The first time I watched this show, I was actually rather taken by it. It has an overarching theme of nature vs. nurture, with bits of commentary on dehumanization, government overreach and extremism in the name of public safety, and the duality of man. Because essentially humanity is facing an existential crisis that most of it is completely unaware of. They are the Diclonius, a mutant species that looks very similar to humans save the fact that they have horns protruding from their skulls (and just happen to look like cat ears), and all the females of which seem to have pink hair and red eyes. They also have invisible arms/hands called "vectors" which can impale or slice through all but the hardest materials, and which can also stop the bullets fired from most firearms mid-flight. This is the weapon of choice they use to slice and dice basically every human they come into contact with, usually starting with their own parents. Those who aren't sliced and diced, but are otherwise touched by the vectors, tend to become part of the unusual reproductive cycle of the Diclonius. The Diclonius are themselves physically infertile, but for reasons that are never explained, humans who come into contact with their vectors will produce Diclonius offspring, and so they spread kind of like a disease.
The whole nature vs. nurture aspect of this show comes from how Diclonius children tend to be treated, which the writing is completely one-sided about except in the case of the male lead, Kohta (and maybe a few other ones I'm forgetting about). I'd say the writer(s) had a very nihilistic outlook on humanity, as we see Lucy, the female lead, growing up and getting treated like crap by basically every single person she comes across. Kohta is the only exception, as he quickly does his best to befriend Lucy after just randomly bumping into her in a park. Other than that, her only friend is a stray puppy she finds one day, and provides the go-to example of how one-sided the writing is by having the other children who have been bullying her beat the puppy to death, which is the thing that makes her go homicidal.
Lucy very much argues in favor of "nature," which is what the Japanese government has concluded as well. We actually get so see an internal argument in Lucy's mind at one point, where another version of her is basically urging her to kill. The argument is complicated by the fact Diclonius will avoid harming animals, even when attacked by them, and seem to only direct their malevolence toward humans, even when they haven't been unkind or violent toward them. And then there's Nana, another Diclonius sent to hunt Lucy down following her escape from a secret test facility all the Diclonius captured by the government are sent to. Basically they are all being tortured to death by tests to find out information like the limits of their ability to block projectiles. I bring this up because for the most part Nana is very good natured and is basically a somewhat typical moe anime girls, who only ever comes close to killing someone only after that person had attacked her. The thing is, the man who was essentially her keeper (and apparently a father figure to her), basically pulled her out of one of those projectile tests almost as an afterthought. So basically if he hadn't found this use for her, she was just going to end up getting killed while they tested how big of a ball bearing they had to shoot at her or at what speed before she couldn't block it anymore and it killed her. So really she'd have as much reason as Lucy to go out and start murdering humans, starting with the people who'd been imprisoning and torturing her, yet like I said, she was basically your typical cute anime girl.
While I recognize the premise was flawed in execution on a very base level, I still found it somewhat compelling. But that isn't the biggest problem with this anime. Nor is the fact that this whole question of nature vs. nurture explored by giving Lucy TV amnesia. No, the problem is that this amnesia literally regressed Lucy to an infant and turned her into a moe blob.
This basically turned the majority of the series into a slice of life harem anime, interrupted by occasional edginess. This is essentially the same problem I had with Higurashi, only Higurashi had IMO a more compelling story with better pacing that made up for it, while Elfen Lied just tends to drag with the stereotypical harem stuff before getting to the "good' stuff, and that isn't all that good. And there's a good amount of contrivance to keep things moving along. For example, Lucy is found just as she wakes up after washing ashore on the stretch of beach the male lead, Kouta, and his cousin Yuka happen to be walking along at just that moment before settling into their new home for their first night there. Now, most people who find a naked woman with obvious head trauma might try to seek medical help for her, and/or call the police, but this would have meant the government would have instantly been able to find and recapture her, so instead Kouta and Yuka take her home and adopt her. They even name her after the only non-word she seems to be able to say, Nyuu.
I suppose I could have accepted more of the plot contrivances if the writing had been better, but between the writing, the moe stuff, and the way they went full retard with Lucy/Nyuu, it didn't really age well for me, and when I went back and rewatched the series with some friends, I had a much more negative reaction to it.
One thing I will give it, though, was its main theme, Lilium, which has two versions I still really enjoy. The soundtrack of the series was rather limited, but this theme did really help to set the mood, especially during the first scene in the anime, which featured a Full Frontal Assault by Lucy as she escaped from the facility she'd been imprisoned and tortured in (I mean experimented on) since she was a child. The series opening utilizes this song and is itself one of the best aspects of the show, as its visuals are based on the works of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, and there's enough there that plenty have speculated about the meanings of the various shots [NSFW]. Here's another page discussing the subject [NSFW and some annoying flash/ad elements].
If you want to watch the opening itself, here's a link to a creditless version [NSFW], but I'll warn you that there's a lot of nudity in it.
On the downside is the ending theme, which is a happy J-Pop song that completely ruins the many dramatic episode endings.
I'm curious, though, if anyone other than Yukaphile and PerrySimm have seen this anime or read the manga it's based on, and what you thought about it.
