Elfen Lied 04
I know my impressions were short last episode and I'm still recovering from the dog killing fake out but I promise to make it up with this episode.
Let's start with the opening. It's sung in latin and the lyrics make it sound like it has some deep philosophical meaning. Meanwhile in the background we are treated to several still panning images of the main character while she is stark naked as well as all the other female characters who wear clothes that blend into the background they're standing against giving the illusion that they're not wearing anything. The whole thing comes off as pretentious crap where we're supposed to find some hidden meaning when there is none.
Next is the nudity. There has been some form of nudity in every episode thus far. So far I have have found no purpose for it other than to see pink haired cat eared girls naked. Kill La Kill's fan service didn't bother me because the nudity actually fit within the context of the plot even if it was stupid and silly. The nudity in this is so gratuitous in it's nature that it makes me shake my head every time I see it on screen. The fact that it's present in such a glaringly obvious way in both the OP and ED just emphasises this even further. AnimeGAF, if you're wondering where all the nipples went Elfen Lied stole them all and parades them in your face every few minutes.
The characters in this series are absolutely ridiculous. The first thing Kouta thinks when he sees a random naked girl on the beach is "Hey, lets take her in to live with us!" The scenes where he is with Nyu as she struggles with her female body are just so badly done it makes me gag. The fact that Nyu is constantly naked in front of him and yet he still acts like the shy, innocent, anime character is really overplayed and makes it even more ridiculous that he took her home in the first place.
Yuka is a mystery. She suddenly appears back in Kouta's life after many years of never having seen him. Not only does she encourage him to take Nyu home but she belittles and gets physically violent with him when he does something that may seem the slightest bit sexual with Nyu. She then encourages him to continue to bring female guests into his home and gets jealous when he interacts with them. Do you like this moron or not, make up your mind woman!
Then there is Nyu... This is one of the worst characters I've seen in any narrative. She is a completely clueless and dependent moron one minute yet she becomes a merciless killing machine the next. The whole shtick of repeating your name and not understanding what someone means when they ask for water was not endearing or cute, it was painful to watch. The character shift from one personality to the next has made no sense and only appears to happen when she takes a bump to the head.
The whole facility where they keep these mutants and operation surrounding them is giving off huge evangelion vibes. The director guy is such a Gendo wannabe. The badass soldier dude is told he has been infected by some disease after being touched by Nyu's magical hands and they have to cut off his balls. I don't know what fucked up plot device this is for but it seems they're writing this ridiculous stuff just for shock value. They also have several of these pink haired, cat eared girls strung up naked in chains. I don't know what fucked up operation you're running but do they really have to be nude 24/7 for you to perform your experiments?
The violence in this anime is so over the top it has surpasses the stupid gore kill films from the west. How hands, no matter how magical they are, can slice someone up like this is so stupid. The whole concept of the vectors makes me wonder what the writers were smoking.
It's only been four episodes and I've had enough. At least with school days it was a funny kind of badness that I could parody into something. This is just terrible on so many levels that I have to wonder how the fuck this anime has an average score of over 8 on MAL. The funny thing is I'm going to keep watching this until the end.
TLDR: This anime is bloody awful. If you have any intention of watching this look at yourself in the mirror then slap yourself on the face.