Elfen Lied Totally Explained

Everything about Elfen Lied totally explained

Side stories

The manga also features several side stories from previous works done by Lynn Okamoto. These stories came included with the release of certain volumes of the manga as bonus material (not related to Elfen Lied) for fans of the manga to collect.

MOL - featured in volume one

Digitopolis - featured in volume two

Memoria - featured in volume three

Carrera - featured in volume five In addition, volume eight includes two other stories that form part of the Elfen Lied universe.

NOZOMI is the first side story featured, and explains Nozomi's past and why she chooses to move into the Kaede Inn. This tale is in canon with the continuity of the main storyline.

The second side story that follows after NOZOMI involves the whole residents at the Kaede Inn throwing a party and indulging themselves in excessive drinking. Nana and Mayu fall asleep, allowing both Yuka and Nyu to release their inhibitions and deliver an intimate fan service to Kohta. Their fun is suddenly brought to an end when Nyu without warning switches back to Lucy who seems rather upset, ending the story with a cliffhanger. This tale isn't canon for Elfen Lied's overall plot.

Anime

The television series, directed by Mamoru Kanbe, animated by ARMS and produced by GENCO and VAP, ran for 13 episodes and adapted approximately the first 60 out of 107 chapters of the manga. Episodes one to eleven of the anime are in canon with the continuity of the storyline for volumes one to six of the manga, faithfully adapting most of the events happening in the latter. The last two TV episodes strayed from the manga's continuity and gave an original conclusion to the anime. The series' author, Lynn Okamoto, has a brief cameo appearance as a special guest in episode twelve.
   Elfen Lied first aired on TV Tokyo's AT-X satellite channel from July 25 2004 to October 17 2004 and was broadcast again in 2005. The anime was licensed by ADV Films in the United States in 2004 and was released on DVD in 2005. A single twenty-four-minute original video animation episode was also released by VAP on April 21 2005. It takes place between episodes ten and eleven of the original TV series, and for that reason, some refer to it as episode 10.5, OVA special, or even as episode fourteen. The special itself takes on a lighter tone and answers some questions of the early episodes rather than advancing the plot. During the Anime Boston 2006 (May 26—28) convention, ADV Films acquired the distribution rights of the OVA for release in the United States. However, the OVA was never released on television and wasn't included in the box set released by ADV Films.
   The series is currently airing in the United Kingdom on Propeller TV (Sky Digital) as part of Anime Network's launch in the UK. So far the series has aired uncut with the exception of one of Mayu's flashbacks in episode five as a result of it being related to child rape at the hands of a stepfather. While it has yet to appear on US television other than on Anime Network's "On Demand" Channel, the DVD box set confirms that the series has a rating of TV-MAVSL; the Canadian rating is 18A. The OVA episode wasn't released with the box set that became available in November 2006.
   In a posting on the official Adult Swim message board, Adult Swim programming director Kim Manning revealed that Adult Swim inquired into possibly airing the series, as she was an avid fan herself and watched the entire series in one sitting. However, the censorship board revealed that the series would have to be so heavily edited ("it would have been cut to shreds") in order to air that it would have been unintelligible, and it doesn't appear that it'll air on the channel at any time in the foreseeable future.

Production

Author	Lynn Okamoto
Director	Mamoru Kanbe
Series Composition & Script	Takao Yoshioka
Planning	Man Ooshima Mitsuru Ohshima Taro Maki
Producer	Kazuaki Morijiri
Assistant Producers	Manabu Tamura Osamu Koshinaka
Art Director	Tomoyuki Aoki
Art Design	Akira Ito Kiyoshi Ito
Animation/Character Design	Seiji Kishimoto
Mechanical Design	Hiroyuki Ogawa Hiroyuki Taiga
Color Design	Ryota Nakada
Editing	Takeshi Seyama
Sound Director	Katsunori Shimizu
Sound Effects	Mutsuhiro Nishimura
Recording	Norio Nishizawa Megumi Kato
Music	Kayo Konishi Yukio Kondo
Theme song performance	Kumiko Noma (opening) Chieko Kawabe (ending)

Director Mamoru Kanbe, at that time working for VAP, was originally introduced and recommended for production of the series by the series composer Takao Yoshioka, as he believed that Kanbe's general moe drawing style and composition would be ideal to adapt the manga, still in publication at the time, into an anime series. Kanbe himself was originally reluctant about joining the product, however gained interest upon reading the manga.
Kanbe originally thought that "this was a love story, and I could make it so that it would bring viewers to tears." Thus, he made attempts throughout the series to provide a contrast of emotions, commenting that he could make the violence exemplify this throughout the series. The setting in Kamakura was, according to the production team, ideal for the poignant and reflective drama in the series to unfold, as its general tranquility and geography made for a reflective and yet eerie, deep-meaning backdrop to the series.

Plot deviations

Compared to its manga original, the approach and depth of information presented by the anime involving the diclonius race differs greatly. The diclonius virus is explained in less detail with scenes such as Professor Kakuzawa's explanation of the half-diclonius status and ancestry of his family to Lucy being omitted. The diclonius characters in general are shown to have distinct limits on their vectors' quantity and range, which isn't true in the manga which states that Lucy's are still growing.
Characters were introduced in the manga that were otherwise completely omitted from the anime series. An example of this early on in the manga is an acquaintance of Yuka's, referred to as "Nozomi-chan." Similarly, the music box playing the "Lilium" melody that's featured in the anime never appears in the manga.

Music

Opening theme: "Lilium" Written in Ecclesiastical Latin lyrics cited from biblical passages, this song is arranged in style of Gregorian chant and performed by soprano Kumiko Noma. A majority of the incidental music in the anime series contains a variation of Lilium, either performed by the tenors or on pianoforte, usually during shots of scenery.

Ending theme: "Be Your Girl" Although being very different from the usual horror and drama of the Elfen Lied series, the ending song, "Be Your Girl," performed by Chieko Kawabe, is a pop-rock single and is often regarded by fans as a reflection of the relationship between Nyu and Kohta. None of the production team have commented of this usage, however. The song brought Kawabe to fame on the J-pop charts.

Reception

The series has received praise for its story and technical excellence in production quality, animation and color.Due to the many scenes of nudity and gore in the series, it has drawn criticism as being "overly blatant". The boldness of the first seven minutes of the first episode have deterred some viewers and caused controversy as to its release. The first four episodes are liberally scattered with horror and fanservice, often taking the form of bloody violence and random nudity and sexual innuendo.
Despite employing experienced voice actors for both the English and Japanese voice casts, such as Mamiko Noto and Kira Vincent-Davis, the series drew criticism for having sub-par voice acting across the series in the English dub, as well as in the first few episodes on the Japanese voice-overs.
Despite these criticisms, Western reviewers also describe the series as "really a genuinely good watch", "a horror series of exceptional merit", Anime News Network's members rated gave the series an average of 8.43 out of 10 ("Excellent") from 3983 votes, making it the fifty-seventh best anime listed in its database and the ninth most popular as of February 2008. In the 2004 AnimeReactor Community Awards, fans voted the Elfen Lied anime as the Best Opening/Ending Combination, Best Drama, Best Thriller (Mystery/Horror), Best Fanservice and also voted Lucy/Nyu as Best Female Character. Also at the first annual American Anime Awards 2007 at New York Comic-Con, Elfen Lied was nominated for "Best Short Series".

Style and themes

In the comments made by director Mamoru Kanbe on the Elfen Lied website, he intended for the anime to question and discuss values based on the way in which humans divide each other by difference, as well as the belief that atrocities such as those committed by Lucy in the series are strongly influenced by the way in which people are treated by their fellow beings. The series frequently discusses the events and treatment which define the human character in such a way, and the problems which arise from discrimination, as well as the wild contrasts between compassion and vengeance between fellow humans, through the strong vengeance of Lucy compared with her past memory of Kouta. Many of the themes are mentioned at the teasers at the ends of episodes in the series.
Themes such as genocide and the attempts to "purify" the earth from each other also appear in the anime between diclonius and humans. Both species feel the need to populate the earth with their own species and wipe each other out. Kanbe quoted this in relation to the desire of humans to cast each other out and segregate each other.
Throughout the series, there's a great deal of nudity, blood and gore, extreme graphic violence as well as psychological violence. One of the most prevalent motifs of the series is the humanity of the diclonius, especially contrasted against the inhumanity of ordinary people. One reviewer described the series as "devoted to quite a few of the darker, more callous factors of human nature". The series balances its darker themes with romantic sub-plots as well as many comic moments. Elfen Lied has been described as similar to, or borrowing elements from Chobits, 3x3 Eyes and is credited to the composer Hugo Wolf. A poem by Eduard Mörike is the basis for Wolf's version. The song doesn't appear in the anime as it's taught to Nyu by the manga-only character Nozomi. All episode titles have dual-titles in German.

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