’ll get some eyefuls of women in the nude, but believe me, it’s completely non-sexual – not like “important body parts” were stressed oh-so-much. Actually, I’d find real ecchi in this atmosphere rather disturbing. :P As “Elfen Lied” is rather dark and evil, it misses a comedy aspect – or rather, there are tries at humour, but the humour turns out sick due to the general content. No more comment.

The dialogue in itself is fine; it has its corny moments, but it’s easy to get over those. The voice acting, however, varies a lot. Whilst some seiyuu, such as Sanae Kobayashi-san (Nyu/Lucy’s voice actor) are strong in getting their character’s emotion across, some of the other seiyuu may fail in portraying their respective character’s emotion, sadly disturbing the flow of the anime.

In terms of artwork and animation, I’ll admit I’m not sure what to make of this. The background scenery is definitely something to behold. However, otherwise, most of the artwork is red and black (or in English: dark and gorey), though it can be gripping in a cruel sense. The animation doesn’t go beyond fine. There’s horrific details shown that can be quite hard to stomach, as if the anime was trying to be horrifying just for the sake of it. The amount of blood is quite uncommon as well. For those wondering; if you can get past the first episode, you’ll be able to stomach the whole series, but quite frankly, the amount of gore left me with an uneasy feeling, and IMO not all of the horror shown was necessary. For sound effects, some of the gory scenes, though not even always explicitly shown, are matched with sounds that make you cringe. Talk about a cruel form of art. Honestly, I’d switch off my loudspeakers during the battles. If you love gore however… you’ve been missing out on an absolute fantasy. *shakes*

One question… it might just be that I missed something or whatever; but it seems like Diclonius bleed like humans on a normal cut but don’t bleed all that much when a whole limb’s missing O.o Anyone got an explanation? It might not distract you that much, but alas, I’m one to notice such tiny animation failures.

The music itself is excellent, both the opening and ending song fitting perfectly and giving the whole story a deeper meaning. Also, the opening’s in Latin for a change. ^^

For the entertainment factor, there’s no real humour in here. However, once you get over the amount of gore, the story is fascinating in a somehow cruel way.

Overall, “Elfen Lied” is a fantasy for any horror/gore lover, and it could easily be a classic for its emotions, philosophy, characters and storyline (though, from all I heard, the manga covers the story far better). The music is enjoyable as well. However, plot holes in the anime, so-so voice acting, and exaggeration of its horror/gore content wear it down for me.

It might be good for you if you’re looking for a short anime with well-done music, a wide spectrum of emotions, individual characters and character development, and an anime that touches real problems throughout the world in a philosophic approach. It might be utterly excellent if, in addition to that, you love blood. However, anybody who doesn’t like to be drawn into conflicting issues, or anyone sensitive to violence and/or blood definitely should not watch. In any case: MATURE VIEWERS ONLY. (show less)

I like it, to an extent! At first, i was like this looks scary and when i watched it, it was! But it was more of an entertaining scary but maybe too much blood and bone cracking sounds! This shows makes me sad, mad, and happy at certain points. Like the part when she killed those children when she was young, they had it coming for what they did; i've would've done the same thing since i be mad too. The concept, very interesting, it's survival of the fittest and discrimination between races. It's something i would watch again but i won't because I can't stand the sound of bone cracking sounds and it would make me sad again. The way the concept and the story was done was done pretty good, the ending wasn't a happy ending but more rather a big step towards it. (show less)

SYNOPSIS: A facility has been confining and experimenting about a rare species called Diclonius. Diclonius is a mutated homo-sapien with a very deadly telekinetic abilities and somewhat hold a grudge towards mankind. It is said that Diclonius will be the main reason for mankind’s extinction. A certain Diclonius escaped the facility and was ordered to be killed, she was shot on the head when trying to escape, and was thought to be dead. The Diclonius’ name is Lucy; she suffered from acute amnesia after what happened and was found on a shore in the town of her old childhood friend. Now this organization behind the facility tried to send out their best men for the job to stop the rampaging Lucy from destroying mankind.

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My first impression for this anime would be somewhat “scary.” There’s this very beautiful and slow opening song which is in Latin. Though I didn’t understand a word it said, the music is just terrifically creepy. After the opening song, you could be shocked on what you’ll see; there’s a ripped arm on the floor. 20 seconds into the anime and you’ll see bodies being torn apart horribly that probably those who aren’t used to gore would puke. Being very much oriented to having fun in ripping people apart, the blood spraying doesn’t only end with ugly male side characters. Next scene, you’ll see a cute girl who was only introduced to be badly mutilated with her head flying around. Being able to escape, Lucy started off living as “Nyuu”, her other side who is very cute unlike the blood shedding freak we know of as “Lucy.”

Outside of the facility, she’ll meet the the other most significant characters; Kouta and Mayu. Kouta and Mayu are childhood friends living in the town that Lucy/Nyuu unfortunately drifted on to. There, they took care of Nyuu thinking that she was a normal person who had amnesia.

One of the things that I really liked about this anime was how powerful the seiyuus (voice actor) were. Nyuu & Lucy have different personalities and different voices but it was only conveyed by one person (Sanae Kobayashi). The instant changing from cute to a totally psycho character was just amazing. Also, the BGM and Opening Song “Lilium” adds up to the total creepiness of the anime – that is a total plus for the anime in my perspective. Story-wise, the theme in having one childhood mistake haunting them forever is a bomb.

Without minding the gore part of the series, I definitely loved it; but still, there’s the fact that there’s gore. I don’t really mind gory scenes where a lot of bloodshedding and human body parts flying but the fact that it also includes cute girls being decapitated was a turn off. There’s this girl that I really liked in the series because probably she’s the cutest of all the girls but she ended up losing her arms and legs; that’s just a huge downer. Afterwards, the girl who got her extremities decapitated got detachable mechanical arms and legs instead. So here comes the humor; making fun and joking about her detachable extremities; that’s just sick. Gore aside, the story was pretty vexing; the ending really wasn’t an ending because there’s still a huge “question mark” in everyone’s faces. What really caused this is still unknown; the REAL enemy is still at large; and what happened to everyone in the end was still clearly not clear.

Still worth it to watch if you’re a major fan of the gore genre. With a lot of fanservice, it kinda covers the horrible memories the gory scenes give you. The whole story became interesting and more exciting up til the ending but to be honest, I lost my appetite while watching this. (show less)

Amazing......that is all that needs to be said

but for a proper reviews' sake this anime has got to be one of the best animes ever created
the storyline of this series is a original masterpiece, ive personally tried looking for more like this one but to no avail, which makes Elfen Lied an anime that'll go down in history, get on it people
lots of gore, a cute main character with a killer second persona and plenty of scenes to bring out the shocked faces and not to mention at times even tears, if you havent seen this one yet......what rock have you been living under?! Get on it!! (show less)