*WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD*
Hello everyone, hope everyone had a good time since the previous blog post! Recently, I have finished reading the Elfen Lied manga series. I have to say it was an exceptional experience.
Firstly, I would like to give a brief mention of the person who recommended me this literary work of art. His name is Bradley. We became friends due to being in the same Buddhist center and being in the same Buddhist class. We frequently discuss not only Buddhism but also topics like Manga and Video Games.
Now, let me explain the storyline.
Elfen Lied takes place in Kamakura, Japan, focusing on a new strain of the human race, Diclonius, similar to human beings with invisible arms called vectors but different at the genetic level and notable due to physical abnormalities, particularly a pair of short horn-like protrusions, that look like cat ears to me. Lucy, a Diclonus, is the main character of the series: Initially held in a facility built for experimentation, located off the coast of Kamakura, she manages to escape and wreak havoc, but is injured in the process, an event which causes her to develop a secondary, childlike personality known as Nyu.
Lucy is found by two locals, Kohta, who studies at the local university, and his cousin Yuka. They take her in, and become involved with the numerous, often brutal, attempts to recapture her by a Special Assault Team and a number of other Diclonius, who shift frequently from oblivious to murderous.
Then, a brief insight into the multiple main characters.
Lucy
Lucy, fifteen years old (around eighteen in the anime) and the central protagonist of the series. Lucy has vectors with a limited range of about two meters (7 ft). However, she can be swift and lethal within that range, and will use any nearby objects as high-velocity projectiles to kill at greater distances. She is also capable of stopping or deflecting most standard ammunition when she concentrates on the task.
Lucy hates humans mainly because of how she was alienated by her human peers as a child, several of whom she eventually killed after they captured a puppy which Lucy had been caring for and beat it to death in front of her. Consequently, she discounts non-diclonii, claiming they are not real people, to the point of telling Nana that she has "not killed anyone yet". She seems to lack empathy and kills without much concern as a usual first reaction, often killing on reflex. She is incredibly sadistic, severing limbs and blinding foes, leaving them to bleed to death rather than killing them outright. Despite this lack of concern for human life she will not harm Kouta, and cries and apologizes for killing his family in a fit of jealousy; she loves Kouta, but due to her actions in the past, she believes he will be content without her existence. As such, she refrains from killing in his presence, except at the series' end, when she kills an entire Special Assault Team unit in front of him. However, Lucy still is not above acts of jealously, once using her vectors to shove Yuka when she saw her holding hands with Kouta.
Kouta
Kouta is the main male character of the series and is first introduced when he arrives in Kanagawa Prefecture to attend college, having previously arranged to stay with his cousin Yuka while at school.
Kouta enters the story when Yuka's family gives him a closed-down restaurant, the Kaeda House, as long as he maintains it, and begins living there with Yuka while going to a university. Kouta has repressed traumatic memories of witnessing the deaths of his father and sister,[6] which is later revealed to have been by Lucy's hand, who acted out of jealousy. Due in part to his loss, Kouta is sympathetic towards girls in trouble and is extremely generous and protective to the girls around him, because he can relate to them and they remind him of his late younger sister, Kanae. He also, for the most part, forgets how close he and Yuka were as kids, while Yuka still loves him.
He first met Lucy in his childhood while his family was visiting Yuka's for the summer. When he goes to the mountain to draw, Lucy had just run away from the orphanage where she killed 4 children (her first murders). In the anime, he takes with him a music box he had recently purchased which played "Lilium" and strikes up a conversation with her when she apparently likes the song from the music box. He finds her horns fascinating and gives her a hat to cover them up while in public. He asks her if they could be friends and spends time with her, taking her to the zoo, telling her that he likes to look at the "weird animals." In Lucy's hallucination, she perceives this as a reason for why he was so nice to her. He lies to her about the gender of his cousin by saying that it is a boy so she would not be upset or jealous. When she finds out that he lied to her, she stows away onto his train and kills his family. Before she goes to kill Yuka, he tackles her and yells at her to stop killing people and she flees.
His repressed memories are triggered when Lucy uses her vectors to kill over a dozen soldiers in front of him. The reunion between Kouta and Lucy is vastly different, In the Manga, Lucy apologizes and Kouta has her promise to never kill again, but Kazuma shoots at her and Kouta steps in the way to protect her. As Lucy's body begins to melt, she uses her remaining powers to put Kouta's cells back together and save him. The entire Kaede inn family arrive as do the military, and Lucy, though extremely disfigured, begins to attack them. Kouta then fulfills the promise he made to Lucy as children, and kills her. Ten years later, Kouta and Yuka are married and subsequently name their daughter Nyuu.
In the Anime, Lucy assures Kouta that she can do so in just five years, but refuses to because that would mean his death. Kouta seems to understand that something truly horrible must have happened to shape her into a cold-blooded killer and, while still stating he couldn't bring himself to actually forgive her, he openly admits that he still loves her, then they kiss and hug passionately. Sometime later, Kouta along with the "family" of Kaede house, including Nana, settles down until the music box stops, a figure appears at the front door and the grandfather clock starts ticking.
Yuka
Yuka is Kouta's cousin, around his age, and moves in with him at the Kaede's inn. She has had feelings for Kouta since childhood, and she reacts jealously to Kouta's attention to Nyū. However, it is later shown that she is jealous of any girl, regardless of age, who she suspects may be close to Kouta, to the point of being irrational.
At one point he reciprocates the feelings, while Kouta and Yuka are searching for Nyu (after she escapes from the Professor's lab), they take shelter from the rain at the Sasuke Inari Shrine. While holding each other in an attempt to keep warm, Kouta apologizes for not remembering anything about the time they were together as kids, but states that he remembers that he liked her then and that he always liked her. The two then kiss, with Yuka even becoming sexually aroused, and promise to always be with each other. However, when they subsequently find Nyu, Kouta and Nyu share a long hug, and Yuka immediately becomes jealous again.
Mayu once described her as the "mother" at the inn, and Kouta as the "father". Yuka does possess a caring and mature side, and seems to be protective of both Nyū and Mayu, and later Nana. It is clear that Yuka cares for the girls deeply since she, like Kouta, is unable to turn away people who have been abandoned by their parents and society. However, in quite a few ways, she is a typical teenager, particularly when it comes to dealing with her feelings for Kouta and friendships with the girls who come to live with them.
In the last chapter she is shown rebuilding the inn with the others. Ten years later, Kouta and Yuka are married and subsequently name their daughter Nyu.
Mayu
Mayu is a young thirteen years old homeless girl. Mayu is first introduced when she arrives at the closed-down restaurant (then inhabited by Kouta, Yuka and Nyu) to return an umbrella she found at the beach. She is homeless and lives on the beach with a stray puppy that she calls Wanta, subsisting mostly on bread crusts from a nearby bakery.
During the fight between Lucy/Nyu and Nana, Mayu is slightly injured. When she awakens in the hospital, she has them call Kouta claiming he is a relative. Kouta and Yuka, pondering as to why she didn't call her real family (and already suspecting that Mayu may be homeless), ask her to stay for dinner at the Kaeda House. Mayu, deciding that the fight between Lucy/Nyu and Nana was simply a bad dream, develops a friendship with Nyu as they bathe together, and Mayu accepts an offer to spend the night. The next morning, Kouta and Yuka discover that Mayu is gone; she has left a note thanking them for their help but stating that she does not want to be a burden on anyone.
It is revealed that Mayu had endured molestation by her stepfather before she ran away from home. Her own mother would not protect her, because she was jealous of the attention Mayu was receiving from the stepfather. Mayu ran away from home, and upon arriving at the beach, she befriended Wanta, who was also alone.
Back in the present, Mayu and Wanta return to the beach, but Wanta's original owner arrives and takes him away, while rudely turning down Mayu's request to visit him because of her dirty clothing. Mayu tries to comfort herself with the thought that Wanta will at least be able to live in a safe home with plenty of food, but later breaks down and cries. Losing her only friend, Mayu is devastated and spends the night, which is her birthday, alone, trying to shelter herself from the rain and cold, while wishing that Wanta was with still with her.
In the manga, a police officer finds her huddled in a shack, she flees and goes back to the inn. Finding Kouta, Yuka and Nyu waiting for her, who then present Mayu with a small cake from the bakery — the woman at the bakery who provides Mayu with breadcrusts had saved it for her since it was her birthday. Mayu, surprised and happy at their compassion for her, becomes overwhelmed with emotions and begins to cry, Kouta then explains that she can stay at the inn as long as she helps out cleaning. Meanwhile, Wanta is seen eagerly waiting outside, having decided that he would rather be with Mayu then with his previous owner.
The above events are different in the anime; when two police officers find Mayu in the shack, she tries to run from them, but she bumps into Kouta, Yuka and Nyu who have spent all day searching for her. After telling the police that Mayu is family (much to Mayu's surprise), they return to the Kaeda inn, where they offer to let Mayu stay with them.
When Kouta and Yuka offer to become Mayu's guardians, her mother officially transfers Mayu into their care without a second thought. In both the manga and the anime, Kouta and Yuka comment about how strange it was that her mother was so eager to abandon her own daughter and why she never notified the police that Mayu was missing. However, they decide not to ask questions. The next time Mayu is seen, she is happy and smiling. She has enrolled in a nearby school, leaving each morning in her school uniform with a smile on her face (Kouta and Yuka are amazed at how much Mayu has cheered up). Wanta, who has been given a doghouse, also chooses to stay at the inn. Mayu helps around the house with chores whenever she can, and soon comes to view Kouta and Yuka as her parents and Nyu as a sister.
Later, Mayu meets up with Nana, and the two become friends. Mayu convinces Kouta and Yuka to let Nana stay at the house as well, despite Nana's initial hostility to Nyu (whom Nana recognizes as Lucy). Nana eventually opens up to Mayu and tells her the true story of the Diclonius, Lucy/Nyu, and her vectors. Mayu does everything she can to convince Nana that Nyu is not dangerous, still refusing to believe that Nyu and Lucy could possibly be the same person.
It appears that Mayu has feelings for Bando, when Bando "died" she took up cleaning the beach.
Nana
Nana is a young Silpelit girl, born from humans infected with the Diclonius virus, who has the physical appearance of being 12–14 years old. Nana's actual age is actually about 6 years old; it is explained that Silpelits age more rapidly than humans (or a "Queen Diclonius" like Lucy). Her name, 'Nana', is Japanese for the number seven, the number by which she was called at the research facility ("Nana" is also a fairly common female name in Japan). Most Diclonius babies are euthanized at birth in sweeps of hospital maternity wards, but Nana was one of a handful kept alive for use as a test subjects and has spent her entire life in the Diclonius research facility.[11]
Nana sees Kurama as her father, whom she calls "Papa," because she needed something to keep her from going insane during the torturous experimentation, believing that she is making him proud.[7] Kurama, in turn, sees her as his own daughter and cares very much for her. In an attempt to recapture Lucy, Kurama sent out Nana to find her (diclonii can telepathically sense each other) and as a present, gives her his tie, something which Nana had always wanted, which she wears as a bow to conceal her horns. Despite orders not to engage Lucy after locating her, Nana wanted to impress Kurama so she tried to capture Lucy herself. Lucy and Nana engaged in a brutal battle, but although Nana's vectors are longer, Lucy's more powerful vectors prove decisive. Kurama, along with a group of soldiers, arrive in time to stop Lucy before she can kill Nana, but not before Lucy uses her vectors to tear off Nana's arms and legs. Although Nana survives, Director General Kakuzawa's decides that she is no longer useful and orders Kurama to kill her. Although Kurama has terminated over a dozen diclionius babies while working for the institute, he defies the Director's order - providing Nana with prosthetic limbs that she can control with her vectors (a running gag is that they often fall off) and secretly setting her free with money to survive and a promise that they will be together again one day.
Nana initially feels alone and despondent, but becomes friends with Mayu. Mayu convinces Nana to come with her to the Kaeda inn, but this initially leads to a confrontation, when Nana sees Nyu (recognizing her as Lucy) and attacks her. After running away, Mayu follows her, and Nana reveals the whole truth about the vectors, Lucy/Nyu, and Kurama. Mayu convinces her stay at the Kaeda inn, while telling Kouta and Yuka that Nana only attacked Nyu because she was cranky from being hungry, and that like Nyu, Nana has no place to go because of her horns. Despite Nana's lingering fears about Nyu (whom she believes may become Lucy again), she tries to adjust to life at the house, although she refuses to tell Kouta and Yuka anything about the Diclonii and their vectors. At one point, after an argument, Nana briefly considers leaving out of anger, but after Kouta (using some reverse psychology) asks her where she will go, Nana quickly becomes emotional and breaks down; crying in Yuka's arms, Nana admits she is scared and doesn't know what she would do if she was alone again. As Yuka hugs Nana to comfort her, Kouta gently places his hand on her head, and welcomes her into their "family."
Unlike many other Diclonii, because Kurama treated her with kindness, Nana is not homicidal or sadistic, and has never used her vectors against humans. However, her fighting skills are extraordinary (she managed to almost defeat Mariko and her clones but was stopped by Kurama's presence). She also has the exclusive ability to temporarily disable another Diclonius' vectors by having her vectors go through their pineal gland. Although her vectors are superior to Lucy's in terms of range (5 meters to Lucy's 2, 16 ft to 7 ft) and certain abilities, she lacks Lucy's sheer strength and violent nature; Nana's empathy for others does not allow her to fight with as primal vigor to kill. While physically skilled and intuitive with her vectors, she loses many fights in the series solely because of her kind nature. With her vectors, she is later able to manipulate prosthetic arms and legs, and even throw them like a "rocket punch".
Nana can be seen as the exact opposite of Lucy. While Lucy's default personality is serious and cold, Nana's is friendly and kind; Lucy's split personality "Nyu" is similar to Nana's default while Nana sometimes goes into trances and acts cold like Lucy's default personality. Nana is in the middle of the spectrum of Lucy's split personalities: she's not as mature as Lucy, but more mature than Nyu. She is in fact extremely childish due to her young age.
Nana discovers Kurama, but he shuns her away at first, clinging to a dead body of one of the Mariko clones thinking it is his daughter. The surviving clone, Barbara, shows up and fights with Nana. When she is about to kill Nana, Kurama shoots the clone in the head and regains his sanity. At the series' end, Nana and Kurama are shown together visiting a grave marked "Kurama" and Kurama holding Mariko's ashes. Nana then reveals that they are now living together. Nana asks him to take her as his wife and begins crying, questioning whether Kurama wanted to "make babies with Nana", to which Kurama smiles and responds, "Why are you saying such silly things? Nana is my...", as the scene fades.
In the anime, after Kurama dies, Nana is devastated and almost gives up all hope for the future. When Lucy and Nana meet shortly afterward, Lucy tells Nana to do what she herself cannot: to return to the Kaede House and live happily with Kouta and the others, which Nana does.
Nozomi
Nozomi is a 15-17-year-old, soft-spoken and shy friend of Yuka (who does not appear in the anime). She has a psychological bladder problem because of her father's frequent physical abuse when she was a child for wanting to become a singer. As a result, she is constantly wearing diapers. Kouta first encounters her while walking to the store (not realizing they both know Yuka), and both are embarrassed when the wind blows her skirt up to reveal the diaper she is wearing underneath. They later meet at the inn and, upon recognizing Kouta, Nozomi rushes out into the garden. Thinking herself alone, Nozomi is found by Kouta—searching after her to apologize—while she is removing the very wet diaper she was wearing. Startled, she accidentally clutches the wet diaper to her chest, soaking her clothes. She reveals her poor self-esteem to Kouta, calling herself a coward and sharing her father's comments about her to Kouta. Despairing when she hears Yuka and the others approaching, Kouta saves her further embarrassment by pushing her into a nearbyreflection pool to hide the reason for her wet clothes. This earns Kouta Nozomi's trust and friendship, and she even prevents him from getting hit by an angry Yuka shortly thereafter.
Nozomi is revealed to have a great talent for singing. However, due to her father's physically abusive treatment because of her desire to sing—in addition to her family's strong opposition toward her musical education—Nozomi has no place to study and prepare for the difficult entrance exams for her musical education. Nozomi stays often with Yuka and Kouta so that she can prepare for the entrance exam, and later moves in with them after she passes and is accepted as a student. While she is extremely embarrassed at first about her friends discovering her need to wear diapers all the time, she eventually comes to trust her friends enough that she leaves off trying to hide her diapers or even the fact that she wets them. Nana notes later that year that Nozomi was familiar enough with the occupants of Kaeda inn that she eventually took to wearing just a diaper and a shirt short enough to leave her diaper fully exposed. This shows that her self-esteem was strengthened in the presence of her friends, and that she gained confidence as she grew to trust them more. Nozomi teaches Nyuu to sing "Elfenlied".
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For now, i will keep the antagonists with me and just share my thoughts on the series itself.
Even though the series tends to have a lot of gore and nudity, it still is quite acceptable amongst the teenage audiences. There are a lot of key parts of the story which are kind of like what teenagers have to face while they are young.
Being an outcast of society plays a massive role within this story, Lucy was outcast as she grew horns and started murdering people. How she feels sad and angry as an outcast reflects how people on in the modern day feel that they are sad as an social outcast.
The ending for the manga made me tear up as Lucy witnesses Kohta being shot by Kurama and she loses it. She sacrifices her good side and summoned her vectors unto the world in rage and healed Kohta. As she lost control, Kohta was told to shoot her.. I freaking cried at that point as I was listening to Lillium during that part.
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