acosn said:
They pandered to the otaku audience with it, heavily. They could have built a split personality for the antagonist without making that retarded cat, and it would have given a lot more depth to the character.
I think the point to Nyu (God, I hate that name) was that she was pretty much retarded. She can't talk, she pees herself. This created a nice contradiction with her violent personallity.
And unfortunately, the reason that most people consider gratuitous nudity fan service is because the industry itself does. The folks behind Neon Genesis Evangellion called that notorious hospital scene with a rather coma-induced Asuka fan service, so it kind of set the uh. bar. for it.
I think any sane person will look at that scene and would absolutely
not consider it fanservice. Unless these days fanservice constitutes 14 year old boys jacking off into their hands. I also never tend to listen what creators have to say about the meaning of their own work; It can be pretty stupid most of the times and I like to formulate my own opinion of the story.
When you strip out the excessive gore and dismemberment Elfen Leid just isn't any different from any other poorly constructed anime except that you might consider it convoluted instead of just plain shallow.
That's not really fair to say. If you were to strip out the gore and violence from
Berserk you would lose a lot of what made the comic good as well. That doesn't mean it's covering up bad storytelling.
Elfen Lied definately had some bad storytelling, but the violence wasn't used to cover it up.
The violence was very effective in solidifying the notion that any of the characters (apart ofcourse from the male lead) could die at any second. Even if it was an innocent chlid, you knew that if he came across Lucy's bad side she would have no qualms in disposing him. And just as in
Berserk the violence drove the point home that this (where the story takes place) is a cruel and unforgiving world.
Not that
Elfen Lied in any way, shape or form comes even close to the brilliance that is
Berserk.
As for the nudity in
Elfen Lied, I view it the same way as I view nudity in a body horror movie: A contrast between the comfort and familiarity of the human form, and the grissly horror of what actually lies beneath the skin and how easily it can be taken apart.
But like I said, I don't even really find
Elfen Lied to be very good, it just does a one or two things very well.
