Elfen Lied - Review

"Aren't we all monsters inside? - Lucy"

Synopsis:

A humanoid test subject known as a Diclonius escapes from a lab somewhere, protected by some sort of supernatural powers. She literally paves her way through a sea of blood of her own making and falls into a sea after a failed attempt of stopping her permanently with a sniper.

Lucy is a special breed of human referred to as "Diclonius," born with a short pair of horns and invisible telekinetic hands that lands her as a victim of inhumane scientific experimentation by the government. 

However, once circumstances present her an opportunity to escape, 

Lucy, corrupted by the confinement and torture, unleashes a torrent of bloodshed as she escapes her captors.

History:

Elfen Lied is based on Lynn Okamoto's seinen manga series of the same name and premiered while the manga was still in publication. The anime follows the source material through the first 7 volumes, with several alterations to the story, and concludes with an exclusive ending. 

In an interview, director Mamoru Kanbe expressed his disappointment in having to 'condense' to story into 13 episodes and felt that more were needed to include significant plot details that would have made the series more emotive.

Review:

The story itself was okay, but not really anything special. For the most part it was somewhat compromised to favor action scenes. The only part of the story that really interested me was Lucy's past which did not disappoint, other than that the story wasn't that great. 

Before I started watching Elfen Lied I was informed by many that the series was amazing and groundbreaking because of all the blood and gore. 

Well they got the blood part right, but gore was not evident. Let me clarify, gore is not getting decapitated or losing limbs, gore is being cut in half and having your innards strewn across a lengthy flight of stairs exposing your ribs and spinal cord for all to see.

To sum up, it was average. Nothing to really hate about it, just didn't live up to the hype. The idea was great, the follow through was terrible.

Overall:

It's over-hyped, over-rated and most definitely NOT a classic. 

While it wasn't exactly bad, it wasn't the amazing show that people had me believing it was.

Rating:  3 / 10

Sorry folks, only three for this Anime!

Stranger Things and Elfen Lied

Firstly, the Descriptions

Stranger Things:

When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief, and his friends, must confront terrifying forces in order to get him back.In a small town, this incident starts a chain of events that leads to the disappearance of a child - which begins to tear at the fabric of an otherwise peaceful community. Dark government agencies and seemingly malevolent supernatural forces converge on the town while a few locals begin to understand that there's more going on that is hard to believe even seen by our own eyes.

Elfen Lied:

Two university students come across a seemingly harmless girl named Lucy, unaware that she's actually a mutant serial killer with a split personality.

Comparision & Similarities:

As we can see, both have a quite different plots except for a single character and a few scenes/shots involving that character.

we can find many similarities in Eleven character(excluding appearance).

Here are the ones I noticed:

• The young girl who is experimented on by a secret organization lead by her cruel father-figure.
• She is given a number for a name.
• She is kept isolated and her psychic abilities are tested to their limits for weapon use.
• She kills some guards with her psychic abilities and she escapes and then she makes friends with a boy who feels a strong trust for her but her friends are unsure of at first.
• She speaks very less & doesn't know the meanings of some words.
• She is hunted by hordes of people and her father-figure.
• She has a quiet and gentle side which suppresses her horrid past and abilities.
• She has the darker side which is triggered by flashbacks or bad situations where she will unleash her power recklessly.
• Elfen - Eleven - El

About the Scene in which El will be shouting("papa") while she was being taken forcibly to test her abilities.Later, she kills two guards with her abilities.

 Now, this scene is EXACTLY the opening scene of Elfen Lied. Any one can easily be reminded of it while watching Stranger Things.

NOTE:I'm  not saying that ST is copied from EL, but just bringing out the character influence.

This is what Duffer brothers, creators of ST said about this in an interview

In Jurassic Park, the secret DNA is the frog DNA that makes everything weird. What is the secret DNA that people aren't picking up on in this? That you haven't seen anyone nodding to?

Ross: I think there's two things. One is anime. 

Matt: Everyone's picked up everything. There's a kind of obscure anime called Elfen Lied, and it was like the first trailer, someone was like, in the comments, someone pointed out, "Oh, this reminds me of Elfen Lied." 

Ross: They picked up on that, but not very many people. That's deep cut.

Matt: I'm like, "Oh, wow." I don't know how that came through in the trailer. I was like, "That's crazy, I didn't realize anyone had even seen that anime." That's an older [series], it's very very violent though, so in that way it's very different, but a girl who escapes from a laboratory.