Review of Elfen Lied

Story After what I would consider a fairly disturbing opening scene, I expected this series to be fairly interesting. We have a young woman who has just escaped from a high security government facility, where she was apparently held against her will. And it is quite obvious from the brutal massacre that ensues that she is a very troubled individual with plenty of hate for the human race, and perhaps deservedly so. Then after she is essentially shot off of a cliff by a sniper under the direction the director of the facility, she ends up on the shore of the beach where she runs intoKohta and Yuka. Still naked. And this is where the story starts to disappoint me. The writers of this show then decided, after creating such an interesting character, they needed to turn her, through the ever-so-convenient plot device of memory loss, into some sort of mentally challenged child with the body of a young adult who can only utter the phrase "Nyu." And she has horns that suspiciously look like cat ears. Soon after, more girls come to join Kohta's new "family," and yes, you get to see most of them naked.
Besides what's going on in front of the viewer's eyes, there is an ongoing plot in the background about the Diclonius race. I actually found this plot pretty intriguing as well, but it unfortunately takes a back seat to the character drama, which was... somewhat lacking. But I'll get into that later.
The main reason why I rated the story so low is because it's so contrived. Nearly everything feels like it's essentially forced to happen, and even in the rare instance that the story doesn't feel really forced, I still find it hard to take a show that still holds onto the harem and fanservice cliches seriously.

Art/Animation
I had no problem with the visuals. They were competently done. Although the only noteworthy artwork, in my opinion, is the opening, which is just beautiful.

Sound
I actually thought the music was really good. Lillium, in its various incarnations, is quite the haunting tune. It worked especially well as background music to help set the mood during the show's somewhat frequent depictions of human cruelty. My main problem, though, is that this is one of only a few tracks used throughout the whole show. So you can imagine that it would get a bit repetitive.

Character
This is where I had my biggest bone to pick with this series. Most of the characters came off as either unrealistic caricatures of who they were meant to represent, weren't fully realized or came off as pathetic excuses for fanservice. For more specific examples, read on.
Kohta is pretty much your typical harem anime protagonist, a total pushover whose shoes any pervert can fit into. However, I actually blame this more on the original manga creator than on anyone else. He does offer some depth, but he is also very unrealistic. I don't expect fictional characters to act completely like real people, but they need to have a certain amount of believability. Any sane, real human being would gladly turn in a lost, naked girl to the police and give a homeless girl pants if she is obviously lacking some. A normal person would definitely not want to turn their home into some bizarre sort of orphanage. And anybody with a brain would definitely be able to notice that their cousin wanted them, especially when she was making such obvious advances on you.
Yuka is... well, Yuka is the kind of cousin who wants you. Really badly. Where most girls her age have most likely outgrown any crushes they once had on relatives, she is content with longing for her wimpy, pushover of a cousin. I'm sorry, but why was this needed in the story, especially when there was already a love interest for Kohta?
Nyu is pretty much worthless. As a split personality, her only purpose was to limit the carnage caused by Lucy and serve as a rather pathetic excuse for fanservice.
Mayu and her back story were fairly interesting ideas, but it just seemed as if it was for shock value and an excuse to get her to walk around without pants. The writers of the show could have done a lot more with her, but they just chose not to.
Nana and Kurama were also good characters, and they brought up some interesting questions. But did we really need to see her naked?
Lucy, on the other hand, was the meat of the story and, at least in my eyes, was much more of a main character than Kohta could ever be. I thought the flashback to her past was really well done and I admit I did feel sorry for her, even if half the time she was a sadistic murderer and the other half what amounted to a naked child.
So to summarize the character section, Lucy is what boosts character up to a five. The other people involved in her story is what keeps it a five.

Enjoyment
Now, did I enjoy this series? On occasion. But it was very hard to watch, and I only kept watching because everyone else seemed to think this was some sort of masterpiece. I will admit, I did enjoy the blood and gore, as well as Lucy's back story. But I couldn't help noticing all of the flaws that this show had. And the fanservice was so over-the-top that it was gross. I really don't need to see naked fourteen-year-olds, and even when the fanservice involved older characters, it wasn't very tastefully done and was way too .

Overall
Elfen Lied could have been a good horror series, with plenty of violence and nudity. But instead it tried to be something more, and fell flat on its face.