Animanga/Manga| Information
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Animanga/Anime| Information
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is a 12-volume
Manga series (made into an
Anime series during the serialization of the manga) by author . The manga is published in
Japan by
Shueisha . The anime was developed by executive director Mamoru Kanbe. The title is (slightly misspelled)
German for "Elf Song" (see
Lied ), and pronounced approximately .
The story contains
Nudity and a great deal of
Blood and gore, as well as
Psychological Violence and extreme
Graphic Violence . The
Television series ran for 13 episodes (adapting approximately the first 73 out of 107 chapters of the manga), airing on Japanese television in
2004 and was re-broadcasted in
2005 . The series was licensed by
ADV Films in the
United States in
2004 and was released on
VHS and
DVD in
2005 . ADV Films said the series was one of their best-selling
1 and "most notorious"
2 releases of
2005 .
The story begins with a naked young girl (Lucy) escaping under odd circumstances from an
Island Research -facility off the coast of
Kamakura in the
Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan. Lucy manages to nonchalantly dismember and slay over 20 of the research-facility staff with some form of seemingly
Supernatural power and gets outside. A
Sniper is ordered to kill her but only manages to ricochet the bullet off the metal helmet encasing her head. Lucy falls off a cliff into the
Sea and is not found again by the research staff.
Lucy is a "Diclonius", a
Mutant strain of
Human s who have two horns on their heads and possess
Telekinetic powers through their "Vectors". Vectors (depicted as
Invisible "
Arm s") can reach out in a limited range and easily slice through bodies, or grab objects and propel them with
Superhuman strength at targets outside their reach. The Diclonius have great contempt and
Homicidal -tendencies toward humans, often viewing them as "inferior", and do not hesitate to
Kill them.
Another type of Diclonius are the Silpelit. The Silpelit are Diclonius that are born from a "Carrier," or more specifically, humans infected by the Diclonius
Virus . In order to achieve this, the Diclonius only has to pass one of his or her "Vectors" (invisible arms) through the
Pineal Gland of the human. Silpelit have the same powers as that of a normal Diclonius. Lucy later mentions that one single Diclonius could infect enough humans to make sure that humans would be all but
Extinct in 6 generations.
The next day, a boy named Kouta arrives at Kamakura to meet his
Cousin Yuka. Kouta has come to study at
University there and has been given the use of an old family-owned
Inn provided he acts as the
Caretaker there. After meeting with Yuka they go to visit the
Beach and find Lucy washed up there, still naked and bleeding from her head. However, the head-
Trauma that Lucy has experienced has caused her to develop a
Split-personality , "Nyū". In stark contrast, Nyū is completely docile, harmless and is incapable of saying anything other than "Nyū". Not knowing what to do with her, Kouta and Yuka take her back to the inn to look after her.
While Kouta, Nyū and Yuka begin settling into a new life, the researchers begin hunting for Lucy and characters on both sides find themselves in a situation much more complex than they originally anticipated.
(also spelled '''Kohta''') is one of the main characters of the series. Kouta enters the story when Yuka's family rents him a closed down restaurant as long as he maintains it, and begins living there and going to university. Kouta has
Traumatic Memories of the
Death s of his
Father and
Sister by Lucy's hand, which he has
Repressed . Due in part to his loss, Kouta has a soft-spot for girls in trouble and is extremely generous and protective to the girls around him.
is Kouta's . She is in
Love with Kouta, and is therefore jealous of Kouta's attention to Nyū, to the point of being very irrational. Mayu once described her as the "mother" at Kaede House, and Kouta was the "father".
Note: Yuka's relationship with Kouta is often considered
Taboo or illegally
Incestuous by
Western viewers but
Marriage between cousins in
Japan is only frowned upon, not illegal.
is a young girl 13-14 years of age, abandoned by her mother and a victim of
Sexual Abuse by her
Stepfather . In the beginning, she is
Homeless and subsists on
Bread crusts. Mayu is typically accompanied by a small
Puppy whom she found and christened "Wanta". She later ends up with Kouta and Yuka as her
Legal Guardian s.
is the chief of research of the diclonius children in the research containment facility. He is also the
Surrogate father of Nana and
Biological Father of Mariko. His wife died from
Caesarean Section complications shortly after she gave birth to Mariko. Although he had previously been tasked with killing all diclonius births, he falters when he must kill his own daughter. It is revealed late in the series that the General Director of the diclonius research program kept his daughter alive, increasing Kurama's perceived
Debt to him.
is an operative for the National Police Agency's
Special Assault Team (SAT). Though he is fully human, he is as homicidal and un-empathetic to other people as the worst diclonius are. He is a hardy and effective soldier. After being maimed by Lucy and repaired with
Bionic ,
Cybernetic and prosthetic implants, he escapes on a quest for revenge against her. He gets sidetracked several times in this quest, and ultimately receives aid from Kurama to find Lucy for a final showdown.
is Kouta's younger
Sister . She is protective of her
Brother and is jealous of other girls' attentions to him. Kouta cares about her very much, but repressed much of his memory of her after Lucy
Murdered her on a
Train along with Kouta's father.
is a
Diclonius girl about the age of 18. She has four vectors with a limited range of two meters. However, she can be swiftly lethal within that range, and will also use any nearby inanimate objects as high velocity
Projectile s to kill at a greater distance. She is also capable of stopping or deflecting most standard ammunition when she concentrates on the task. Lucy hates humans mainly because of how she was treated by her human
Peers as a child.
Consequently, she discounts non-diclonius as 'non-humans'. On the surface, she lacks
Empathy , kills without much concern, and acts somewhat
Sadistic . Nonetheless, her capacity for love (both romantic and for friends) is integrated throughout the series. Indeed, one of the major
Ironic elements of the anime is the interaction between the all-too-human diclonius and the savage and sadistic humans who purportedly need protection from them.
is a
Split Personality of Lucy, possibly created from
Brain Damage caused by a .50 caliber
Armor Piercing bullet ricocheting off her head (due to a metallic helmet). Nyū has a
Child -like
Personality and infantile knowledge of the world, and lacks spoken
Language skills. Nyū is lovable, innocent and incapable of violent acts, a
Foil to the normal Lucy; she is the manifestation of her 'good side'. When Nyū is attacked violently (or hit on the head), she will regress into Lucy; likewise, when Lucy is treated with love and kindness, she will uncontrollably switch back into Nyū, showing a
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Complex .
One example of this is when Lucy's presence surfaces when Nyū sees a picture of Kouta's little sister Kanae, whom Lucy had encountered eight years before. At the same moment, Nyū starts to cry and eventually tells Kouta that she's sorry. While she does so, she starts to remember something, and suddenly grabs her head as if in pain (much like Lucy had done when she switched back to Nyū as she tortured Bandou). Kouta embraces her, and the Lucy side of her settles. Both Lucy and Nyū are in love with Kouta.
Notes: ''nyū'' (or more commonly ''gyūnyū'') means "milk" in
Japanese . The character is called "Nyū" because, when Kouta and Yuka first meet Lucy on the beach, this is the only word she is capable of saying. Some anime fans compare this childlike state to Chi, the female lead of
Chobits , where when she is activated, the only word she can say is "chi", and her vocabulary later grows, much like Nyū's.
is a young Silpelit girl 13-14 years of age. Her name, 'Nana', is Japanese for the number seven, the number by which she was called at the research facility. Unlike many other diclonius she is not homicidal or sadistic. Although her vector power is slightly superior to Lucy's in terms of range and certain abilities, she lacks the strength and violent nature of the latter: her empathy for others does not allow her to fight as vigorously, and she loses her arms and legs when she is viciously
Dismembered by Lucy. With her vector arms, she is later able to manipulate
Prosthetic appendages and even throw them like a
Rocket Punch .
Nana can be seen as the exact opposite of Lucy. While Lucy's default personality is serious and cold, Nana's is friendly and kind; Lucy's split personality "Nyu" is similar to Nana's default while Nana sometimes goes into
Trances and acts cold like Lucy's default personality.
is a young
Silpelit girl 5-7 years of age. She possesses 26 vectors, each with an approximate range of 11 meters. Mariko was imprisoned as an infant and raised inside a
Steel container with human contact consisting of nothing more than speakers and monitors. Despite the environment she was raised in, she is
Relatively Well Developed Psychologically .
Her physical impairment is seen in her
Atrophied limbs; she moves around in a
Wheelchair . She is extremely homicidal and sadistic, and enjoys
Torturing and dismembering her victims. However, her personality is not blatantly evil. She is unaware of the wrongfulness of her
Homicidal acts, and the pleasure she gets from it is equivalent to a child playing with
Toy s. (According to
Kohlberg's Stages Of Moral Development , Mariko is a classic stage one.) She is the daughter of Kurama.
is the head of the research center performing experiments on diclonius. He is from a long line of diclonius ancestry that has been watered down by inter-breeding with humans (much of this is, however, only revealed in the manga). As a result of this he has no vectors and much smaller horns on his head. The aim of him and his son is, in part, to replenish their bloodline with the diclonius they are experimenting on (of which Lucy is the first to be able to reproduce) and thus gain power as "
King s" of the new race.
is the son of Chief Kakuzawa and also a watered-down diclonius with smaller horns and no vectors. He is, coincidentally, the lecturer for a course at the
University which Kouta and Yuka are taking. He is later
Beheaded by Lucy after he abducts her and attempts to have
Sexual Intercourse with her.
The complete manga series runs for 107 chapters spanning over 12 volumes.
Characters were introduced in the manga that were otherwise compeletely 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." These difference are subtle and don't alter the story of the anime too much from the manga.
The manga is only available in
Japanese Tankōbon as it has not yet been licensed by any company for official
Translation into
English .
- Elfen Lied Vol. 1 ISBN 4-08-876358-0 - October 2002
- Elfen Lied Vol. 2 ISBN 4-08-876379-3 - December 2002
- Elfen Lied Vol. 3 ISBN 4-08-876406-4 - February 2003
- Elfen Lied Vol. 4 ISBN 4-08-876446-3 - May 2003
- Elfen Lied Vol. 5 ISBN 4-08-876477-3 - August 2003
- Elfen Lied Vol. 6 ISBN 4-08-876513-3 - November 2003
- Elfen Lied Vol. 7 ISBN 4-08-876579-6 - March 2004
- Elfen Lied Vol. 8 ISBN 4-08-876638-5 - July 2004
- Elfen Lied Vol. 9 ISBN 4-08-876696-2 - October 2004
- Elfen Lied Vol. 10 ISBN 4-08-876764-0 - March 2005
- Elfen Lied Vol. 11 ISBN 4-08-876838-8 - August 2005
- Elfen Lied Vol. 12 ISBN 4-08-876884-1 - November 2005
The televised anime series is comprised of thirteen episodes. The series has been praised for it's technical excellence in animation and colour. Criticisms have been levelled at the English dub for having sub-par voice acting in the earlier episodes.
3 Another criticism is that the series ends abruptly with many loose ends to the story that could leave viewers unsatisfied.
4 The anime covers the first 73 chapters of the manga.
A single 24-minute
OVA episode was also released. It takes place between episodes 10 and 11 of the original TV series, and for that reason, some refer to it as ''episode 10.5'', ''OVA special'', or even as ''episode 14''. It should be noted that the special itself takes on a lighter tone and does little to advance the story (though it does answer some questions of the early episodes). It is uncertain if ADV Films plans on releasing the OVA episode or if another company will license it in the United States.
Literal meanings are given where they differ from the English episode titles.
The opening and ending sequences feature artistic drawings of the principal characters. These characters are drawn on a style based on
Gustav Klimt 's paintings. In the following comparison images, the left side of the image shows Klimt's work, and on the right side, Elfen Lied's counterpart:
The
German song ''Elfenlied'' ("Elf Song") appears in the manga (volume 5, p.154) and it is credited to the composer
Hugo Wolf . The song doesn't appear in the anime. Wolf's
Lied is based on a poem by
Eduard Mörike (''see
Elfenlied for lyrics and translation'').
The opening theme song, ''Lilium'', is based on several biblical passages and the hymn ''Ave mundi spes Maria'' (Hail Mary, Hope of the World) in
Latin (and a couple of words in
Greek ). The lyric and melody are authored by
Kayo Konishi and
Yukio Kondou , after being requested to make the song like a
Gregorian Chant . The lyric as appearing in the booklet of the anime's original soundtrack CD album are as given below (those in brackets are words from the saint/full version):
Os iusti meditabitur sapientiam
Et lingua eius loquetur iudicium
Beatus vir qui suffert tentationem
Quoniam cum probatus fuerit accipiet coronam vitae
Kyrie, Ignis Divine, Eleison
{O quam sancta, quam serena, quam benigna
Quam amoena esse virgo creditur.}
O quam sancta, quam serena, quam benigna
Quam amoena O castitatis lilium
The mouth of the Just shall meditate wisdom
And his tongue shall speak judgement
Blessed is the man who endures temptation
For, once he has been tried, he shall receive the crown of life
:''{Lord, fountain of holiness}
Lord, Divine Fire, have mercy
:''{O how sacred, how serene, how benevolent
How lovely, is this virgin who believeth!}
O how sacred, how serene, how benevolent
How lovely, O lily of purity
Elfen Lied deals with
Human Evolution with both humans and diclonius regarding each other as an expendible, dehumanized mistake. However, an important aspect of the series involves relationships between primary care-givers and human love in general - which were gradually revealed to exist between the dicloniuses and the humans towards the end of the series when both come to the difficult understanding that they are both indeed human, although there are distinct differences between them. The main drive of the diclonius is the propagation of their superior traits through the destruction of the human race. This homicidal drive can arise as early as the 3rd year of a diclonius's life. Many diclonius do not consider normal ''
Homo Sapiens '' "human"; this apparently stems from their very distinctive characteristics which in turn caused them to be rejected by fellow humans.
One of the most prevalent motifs of the series is the humanity of the diclonius, especially contrasted against the inhumanity of ordinary people. Throughout the series, we see incidences of human
Sadism , from casual beatings to
Pedophilic Rape to outright killing. Lucy, on the other hand, begins life as a perfectly psychologically normal child, with an obvious physical difference, tormented repeatedly by ordinary people. Although she tries to make friends with children her own age, she is spurned, lied to, physically
Assaulted , and forced to witness brutality in the extreme. She suffers enormously because of her day-to-day life, and her reactions are absolutely human: she varies between disgust at the casual cruelty, painful wonder about why she alone is so mistreated, wishing to retreat from her miserable life, and desire to wreak vengeance in the most painful way possible on her tormentors.
It is not entirely unreasonable to argue that, in the face of such horrifying childhood experiences, ultimately the only difference between Lucy and her ''Homo sapiens'' peers is her ability to strike back at her tormentors with overwhelming power. An ordinary child faced with such issues could not resort to
Violence to the degree Lucy can, and would have to find more socially acceptable ways of resolving the problems. So the violence of at least the major diclonius in the story is not due to some inhuman nature, but rather to very human reactions to inhuman treatment coupled with a non-typical method for dealing with psychological stress.
The story also deals with the issues of
Psychological Trauma and
Repressed Memories . Lucy has
Dissociative Identity Disorder , one infantile personality (Nyū), and another adult one (Lucy), full of painful memories and a solemn, murderous hatred towards normal humans (or more specifically, towards those associated with Kurama). Kouta suffers from
Dissociative Amnesia after his sister Kanae and father are killed in front of him.
