Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
nowotato
(Spoilers below!)
The main focus of the series seems to be the main character's harem (with more focus on 2 of them) consisting of his cousin, a similarly-aged mentally deficient girl who is secretly not mentally deficient, and 2 underaged girls. If I recall.
The series focuses a lot on the underage girls being sexually/emotionally abused, the weird incestuous relationship between the main character and his cousin (which they portray doing things that I might think warrant an M rating), the youngest girl in the bunch running away from home due to being sexually abused by her step father, and the other underage girl being mercilessly butchered and having her limbs cut off over and over as if it was some kind of running slap stick gag throughout the entire series.
The series repeatedly us…
Read at the sourceliteraturenerd
Overview:
Despite having obvious flaws, Elfen Lied is actually my favorite anime of all time. I am aware that this anime is quite divisive and giving it a high rating is the equivalent of blasphemy for many, but first hear me out on why I actually like this series. Many critics say it is only popular from the gore and nudity alone, but that isn't exactly accurate. Gantz came out the same year with even more gore and nudity and failed to achieve 1/10th Elfen Lied's fanbase. Certainly this series whether you personally love or hate it has something else it does that makes so many like it.
Story: 9/10
One thing I will admit is that due to time constraints, some of the back story is only in the manga. To make things more confusing the anime seems to have a few key differences in the timeli…
Read at the sourceFear_the_Reefer
Ever since mankind perfected the art of starting fires, we’ve been at the top of the food chain. We’ve used weapons to make up for our lack of claws, and we’ve built houses to make up for our lack of immunity to the elements. We’ve invented food processing, as well as other techniques to ensure that we’re not pumping our bodies full of disease and parasites, and we’ve even invented supermarkets so we could stop hunting and sit on our asses all day while marathoning Gossip Girls. We’ve held dominion over the rest of God’s creatures for so long that we’ve never really had to worry about another species knocking us off of our seat at the throne.
While the practice of humans killing humans is about as common as the practice of making more humans to replace them, we never expected a threat to…
Read at the sourceAryaragi
An anime can be critically successful for many reasons, it could be due to a well written and engaging plot, innovative ideas that are perfectly handled or even have a deep plot revolving around thought-provoking themes. More so, "depth" has been a cause for the critical success of many anime over the course of time for example "The Tatami Galaxy", but for a show to have a level of depth is not an easy task for any writer. However, superficial depth can be achieved easily and even more easily confused for genuine depth. Such superficial depth ranges from cheap shock factor to random philosophical questions that have no relations to the core plot or characters and Elfen Lied is a prime example of such superficial depth.
The harem genre has never been an interesting or innovative genre in t…
Read at the sourceimbecilic
Let me start off by saying that this is an anime I have avoided for a long time. Though the show has many fans, I'd essentially kicked it under the rug because I felt that it was too “mature” for me. (Mind you, this was when I was in middle school, and a mere panty shot made me feel uncomfortable.) HOWEVER, last week, I sat down and watched all thirteen episodes over a period of four days, and I have quite a bit to say about the series. Some of my commentary might stray dangerously close to /butthurt rant/ territory, so bear with me. Let's discuss the technicalities of the show. Order of business numero uno: dub/sub. For this particular show, I suggest you stick to the original Japanese. Because the dub is ear-gratingly bad. The Japanese is a little lack-luster from what I can tell, but th…
Read at the sourceskankfish
It's tough writing negative reviews, because for some reason people who've already seen the anime want to come along and rate it as useless because they disagree. But this review is for people who haven't seen this anime yet.
Let's be clear on this one. One of the reasons I dislike this anime may be because it made me face the horrible realisation that I might just be too old for it (I'm 26, so maybe 14 years too old).
Elfen Lied is a harem anime featuring a collection of bulging-eyed stereotypes (including pathetic bitches) crossed with extreme violence to the point of perversion. If this sounds like it may appeal to you then you certainly aren't alone.
Anyway, let's consider the plot before we start ranting about how shit it is.
There exist certain people on Earth that have conspicuo…
Read at the sourceAndristian
Last week I was fortunate enough to watch one of the most highly regarded and critically praised anime series, called Elfen Lied. Why this series has garnered so much popularity over the years is surely no surprise to anyone: ask anybody who watches anime on a regular basis about the bloodiest, most disturbing series and you’ll often get Elfen Lied as the answer. This series is far from a simple no-brainer gorefest, though, and those who dare give it a shot (it’s certainly not for those who can’t stomach this type of thing) may find themselves completely overwhelmed by its beautifully unique story and memorable characters. I should know, as I am one of them.
First thing’s first: let me give you a little insight on the plot of the series. Elfen Lied primarily focuses on the relationship be…
Read at the sourcekekekeKaj
"Elfen Lied" has been nothing short of a phenomenon. There were no big budget promotions (like "Full Metal Alchemist" had), the manga wasn't exactly red hot property (like "Death Note" was), but it was suddenly catapulted to fame in an incredibly short time in 2004. It's the kind of overnight success story that films and anime have been made from. But does it deserve all this hype?
The short answer is no. The long answer is nooooooo.
Only kidding - this review is the long answer, obviously!
When I first noticed "Elfen Lied" on an anime site, it was listed as horror. But the picture shown on the site (not the picture from the MAL page) was this typically cute, giant eyed anime girl with pink hair. First thing that came to my head was: WTF? Cute, seemingly innocent little girl with a da…
Read at the sourceJulius_sleezer
STORY:
The story for Elfen Lied is supposedly an emotional journey that revealed all the deepest, darkest pieces of humanity and was supposed to give some poignant commentary on human nature and all that jazz. And although those are things that have certainly been done many times before, it can still be nice to see when done well. And yet, Elfen Lied really didn't do all that great of job of doing even that. All they really did was just kept showing you people being mistreated, and then it just stopped there. I mean, there were a few instances when something that might of been of substance began to develop but they were either cut off and the story shifted off into something else or it was just too shallow to ever really materialize into something. Honestly, they only thing I gathered fro…
Read at the sourcespiderjerusalem
Elfen Lied is an anime that many consider controversial. It's bloody, gory, perverted and just plain fucked up. Now I've seen some messed up animations in the past and I'm usually not against the stuff when it's in good taste. That is the biggest flaw Elfen Lied has: it's never in good taste. I'm sure someone at some point has implored you to watch this work. If that is the case, and you have not yet watched it then I beg you: DON'T.
Story: 1/10 (If I could give this a 0, I would)
What good can be said of Elfen Lied's story? It's a story. That's it. It's overtly complicated, totally unbelievable, and tries way too hard. Two people find a girl with horns and take her in. She can only say her name and gets naked too often. Then she goes nuts and kills people. All because it's her nature. An…
Read at the sourceKaminaKai
"A good attempt in bringing a wonderful manga live to the TV."
This review will cover Elfen Lied (anime) and the OVA which takes place within the storyline of the TV series. Please note that there will be occasional references to the manga but they will be spoiler tagged where needed and also a small part of this review will be taken from my manga Elfen Lied review due to some of their similarities.
Elfen Lied is well known for being one of the cruelest, goriest, and a highly perverted, piece of work ever. If you cannot stand watching blood, gore, and/or child nudity, please drop this show immediately. On the other hand, if you like twisted anime with plenty of cruelty (even at a higher level than Elfen Lied), I can recommend some more to you (just send me a PM). In short, one is expecte…
Read at the sourceNever_Know_Best
Story
After what I would consider a fairly disturbing opening scene, I expected this series to be fairly interesting. We have a young woman who has just escaped from a high security government facility, where she was apparently held against her will. And it is quite obvious from the brutal massacre that ensues that she is a very troubled individual with plenty of hate for the human race, and perhaps deservedly so. Then after she is essentially shot off of a cliff by a sniper under the direction the director of the facility, she ends up on the shore of the beach where she runs into Kohta and Yuka. Still naked. And this is where the story starts to disappoint me. The writers of this show then decided, after creating such an interesting character, they needed to turn her, through the ever-so-…
Read at the sourceMadhaxorsbaby2
To be frank this series was a massive disappointment on every level. I heard great things about from many people and anime sites. Basically this show is a glorified harem horror train wreck with fancy music.
To start none of the character reactions seem natural. Everything seems awkward and stupid. The characters themselves are all either insane or incredibly stupid (some are both). It's hard to get into depth without ruining anything so I will make an example. Imagine if the characters in Excel Saga's actions were all taken in a serious light. That is how stupid these characters are. Then there is this convoluted storyline that goes in so many different directions that it makes no sense. Then there is the stupid romance element of the thing. It's as if they try to make the most illogica…
Read at the sourceQuintessence
Before reading any of my reviews, please keep in mind that I am a VERY harsh critic. I do not hand out 10's easily and anything I rate 7 or higher I consider recommendation worthy.
Before I even start defending my opinion I just have to say that anyone who thinks this was amazing because of the amount of "gore" probably hasn't read 3x3 Eyes (also, Elfen Lied appears to be influenced by 3x3 Eyes, I'm not the only one to come to this conclusion). In short, this series is severely over-hyped and over-rated. If you want the long then keep reading. . .
Story: 5/10
The story itself was okay, but not really anything special. For the most part it was somewhat compromised to favor action scenes. The only part of the story that really interested me was Lucy's past which did not disappoint (9/10),…
Read at the sourceNightships
Elfen Lied could, quite easily, be called one of the most graphic anime series out there. If you find excessive blood and gore (as in numerous body parts being cut off), nudity, and to a lesser degree, suicide, animal cruelty, and scenes of child molestation (it is just alluded to, of course the actual act is not shown), to be highly offensive and not to your taste, then don't watch Elfen Lied. Of course, no sane person would find any of these particularly desirable, but if you can get past these characteristics that make Elfen Lied one of the most controversial (in terms of getting it to air on TV) anime series out there, you'll find yourself treated to a deliciously deep and dark story that will leave you wanting more.
Overview:
The basic outline of the story involves the diclonius race…
Read at the sourceTheLlama
--The review contains spoilers--
Elfen Lied: Infamous for its bloody mess of gore, cruelty and nudity. A combination that could make many a person turn away. Yet, a huge number of people watch this, knowing (to some extent) what they're going into, and it's one of the more popular and well-rated series here on MAL. Some people call it a 'masterpiece', people some call it 'perverted', some people don't know what to say, and some call it 'horrible'. The first is true, the second is an exaggeration, the third is understandable, and the fourth is so wrong.
The first episode starts off with what is the bloodiest and nuditiest 10 minutes of any show I've ever watched, and I'll tell you this: If you live through that, you'll live through the series. And vice versa. Lucy, a naked girl of the Di…
Read at the sourceVenneh
Title: Elfen Lied
Manga, Anime: Elfen Lied was originally a manga created by Lynn Okamoto, and it ran in Weekly Young Jump from June of 2002 to November of 2005. Twelve compiled volumes were released, with a total of 107 chapters. The Elfen Lied manga has not been licensed Stateside, and no one is making any moves to do so anytime soon. More on this later.
The anime itself was produced by Studio ARMS (who also did the production for Genkishen 2 and Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny), and directed by Mamoru Kanabe (who also directed the OAVs Demon Prince Enma and I”s Pure, both of which you probably won’t know). It ran on Japanese TV from July 25th, 2004 to October 17th, 2004. ADV licensed it Stateside, and the fourth and final volume was released on November 14th, 2005.
Story: So,…
Read at the sourceinoneoutheother
This is kind of tough for me to do. It really is, mainly because most of the people who love this series are also fans of many of my favorite anime. Maybe I just don\'t see something that everyone else does?.. and I feel the need to explain myself...
I have to say, I have been very confused as to why this anime is so widely known and loved. Awhile ago I tried to start watching the series and got about 2 episodes into it before deciding it was a waste of time. My initial impression was that sure, the show had a great opening score/artwork, but as soon as the real action began, there was nothing to be impressed with. Of all the anime I have seen thus far, this one has some of the blandest animation and character design. Nothing horrible, but definitely nothing noteworthy. Nyu may have some…
Read at the sourcejet2r0cks
I love the story, but I have to say - the nudity was a bit too much. I find it hard to watch this anime in public (I watch it online in an interet cafe near school since the connection at home is slow). Seeing naked children and preteens were kind of bothersome. It's even worse getting caught watching an anime who shows Lucy/Nyuu naked 50% of the time. I am still not sure why she had to be naked, and the same goes for the rest of the diclonius (It's not like they can use their clothes for weapons).
I didn't really mind the gore, decapitated humans aren't new to me, but sometimes it can be a bit surprising. I do feel sorry for the children who get murdered throughout the story. This is definitely not a Disney animated film. There's something about the gore that made it acceptable for me.…
Read at the sourceUbermensch
Elfen Lied is something else. Just watching the first 10 minutes of the first episode and one can understand that this is not your typical anime. A series modeled, in many ways, after the tragedies of Shakespeare and Ancient Greece, Elfen Lied is not something that you want to enjoy a sunny day with. The seemingly grotuetist violence and nudity may put some people off of this series, but I have to say that the story would not have the same impact without it.
Story: 10 - Elfen Lied boasts one of the most intense and intriguing plot lines that I have ever experienced in anime. It must be known that the central themes to Elfen Lied are hate, anger, and inhumanity. Every darkness of the human soul is represented in this 13 episode series.
Animation: 8 - Not much to say here. The animation is…
Read at the source