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 3

By noghri
27th Sep 06

I was gnashing at the bit to receive the final two volumes of Elfen Lied, when they appeared they were in the DVD player within minutes of dropping through the door.

What ADV Say

Does time heal all wounds? Or are some cuts so profound that the passing of the years only makes them deeper? No one knows better than Lucy, the horn-headed outcast forced to kill by genetics and circumstance, and Nana, dismembered by Lucy and left to die, who’s made a long journey on artificial limbs to exact her revenge. But although Lucy/ Nyu’s dark past doesn’t excuse her staggering body count, it does explain it. In volume three, the pieces of her mysterious puzzle begin to fall into place and shed light on her murderous ways, and opening a narrow window into the memories Kohta has so carefully blocked.

Review

As always, the first thing that strikes me when an episode starts is the opening theme, this is a personal favourite.
After the cliffhanger we were left on at the end of the 2nd vector, I was raring to go. I needed to know what happened when Nana lost it in front of Kohta and the girls.

This volume appears to concentrate on the background story, a collection of flashbacks gives insight into Lucy’s life as a young girl, the relationship between Lucy and Kohta, and the beginnings of the research centre.

With this background, you can really see what course of events lucy’s life took to create such a monster.

Episode content (warning may contain spoilers)

As we saw at the end of the last episode Nyu falls to the ground and everyone shocked by the sudden outburst turn on Nana. They cannot believe that this person they have just met, would hurt someone as innocent as Nyu. Nana flees the scene in disbelief and is followed closely by Mayu. She cannot believe that people would come to the defence of Lucy, and later reveals that she cannot actually sense Lucy’s presence.

Meanwhile back at the institute there is a meeting between Chief Kakuzawa and Arakawa the young research assistant who until recently worked with his now deceased son. She is shot and threatened with death if she does not continue the research work his son was working on.
The surprising thing is that the whole time he is trying to establish the identity of Kohta and his whereabouts he seems completely unaffected that his son has a pair of horns, as do all diclonius.

We return to the shared house and find Kohta and yuka caring for Nyu who is in bed with a fever. Most of this episode is a flashback to provide an insight into Lucy and how she became who she is today.

The flashback which is more than a little disturbing, shows the childhood of Lucy in the orphanage. She is constantly teased and bullied, but does not rise to the baiting by her classmates. One day she finds a small puppy and shares the secret with a friend who came to her defence when she was bullied by a group of boys. Later on the bullies enter the room and it is evident that they have found the puppy. Lucy starts crying and as they have finally got a reaction from her they start to hurt the puppy, after a while of beating the dog it stops moving, at this point Lucy’s friend cries out for them to stop, it is revealed that her new found friend if the one who betrayed her and with one last outburst the vectors make their first appearance.

Lucy buries the puppy under a tree and a familiar tune starts in the background, she turns and finds a small boy with a music box, he introduces himself as Kohta. Kohta makes a comment about her horns and she gets angry explaining that they have caused her nothing but trouble. She leaves and Kohta promises to meet her there the next day, as he wants to be friends.

It is revealed that Lucy is moving from home to home killing the occupants, and that the police are investigating the killings. She returns the next day and waits in the rain, after a while she gets angry and gets ready to leave, at that point Kohta arrives and puts a hat on her to cover the horns. If it covers them then they cant get her into trouble.

A few days later Lucy is visiting the grave of the puppy and Kohta appears, he explains that he is leaving the next day and that he would like to spend the day with her. So they go to the zoo, they see the animals and have a great day playing together. The innocence and sheer happiness after she has been treated so horribly makes this scene probably the most touching in the series.

There is a scene that suggests that Lucy has a few to many demons in her and they appear to be wrapped up like mummies, she is thinking that she needs a new place to live and that she will have to kill again. There is a lot of inner debate with regards to the guilt of killing innocents and the fact that she must survive. The justification of the killing is quite simple, nobody is innocent and all deserve to die.

Lucy tells Kohta that it was the best day of her life and that she would like to see him off tomorrow at the station and asks if she can go to the festival with him, but he says he has plans with his cousin. The inner voices tell her that it must be another girl and to avoid getting her heart broken she should kill him. She comes around with Kohta laid prone on the bus seat with her hands around his neck. She says that if she cannot stop killing she wants him to kill her. He doesn’t hear her but she wont repeat what she said. When they say goodbye she asks him if his cousin is a girl, but he says it’s a boy.

She goes to the festival to surprise him and tell him how she feels, and sees him with yuka. In Lucy’s mind Kohta turns on her and explain that he only spent time with her as he likes all the stupid animals, like in the zoo, and that she wasn’t human. Her scary inner self approaches her and advises her that she wasn’t made for this world and the only solution is to remake the world herself. She embraces this only friendly character in her head. And then the rampage starts the festival is a killing ground, this is all witnessed by Kanae Kohta’s younger sister.

The scene reverts to present time and we find Lucy awakening from the fever mumbling about going to teach nana a lesson. Nana recognises her instantly and a battle starts between nana and Lucy. Lucy falls as she is still in a delicate state but quickly retaliates; nana appears to be more concerned with protecting Mayu. Then an attack meant to kill Lucy is narrowly aborted as Mayu throws herself in front of Lucy to stop the fight. Kohta arrives and Lucy disappears leaving only Nyu.
Nana joins them for a meal and when the food runs out Nyu offers her own bowl to nana as Mayu said that nana gets mad when she is hungry. With this nana apologises for attacking Nyu.

Another flash back shows how Yū Kakuzawa the son of the chief recruits Kurama. And the research into diclonius. Several girls had been born who killed their parents at an early age. The brutal testing shows diclonius chained to walls and shot at by cannons. An escaped diclonius touches Kurama and another research partner before she gets killed.

Kurama's research partner has a girl born with horns and Kurama convinces him that she needs to be killed. Then when his own daughter is born he finds that she too is what is soon to be referred to as a Sipelet, a form of diclonius born from an infected carrier who has come into contact with vectors. Chief Kakuzawa demands that the queen diclonius be found.

We return to the present day again, and in the research facility the door is opened to a vault which holds a test subject designated number 35, the only recorded third stage diclonius who features 26 vectors which are actually visible to the human eye. This brings the volume to a close.

Thoughts

This third volume brings a lot to the series and despite the fact we do not see a lot of the characters, we see an awful lot of background into the story. While this changes the feel to the show, it certainly helps to provide the viewer with an insight into the story, which in turn brings a new depth to the show.

R2 DVD Notes

Notes:

-- noghri 27th Sep 06

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