Elfen Lied – Vector 1

By: Kimberly Godwin – May 26, 2005

This article was originally posted on PlanetExile.com

One’s first impression of Elfen Lied would be that this is a B horror movie after watching the first 7 minutes of the series. It has all the elements of one with gratuitous nudity, violence, teenaged romantic drama and, of course, geysers of blood. This is probably a deterrent for those who are seeking a more serious horror series to sink their teeth into but for a B movie horror fan, this is right up my alley.

The story occurs mostly in modern day, Gokurakuji and follows the psychopathic “telekinetic” murderess, Lucy who is trapped living in an innocent near invalid alter ego, Nyu, as she tries to remain at large from the research facility that was conducting torturous experiments on her. Two college-aged cousins, Kohta and Yuka find and invite Lucy/Nyu into their lives and then proceed to appear oblivious to the reasons why soldiers might be after her. While Lucy is seemingly the main character, the attention intently focused on Kohta’s grief at losing his little sister, Kanae to some unnamed illness and forgetting the memory of a childhood promise that he made to his smitten cousin, Yuka.

The design of the series is what you would normally expect from a light-hearted teen drama with cutesy character designs, bright clothing and cherry blossoms. The brutality of the violence is only slightly softened by the paint-like consistency of the blood and off-camera violence… if you can ignore the gruesome sound effects and pain-ridden screams of agony. The sheer creepiness factor is multiplied by a score of Gregorian chants and archaic sounding instrumentals. In the presentation of the story itself, the lack of transitioning between scenes does add to the building panic of the viewer but makes it easier to lose track of the timeline.