Review written by forum member MegaHentai
Region: 1
Discs: 2
Publisher: ADV Films
Length: 325 minutes
Video: Anamorphic 1.78:1
Audio: English 5.1, Japanese 5.1
Subtitles: English
UPC: 702727206429
ISBN: 9781413905243
MSRP: $39.98
PROS:
- dark, gripping story
- excellent music
- attractive artwork
- clever use of tropes and conventions
CONS:
- inferior packaging
- no bonuses
- uneven English dub
- occasional underage nudity
- series incomplete
MAIN FEATURE
Elfen Lied is disturbing, vicious, gory, glum, and relentlessly dark. And it’s beautiful.
The series revolves around the Diclonius, a species of humanoid mutants who may represent the next phase in evolution and seem to be genetically programmed to exterminate and replace humankind. A secret organization has vowed to wipe out the Diclonius before they can achieve these goals, and keep a few captured specimens in a facility. One of the more powerful ones, Lucy, fights her way to freedom, but not before a sniper’s bullet erases her memory.
Lucy, now a childlike amnesiac, encounters Kohta and Yuka, two cousins who share a house. They call her Nyu, since it’s the only word she can say, and bring her to live with them until they can find her actual home. This puts them squarely in the sights of the anti-Diclonius faction. Kohta has a number of repressed childhood memories which threaten to resurface whenever he is around Nyu. On top of all that, Lucy’s true personality occasionally resurfaces, drawing other Diclonius toward her in a series of brutal battles.
Elfen Lied is not for everyone. There is a fair amount of extremely graphic violence. People are decapitated, dismembered, and even torn in half with astounding regularity. The series takes a very dismal view of humanity, often ceding the moral high ground to the homicidal mutants. Also, most of the female cast members — not all of them legal-aged — appear in the nude from time to time, though rarely in a sexualized manner.
You needn’t be an anime fan to enjoy this series. If you are, though, there is an added level of enjoyment to be had, as Elfen Lied subverts many of the tropes of the medium. The harem, the clumsy-but-well-meaning gal with a crush on her boss, the characters who meet as children but forget, the cousins in love, the tween who moves in with the older kids, just about any anime cliche you can think of… they’re all here, and they all go horribly wrong.
All this is my way of explaining to you why Elfen Lied is one of my favourite series, animated or otherwise, of the new millennium — which, in turn, is why I’m so disappointed in ADV for allowing this subpar edition to be released.
First of all, the title is a bald-faced lie. Here’s a little Marketing 101: if you’re going to put the words “Complete Collection” in the title of a DVD set, you kinda have to collect the complete series. Yes, all 13 broadcast episodes are in this edition, but the DVD-exclusive 14th episode is not. Given that ADV has had the English-language rights to this episode since 2006, I can think of no explanation for its absence here. Even if it would have cost too much to dub, a simple subtitle track would have been better than nothing.
Speaking of things that are missing…
BONUS FEATURES
None. Seriously, none whatsoever, unless you count the two Anime Network promos and the six trailers for other ADV releases. Earlier editions of Elfen Lied had features like textless credit sequences, artwork, and packaging inserts with interviews on them. Only in anime, it seems, does the de facto Special Edition come out first, followed by a bare-bones version after the first one goes out of print.
A/V
The picture and audio are both excellent. If you have a decent sound system, the opening theme is like hearing angels weep.
PACKAGING
Another baffling decision. Elfen Lied: Complete Collection comes in a keepcase about two inches thick, with an extra-long hub on which all three discs are stacked on top of each other like a spindle of DVD-Rs. If I wanted to design a DVD case almost guaranteed to lead to damaged discs at some point, this is precisely what I would come up with. It was bad enough four years ago, the last time I saw this done, and I assumed the idea had been abandoned by the home video industry. To release something like this in 2009 is just thoughtless.
OVERALL
Elfen Lied is a marvelous series. If you don’t offend easily and don’t require your entertainment to be upbeat and cheery, I recommend it to you very highly indeed. However, if you have the means, you may well be better off tracking down used copies of the previous box set (called The Diclonius Report) or the four-volume original release. Then go watch the missing episode on YouTube.
Review written by forum member MegaHentai.
You can purchase this set from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk