Elfen Lied

We've had a few threads for questions about the anime and manga, so here be Elfen Lied general. Let us discuss that work that people either adore or despise.

Uh...someone else can choose the first topic of discussion. ^^;

edited 26th Dec '10 1:11:35 PM by NatTheWriter

Great! I'm happy a threat like this started! (Hope I won't cause Hype Aversion...)

Anyway, I think I'll start the first topic...

Nature Vs Nurture: Are Diclonii really driven to Kill All Humans, or do they end up lashing out as response to Fantastic Racism due to Humans Are Bastards?

edited 1st Jan '11 9:20:49 PM by LSSJ2Gohan

Manga's awesome anime is shit done deal.

I say they both have their ups and downs. The Anime certainly have better artwork (Let's face it, Okamoto's drawing in the early Manga was So Bad Its Horrible).

There's also the ending... Me being a rabid LucyxKouta fan loved the kissing scene at the end of the Anime. Had they included that on the Manga, it would make me think more like you...

However the idea of Nana and Kurama as a pairing (Even if it's just implied) Its something I find rather Squicky (Must be because I'm a fan of MayuxNana). Same goes for Bando and Mayu (Same reason).

edited 1st Jan '11 10:31:30 PM by LSSJ2Gohan

I think it's a mix of the two.

Okamoto outright states that it's part of their nature lash out against humanity from a young age, even though he does make it clear enough that they've been seriously abused. It makes sense for some to be provoked to lash back and kill all humans. Still, it would be a mite unrealistic if every diclonii were driven to violence by the cruelty. While the diclonii have those "invisible arms", but when it comes down to psychology, not everyone reacts to abuse the same way. .__.; Some people grow violent because of it, some become submissive, some become a passive-aggressive mix, etc. Are we shown any diclonii besides Nana who don't have the knee-jerk Kill All Humans reaction to abuse? She's shown to be an outlier, even more outside the norm by being astoundingly optimistic and moe.

edited 2nd Jan '11 5:16:15 AM by NatTheWriter

I always had a weird theory about that instinct...

We all know that Lucy is the queen of the Diclonius, right? And all Silpelits are, in a very wicked way, her children. Now, there are scenes where the Diclonii are shown with some degree of psychic powers asides from the vectors: They can sense each other, and to a lesser degree, contact each other (#28 to #7, for example). I'm not sure, but maybe the voice Barbara and Nana (and arguably every other Diclonius Silpelits) had been hearing are coming from Kaede/Lucy, whose hatred for mankind has been manifested into a voice/Split Personality that wants to kill everything, and contacts the Silpelits to make them carry her will.

Just a theory, and possibly nothing but Wild Mass Guessing, Fan Wank or Epileptic Trees...

edited 2nd Jan '11 8:21:38 AM by LSSJ2Gohan

I think Elfen Lied was okay. It wasn't bad but neither was it the spectacle I was excpecting.

DDDDDD: that's creepy!!

lucy would make a really bad mom though.

edited 2nd Jan '11 8:28:55 AM by Nananana

And all because those bastard children killed her dog. Hoh.

Also IMHO the manga artwork was horrible from beginning to end. Okamoto hasn't improved even with Nononono. It got marginally better, but not enough to leave the realm of So Bad Its Horrible.

edited 2nd Jan '11 9:42:52 AM by Anarchy

That and the implied years of abuse and neglect she was subjected to ever since she was a baby! No wonder she's so screwed up...

The Manfga art starts as So Bad Its Horrible, but I think by the end has progressed into So Okay, It's Average... Still, the Anime artwork is infinitely better!

edited 2nd Jan '11 12:18:13 PM by LSSJ2Gohan

The artwork really gives the impression that the artist hasn't practiced drawing from life. :/ Proper foreshortening and proportions are few and far between. ...Why do the characters have irises in their irises in their irises? It looks bizarre.

I don't care for the anime's art, either, though that's likely because I went in expecting a realistic style. All I'd seen of the show's artwork was the page image, so it was jarring to learn that the designs featured big moe eyes.

edited 2nd Jan '11 1:00:24 PM by NatTheWriter

I personally found the Moe style from the Anime adorable, and actually fitting for characters like Nana and Nyuu. It also gave Mariko a disturbing contrast, giving her wide bubbly eyes with a sadistic personality.

edited 2nd Jan '11 5:04:03 PM by LSSJ2Gohan

I thought the manga's art got a lot better as it progressed, but it's been too long since I read it to remember if it's "good" by the end.

I like the "Lucy hive mind" theory.

edited 2nd Jan '11 8:45:22 PM by Willbyr

There are lots of holes and flaws, but never will you see greater carnage counterpointed by greater tenderness or humor. You begin to realize that we all have it all in us, good and bad. In re-reading and re-watching, I find something new each time, a realization or an observance. But the age at which the Silpelits' powers emerge - three - makes the nurture versus nature debate really tough. I mean, any kid that age can love you or hate you depending on the moment.

There are lots of holes and flaws, but never will you see greater carnage counterpointed by greater tenderness or humor. You begin to realize that we all have it all in us, good and bad. In re-reading and re-watching, I find something new each time, a realization or an observance. But the age at which the Silpelits' powers emerge - three - makes the nurture versus nature debate really tough. I mean, any kid that age can love you or hate you depending on the moment.

This...

Indeed, that's a good summation.

Here's one : Since all posting here love the series, let's pick on some of those poor old plotholes. My Top 3 :

3 - Mayu trusting Kouta - Early on in the manga, Mayu catches Nyu and Kouta in the bath, then starts to fear he's a monster like her stepfather. Obviously, by the time he is shot, she cares for him again, even if she doesn't come out and call him Father like in the anime. But the gap from fearing him to parental affection is a huge one, and seeing a chapter or even a scene where this fear is set aside would have been welcome.

2 - Yuka's mother doesn't trust Nana - Yeah, bring that up as the series enters its closing arcs, then don't resolve it. We all like Nana, dammit! We wanna know that she could keep the best home she ever had.

1 - Finally, The Male Diclonius. I think I may have ranted this one before. Okay. According to Chief Kakuzawa, (who could have been lying—he did everything else), they captured Lucy's Mom after finding out about Lucy herself. At best, that *might* mean mother and daughter were caught at the same time. Even with a quick conception, that's nine more months until the boy was born—there is no indication the Chief removed the boy from his mother. Lucy is a captive for three years, which means her half-brother was born Two and 1/4 years before her escape, with two more years in the series proper. Therefore, the max that boy should have been when Lucy met—and killed—him was five going on six. Remember, Primary Diclonius don't age fast like Silpelits. Yet the boy was up to the waist of Chief Kakuzawa—a very tall man. The Chief also had plans to mate them soon, that I could tell. I think a large part of Lucy's Hell No came from potentially doing a second grader. Of course, if Lucy's Mom was captured after her, that makes the kid even younger—but to my mind, he looks ten or so in his brief appearances. Myself, I have a fic solution. But in the series proper, that kid just shouldn't exist.

Here Endeth The Rant.

I think that, after living with Nyu long enough, Mayu realised it's Nyu herself who she should worry about, not Kouta. There's also Mayu's feelings for Bando, a.k.a mr Jerkass, who treats her like crap, even physically hurting her, while she fears Kouta might be a molester.

As for the Yuka's mother distrusting Nana, I agree, showing that subject, or the woman herself for that matter, at the very last arc wasn't Okamoto's smartest move...

The Male diclonius is one great mystey for me too. I think we both discussed this in a previous topic. Like I said back there, I do believe he knew about her from before he knew about Lucy/Kaede... Wait, two years passed in Elfen Lied, when did the series stated that!? The most I remember was a six month Time Skip after the Mariko arc and then another one of 4 months before the final 10 years one.

Also, another thing that bugged me from the Manga (But thankfully not in the anime) was the... well, "Electra Complex" Nana developed for Kurama, saying she wants to have her babies and still calling him Papa at the same time...

edited 8th Jan '11 6:09:32 PM by LSSJ2Gohan

Well, on the one hand, while squicky, given how messed up the rest of their lives were, Nana/Kurama would likely still be more stable. On another front, Nana is likely sterile (most Silpelits are) and Kurama like as not had himself at the very least a vasectomy after Mariko, if not outright 'fixing', so their chances of having kids is pretty damn slim.

As for the series' events taking two years, I forgot—that is my own calculation. Sorry to have presented it as fact. I worked it out like this :

As the series starts, Kouta and Yuka are starting college. Now, in the US, the majority of students first entering college do so in or around September. I don't know Japan, but I don't think it would be very far off from that. We then have the escape, finding Nyu on the beach, the SAT in pursuit, Bando's wounding, meeting Mayu, Nana vs. Lucy, and Mayu moving in to Maple House. I could see all that in one month and its immediate followup taking most of two to three months. It is December, and in the meantime, they adopt Mayu, the Institute looks fruitlessly for Lucy, and Nana is taught how to use her new limbs.

The chapter after that one (19 if I recall), life has settled in at Maple House. Mayu has been attending school for quite some time, Kouta and Yuka's dealings with her cold mother some time in the past, and also for quite some time, the two realized they must take Nyu with them to school. A timeskip is indicated, and I say it could be late March or early April as it picks up. It just seems to me like more than a few weeks since the last chapter, the one that ends with Wanta returning after ditching the woman claiming to be his true owner, and even with the cold acqueisence of Mayu's Mom, some paperwork and such probably needed to be processed, and Yuka's mother informed, etc.

We then go to Professor Kakuzawa's schemes and downfall, Kouta meeting Arakawa, Kurama beginning to bolt Chief Kakuzawa's control, Bando's reunion with Mayu on the beach, the extended orphanage/Young Kouta flashback, Nana leaves the facility, Bando vs. Nana, Nozomi's intro, Nana vs. Nyu, Mariko being released and controlled, Nana moving in to Maple House, Nana vs. Mariko, Kurama's flashback, Mariko's change of heart, The Kakuzawa worldwide infection scheme, Lucy vs. Mariko, Nyu again with broken horns, Kurama's breakdown, Nyu and Nana return home to Maple House, Chief shows Arakawa Anna's monster form.

My guesstimate has those events taking them to the start of the new college semester terms, however they are broken up, or in or very near the start of summer. In Chapter 72, when the series picks up, Nana states that six months have passed since Mariko, and it is winter-time. That all leads into Unknown Man, Bando vs. Lucy again, the invasion of Maple House, Kouta's memories return, Lucy vs. Kakuzawa, the Saseba assault on the research facility and the Clone Diclonii uprising and massacre, the discovery and then recovery of the vaccine, and the sinking of the island facility as Lucy escapes.

Lucy meets and talks with Kouta, sees him shot again and tries to destroy the world, but instead heals him at the cost of her own health, forcing Kouta to kill her after her 'good' personas depart, and even the DNA voice can't stand the pain. Kouta spends a month in the hospital at least, and the last thing we see before the final year after year timeskip is the usual bunch at the end of summer festival.

If school starts not long after this festival, then we have gone from one start of school year, spent a few months in events and aftermath, then skipped a few more after that. The end of one year and the beginning of a new one. The next set of events takes us up to at least the summer of that new year, then skips six months again, putting us in the first half of the new year. The remainder of the present-timeframe series seems to go up to the end of summertime, making just about two years.

I went to this series thinking it was going to be dumb violent crap on par with Ninja Scroll. It's not in my top ten but it was significantly better plotted than a lot of animé series that revel in their gore.

Indeed, Elfen Lied hides a deep message behing all the blood and boobs: It's a tale of how mankind's own cruelty spawned the reason they were (almost) driven to extinction: The Diclonii, namely Lucy

edited 12th Jan '11 4:39:48 PM by LSSJ2Gohan

OK, I'm sorry, but...please tell me the depth in a message like that. It takes hardly any thought or creativity to write a story where humanity abuses another species; nor does it take much to write about humans causing their own downfall through their own cruelty/stupidity/instincts. Both are common tropes and can be written by anyone with enough cynicism.

It's got more than one layer. See, the manga reveals that the Kakuzawas originated in Kamakura, with some of their ancestors having a slight mutation—vestigial horns on top of the head. In the superstitious climate of medieval Japan, they were branded and hunted (even the name 'Kakuzawa' means 'Valley of the Horned Ones'), and even had to hide out in an island's underground grotto that later turned out to be radioactive, worsening these mutations. As time went by, the Kakuzawas got very good at hiding their horns, and sadly, even better at creating a racial mythology which stated that their ancestors wielded vast powers, diluted by intermarriage with 'Humans'. They saw Lucy as a prophesied savior, one who would restore their 'racial' power. In fact, Lucy's Diclonius were of a separate evolution, a new species; The Kakuzawas were just Humans with small horns. Their mythology, built-up to counter the shame others saddled them with, is one of the prime sources of all misery in the series. So not only is there the crit of Humans actually slamming on another species (though not all; the series has nice people), there is the crit of hatred towards our own driving the hated to madness and delusion that combined with a real radical evolutionary mutation to almost destroy the world.

Had the ancient Japanese not hunted and killed the Kakuzawas as demons; Had the kids and caretakers in the orphanage treated Kaede right; Had Kaede not been so overwrought that Kouta's innocent lie meant to spare her destroyed their love instead through her subsequent actions. The list goes on. The Diclonius aren't dangerous because they are outsiders—to quote the great Possum, We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is Us.

edited 12th Jan '11 11:34:20 PM by Gojirob

Since all posting here love the series

Not quite. ^^; Sorry. I strongly dislike the anime.

Had the ancient Japanese not hunted and killed the Kakuzawas as demons; Had the kids and caretakers in the orphanage treated Kaede right; Had Kaede not been so overwrought that Kouta's innocent lie meant to spare her destroyed their love instead through her subsequent actions. The list goes on. The Diclonius aren't dangerous because they are outsiders—to quote the great Possum, We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is Us.

Ah, OK. I remember that bit. That one is pretty interesting. =3

Why did they leave it out of the anime? 0_o; Was it in the second half and thus didn't exist yet when ARMS was figuring out the show?

...Euh. Rant time. Sorry, this will probably be vitriolic.

It bugs me a lot that so many of the humans are shown to be complete monsters with little more beyond that.

The diclonii's actions were given analysis and explanation. While it may not have been good analysis, it was still something. The humans, on the other hand, are portrayed primarily as selfish psychopaths who do horrid things to both diclonii and other humans for little rhyme or reason. I can understand Humans Are Bastards from some perspectives,  ^*

edited 13th Jan '11 7:57:38 AM by NatTheWriter

Well, by the time most people deal with Diclonius girls in the series, its after they've killed people or been captured. They are an active threat, however much we like the characters who are Diclonius. More than that, the very project meant to contain them is corrupted by a man who thinks he's from the other side, and who is either a Complete Monster or just short—and I have an argument about his daughter Anna that takes even that away from him. When the Diclonius Clone Uprising occurs on the island, we see a sequence with two nearly kawaii researchers cowering together, pleading for their lives—but if they worked in that facility, then the odds are some very horrendous things are on their ledger. That said, they've been told to suppress all sympathy and empathy - these are our unsubtle replacements, and they have to be stopped.

I can actually name quite a few non-bastard Humans (outside of Maple House)in the series : Kurama's original assistant Oomori, who didn't want to let his daughter be killed for her horns; The poor woman at the festival who Kaede killed *because* she showed concern for her; The Bakery Lady; at times, Isobe, Shirakawa, and even Kurama, when they weren't in their 'it has to be done' mode; whole families killed by Kaede to have a place to live, whose views we will never learn; Families of Diclonius who turned three and then took a toy away from her at the wrong time; JSDF personnel who, as depicted, were mostly not Claremontian 'Kill The Mutie' types, just doing their job. The woman or women Kaede killed while walking down the street! Just because we see Kaede's start of darkness doesn't mean she's justified— far from it. She's five years killing women and infecting men after belatedly realizing she'd wrongly killed her only friend's family in a jealous snit.

Again, the Diclonius, for all their horns and powers, are still Human—and that's the problem. If they actually were better, they wouldn't care about their treatment, they'd just wait us out while they infected. Only Kouta and Nana consistently show love and patience beyond the norms we know, and both have suffered so much, even this is a shield against the pain.

Last minute edit/question : To your minds, is the woman on this chapter cover : http://www.mangavolume.com/elfen-lied/chapter-elfen-lied-52/2

Is she Shirakawa or Kisaragi? Shirakawa seems more likely, but a few chapters hence, Kisaragi is shown in a flashback. Thanks.

edited 13th Jan '11 11:49:03 AM by Gojirob