Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Found this earlier
FB_IMG_1710376629192.jpg
 
One of my first gore anime (that I can remember). Good times. The child character and her story made me feel sad. Now I know it was designed to be that way, so it's kind of funny. Pedophile father, fucking bitch of a mother, fucking bitch of a bystander who will not allow her dog to be walked by the child character (I don't remember a single name), fucking bastard of a government appointed leader of a black ops kill-team, beats her and screams at her for no reason, other than being a psycho (realistic and real).
It was her stepfather btw. Which is VERY real, I watched that and just went holy fuck.
I watched it with some friends recently (my first time, some others had seen it), and yeah, Elfen Lied is quite the trip. It ping pongs in tone from serious to goofy, and sometimes the serious is so bizarre it's hilarious. The plot is nonsensical, but it's not really important anyway. The fights are ridiculously bloody to the point of comedy, and I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. But just when you've been having a good time laughing your ass off at the insanity, it'll hit you with something that actually makes you feel bad (the dog).

Guilty pleasure is the best way to describe it. It only adapted about half the manga and condensed it a lot, but I don't know where the story went after that.

Also Bando is hilarious.
EL_Deagle_2.jpg
Bando is best character, especially dubbed. He gives zero fucks. He only yearns to shoot shit with his 50 cal DEAGLE bitch.
The only thing I remember from Elfen Lied is Lillium (a good thing) and the little girl's backstory and a specific scene where the kids just brutally abuse a dog for no reason (bad thing). Apparently the manga is better but I don't know how you can improve on shit.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-2yCMmWNXsI
The dog scene was sad as shit. I can't even blame Lucy for pulping the brats.
 
Apparently the manga is better
I don't buy that and never will. Everything I know about the manga has turned me off of reading it, plus its art is awful.
image.png

I'm glad the anime ended the way it did. Give me Lucy's fate being ambiguous over Kouta and Yuka getting married and naming their incest kid after her any day.
 
Last edited:
Most of it I couldn't take seriously. The violence was beyond ridiculous and into comedy. I can't even really describe the plot other than they want to kill Lucy and this dumbass can't see she's a schizophenic psycho that killed his dad and sister, and for the sake of the plot he just... blacked it out lol.
I stopped reading the manga when the soldier's eyes got ripped out (somehow, he was still alive). Sad, because I was looking forward to some cool technobabble and conspiracies.
And now you will forever have "Lilium" on your animu playlist. It's a requirement.
Also "Lilium" is a god tier opening.
The only thing I remember from Elfen Lied is Lillium (a good thing)
It's so good a bunch of Ukrainian church boys sang it. Imagine this happening to your intro for your trashy 3edgy5me anime.
 
I haven't watched the show in a while, but watched it growing up. What happens to Nana turns my stomach.
Nana is the most sympathetic of any of the characters. At least I think she got somewhat of an happy ending.

Elfen Lied was the pinnacle of 2000's edge. While it's not like we get things that are too sanitized nowadays, it is never to the same retarded edge.
 
On of my favorite things about Elfen Lied is that the first episode introduced a klutzy, lovable "ganbare"-type secretary girl, and then immediately and unceremoniously killed her barely a few minutes later.

The manga was even more cruel to her, if I remember correctly.
I tried watching Elfen Lied a long time ago and after clutsy chan got unceremoniously decapitated I went "yeah, I think I'm good" and left it there.

What I did watch in the "Jesus fuck the edge" genre was Akame Ga Kill. And then for good measure, I went and read the manga which was so fucking edgy that the anime actively toned down scenes or gave little snapshots of characters in the manga as to show "see? see? in this version they weren't miserably mutilated and raped!". I only need to mention "Bols family" or "3 girls from the sticks" and if you know, you fucking know.

Was honestly pretty trashy, but I was really in the mood for a no fucks are given sort of story and was intrigued by the contrasts between the anime and manga. Also got a bit of a kick that the main dude did not end up with the main chick but with the cunty tsundere one instead AND made it work.
 
I don't buy that and never will. Everything I know about the manga has turned me off of reading it, plus its art is awful.
View attachment 5813740

I'm glad the anime ended the way it did. Give me Lucy's fate being ambiguous over Kouta and Yuka getting married and naming their incest kid after her any day.
This is 2000s - the manga. I feel like this is what people thought all manga looked like 15 - 20 years ago.
Most I know of Elfen Lied aside from the obvious, is that it has a really good unintentional video game adaptation in the form of F.E.A.R.

No joke, the similarities between the two are quite shocking.
F.E.A.R. is almost an anime. It has most of the hallmarks. I think the debut game of Monolith was "Shogo Mobile Armor division" which is an anime/manga game. And it's ironically retro, even for its age, based on 80s trends.

OMG!!! Le Goku is trans?!?!?! xOxOxOxOxOxOxOxO
 
Last edited:
Bando is best character, especially dubbed. He gives zero fucks. He only yearns to shoot shit with his 50 cal DEAGLE bitch.

The manga has extremely iffy art and developments, but Bando is essentially the only character that I still remember. He's fairly more upstanding in the manga, and apparently the author realized how much people liked him so he ends up becoming a cyborg saving girls from rapists and shooting mutants. As cringe as it may be, for the standards of EL it's good.

They even tried to catch the lighting in the bottle again by animating another one of the author's series, but it's apparent he could write only retarded edge and it works just once and just in that 2000-2010 era. Jirō Matsumoto he ain't.

Also the environment around changed so much regarding violence and fanservice, just imagine what would happen if ... I dunno, they released Nisemonogatari nowadays, people were already bitching back then, nowadays you'd have requests for head on spikes.
 
Also the environment around changed so much regarding violence and fanservice, just imagine what would happen if ... I dunno, they released Nisemonogatari nowadays, people were already bitching back then, nowadays you'd have requests for head on spikes.
I'm not sure, people would probably view it as an ironic work in the vein of "I'm consuming gore content, ain't I so edgy". A lot of the people in the thread have commented how edgy Elfen Leid is, but it's only somewhat more dark and depressing than the other works for gore-junkies of the era (80s - 2000s). To call it edgy makes no sense to my mind, even when I know it is edgy for our current standards.
 
The manga has extremely iffy art and developments, but Bando is essentially the only character that I still remember. He's fairly more upstanding in the manga, and apparently the author realized how much people liked him so he ends up becoming a cyborg saving girls from rapists and shooting mutants. As cringe as it may be, for the standards of EL it's good.

They even tried to catch the lighting in the bottle again by animating another one of the author's series, but it's apparent he could write only retarded edge and it works just once and just in that 2000-2010 era. Jirō Matsumoto he ain't.

Also the environment around changed so much regarding violence and fanservice, just imagine what would happen if ... I dunno, they released Nisemonogatari nowadays, people were already bitching back then, nowadays you'd have requests for head on spikes.
I can see how it only worked once tbh. It was running mostly on shock value, and in today's market, that is verboten.
 
I don't generally nope out of anime, but I noped out of Elfen Leid.

The official title, by the way, is Elfen Lied. This is because the people who selected the English title are retarded. Everyone on the thread knows better.
 
Nana is the most sympathetic of any of the characters. At least I think she got somewhat of an happy ending.

Elfen Lied was the pinnacle of 2000's edge. While it's not like we get things that are too sanitized nowadays, it is never to the same retarded edge.
Ultimately yeah there's definitely worse fates, especially in Elfen Lied, I just thought her lot was extremely fucked for how good she actually is. Out of all the girls Nana might be the most justified in wanting to kill people. Unlike the other girls who had hardships or were inhumanely isolated, Nana was basically torture tested for her entire youth. Amazingly though, she doesn't kill anyone, and actively hates inflicting pain on others. But despite taking that moral high ground, she is consistently brutalized worse than characters like Lucy.
Press S to Save.jpg
 
They even tried to catch the lighting in the bottle again by animating another one of the author's series, but it's apparent he could write only retarded edge and it works just once and just in that 2000-2010 era. Jirō Matsumoto he ain't.
It was something Brynhildir. I remember it was just unremarkable girls suffering, while EL was balls to the wall over the top gore and nudity, that didn't have either.
I'm not sure, people would probably view it as an ironic work in the vein of "I'm consuming gore content, ain't I so edgy". A lot of the people in the thread have commented how edgy Elfen Leid is, but it's only somewhat more dark and depressing than the other works for gore-junkies of the era (80s - 2000s). To call it edgy makes no sense to my mind, even when I know it is edgy for our current standards.
Good chance that if EL didn't have that amazing opening song something else would have got its slot.
Ultimately yeah there's definitely worse fates, especially in Elfen Lied, I just thought her lot was extremely fucked for how good she actually is. Out of all the girls Nana might be the most justified in wanting to kill people. Unlike the other girls who had hardships or were inhumanely isolated, Nana was basically torture tested for her entire youth. Amazingly though, she doesn't kill anyone, and actively hates inflicting pain on others. But despite taking that moral high ground, she is consistently brutalized worse than characters like Lucy.
View attachment 5815005
There is something very inspiring about a character that legit would be understood in wanting to kill humanity considering her past, as opposed to Lucy, who went for Total Human Death due to bullies killing her dog.
 
There is something very inspiring about a character that legit would be understood in wanting to kill humanity considering her past, as opposed to Lucy, who went for Total Human Death due to bullies killing her dog.
I can agree with that. Nana just wanted to be a good girl, to make her papa happy. She never did anything truly evil, and in a lot of ways she was right to try to off Lucy. One of the standout characters to be sure
 
Back
Top Bottom