Anime : What does the escapist think about Elfen Lied?

[BreakfastMan]

Overly pretentious, shallow, emo porn. It had a nice idea, but was badly written, unappealing, and was incredibly, pitifully depressing to an absurd degree. I often found myself gagging, not because of the gore, but because of how ridiculously sad it was trying to make itself. Simply put, not a fan. At all.

EDIT: FYI, this is coming from someone who enjoys himself some anime and manga.

 

[Ciartan]

Only watched like, half of the first episode, and i hated it. Seriously, the cat girl that peed herself or w.e just completely destroyed all interest i had in the series.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Interesting. Very disturbing but interesting.

Also the puppy scene. :'(

 

[Nazulu]

Well, not complete rubbish, but pretty close. It's been awhile since I've watched it but I can remember the main characters were as bland as characters get with no interesting traits what-so-ever, and everyone else is just poorly characterized, being serious one second to flipping mental the next.

 

[Smertnik]

The anime is pretty juvenile, with all the gore and ecchi bits; story and characters don't hold up, either. So yeah, it's quite mediocre. The best thing about it is the intro song.


Unrelated:
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[NathLines]

Loved it, actually. Glad that they ended it where they did, the manga just goes bananas.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

I enjoyed it, was kind of disappointed that it ended almost halfway through the Manga but it's an OK ending regardless.
The story was OK, a bit melodramatic at times but atleast not as bad as NGE was. The nudity was used a bit too much although I'm glad they decided to go all out with it instead of frequent use of "Convienient Scenery/Hair" as you see with other shows (think of that what you will). As for the gore? No problems here! Brutal decapitations are fine in my book and atleast a quarter of them did have it coming.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Elfen Lied ?
Boring, recycled concepts, cliched, "trying too hard".

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Got tired of its almost exclusive reliance on shock factor somewhere around episode 4.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Hated it. Manipulative, exploitationist crap with crummy voice acting.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Before The Wikipedia Search: Isn't Elfen Lied just little girls butchering people?

After The Wikipedia Search: I'm sorry, it appears that Elfen Lied is the story of ONE little girl butchering people. My mistake!

 

[Roofstone]

I enjoyed it. But it can be a bit... "Too much" at times I think. Restraint is a good thing, something the elfen lied creators didn't grasp.

 

[Trivun]

I wasn't a fan of the Bolivian Army Ending, but in general I thought it was great. It was my first proper anime, and I have seen better since then (Higurashi, Umineko, Death Note, etc.), but that doesn't diminish Elfen Lied at all. Good characters, an interesting story, and I really enjoyed the whole love story angle, even if it was a love story with a ton of blood and gore. And fanservice. All in all, not the best anime I've seen, but certainly ranking up there in the top few :.

 

[gruggins]

Tits, gore and angst (and Pretentiousness): the animie
...
that pretty much sums it up for me

 

[Sonicron]

Just... sad. An embarassingly badly written piece of gore porn and ecchi fanservice. I watched all of it, and I regret it to this day.

 

[Gemore]

Elfen lied it's the same kind of adult as The Witcher or some other dark fantasy etc.

gah i really hope you have read the books. but im assuming you haven't. They are really good, but i would call it dark fantasy done right..

No sorry i've only played the games.

And yeah i agree it's not done well, that's why i compared it to Elfen lied, because i think Elfen lied is a gritty dark mature anime done terribly bad.

fair enough, each to their own . personalyl i liked the witcher game and elfen lied, but everyone different hey. Either way the books were way better then the game

 

[TheIronRuler]

You see, i was requested to write a review about it, it's finished.
But, i wont post it yet, i just wanted to look at peoples opinions before posting it, i might find some new perspectives about it.
My opinion still stands but i would like to aknowledge several perspectives just to make my overall understanding of this thing richer.

.
It tried to show the frailness of the human psych..
It took small, weak little girls and gave them extraordinary powers by birth. Now, it shows how society treats a different person and how people can be cruel by shunning the abnormal...
It laughs at your face. The most weak looking people are actually able to stop entire armies by their thoughts. And yet, on the inside, they are either very lonely and seek true companionship or are over that stage and hate everyone else so much that they prefer to murder them.
My point?
It's bad. You could have tried to transmit all of it without the excessive gore, mutants, clones, spheres of influence and nudity. Yes, a young woman walking through a compound naked with men pointing guns at her does sound frightening - she is so vulnerable, but a moment later she snaps a man in half.
You could say that it has some philosophical merit.
In my eyes? It's Gore, Tits and an unintentional Harem sequence later on.

 

[JoJo]

I haven't read the Manga, but I did watch the anime. It was alright, a bit gory for me. Didn't appreciate what I deem the, 'The puppy part'; but maybe I am just overly sensitive to that sort of thing. However, I absolutely adore the theme song.

To be honest the puppy bit seemed pretty tame to me considering how many people we saw actually killed on screen, I did feel very sorry for the little girl at that point though.

OT: I think it's quite a good anime, perhaps too many gore and nudity in places, but if you could look past that there were a lot of meaningful parts and dilemmas. I found the ending with Dr. Kurama and his daughter particularly emotional.

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I haven't read the Manga, but I did watch the anime. It was alright, a bit gory for me. Didn't appreciate what I deem the, 'The puppy part'; but maybe I am just overly sensitive to that sort of thing. However, I absolutely adore the theme song.

To be honest the puppy bit seemed pretty tame to me considering how many people we saw actually killed on screen, I did feel very sorry for the little girl at that point though.

Well, I like I said. Maybe I am just overly-sensitive to cartoon puppies. lol

 

[TiefBlau]

It looks like the creation of a sexually frustrated 12-year old.

Protip: Lots of gore and lots of tits doesn't make anything more "mature".