Originally Posted by
ImmortalCow
I guess I should finish Elfen Lied, had that stalled for a few years now... Never really got in to it.
It can be difficult to get into the 1st time for many reasons, but it's worth the effort.
1. The art style is pretty guff for it's age.
2. The voice acting is pretty bad.
3. Things don't really start happening until a few EPs in, but you need to pay attention to the early ones for plot.
Make sure you get the Jap version, the voice acting's not great in it, but the dub was horrendous (think MS SAM level horrendous). Also ensure you get it uncut, that I can't emphasise enough. There's key stuff for the characters that doesn't appear in cut versions (because there's seriously grim stuff).
Aaaaaannnnnd, get the OVA. People tend to label it as EP 10.5 because it belongs in that part of the story... Sorta. It's more 10.5/11.1 IMO. Annoyingly it's pretty goofy at times & that doesn't fit the mood of the rest of the show, but it has some major plot stuff that fills in a fair few blanks. Obviously watch that after EP10.
All in all I love it even if it completely bums me out, and so long as you can grasp the themes it's getting at (mostly abuse, persecution etc etc) it becomes more interesting. Just be aware that there are parts of it that will sicken you (providing you have uncut, which you should for plot reasons).
IMO it's the most fucked up
mainstream anime out there.
Last edited by SkulFuk; Nov 3, 2012 at 08:11 AM.