Elfen Lied Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Frequently Asked Questions About The Elfen Lied Series: Manga And Anime.

What does "Elfen Lied" mean and how do you pronounce it?

It's very common for English speakers to mispronounce Elfen Lied due to the Lied half of the title resembling the word "lied," the past conjugal of "lie." However, Elfen Lied is in fact German! The series title is a canonical misspelling of Elfenlied, the title of a poem written by Eduard Mörike. It is composed of the words Elf(e) and Lied, the latter of which is the German word for "song." Elfenlied is a compound word, with "-en" written between the two base words to describe what kind of song it is: an elf's song. However, Elf(e) can also refer to a sprite, fairy, or pixie, so its meaning is often context dependent.

Further, in German, the letter D sounds like a T when it is the last consonant in a word, and the ", ".i.e.," vowel combination gives a long E sound. Therefore Lied is pronounced "leet." This idea is further reflected in the katakana for the series reading "erufen rito" instead of "erufen rido."

Bottom line: Elfen Lied is pronounced "elfen leet" due to being a German title roughly meaning "Elf Song."

How can Yuka be a love interest for Kouta? They're cousins!

There's a lot to say about this, including questioning their degree of blood relation, and the taboo nature of cousin marriage is relative (pardoning the pun). In Japan, there is no legal or customary prohibition against cousins marrying, so Yuka and Kouta as a couple wouldn't raise eyebrows.

Bottom line: Culture shock is a heck of a thing, so an online parody of 4Kids meets Elfen Lied says, if it bothers you to distraction, think of them instead as childhood friends or remind yourself that in its country of origin, it's not a big deal.

What is the ultimate fate of Kurama?

That depends on whether you watch the anime or read the manga. In short, the anime has Kurama die along with his actual daughter, Mariko, to atone both for his treatment of her and his euthanizing of many Diclonius infants. The manga makes this more complex, with Kurama, at first wishing to die, but then realizing that he should atone by living and making up for his sins as a living man.

Bottom line: The man had much to answer for, and each version has him do so in different ways.

Are the Diclonii naturally violent?

The anime and manga have different approaches on this subject. There is evidence on every front with which to make the nature versus nurture argument--Nana, being a huge part of any such debate. One of the biggest problems in making this determination is the way Humans do discriminate, even against each other, and the young age most of these girls are when their powers awaken.

For the anime, it makes things more ambiguous and focuses more on the nature vs. nurture aspect more and is mysterious. The manga flip-flops on this idea but ultimately decides in the end Diclonius aren’t meant to only destroy humans, but the entire world itself, and need to be eradicated because they are only seen as dangerous and the fertile class can only exist through inbreeding, although there seems to be huge contradictions with these ideas alone.

Bottom line: Approach a Diclonius and find out (but have your will in order and start a family beforehand).

Does Lucy live or die at the end?

At the end of the anime, it seems likely she is still alive b is likely the person standing behind the door that Kouta goes to answer. The events at the end of the anime strongly imply that the events of the later parts of the manga are still to come, and even if Kurama isn't needed somehow, Lucy is. The special side story that takes place in the same continuity as the anime shows that Nyu is happily living with her found family. However this side story appears to take place around the same time as the OVA. In the manga, her power grows to such a state that massive use of that power in several battles and then to heal Kouta destroys her body's integrity, causing it to melt. In the last act of mercy and love, Kouta kills her to end her pain and agony.

Bottom line: Neither scenario looks good for Lucy, at least in this life.

If The Kakuzawas are Diclonii as well, why doesn't Lucy want to ally with them?

Since Diclonius means two horns, technically, the Kakuzawas are Diclonii. But they are not of Lucy's species or, if you will, subgroup/offshoot of Humanity. The Kakuzawas are ordinary Humans born with a minor genetic mutation. They never had powers or any other thing that made them more than Human. True Diclonii can sense one another's presence, but Lucy never sensed any such presence from either Professor Kakuzawa or his father. Since the revealed Kakuzawa family history included tales of their persecution by non-horned Humans in feudal Japan, it seems likely that the racial and eugenics stories the family told were just that, stories meant to rally the morale of a people who were hunted and hated by others. Their case is also not helped by both Kakuzawas making it clear they intend to use her solely for furthering their own glory.

Bottom line: Lucy didn't want them because they weren't part of her kind and they saw her only as a tool instead of a person.

Are there any male Diclonius or are they an all-female subspecies of normal Humans?

While in the anime, it could be possible the Kakuzawas were actual Diclonii as it was long before the big reveal was made in the manga that they were all just humans, in the manga Lucy’s half-brother from Chief Kakuzawa forcing himself on her mom is the only male Diclonius in existence. It is a huge plot point used in the manga that only he and Lucy could make more fertile Diclonii and thus the Diclonius species had to be killed off because they would only exist through inbreeding and how their species was meant to destroy the world. Many of these elements have been contradictory or go against logic, but the main gist is there was only ever one male Diclonius ever in the manga.

Bottom line: In the anime, while it is possible the Kakuzawas may have been actual Diclonii, in the manga only Lucy’s half-brother from the chief himself was really the only male in the species.

Why does Elfen Lied have so much ecchi content?

There are multiple instances of naked flesh and sexual situations. Elfen Lied has these and so does life. Lucy, as Nyu, is a totally innocent girl, unaware of the impact her antics have on everyone, especially Kouta. The nudity of the Diclonius girls inside the facility isn't meant to be sexual at all and instead shows how inhumanely they're treated as experimental test subjects. A good example to think of is the anime-only scene where Kouta runs to rescue Nana from Mariko. She has been stripped naked by Mariko, but his only concern is for a member of his family. Her prosthetic limbs even put him off more than anything.

The answer to why all this ecchi content is here in the first place is because Lynn Okamoto wanted the original main premise to focus on romance and be a successor to the popular romantic comedy anime to Love Hina. Lynn Okamoto is really invested in sex and romance and enjoys content with those elements, but his original plans for his main romance/ecchi focus got switched. For more context on how Elfen Lied came to be switching from the ecchi/romance focus to the gore and horror focus see this lower section below.

Bottom line: The ecchi content is like the gore and violence - raw, and part of the core of Elfen Lied. It is up to the viewer/reader whether this content wholly overwhelms the other areas of worth in this story.

Who are the twins at the end of the manga?

It would seem, and it is widely agreed, that they are the reincarnations of both Lucy and Nyu, and, with a new life, comes innocence and redemption. Many, many, MANY questions abound as to the Five W's and H in this matter. Are they Diclonii? Human? Who are their parents, or did Lucy's death burst of power create them somehow? Will Kouta treat them as friends of his daughter or as if they were his actual daughters? What will Yuka think when she meets them?

Bottom line: The twins are hope. Hope that love and friendship can triumph over any and every obstacle. An appropriate end for the rollercoaster ride that is Elfen Lied.

Why isn't Nozomi in the anime?

The basic opinion is that director Mamoru Kanbe didn't want her there. Whether this was from an actual distaste for the character, or simply feeling the story flowed better without her, is somewhat in dispute.

Bottom line: When watching the anime, remember this line from the 60's group, The Zombies - "Please don't bother trying to find her; she's not there."

Did Nana marry Kurama, did Mayu marry Bando, and isn't the indication of their relationships a bit off-putting?

One theme that runs through many an anime/manga is the ferocious devotion and love a young woman can feel from a very early age, and the lengths she will go to while pursuing that one true love. This doesn't always work out neatly, as both Yuka and Lucy could tell you, as could Love Hina's Mutsumi or Tona-Gura!'s Kazuki or...you get the point. Mayu has been said to be unwilling to touch a man after her traumatic experiences, and was afraid even of Kouta at some points. The man she has seemingly chosen can never be with her in an intimate way, due to his massive injuries. The likelihood is that whether Mayu gained a future husband in Bando is less important than the fact she was right about him: The seemingly monstrous being had a caring heart within. It was a heart her parents never showed her, and it left pain Kouta and Yuka could only partly help with. Only gambling and winning on Bando could give her back her belief in better things to come. As for Nana, her relationship with Kurama did evolve over time. She will continue to age rapidly, and Kurama will never sire children again, and emotionally, Nana is one of the only people left he connects with.

Bottom line: Lynn Okamoto never reveals the exact fate of any character except for Kouta. Nyuu Junior could be Mayu or Nozomi's daughter, for all we know, though this seems highly unlikely. We don't know who married who, or if anyone married anyone, for that matter.

Why is X (Kouta, Yuka, Nyu, Nana, etc.) so Y (dense, tense, pushy, optimistic, etc.)?

The characters in Elfen Lied can also be viewed as deconstructions -- which is to say, hard discerning looks -- at the basic character types in many anime. Kouta's denseness could be that of a typical harem manga hero, walking proudly and slapsticking along with the likes of Keitaro Urashima and Tenchi Masaki. Or--is this the personality of a young man who had to shut down part of his memory to regain his sanity? Is Yuka just that uptight, or would anyone start to get nervous when their childhood dream is wrecked by crazy circumstances? Is her devotion to Kouta proudly in the tradition of great romances, or something she should have let go of and moved on from? Is Nyu's grabbiness and lack of modesty ecchi hilariousness, or is it something that makes Kouta's life impossible, and traumatizes poor Nozomi, for example? Are we supposed to see Nyu's antics as arousing sexual fun or take another look at every girl who grabs another girl in the anime bath, despite being told to stop? Nana's optimism is heartfelt and charming--until you realize that this is mostly a defense against living a life of horror and deprivation in which your only link is a father who largely permits this to happen. Is Kisaragi's savage murder a shot at clumsy girls in anime, or a marker that shows us such girls would have trouble living in a world of killers?

A classic example is this: Were Brutus and Cassius and the other conspirators in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar heroes stopping a tyrant, or criminals depriving Rome of its chosen leader and causing chaos?

Bottom line: X is so Y for a reason. It, however, is a reason that, like as not, no two people will ever completely agree on.

Will the anime see any manner or sort of follow-up?

There is no word from the various rights-holders, and the net is fairly choked with requests and ideas for a Season 2 or a remake like was done for Fullmetal Alchemist. These things take money, and whether or not those with the legal power to do so want to spend their money that way is a question we simply have no answer for. As of 2023, the popularity of Stranger Things, a series partly inspired by Elfen Lied, may be changing the first series low profile, but only time will tell.

The anime for Elfen Lied was planned to have a Season 2 but it wasn’t very popular in Japan and only became more popular in the west/countries outside of Japan a year after the anime first came out. While not impossible to make a second season by a different studio, Studio Arms, the company that made the anime, went bankrupt in 2020 and they were the only studio/company who were willing to adapt Lynn’s manga after the mangaka’s countless denied requests from other companies. The manga was also not popular in Japan and Lynn Okamoto has said it did not sell well. The Elfen Lied series itself is and was not popular in its home country and was quite the flop there but became a cult classic in other countries and this lack of success and popularity is why many other Japanese companies lack the care to do anything more with the franchise. Unfortunately the reason for the full series’ lack of popularity in Japan was because it was seen as very average compared to many other media in the country and, while there are of course still Japanese fans who exist, many Japanese just didn’t care for the franchise as much as it appealed to people outside of Japan.

Bottom line: Not in the foreseeable future.

How can Mayu's mother be so horrible and cold to her, when she has suffered like that?

Some people have a sociopathic level of detachment from all others, caring only about their own needs and wants. To her mother, Mayu was now an obstacle to her happiness. Selfish is almost a euphemism when talking about her.

Bottom line: To paraphrase Rod Serling's narration at the end of I Am The Night - Color Me Black - Don't look for what happened to Mayu in the pages and episodes of Elfen Lied - look to the world around you. There are shelters and services that try and aid kids like Mayu. Give to them.

Why does Diclonius hair vary so much?

In the manga, Lucy/Nyu's hair is cotton candy pink, Nana's is purple, and Mariko's is blonde. Two of these are not natural Human hair colors, and the third is not a usual color for a child of strict Japanese descent. We see no other Diclonii in color illustrations. If you look closely at the colored manga art, the human characters Mayu has dark green hued hair and purple eyes, Arakawa has dark blue hair rather than a solid black or brown given to some other characters, the Agent is a presumably Japanese woman with blonde hair. The manga (and even the anime despite making the visual difference more clear) never brings up hair or eye color as something unique to the diclonii or even a plot point at all. Hair and eye color are things that can easily be mentioned as something that stands out, especially if they wanted to identify traits of an ongoing mutation, but the only thing ever mentioned to stand out for a diclonius when it comes to their external features are their horns but otherwise they look identical to humans. In Japan green eyes are very uncommon and would be something that would stand out, yet no one freaks out or calls out the oddity of the colors of their eyes let alone the color of their hair. It is unknown what hair or eye color Hiromi was intended to have in the manga, either it was brunette with a still unknown eye color or another dark color that isn’t a natural hair color in real life, but either way when it came to the dark haired Japanese couple, nothing about being born with a blonde green eyed child striked them as odd clearly showing it isn’t something unusual in their world, just the fact she had horns stook out. There is no evidence either that all Diclonii in the manga have green eyes as, not only is it never mentioned as a distinct trait for the species, but seems like pure coincidence from the only officially colorized 3 members of an entire species. It can be assumed that any of their various hair colors are just a natural part of the manga's world.

In the anime, all Diclonius all have pink hair and red or pink eyes, but the shade and hue varies. For example, Lucy's is cerise, Nana's is a paler, somewhat purple-tinted pink, and Mariko's is light enough of a pink color to look blonde at sunset. This is probably to make them easy to identify or even more alien against the backdrop of human characters, who mostly have realistic hair colors. Despite this, while Mayu has a more realistic hair color in the anime her purple eyes are changed to dark pink, Kanae has purple eyes and Arakawa keeps her dark blue hair. Both Arakawa and Kouta are given blue eyes in the anime which aren't usual for Japanese people even if not impossible. Purple and pink eyes also exist in humans in the real world, but only in cases such as rare forms of albinism. So even in the anime there are some exceptions of some humans having slightly unusual hair and eye colors even if to a lesser extent. One other possibility is that the colors the viewers may see may not be the same the characters may see and could just be stylistic interpretation. Just like how on The Simpsons the light skinned characters are not really yellow but only stylized that way to stand out from other TV shows, or using another anime/manga example; in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, aside from a few important colors actually mentioned like Dio and Girono both having blonde hair, creator Hirohiko Araki says that there are no canon colors in Jojo and he often depicts/plays with drawing characters in numerous arrays of different colors even if they have a “main” color scheme. However the idea of it being purely stylization alone is only speculatory yet still a possibility.

Bottom line: Both humans and diclonii in the manga can have unusual hair and eye colors. In the anime, it's to give them a uniform look to help distinguish them from normal humans but there are even some humans with unusual or unnatural hair and eye colors. In both versions neither is brought up as a plot point at all, let alone mentioned.

Why were Diclonii given horns and are they cat girls?

No, the Diclonii were never meant to be cat girls or pseudo-cat girls in any capacity. The reason they have sharp ear shaped horns in the first place is because they are actually primarily based off of oni and elf/fairy mythology combined. While this section goes more in depth and detail about their inspirations from many different species both real and fantasy, to simplify; the Diclonii harbor hostile behavior towards humans just like the demonic oni as well as the pseudo-mystical qualities of their vectors, which the uneducated Lucy falsely calls “magic”, and how they use vectors to infect people and replace non-Diclonii kids with their kind is inspired by changeling mythology. It also comes from inspiration from the Elfenlied poem. To reflect this they are both given noticeable horns like demons and oni but in the shape of the typical ears of an elf and fairy. The ears actually look more elf-like in earlier chapters but the cat look was more of a drawing mistake from the developing art style of the artist. The “nyu” noise was also intended to be more of a cow pun than a cat pun in Japanese and oni horns are based on bovine horns.

How do arms come out of the Diclonius?

Vectors are energy-based and a form of telekinesis. It's never clarified why they manifest as arms, though they do extend out of a Diclonius' back or around them. Being energy-based would explain their lifting and cutting power, being able to insinuate themselves between molecular bonds, as well as why a young small Diclonius, Mariko, had the most "arms."

While never cited as an official inspiration, one of the series Elfen Lied has been compared to is Matilda with many saying EL is like a darker version of it. Even the debatably supernatural Kanae and obviously psychic Kaede are often compared to each other within the story's narrative and Kanae looks very similar to the film version of Matilda. Something interesting is that in the book's story, Matilda's telekinetic powers are cited as "little invisible hands" which is similar to vectors. There was also one video review of Elfen Lied that also said Lynn Okamoto was inspired by a character in an old manga (with the art style looking like a "manly anime/manga" one that came out around the 70s-80s) who was a man who fought with invisible hands as his inspiration for vectors but an exact source for this seems to be unknown. While any source of inspiration could be possible, it is something up to speculation where it could have come from.

Bottom line: Dunno, probably because they're cool-looking and different.

In the opening of the Elfen Lied anime why does Nyu/Lucy have her fingers positioned in a certain way?

It comes from the words of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, who lived in the 16th Century and who led the Counter-Reformation. He said "Open your fingers and close the middle and the ring finger only. When a crime is committed, when you confronted with difficulties, or when you are in the depths of despair, put your hand (in that shape) to your chest."  A Spanish (born in Crete, Greece) painter called El Greco who also lived in the 16th Century created lots of paintings using this style of hands. In the manga world, this finger style was once relatively popular.

Bottom line: Finger messages are very popular not only in Christianity but also in the older religion of Buddhism. Buddhist statues contain a few kinds of finger messages. In short, the fingers show Lucy's pain and regret.

Did Lucy turn evil just because of her puppy being killed?

It's useful to think of the puppy as the spark that ignited a tinder-box that had been packed tightly with gunpowder for many years. Seemingly for as long as young Lucy could remember, she had been rejected and taunted by not only other children at the orphanage, but staff there as well. It is not known whether Tomoo was her main outright tormentor, but even if so, the passive isolation and contempt of the others bled through likely every day she was there. By the time she found the pup, she had shut down her public emotions and likely would have gone insane earlier on if not caring for it. The murder of the pup being viewed as the sole reason for her breakdown can be compared to another origin-based murder, that of Spider-Man's Uncle Ben Parker. If all that is said is that Spider-Man turned to crimefighting because his uncle died, it sounds odd, off-putting and even shallow. But if one then learns that his uncle was the only father he had ever known, and that his own actions or inaction directly caused his murder, then the impact is truly felt. Similarly, it must be known that Kaede-Lucy had only this one small creature to love and be loved by in the entire world. The years of derision that preceded this must be taken into account. The efforts of one small likely sociopath cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Lastly, the very fact that Tomoo even learned about the small dog may have been the result of a staged and cruel betrayal of trust given at great reluctance. Instead of a dismissive notion that Lucy became evil just because her dog died, it should be considered remarkable that even Kouta's sincere effort at friendship could still reach her after all this.

Was Elfen Lied made with the intent of being edgy as well as sending a message?

Short answer: No. But if this interview isn’t enough to tell why, then the longer answer is that Elfen Lied was not made with that intent or at least not planned to be edgy originally. Lynn Okamoto is less of a gore obsessed edge lord who wanted to spread a social message through allegories and was more of a guy who was a simple beginner artist that was making his first serialized work and was more concerned with making a story that would interest people. He has no care for blood and gore at all, or “splatter” as he calls it, and is much more invested in nudity, ecchi and romance. The initial idea of Elfen Lied, aside from being a loose adaptation of the very poem it’s named after itself, was that of a love story and he wanted to make a series that would be similar to Love Hina as well as the idea of a murderer being involved in the romance as a way to spice up the story. It was also mixed in with his curiosity on the idea of how there were previous species of humans and human ancestors who existed in the past but don’t exist anymore and thinking about the theory that modern humans may have wiped them out (which is considered a more outdated theory now as there is more evidence of many diverse factors and different reasons for many of these species dying) and what would happen if a new emergent species would do the same thing to modern Homo sapiens. His main focus was on the love story first with the dark and sci-fi elements being secondary things to add interest because as he said he "wanted to do a love story but couldn't construct a good plot around it."

The Diclonii themselves are inspired by this theory as well as the many other animals and creatures they were influenced by such as the oni, which were seen as violent enemies of man in Japanese mythology, and how the elf is sorta seen as an outsider looking in the poem as well as the depictions of some elves and fae-folk being outsiders/outcasts in other media. Them being experiments seems to take inspiration from an older short story Lynn Okamoto did called MOL which is not violent or overly disturbing but a still pretty sad yet heartwarming story about a boy and a girl experiment he meets. The blood and violence was not even done out of being edgy or shocking as he just thought it was an easy visual way to demonstrate that the powers of a character were very strong. However, many people, both viewers and editors, found the focus on the romance and more normal stuff boring and were more interested in the mystery, darkness and violence of Lucy and the Diclonii. Since Lynn Okamoto wanted to focus on making sure people were entertained as possible, he decided to give many people what they wanted and swapped the focus being more centered around the Diclonii and their mysteriousness and carnage with the romance becoming more secondary. So unintentionally while on the surface Elfen Lied looks like it was made to focus on a “fantasy racism” plot that is trying to use a fictional species as an allegory to tell a message as well as coming across like it was made by someone who wanted the story to be edgy as possible, this was only because of popular demand upon people who wanted the focus to be on that more as they found it more interesting and Lynn just wanted to keep his viewers entertained by his first serialized work.

It should also be noted that just because someone makes a story with themes of being an outcast and alienation, that it doesn’t mean they are trying to spread some kind of message, criticism or challenge a topic and could just use those things for the sake of telling a story, causing drama, conflict or being emotional alone. Using another work of Lynn Okamoto’s as example, he has written the story Nononono which is about a girl who has to cross-dress and fake her identity as a guy just to get into a sport women weren’t allowed in at the time. While it has themes of misogyny, gender stereotyping, being an outcast, homophobia and other kinds of prejudice and discrimination, especially based on gender, it isn’t necessarily a story meant to spread some kind of message on or challenge those ideas as much as those elements are kind of just… there. While Lynn does not express himself as that of a hateful person, the story itself has become quite dated in how many of the characters, even sympathetic ones, are quite casually homophobic (often treating it like some kind of perversion or deviancy) and stereotype things based on gender a lot without really any corrections from anyone and many characters just treat those stereotypes like it’s natural. Japan is a pretty conservative/traditional country and especially in a time like the 2000s, there would have been many people who had more dated views on gender and sexuality (going back to Elfen Lied, take the infamous scene where people nowadays have criticized Lucy getting jealous over Kouta being with a girl and not a boy as “comphet” because of its implications), even if of course this obviously wouldn’t apply to everyone. So it seems many of these characters behaviors were the result of being heavily influenced by the unfortunate casual behavior of many people at the time that were much more common then. The story uses the situation of the main crossdressing character Nono as more of a source of conflict, emotion and drama of how troublesome keeping her secret is and some of the silly or strange hijinks she gets into because of her hidden gender rather than being some kind of commentary on gender politics and discrimination. Because of that story having an interesting, yet dated, nature and material in it, as well as many other factors, it has gained a mixed reaction among some people with some enjoying to see the story of what the main character has to go through and how they will deal with it and others criticizing how sexist and homophobic many of the dated stuff within it has been. The story even had to rush it’s ending because a higher up of the mangaka said it became dated, but more specifically on how women could now participate in the specific sport in the story. To make a long story short, while it was a story about a female who dealt with fear of gender discrimination and there were many themes of prejudice and similar things in it, it wasn’t made with trying to spread a message one way or another but like Elfen Lied, has gained some different kind of reactions for how it handles or deals with the topics within it.

Bottom line: The Elfen Lied series just suffered from a case of Death of the Author because of these circumstances.

Please add more...

Advertisement