If anyone is at least familiar with the title then it should be known that this is notorious for being one of the most gory animes ever. Despite this obvious fact, it's impressing for other aspects of this 13 episode series like its themes and story.
There is a big focus in this anime about a new kind of human race called "Diclonius". In appearance, they're exactly like human beings with small horns sticking out of their heads. They have a special ability using invisible arms called "vectors" that can grasp and impact anything, can reach out various meters and is commonly used to kill by slicing up their human victims. They're very prone to violence against the human race (whether it's in their nature or from abuse by humans as children) and seek to destroy it and repopulate the world with Diclonii.
The main character, Lucy, is a Diclonius held at a facility where she and others like her are experimented on. She manages to escape while leaving behind almost two dozen bodies dead by her hands. However, she receives a head injury during her escape and loses her memory.
Lucy is found at a beach in Kamakura, Japan by two locals, Kohta and his cousin Yuka. Because of her injury and memory loss, Lucy developed a child-like personality called Nyu and is clueless to her surroundings and lacks speaking skills other than the word "nyu". Assuming she's a runaway teenager, Kohta and Yuka take her in as she has no place to go. Little do these cousins know that they're getting themselves in over their heads than they could possibly imagine as people seek out to hunt for Lucy/Nyu and Lucy's split personality makes her unpredictable of what she'll do next.
I'll address this again: this is the most graphic and violent anime ever, which I feel is kinda unnecessary because the story itself is great and so are the various themes. Decapitation, limbs being torn apart, you name it, likely chance Elfen Lied has it. And I'm just gonna throw this spoiler out there just to say "Don't say I didn't warn you": There is one scene that involves animal abuse and just one. There is also a great amount of nudity and other mature content so if this kind of stuff will give you nightmares for the rest of your mortal life, you may want to avoid this.
But if you got guts like me and are able to get through the extreme violence, everything else about this anime is just amazing and beautiful. There are definitely plenty of parts that are complete tearjerkers, such as back stories of some of the characters and the actions these characters take. I let out a few tears at the ending which I will not spoil. It's also interesting to hear about this fictional species, Diclonius, and their psychological and physical struggles with these harsh experiments. And of course, the themes really stand out as well.
There are various messages in Elfen Lied revolving around social outcasting, prejudice, revenge, abuse, regret, and simply the value of humanity. I don't think I've seen an anime press issues like this as much as Elfen Lied did and it does it really well. And again, a lot of scenes revolving around these themes brought tears to my eyes. I truly loved it.
Now I did hear that the manga is completely different in plot because the anime was being made before the manga was finished so now I'm interested in seeing how big it differs. But for what the anime is and what it has to offer, despite the mature content, it truly is a great anime if you're able to stomach the violence.
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