Elfen Lied Highly recommended

Publisher
ADV
Director
Mamoru Kanbe
Production
ADV Films, GENCO
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
13 episodes/25 minutes per episode
Year
2004

Elfen Lied Vector 1

By noghri
7th Mar 06

I had heard very little about this show before I got this volume, I had heard a little hype and a lot of comparison to Gantz. Personally I have really been enjoying Gantz and was hoping for something special from this show.

I have read reviews of this story that says in the first 7 ½ minutes you will know whether you love or hate it, many have said it is like marmite. I personally don’t agree with this statement. While this opening gives you an insight into the extreme nature of this show as well as the destructive capabilities of Lucy, it is not as divisive an issue as marmite.

This show opens with Lucy’s escape from a research facility. Lucy has torn free from a testing facility, after having been experimented on as a diclonius test subject. She has unusual psychic powers that she uses with devastating effect, and horns that look surprisingly like cat ears, or the ears of a Persicom from Chobits.

This is not a show for the squeamish, from the get go limbs torsos heads blood are sent flying around the military base by a character only wearing a mask. It is obvious she is escaping from confinement and the methods she utilises to escape could give us a major hint as for the reasons for her incarceration.

Without so much as a flick of a finger people are dismembered, disembowelled, decapitated and generally annihilated in this gore fest. And without any trouble Lucy, as she is introduced, escapes naked as the day (we assume) she was born. The only wound she receives is a gunshot wound to the head from a .50-calibre rifle, or real big gun to you and I, because of a sneak attack from behind. The fact that this does not kill her provides yet another hint to the power wielded by this brutal monster.

This is a brief run through of the first eight minutes of the show, the only thing I can compare it to is when Tetsuo in Akira, goes on a rampage and kills everything in a rather gruesome fashion, or Kenshiro on fist of the north star, but he uses his hands to achieve these feats.

This show is just my kind of show, I really love Fist of the North Star, Guyver and Gantz, but this show has something different, as if the story and action was not enough for you, the artwork and soundtrack should be. I’m not saying that this show is for all I really don’t believe it is and the content certainly is not for younger viewers.

Juxtaposed with this brutality is the story of what happens after Lucy escapes. Two high school kids, Kohta and Yuka are cousins, Yuka’s mother has just offered Kohta a house near the beach as long as he takes care of upkeep. They are walking along the beach when they find a red headed girl, naked with a head wound, she has no memory and doesn’t even know who she is. After realising the only thing she says is Nyu, they name her thus. If anyone is thinking this is similar to Chi from Chobits, the resemblance doesn’t end there. She isn’t even house trained when they find her, she runs around and then pees on the floor. You almost forget that Nyu is identical to Lucy and is in fact the same person, almost.

Yuka decides that Nyu should move in with Kohta and after that suggests that she moves in as well to keep an eye on him. She is a little jealous and everyone knows that nobody is easier to fall for than cousins??!! So we have the quirky scenario with plenty of innuendo thrown in for good measure, could we have another harem anime show in the making?

The military release a specialist team to retrieve Lucy and local authorities are given descriptions and start questioning everyone. So with people closing in from all sides, and the madness in the household trying to integrate Nyu into society there is plenty of entertainment, and a constant worry that Nyu might regain her memory. This as it turns out isn’t the main issue, Lucy has not lost her memory as such. Lucy and Nyu appear to be personalities that share the same body.

Nyu bangs her head and for the first time you see invisible hands named vectors, reaching to rip this human apart, but Nyu seems to recover quickly when she realises it is Kohta and nothing comes of this. So, we are aware Lucy can still go psycho and Nyu is clueless, she is also developing an insatiable curiosity about her breasts and making Kohta play with them.

While all this is happening in the shared household, the specialist team sent to retrieve Lucy is closing in, and Kurama the chief of the research facility is recruiting other diclonius subjects to retrieve Lucy as well. So, Diclonius is set against Diclonius and the battle is very interesting, but relatively short-lived. It is made obvious that the Diclonius have different levels of abilities and Lucy’s ability to control her vectors far surpasses newbie Nana’s.

This is the general scene set by the first volume, I don’t want to spoil anything and so I wont go into much more detail. Ill simply say that this is the most refreshing show I have seen so far this year. And I cannot wait for the second volume to be released. Although similar content to shows like Gantz and Guyver, this has a completely different feel to it. The mood swings that the show exhibits when Nyu switches back and forth to the Lucy persona, personally keeps me yearning for more.

If you’re not faint hearted or squeamish I would recommend you pick up this new show, its great if not for the storyline then for the artwork and sound track. The only thing that is a little lacking is the slightly flat voices of the English voice actors. The only thing that confuses me is the ability of the characters to forget certain unusual occurrences. Like finding a naked girl with a head wound but when police come around looking for a missing girl it’s not mentioned. Or the fact that all the characters can just avoid the fact that Nyu has horns growing out of her head.

But these things are just niggles a little and don’t put me off at all. Do yourself a favour and give it a chance you might like it, but you might love it.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: The special features contains two sections of artwork, which are interesting enough and a clean opening and closing, but that is all. With some shows releasing commentaries, manga specials and various other extras, this left the special features somewhat lacking on this DVD. This is the once section of the DVD that I found to let me down.

Release information: Published by ADV on 20/02/06

Notes: The dvd format is 1.78:1 anamorphic pal, and the audio is available in both stereo and 5.1 formats, in Japanese and English. Total running time is around 100 minutes for these first four episodes.

-- noghri 7th Mar 06

Elfen Lied Images