Elfen Lied Vector 1 - Eclipse Magazine
- Eclipse Magazine
- Sheldon A.Wiebe
- 06/02/05
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Anime´ - Blood & Guts To Sweetly Sexy: The Best Of Recent DVD Releases
Posted by Sheldon A. Wiebe on 2005/6/3 18:20:00
Elfen Lied
Nyu is an innocent; Lucy is a vicious killer. They are the same person. Sounds like just another multiple personality piece, right? Wrong! Lucy has an advantage ? six psychic arms that can rip through anything; tear anything apart. Nyu only says ?nyu? over and over?
The first episode of this bizarre and unsettling anime´ opens with on a bloody arm. Men have their heads torn off, and we see a figure secured to a pillar, wearing a straitjacket, its head covered by a hood. This juxtaposed with three women, giggling and chatting in a kitchen. As we cut back and forth, soldiers rush to arm themselves; one of the girls walks down a corridor with a tray, bobbles it, rights it; the figure shreds the straitjacket and men begin to die, horribly; one of the girls from the kitchen accidentally wanders into the path of the figure and is dismembered.
Next we cut to a reunion of two cousins, Kohta and Yuka. And we cut between them and the revelation that the figure has horns; between them reaching Kohta?s new home, and the figure, Lucy, escaping from the installation where she?s been held.
As Kohta and Yuka walk along the beach, a nude figure emerges from the water ? it?s Lucy! Or is it? She looks like Lucy, but she seems completely unaware of anything ? and all she can say is, ?nyu,? ? which leads Kohta to name her Nyu.
Thus begins a story of balances ? good and evil, man and woman, life and death. ?Elfen Lied? is a strange and addicting series. The characters are not quite like anything I?ve ever encountered before; the writing is complex, but not hard to follow; the characters are intriguing ? especially Lucy/Nyu.
Volume One, ?Vectors,? establishes the main characters, builds arcs that center around each of Lucy/Nyu?s personalities and the two cousins. There is backstory revealed for Kohta and Yuka, but, oddly, not for Lucy/Nyu ? I?m given to understand that some extremely unsettling scenes have been edited out of the first three episodes for the American market. In any event, ?Elfen Lied? is a starkly original work, presented in beautifully executed animation.
As we learn more about the characters and situations, there are revelations and twists that add layer upon layer to the series. For three half-hour episodes, ?Vectors? provides a lot to deal with ? this is not an anime´ for kids, or anyone looking for a bit of cartoon fun. If you put ?Elfen Lied? into your DVD player, be prepared to think and feel. This is an emotionally charged, provocative series.
Adding to the impact of the series is an eerie opening theme, sung in Latin, and a score that weaves variations of a number of themes throughout ? giving the series a feeling of unity that is extremely effective.
Grade: A
Posted on Thursday, June 02, 2005 (Archive on Saturday, July 02, 2005)