Review of Elfen Lied

STORY: The story for Elfen Lied is supposedly an emotional journey that revealed all the deepest, darkest pieces of humanity and was supposed to give some poignant commentary on human nature and all that jazz. And although those are things that have certainly been done many times before, it can still be nice to see when done well. And yet, Elfen Lied really didn't do all that great of job of doing even that. All they really did was just kept showing you people being mistreated, and then it just stopped there. I mean, there were a few instances when something that might of beenof substance began to develop but they were either cut off and the story shifted off into something else or it was just too shallow to ever really materialize into something. Honestly, they only thing I gathered from all this was that some people are big meanies, but there might be a nice kid in a bed and breakfast who makes out with his cousin that might take care of you. Other than that there was nothing really very tangible to take away from this. And with that being the good part, that left the rest/ majority of the series as just pulp, which consisted of soap-opera drama, Hollywood twists and sooper kool meat head action.

Despite all that, I still had hope because this was supposed to be an emotional anime, and human emotion is a beautiful thing even if the message behind it all is pretty shallow, but yet again, I was disappointed. I should have been moved after seeing a few of the scenes I saw, but I just wasn't because after seeing so many loved ones get their heads cut off and seeing so many people cry, watching those scenes was just like watching someone sneeze. They definitely needed to reel back in and remind us what real life looked like every once in a while for the sake of dynamic.

And lastly, I want to discuss one of the more talked about subjects regarding Elfen Lied’s story, and that’s the subject of the violence/nudity. I cast my vote in this area for it being more perversion than anything else. I was actually pretty disgusted at it at times. I can sort of understand the point of view of it being necessary, but I think it crossed a few lines. What was necessary (to a plot that is superficial by itself) was the fact that people were being killed, and that alone is an ugly enough thing to get a point across. What wasn’t necessary was the whole, maiming, disemboweling, eye gouging, and exploding. All that was there for one obvious reason, and that was shock value. As for the sexual part, I had a hard time justifying that. Actually depicting very young girls, or older girls who were just acting like little girls, naked and for the most part covered in blood in suggestive situations is pretty unnecessary. I mean, did every girl that had breasts HAVE to get their clothes ripped off when they fought? Did they HAVE to depict a little girl taking her clothes off for her step-dad? I didn’t really think so. There have been better stories that did a better job of making a character look sub-human without showing even a fraction of what Elfen Lied showed.

ANIMATION:
This isn't really something that generally holds much weight unless it's the focal point of a series. It's nothing to scorn, but it's really just the same recycled style/quality you see in so many series.

CHARACTERS:
The worst part of Elfen Lied. The characters are garbage. They are so cliche and so overboard, they almost insult the intelligence of the viewer, as if we couldn't tell that Bando was short tempered and callous without either threatening the life or punching the faces of every single person he comes in contact with. All the characters are extremely unrealistic and act in ways no real person in today's society would ever act. Like a four year old girl who talks like a James Bond villain? Or elementary school boys who bully their classmates by smashing their puppies faces in with bottles? Teenagers who find naked women lying on beaches and takes them home to live with them without exchanging hardly any words? Besides all that, there weren't many cliches that weren't used in the daily dialogue from the characters. It was actually pretty painful.

ENJOYMENT: Eh.This is subjective. I know there are things that people enjoy purely because of their niche, which isn't a bad thing. That could easily be the case for this one. If you appreciate and enjoy innovation and artistic integrity, I'd suggest skipping this one.

There really is a lot more to be said about this series, but I think I'm going to stop here. I'm really baffled at how many people gush about this anime. One good thing, is that it confirmed that I should never take heed to an animetard's suggestions.