Elfen Lied - The Complete Collection [DVD]

I've watched many anime series since I was about 12 years old, most of which are fantasy, adventure combined with good character development and visuals. Now 21, most of the series found in my DVD collection I've loved at first glance of the cover/synopsis and never looked back. The same goes for Elfen Lied.

The story centres around a mutant race known as "diclionius", who are mainly pink haired, female, have noticable horns growing from their heads and have psychic abilities from their invisible-to-the-naked-eye hands known as "vectors". The main focus from this race is Lucy, a sadistic woman bent on destroying the human race as she breaks free from a research facilty. After attempting to escape she washes ashore in a nearby town where two innocent college students find her...

After watching the first 2 minutes from the pilot episode, its easy to make the assumption that it's made for fanservice only. The opening titles have pictures of naked girls and Lucy, as she goes on a killing spree in the first episode, walks around naked, however after the pilot episode its goes into so much more depth than most 'fan service' based material.
Though the series is dominated by violence and sexual content (nothing porn related, just lots of nakedness), this is forgiven since the series takes a very dark tone. The violence and sexual content is meant to stress the dark side of humanity and empathise the trauma the character has suffered, not just to please its audience.

The music is beautiful, not just the opening and ending themes but the music score is wonderfully composed and fits the anime well. The art is some of the best I've seen, and though the series takes small elements from other series - as a whole it's original and is considered one of my favourites.

The biggest flaw I experienced from the series is the background story; lots of questions were raised and were not answered, many characters "flashbacks" are set at least 8 years before the anime series begins, yet offers no input in between the gaps. For example many 'Lucy' flashbacks took place when she was 10 years old, in the series she's 18 and you never find out how she became captured by the research facility and the series does not go into too much depth about the "diclonius" race. Though some questions are answered in a special OVA episode, its not avaliable officially outside of Japan. This factor to me though only made me want to watch the series again, and create a great desire to read the manga, which is yet to be translated into English but have discovered that it goes into much more depth that the anime fails too.

If you can watch anime in Japanese with Subtitles, I recommened you do so. The English dud voices are not the worst I've heard, but after the first 2 disks they become tiresome. My main annoyance it towards the females voices, with an exception of a few, most of them have high pitched breathy voices. They sound like they are all done by the same actress. What's worst is that the characters with those voices happen to be the most whinney/child-like of the cast - not a good combination!

DVD Extras wise, there isn't much to offer; on all disks you'll find a clean opening and closing, character artwork, production artwork, DVD credits and ADV previews - most of which are the same consistantly on all 4 disks.

Despite it's flaws I highly recommend this series to all anime fans, it offers a fresh insight on the genre and is worth adding to any DVD self. If you can't stand the sight of blood and body parts being ripped apart, this series certainly isn't for you. The same goes for those who want an anime series to answer all the questions it raises, you'll only get disappointment. However if you can overlook this and enjoy it for what it is, you'll find this quite enjoyable.

Please note that I own the four volumes separately and not the box set above, but I have read elsewhere that there are no differences between them.

Purchased this recently and although Im no Anime conniseur (Paranoia Agent, Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop are the only series I have watched) I can safely say this is a worthy addition to the aformentioned.

Technically the DVD is well mastered and upscaled looks a treat although the sound is quiet and the english dub (as mentioned earlier) is a little grating.

Its hard to pinpoint exactly what has got me about this series but as an analogy I would describe it as akin to good music where its the space between the notes which is important, not just the notes themselves (I hope this makes sense).

The script is sharp and poignant and genuinley touching and humourous with great characters and progression.

The nudity and violence is not gratutitous and always progresses the plot, its never done for 'fan service'.

Addictive as hell and it reminds me atmosphere-wise of Perfect Blue (but not so obtuse) I can't recommend this series highly enough.

Before I start, let me list the things that might put me off an anime series:
1. Big eyes - A shallow reason, I know but if it gets too stylised (ie the eyes take up half the face or more) I tend to let it be a problem for me.
2. Excessive nudity - a bit of nudity if it contributes to the story is okay, but when it crosses over to fanservice thats another thing.
3. Excessive gore and violence - again, a certain amount may be justified depending on the story and context. Too much and it feels like its there just to satisfy the slavering primal beast within us.

Elfen Lied has lots of all three and initially it was on my 'do not watch' list, so why have I given it 5 stars? Simply because despite all these things, its a beautiful series with an intelligent storyline, appealing characters and high quality artwork and music. From the infamously beautiful opening, drawing on the works of Klimt it had me hooked, and once I'd made it through the first half of the first episode without feeling too queasy, the story deepened and the violence took a back seat.

Yes, it has big eyes, but actually the series makes good use of them to distinguish between the Nyuu and Lucy personalities; the nudity is quite common, but its never sexual and rarely feels like fanservice, and the violence - well, sometimes it made me squirm but a series that can introduce you to a hateful mass murdering psycho at the start and have you rooting for her by the end - well, that's as good a praise I can give.

I would say to those who are hesitant to buy this series because of what they have heard about it to borrow off a friend at watch at least an episode. The only reason I know that my initial thoughts on it were wrong is because it was on the telly one evening and I had nothing better to watch.

In the end, not only was I wanting to keep watching the little world of Kohta and his 'family' by the end of the all-too-short 13 episode run, I'll also end up watching Elfen Lied again and again in the future rather than letting the set gather dust like too many other series I have bought.

Recommended to those who enjoyed Haibane-Renmei, Kino's Journey, Millennium Actress, Planetes and Whisper of the Heart.