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Lucy, a beautiful but extremely dangerous mutant, escapes from a sinister research facility, brutally slaughtering anyone that gets in her way, whether they intended to or not. However, a glancing head shot from a sniper rifle leaves her injured, and she falls into the ocean, unconscious...
Later, the handsome university student Kouta and his cousin Yuuka are walking along the beach when they find a naked young woman with horns on her head. They end up taking her home and calling her Nyu after the only sound she makes.
Between the sinister government agency running the facility, Yuuka's jealousy, Nyu's sociopathic alternate personality and a traumatic past he cannot remember, Kouta is in deep trouble. Caught between monsters, both human and not, where does his loyalty lie?
Elfen Lied is a very, very bloody ecchi anime adapted from a manga of the same name, which has been likened to a combination of X-Men, Carrie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Love Hina. In other words, it's a twisted mixture of pseudo-harem antics, mutant battles, cute girls, split personalities, and of course, lots and lots of gore - and it's more than happy to swing between comedy and horror at the drop of a hat. It has also been compared to I Dream Of Jeannie as done by David Lynch and Wes Craven.
Now has its own Character Page. Contributions are greatly encouraged and appreciated.
This show provides examples of:
- Abridged Series
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Kohta and Yuka adopt Mayu, despite there only being a 5 year age difference.
- Adaptation Displacement: At least in the U.S., what with the manga not being licensed there.
- Accidental Pervert: Kouta
- All Of The Other Reindeer
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Are the Diclonii predisposed towards Always Chaotic Evil? Simply scared (and powerful) children? Draw your own conclusions.
- And I Must Scream: Number 28 in the manga, oh lord, Number 28.
- And Your Little Dog Too: Inverted, the female lead does it to the antagonist and the male lead.
- Anime Anatomy: In this case, what you see is what you get. Silpelits are so dangerous Diclonii have evolved to make sure they don't have reproductive organs or the vectors to breed.
- Not necessarily. While it's never said if Silpelits are fertile, the manga pretty much states they have structure down there... when The Hunter heavily implies, if not outright states, that he raped a Silpelit before dismembering her.
- Anti Hero or Villain Protagonist? It's hard to pin Lucy down. Some would call her a Designated Heroine.
- Anvilicious: Admit it, subtlety is not this series' strong point. Remember, kids are soooo cruel to anyone who's strange or different that they'll kill their puppy for the lulz!
- Artistic Title
- Ax Crazy: In the manga, at least, Lucy doesn't just nonchalantly tear people to pieces, she does it with a huge grin on her face.
- How can it be, that Bandou is not mentioned here yet? Not only he is a self-admitted Psycho For Hire, and not only he refuses to personally kill Nyu who can't defend herself, because he can't be arsed to do something so ''boring'', at the beginning, he will smash your face if you as much as try approaching him from the back, even if you are a harmless woman. He gets notably less crazy later in the manga, though, as a part of his Character Development.
- Bad Ass: Lucy.
- Badass Adorable: Mariko.
- Badass Normal: Bandou, after surviving multiple encounters with Diclonii, learns how to dodge vectors. (manga only)
- Bakers Dozen: Well, 13 plus one on the DVD.
- Berserk Button: Say something bad about Nana's "Papa." Just have some people ready to collect your limbs.
- If Lucy sees you as a threat to Kouta, you will die. Period.
- Manga Chapter 74 shows another of Nana's Berserk Buttons, though considering what The Hunter did, anyone would likely go batshit and try to kill him.
- Bishonen: Nousou, in the manga anyway. Kurama is a borderline example, but is an older man and later grows a Beard Of Sorrow.
- Big Bad: Played straight with Kakuzawa Senior.
- Big Damn Heroes: Bandou, chapter 75 of the manga, combined as it often is with a nice case of Dynamic Entry.
- Bolivian Army Ending: In the anime...kind of. Later revealed to be a plain old Cliff Hanger.
- Brain In A Jar: Number 28.
- Break The Cutie: Every single goddamn one.
- Broken Aesop: The Aesop: We can get along with people who are different and rise above our instincts with willpower and love. The broken part: They kill every newborn Diclonius and make a vaccine preventing them from coming back, and this is treated as a good thing.
- I believe that even more broken part of the the aesop is the fact that after all this talk about humans being a bunch of bastards, it turns out that all Dicloni have an Always Chaotic Evil sub-consciousness that can be very hard to suppress and can downright take over, erasing any traces of sympathy we could have towards them.
- Like Nana says at the end, "There are so many wonderful things in this world." The message is that there are horrible things in this world, but there are also wonderful, beautiful things that make up for it.
- Broken Base: Oh, God, the Fan Dumb. Oh, God, the Hate Dumb. The sane part of the audience probably won't make 50%.
- Broken Bird: Lucy is about as "broken" as a bird can get.
- Bulletproof Human Shield
- Bully Hunter: Lucy takes this trope to the extreme in her backstory. Just...don't hurt dogs near her, ok? Less a case of wanting to get her own back on bullies, more a case of having a full-on psychotic break.
- But Your Wings Are Beautiful: When Kouta first meets Lucy as a child this is more or less what he says.
- Caught In The Rain: Kouta and Yuuka in episode six.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Both Lucy and Yuuka show different degrees of this behavior.
- Complete Monster: The "Unknown Man" in the manga. The bullies from Lucy's childhood count too, and the researchers aren't exactly humane, either.
- Only Kurama shows some degree of humanity, and he's still VERY fucked up.
- Bandou skirts the edges of the Moral Event Horizon especially earlier on in the story, but just about manages to avoid becoming a complete monster. Even Evil Has Standards.
- Compressed Adaptation: The anime cuts off at around chapter 63, instead ending with a somewhat vague cliffhanger. For those who want to know what the anime missed, well...Kurama does not die with Mariko. A ton of other characters are introduced. Kakuzawa finally gets the death he deserves. Arakawa's role is bigger. Kouta's reaction to Lucy...is different. You know, just read it. It's kickass.
- Conspicuous CG: The vectors.
- Contrived Coincidence
- Crapsaccharine World: The melodrama takes places in a nice little coastal city and a very pretty inn...
- Crazy Prepared: Bando, after getting his ass handed to him by Lucy early on. He completely cleaned up the beach in order to make sure Lucy had nothing to attack with, figured out her range of attack, and got modified Desert Eagles that fired rounds too heavy for Lucy to block or at close range knock away.
- Creepy Child: Again, Number 28, and at least two of the unnamed Diclonii are insidious deceivers who pretend to be innocent to get near enough to strike.
- Well, they weren't really pretending to be innocent. They were so traumatized that they wanted to get back at the researchers.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: "Lilium", the opening theme.
- Cry For The Devil: The story seems to go to great lengths to show how much of an unfortunate victim Lucy has been throughout her life. Whether you buy it or not largely depends on your point of view.
- Curb Stomp Battle: Pretty much any fight involving Lucy, although this is reversed in the battle between Lucy and Mariko.
- Cute Mute: Lucy, called Nyu after the only word she could speak at first. Nozomi becomes one near the end of the manga in a more literal way, although she seems to have gotten better by the last chapter.
- Cute Shotaro Boy: Kouta in Lucy's flashbacks of her childhood.
- Dark Magical Girl: Lucy, emphasis on dark.
- Dead Little Sister: Both a figurative example and a literal non-example.
- Death By Childbirth: Hiromi, Kurama's wife, in a roundabout way: She had extreme complications with Mariko's birth, then tried to stop Kurama from killing Mariko shortly after her surgery and bled to death.
- Death Glare: Lucy.
- This happens with any Diclonius that has slipped into Kill All Humans mode.
- Demoted To Extra: Surprisingly few people are aware of Nozomi's existence. She was kept out of the anime entirely, despite being the reason that the show is called Elfen Lied and being a main character. After she becomes a Cute Mute due to injury in the manga, less than a page is devoted to her at the hospital. This is despite the fact that there was a ton of buildup to her exam results beforehand, and the latest development ran the risk of ending all her plans for the future.
- Die For Our Ship: Lucy/Kouta fans LOVE to bash Yuuka for being clingy, despite Lucy also being clingy in other (and scarier) ways. It makes you wonder if those fans really appreciate the Lucy/Kouta pairing for how screwed-up it actually is in canon...
- Then again, if you manage to find anything that isn't screwed up to some degree in this manga you are a gentleman, a scholar, and probably have no life after how long it took you to do so.
- Does Not Like Men: Mayu follows this to a degree; the manga implies that her traumatic experience with her stepfather has soured her on men in general, and finding Kouta in the bath groping Nyu doesn't help. Ironically, she appears to bond most closely with Bandou, who generally treats her like crap, except for when he saved her from the "Unknown Man".
- Dojikko: Miss Kisaragi only lasts for a whole ten minutes because of this. Nana lasts longer on account of being clumsy due to having to control her artificial limbs with her vectors. And instead of stumbling, her limbs fall apart...
- Nana is mostly in the anime. It's much rarer in the manga which mostly consists of her limbs falling off when fighting anyhow.
- Dysfunction Junction: If you thought Neon Genesis Evangelion was bad...
- Enfante Terrible: Mariko, and Lucy too in her flashbacks.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: See Family Unfriendly Aesop and World Half Empty.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Bandou, even while skirting the borders of Complete Monster territory, has lines he won't cross. If he feels in someone's debt he will try to return the favour.
- Evil Versus Evil
- Explosive Leash: Done with Mariko
- Family Unfriendly Aesop: The final chapter of the manga clearly states that the World Health Organization "forbade" the birth of Diclonii worldwide until they discovered a vaccine capable of preventing their conception. Red tape and technobabble aside, that's mass child murder achieved for the sake of genocide. This is also presented as a much better idea than, say, breaking the horns off so they can't use vectors anymore (even if they would eventually grow back) or simply keeping them in non-abusive environments when they're 2-6 until they can learn to obey the basic laws for living in human society. There's even anti-vector technology by this point! Remember kiddies, if you can't get along with your weird-looking psychotic neighbors who can do stuff you can't, it's them or you!
- Fan Service: Nyu's fascination with breast squeezing (carried much further in the manga; see Les Yay below). Also, the scene of Yuka sitting on Kouta's lap and kissing him is taken much further in the manga, and several chapters have still art of characters in revealing clothing or various stages of nudity.
- Also, PantyShots. Lots and lots of panty shots. It is an ecchi, you know.
- Fan Disservice: Lucy walks around naked in the first episode while slaughtering people and splattering blood and limbs everywhere. Mayu in the scenes where she is implied to be raped by her stepfather. Also, many of the Diclonius are naked while they are tortured and the like. It's pretty much a given that if a character is nude or nearly so, something bad is either happening or about to happen, with few exceptions (see the previous trope). Erotic or traumatizing? You decide.
- Fantastic Racism: Played straight in the fact that humans believe Diclonii to be murderous monsters that will wipe out humanity and hunt them down without mercy.
- Well, with ones like Number 35 running around, who can blame them?
- Festival Episode: And a tragic one at that.
- Fetish Fuel: Nozomi and her diapers in the manga. Granted, she has to wear them due to psychological trauma, but the way they're shown is frequently more along the lines of a Panty Shot.
- Freak Out: A lot of characters. Some get them multiple times.
- Freeze Sneeze
- Freudian Excuse: Kaede and Mariko.
- Fridge Logic: With a dose of Wall Banger or Idiot Plot, perhaps: despite the fact the military seems to know Diclonius abilities in detail and conventional firearms have repeatedly failed, nobody ever thought to use poison gas or even tear gas on them. The Diclonii's vectors would be useless against such an attack.
- To be fair, Bandou uses a flash bullet/tear gas combo on Lucy at one point.
- It's explicitly stated near the end of the manga by the captain of the vector tank that the Diclonii are too resilient for most conventional weapons to reliably work against them, including gas.
- Which doesn't work, since that's not a function of resilence. The only reason nerve gas won't work on them is because they have different biochemistry than any Earth-born form of life. Are they aliens now?
- Demons, if you believe Kakuzawa.
- Genre Shift
- Good Angel Bad Angel: Near the end of the manga, it's revealed that "Lucy" (real name "Kaede") isn't the Hyde to Nyuu's Jekyll, but a semi-neutral personality that had been listening to her completely insane THIRD personality that only cared about exterminating humanity.
- Since the research facility named her "Lucy", it would be assumed that Lucy is in fact the killer third personality and Kaede the neutral one we only see towrds the end.
- Good Eyes Evil Eyes: Used in a very prolific manner, particularly with Lucy/Nyu; just contrast the innocent Nyu persona's wide, bubbly eyes with the narrow, hateful, tortured eyes of the Lucy persona. In fact, a key characteristic of a Diclonius who's been pushed too far is a piercing, glazed over look in their eyes, signifying their descent into murderous misanthropy (basically every Diclonius in the show goes through this at one point or another, given that Humans Are Bastards).
- Gorn
- Gory Discretion Shot: Subverted, surprisingly enough: in episode 3, what looks like a Gory Discretion Shot implies that Lucy has done her usual job on a puppy that was bugging her. It's revealed only a few seconds later that she simply cut its leash.
- Subverted so often that after a decent percentage of the manga, if someone isn't dismembered or beheaded you know they're probably okay.
- Even being chopped in half might not kill you, especially if you're Bandou
- But there is a straight Gory Discretion Shot in the first episode.
- Grotesque Cute: You see everybody drawn in the cutest, most Sickeningly Sweet shoujo style, and next thing you know, you see torn limbs, heads and hearts, and blood sprayed everywhere!
- Harem Anime: Subverted. What could've been a major harem show is a high-handed drama instead.
- Harmful To Minors: If you're a minor in this story, may God help you.
- HeroicBSOD
- Heroic Sacrifice: Lucy, toward the end of the manga.
- Hey Its That Voice: Lucy is Reinforce and Allen Walker. Yuka is (a different) Kouta and Nodoka. Nana is Evangeline, Osaka, and Tsuruya, nyoro-n~.
- Hidden Eyes: Lucy often has these when she's the active personality.
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Arguably some of the things that are intentionally done to the girls while being treated as lab animals. Without question, Number 28.
- High Pressure Blood: Holy HELL is there High Pressure Blood.
- Hoist By His Own Petard: The Unknown Man and both Kakuzawa's die at the hands of Lucy.
- Humans Are Bastards: A huge part of the show, but Bandou really pushes the envelope, and the Unknown Man in the manga pushes it off a cliff. In fact, you can argue that the Diclonii are more human than the actual humans.
- Fantastic Racism: Basically, more or less every human or Diclonius is pretty unpleasant to its own kind, but especially nasty to the other. It may just be the humans we see that are nasty, but that's pretty much everyone except Kouta, Yuuka, Mayu and Nozomi.
- Humans Are Special: Don't look at me like that. Damn near every single human (except the guy who raped the one Diclonius repeatedly then stuck her severed body and brain into a jar to hunt down Lucy while she slowly died) who died or got close got some sort of last minute partial redemption or Freudian Excuse and the death is (eventually) portrayed as a sad thing. Plus, apparently humans are perfectly justified in wiping Diclonii off the face of the earth, after murdering thousands of their children.
- Identity Amnesia: The switch between Lucy and Nyu and back is triggered by either a nasty injury (usually a blow to the head) or a very traumatic memory. The manga eventually reveals that other Diclonii have Nyu-like personalities which are triggered in the same fashions.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The episodes, as well as the title, are in German.
- I Got Better: Nana, and Bandou twice. Kurama does as well. Anna does it too, returning to her normal form as well. It was a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming for this troper as well when Anna became pleased that she couldn't solve basic multiplication problems anymore. Diana manages this as well, despite stabbing herself in the heart.
- Ill Kill You
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Justified. The vectors of the Diclonii make most guns completey ineffective against them, but a high caliber round or suprise attack can still injure or kill them.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Nyu and at times Nana as well. This trope often veers from appealing to the viewer to freaking out the viewer completely
- Jerkass —> Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Bandou. While he's a much bigger bastard than normal of the latter, he has his moments mainly towards Mayu.
- It's perhaps better than nothing that Bandou is simply a Jerkass and not a Complete Monster, given his behavior and the general treatment of most humans in this show!
- Karmic Death: Kakuzawa and The Unknown Man get killed by Lucy.
- Karma Houdini: Lucy brutally murdered Kouta's dad and younger sister Kanae in cold blood, yet in the anime not only is she forgiven by Kouta, but it's hinted she survives her last showdown with the army. In the manga, however, Kouta does not forgive her.
- Double subversion in the manga as Kouta later Mercy Kills her (utterly justified by the circumstances), and keeps visiting the stone where they promised to meet for years afterward.
- Eeeer...Lucy/Nyu was truly regretful of her actions and the only reason she was still alive was so that she could apologize to Kouta.
- Kick The Dog: Taken to the logical extreme, but also subverted early on to show that Lucy's killing was more discriminate than we were previously led to believe.
- Kids Are Cruel: Lucy's childhood, which culminated in her Start Of Darkness when the children in the orphanage beat her puppy to death!
- Kill All Humans: Most Diclonii. Whether it's because Humans Are Bastards or because of a genetic drive is unclear.
- It's at least very heavily implied that it's a genetic drive. The fact that Humans Are Bastards just makes it easier for them to listen to their inner voice telling them to kill everyone.
- Kill Em All: Explicitly states that Lucy could singlehandedly cause Diclonii to outnumber humans (guaranteeing their extinction), but doesn't actually occur in the series.
- Kissing Cousins: Yuuka is infatuated with her cousin Kouta. Whether he feels the same way or not is unclear, with Nyu/Lucy in the picture and all. They DO have a rather intimate scene at the temple though...
- In the final chapter of the manga, Kouta's daughter resembles Yuuka.
- Kuudere: What young Lucy's tsundere tendencies have matured into by the start of the series. Although not at the same time, Lucy's character seems therefore to be the very rare quartet of Tsundere, Kuudere, Yandere and Yangire.
- Large And In Charge: According to the full-cast shot in the last chapter, Director Kakuzawa is taller than the rest of the cast by a notable amount.
- The Last Dance: Kouta has a fatal gunshot wound, Lucy/Kaede's body is already at limits from a abortive attempt at avenging the aforementioned fact on a global scale, and JSDF air and maritime forces are already scrambling to take her out with their full firepower. What does Lucy/Kaede do? She proceeds to sing Lilium while patching up Kouta's body on a cellular level and blasting the JSDF forces out of both sky and sea, simultaneously. And she knows full well that she's going to end up with a terminal and'' fatal Superpower Meltdown.
- Les Yay: Nyuu takes her interest in Yuuka and Nozomi close to sexual harassment territory. What about Mayu?
- In the case of Yuuka close is not exactly the right word. That thing with the breasts and kissing...
- ...and about Mayu: In the anime, Nyu gropes/washes her in the bath and it seems to not be a wholly unpleasant experience. In the manga, however, Mayu reacts much more negatively. Nyu is able to understand at least that much, is slightly perplexed and saddened, and any further les yay there is put to an end.
- Yuuka got away lightly compared to Nozomi, who got her first kiss stolen, groped, and would have been raped if it wasn't for Kouta coming in at just the right moment.
- As potentially Squick-y as that sequence was, when Kouta drags Nyu out of the room and scolds her,
 Nyu's reaction is one of the story's few truly funny scenes.
- Nyu has the mind of a two-year-old inside the body of a teenage girl and has no inhibitions about her libido, which makes it more than a bit squicky.
- Later in the manga, after being Nyu for a long time, Lucy at one point looks at Yuka and is puzzled why she is feeling compelled to grope her.
- Limp And Livid: Lucy. Quite a lot.
- Little Miss Badass: Almost all of the Diclonii are this during their preteen years.
- Love Makes You Evil: Lucy at first, but she does get better. Mariko as well. Yuka too, but to a lesser extent.
- Love It Or Hate It
- Made Of Iron: Lucy survives taking an anti-tank slug to the head in the first episode. To be fair, though, the thing barely grazes her, she's wearing a helmet, and she has her vectors to protect her. She still does survive falling hundreds of feet off a cliff into the ocean without drowning immediately afterwards though.
- Magical Girlfriend: They can't all be Belldandy.
- Meaningful Name: Lucy. Can be seen alternatively as a female version of Lucifer (the devil, which fits her role as an evil mass-murderer), and also sounds like "lucid," which could refer to Nyu only initially talking in full sentences when Lucy is at the wheel.
- It could also be an allusion to Saint Lucy of Syracuse, whose legend involves her eyes being plucked out (either by her torturers or herself). Lucy's eyes are often hidden under her bangs, whereas Nyu's eyes are wide and huge.
- That, plus her pure rage personality manifests itself with bloody eyes at one point.
- There's also the Australopithecus skeleton named Lucy who was found in The 70s, which fits the "not quite human" aspect.
- Memento Mac Guffin: Lucy's letter to Kouta. It also reveals her true name.
- Moe: Nyu, so long as she doesn't shift to her Lucy persona.
- Mood Whiplash: This should be obvious if you have read anything else on this page.
- Moral Event Horizon: Lucy's bullies when they murder her dog. Lucy when she murders Kouta's family. Mayu's stepfather and mother. Lucy again when she dismembers Nana. Pretty much anything the Unknown man does.
- Mugging The Monster: The kids who picked on Lucy and killed her dog didn't know just what they were messing with.
- Naked On Arrival
- Narm: There couldn't have been a worse time for Nana's sudden Clothing Damage than her faceoff with Mariko.
- Also, Lucy's puppy getting beaten to death with a vase by the cruel kids. It's supposed to be High Octane Nightmare Fuel, but some viewers find it so over-the-top as to be hilarious.
- Pick a bloody scene, any bloody scene in the anime for exactly the same reason. The cuter victim, more bonus points.
- Bantou fights the Unknown Man. After ripping out a spiked ball that the Unknown Man shot him with, he throws it back to him and it gets stuck on his butt of all places.
- Bandou's ridiculously loud and wild behavior, animal-like sounds and often idiotic actions makes him what can be considered one big Narm-factor in the anime.
- Nice Job Breaking It Herod: The bad guys regularly visit hospitals trying to find newborn diclonii and take them, with or without their parents' consent.
- No Holds Barred Beatdown: Although there are quite a few, Lucy fighting Nana probably takes the gold.
- No Longer With Us: Nana just felt like being melodramatic for some reason...
- Non Action Guy: Kouta. He isn't very strong, smart, has no powers, weapons or anything except some cool friends.
- Although he has a knack for solving his problems by punching people in the face.
- Not What It Looks Like: Subverted. It's exactly what it looks like. Kouta is most definitely groping Nyu, mostly because she made him. Yuuka is not exactly convinced by his explanation.
- Earlier, he's really just trying to change the clothes of Nyu, who is unable to do it herself.
- Off Model: The art in the first manga volume is a little dodgy, especially concerning Lucy's legs and several male faces. It noticeably improved.
- Offing The Offspring: Kurama and his Diclonius daughter, Mariko
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Opening theme, although it's more Haunting Latin Singing than true chanting.
- Only A Flesh Wound: Having your limbs ripped off or exploded is okay if you get a tourniquet, and usually if you don't as well.
- Only Known By Their Nickname: Most people seem to either not know or forget that "Lucy" isn't her real name. As revealed toward the end of the manga, "Lucy"'s real name is Kaede.
- Person Of Mass Destruction: Every Diclonius has the potential to become one of these.
- Pineal Weirdness: The Diclonius start as humans with large pineal glands.
- Pollyanna: Nana, heroically. Under ridiculously brutal circumstances that turned other Diclonii into Chaotic Evil unstoppable killing machines, Nana maintains an unshakable positive outlook, anchored by her belief that everything will be OK when she can be with papa again.
- Potty Failure
- Psycho For Hire: Bandou before his Character Development, the Unknown Man from the manga.
- R Rated Opening
- Raised By Wolves: Nana was Raised In A Lab.
- Rape As Drama: Mayu was sexually abused by her stepfather, and very nearly raped by the Unknown Man.
- Redemption Equals Death: Lucy/Nyu/Kaede´s final fate in the manga (and perhaps in the anime).
- Red Eyes Take Warning: Practically every Diclonii.
- Red Shirt: Played painfully straight. Almost every guard, soldier or cop seen is the manga end up slaughtered by a Diclonius, often Lucy, even if they're not agressive or fleeing, which probably make us wonder What Measure Is A Mook.
- Reincarnation: Vaguely hinted at the end of the manga, where the twins are apparently separate reincarnations of Lucy/Kaede and Nyuu.
- Theme Tune Cameo. Please Elaborate.
- The Promise: Lucy and Kouta agree to meet at the stone behind the festival terrain on the last day of the summer festival.
- The Runaway: Mayu is a textbook Abused Runaway while Lucy is a textbook Orphan Runaway. Nozomi kind of qualifies as an Abused Runaway, but she didn't really run away.
- Title Drop: The manga has Nozomi sing the titular song at one point. Much later, Lucy, who learned the song from Nozomi, sings it to help herself heal Kouta's wounds.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Kurama
- Seven Is Nana: Nana is Diclonius subject Number Seven.
- Shallow Love Interest: Nyuu
- Shrinking Violet: Nozomi (manga), Mayu
- Skinship Grope: Nyuu loves doing this.
- Shoo Out The Clowns: In the fastest Shoo-out ever, the general feel of Elfen Lied is realized when the cute Dojikko secretary gets her head cut off in the first five minutes of the first episode.
- Spider Limbs
- Split Personality Takeover: The shift between Lucy and Nyu; Lucy knows when Nyu has been in control, but doesn't try to stop it from happening.
- Staying Alive: Bandou.
- Superpowered Evil Side: The Ax Crazy Omnicidal Maniac personality which is inherent to Diclonii and which Lucy tries to not completely give in to. Lucy could be considered evil, or just murderously vindictive.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Lucy
- Tall Dark And Bishoujo: Lucy. Although quite the Yandere she is very beautiful and tall with long red hair.
- Team Mom: As the older of the girls, Yuuka is sometimes referred as the "mother" of the group in the anime.
- Tear Jerker: Especially the manga. Nana gets a lot of this.
- Tears From A Stone: From a stone Hachiko.
- Tears Of Remorse
- The Bad Guy Wins: In the anime only, but the way they resolved all plot lines by then, Kakuzawa is the only one who came out good. And he's laughing like a maniac over his victory.
- Theme Music Power Up: In the manga Lucy sings the German folk song "Elfenlied" while taking on an entire army from thousands of kilometers away. Apparently, the more thematic the song, the bigger the powerup.
- Too Dumb To Live: Kisaragi as Lucy proves ten-minutes in, in a very gory fashion
- Too Incompetent To Operate A Blanket: Nana. Raised By Wolves, and thus, unable to even cut a cabbage with an ordinary knife.
- Tragic Keepsake: The seashell.
- Trauma Induced Amnesia: Kouta
- Tsundere: Lucy, in her Start Of Darkness; Yuuka
- Unstoppable Rage: Lucy about 90% of the time.
- Unusual Ears: They're actually horns, but they look kind of like cat ears.
- Wangst: Yuuka, made even worse when every other character in the show is a major-league Woobie with way more severe problems.
- Used To Be A Sweet Kid: Lucy.
- What Measure Is A Non Cute: Sure, Lucy and Nana have it tough, but at least their looks let them avoid the fate of their faceless siblings who are treated as mere cannon fodder.
- Still doesn't explain Mariko or Number 28 though.
- What Measure Is A Non Human
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You: Occurs between Mayu and her mother.
- Woman Scorned: Sure, Kouta! Don't tell Lucy that you're going to the festival with your female cousin! Even if she finds out, it's not like she'll go so far as to murder your little sister, your father, and dozens of other people, right?
- The Woobie: It's hard to find more traumatized characters.
- Nana's the biggest one. Everyone loves Nana. She get's pushed around so much. Poor Nana...
- Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds: Lucy, so very, very much
- World Half Empty: After repeatedly showing that Lucy/Nyu had only acted as the humans around them acted, meaning that Diclonii raised by loving parents would be no more likely to become Chaotic Evil than humans, the manga kills off her entire species save a single sterile one. Were you expecting a hopeful solution when Humans Are Bastards and are the ones raising the People of Mass Destruction?
- Yandere: Lucy. As it turns out, the reason she killed Kouta's father and sister was that she was angry at Kouta for lying to her and saying that the cousin he was going round the festival with was a boy instead of a girl. Disproportionate Retribution at its worst (she was conscious of this later)!
- Nana is similar, in that she has a default cute personality but shows frequent signs of completely flipping out.
- Yuuka gets close early on, but she backs off. What? He can't remember a promise due to his sister and father getting violently murdered in front of him about twenty minutes after making said promise in some rather guilt-inducing circumstances? That bastard. Guess I have to kick his ass now.
- Your Head A Splode: ...where do we START!?
- Everyone who dies that isn't gorily chopped in half? Losing all your limbs at once is okay so long as you get a tourniquet though.
- The general rule seems to be that as long as your torso and head are still attached, you're going to be fine.
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