Quite a nice review... just that I think you should lay out the story first before you get into details on how you feel about it in the Story part ;) cos when I read this, I really dunno what is going on in the anime, you should give some teaser on the plot to get people interested and maybe the rating for Sound is pretty low considering how you praise it :D nice job ;)
Elfen Lied tv Review
The Diclonius, a mutated homo sapien that is said to be selected by God and will eventually become the destruction of mankind, possesses two horns in their heads, and has a "sixth sense" which gives it telekinetic abilities. Due to this dangerous power, they have been captured and isolated in laboratories by the government. Lucy, a young and psychotic Diclonius, manages to break free of her confines and brutally murder most of the guards in the laboratory, only to get shot in the head as she makes her escape. She survives and manages to drift along to a beach, where two teenagers named Kouta and Yuka discovers her. Having lost her memories, she was named after the only thing that she can now say, "Nyuu," and the two allow her to stay at Kouta's home. However, it appears that the evil "Lucy" is not dead just yet...
Story & Characters
Elfen Lied is... very extreme when it comes to violence and blood/guts. In the beginning of the story that definately makes itself apparent, as well as the partial (no detail 'down there') nudity. But, despite all of this, it has a very good storyline. It has a 'government experiment' theme, but underneath that is a very sad set of stories of the new race called 'Dyclonius'. The characters are subjected to all of the worlds evils, and is quite a tear jerker. It also had characters that weren't nessicerily tied into the story from the beginning (i.e. the military guy thats sent to destroy dyclonious) and a couple twists that left a few hints in the beginning for the smartest of us to guess certain plot elements. The main characters were Kouta- the average college guy moving into the city, Nyu- the cute 'girl reborn' with a secret (think Chii off of Chobits), and Yuka- Kouta's cousin who is a resident in the town. There are more characters, but I don't want to give too much away. This is not an anime for people who are easily offended.
Rating:
Art
The anime was drawn very well, with stunning colors (especially the reds). The characters expressions reflected their emotions very well, like even though Nyu looks exactly the same as Lucy, their faces were almost never alike. The killing was animated very well, and there were even details of bone and muscle structure after someone was ripped apart. The characters also didn't have the same exact clothes on everyday (like some anime I know) which was refreshing. The backround was pretty good... not especially different from what I've seen before.
Rating:
Sound
What can I say, I thought the beginning theme was beautiful. Its sung in.. Latin or German.. I don't speak either so I don't know which. I also noticed in the beginning theme that there are some famous peices of artwork (from the same artist, I believe) with the original people in it switched with the characters in Elfen Lied. I thought the end was... well, it didn't really fit the story if you asked me. The sound effects of the violence were pretty good, adding to reality to the picture with a 'splorching' or 'ripping' sound. I watched the subbed version, (is there a dubbed version?) and I thought the characters were pretty well matched with the voice actors, like Nyu and Lucy were the same voice actress, but Lucy's voice was much deeper, and Nyu's voice was very high pitched and cute.
Rating:
Presentation
I really appreciated Elfen Lied's ability to make me cry. I felt really sorry for all of the characters (especially Lucy) and sympathized with them. There were occasional humorous parts, to relieve the sadness of the story, but the humor was generally just average. There was alot of fanservice... which was kind of dissapointing to me, and many scenes where it didn't seem too nessicary to have Nyu in the nude. This was my first 'horror' anime that I've watched... but it wasn't actually to frightening, probably the only fear I had was Lucy waking up at the wrong time and killing some little girl or something O.o I had no problem getting into it, there were scenes at the end that I just had to see what happened next, so I ended up finishing Elfin Lied in one sitting. The end was not the general 'happy ending', but was satsifying to know that all was not lost while being a sad ending at the same time. The ending of the last episode... gives room for a 2nd season. Elfen Lied has a total of 13 episodes and an OVA (which I haven't seen). They are each 25 minutes long.
Rating:
Final Verdict
7.1667 (above average)
Reviewed by Xencresha, Aug 29, 2005
Comments
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tareren Sep 01, 2005
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bj0rn Nov 05, 2005
No! Never give spoilers in reviews! It's not a review anymore! It's better to let people be interested and spare the spoilers so that they got that suspense to go watch it. I mean, that's what a review is about~
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Xencresha Nov 16, 2005
Yeah... I do think I rated the sound a little too low, but I was worried about turning my review into straight A's just because I liked it. Personally, I think it is one of my all time favorite anime's... but to others it could be offending (my friend wouldn't watch it because of the nudity...) Sorry I haven't written in a while... hee
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Warpten29 Oct 18, 2009
Good Review. thanks.
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UberDog Mar 23, 2015
Simple but good review.
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