ELFEN LIED
Let the bodies hit the floor...
Review by: M.H. "Symphony of Destruction" Torringjan
Length: 13 episodes
Genre: Sci-fi, drama, bloodbath
Watched: 13 episodes, subbed
I heard that there was a lot of blood in this series, and I was thinking something along the lines of Berserk or Hellsing. I heard there were naked chicks in this series, and I was thinking along the lines of a hot-spring episode or two. I heard that this was kind of heavy, and not for the squeamish, and I was thinking Now and Then, Here and There. What I got wasn't what I was expecting, and ended up being something in a league of its own in all respects.
Plot: In a secret lab somewhere off the shore of Japan, an emergency arises when an experimental specimen escapes custody, killing score upon score of men in her wake. She is an altered human with special powers, called a diclonius, to control invisible forces, vectors. These vectors can cut anything they go through, such as human flesh, and generally cause much pain to anyone they touch. During her escape, she falls into the sea and washes up on the beach of the mainland with no memory and no ability to speak. Kouta, a well-mannered high-school student takes her in, but the military is still out to get her back. Ultraviolence ensues.
Artwork: I thought that the artwork was pretty standard for this series, with nothing really excelling, and no really innovative ideas in the character designs or overall artwork. Not that it was bad, it just wasn't really remarkable. The only complaint that I have is the contrast between the artwork style and the material of the series, since much of the character designs are what one would expect from a school romance anime while the series itself is kind of... morbid and gory. It's like a clown delivering a eulogy, it just seems out of place.
Music: This is a place where the series excelled much more than with the artwork. The opening track is a haunting melody, sung in Latin by a soprano, and serves very well to set the mood for the material in the series. It's also employed at certain points in the series, and works very well then, too. The rest of the in-episode music isn't quite as remarkable, but still works pretty well. The closing theme is more upbeat, and kind of serves as a chance to decompress and kind of recover from the utter heaviness that is this series. Good idea to use that, and not a funeral dirge.
Characters: Has a surprisingly large number of characters for a 13-episode series. Start out with Kouta, the series' nice guy. He lives alone, hanging out with his cousin, who he just recently met again for the first time in eight years, Yuka. He has an enormous sense of compassion towards women, because of his sister who died when he was young. Yuka is a kind, friendly girl who's going to hell for her crush on her cousin (well, hell or West Virginia). Nyuu is the name that is given to the killing machine, Lucy, when Kouta and Yuka find her, naked and unconscious on the beach, since that's all that she can say. She has a hard time comprehending events that are going on around her, due to the injuries sustained in her escape attempt, but is well-intentioned and tries hard. Lucy, on the other hand, spends her spare time killing things by cutting them in half. Nana (or Seven) is a young girl with abilities like Lucy, who is commanded to find and bring back Lucy. She's a sweet little girl (when she's not trying to kill Lucy) and tries her best to please her "Papa." The aforementioned "Papa" is Kurama, the head researcher for the company who started this entire mess by capturing the diclonius and experimenting on them. He seems to truly care for Nana, due to some skeletons in his own closet. Mayu is a young runaway who gets adopted by Kouta after he finds out about her situation. She is a shy, reserved girl who doesn't want to be a burden on anybody and is basically this series' fluffy bunny character.
Plot: The plot seems kind of weak at first, but as the series goes along and seemingly unrelated threads get tied together, the plot strengthens and the emotional impact becomes more evident. However, some of the extremes that are taken in reaching the emotional impact are a bit much for my liking. In this respect, I'd like to question the amounts of gore that they used in telling this story. Now, I've watched other notably gory shows, like Hellsing and Berserk, and I reveled in the blood spray, mostly because it didn't seem like they were spilling blood just for the purpose of spilling blood. In this series, so much red ink was wasted in every episode as body parts go flying (usually heads) that I have to start questioning the validity of the gore. Now, I'm not asking for a Noir-esque lack of blood spray, but a little bit easier on the images of floating severed heads would probably go a long way.
CHICKS!! This series did the best job of making remorseless killing juggernauts look cute that I've ever seen. You start with Nyuu, and she has a number of desirable traits, such as compassion and caring. Her personality is only underscored by the packaging, as she's got a nice body, which gets shown off for pretty much the entire first and much of the second episode as she wanders around completely naked. So naive! So cute! You just hope that she doesn't get hit on the head, because she will rip your arms off and beat you with them, literally. Yuka is of a similar nature, but she's completely wrapped up in her cousin (like I said, going to hell) and doesn't wander around naked. Two major minuses in my opinion. Of course, she won't kill you after a blow to the head, which is a major plus compared to Nyuu. So, in this case, you might consider taking the safe route. Unfortunately, both Nana and Mayu are too young, so you'll probably want to leave them be to let them mature, somewhat like a fine wine.
Overall: At the beginning of this series, I was impressed with the gritty gore that was employed very liberally in the first couple of episodes, as it served very well to get my attention and engross me in the plot. Then, another fifty-plus gallons were spilled over the next two episodes, and it didn't stop there. While the writers of this show were trying for shock value in order to infuse emotional responses into the show, the shock began to wear off after a couple of episodes. Luckily, there was actual plot that was able to hold its own under the mountain of bodies, which made this a rather unique experience. Although I enjoyed this series, I couldn't recommend it for the squeamish.
IN A NUTSHELL:
+ Interesting plot
+ sympathetic characters
+ Nice music
- generic artwork
- Artwork out of place
- Shock value wears off
Final grade: 7.5/10
Note: Images used in this review were taken from the site: Elfen Lied.net.
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