Ask John: Is Elfen Lied Too Cliché?

Question:
Elfen Lied is one of my favorite releases so far of 2005 and it has gotten a lot of very good reviews. One of the biggest complaints about the show, though, is that it is horribly clichéd and all the show does is take common clichés and add violence to them. Is Elfen Lied really clichéd to the point where a viewer may overlook the depth and emotion that the show displays?

Answer:
Elfen Lied is a unique contemporary show because, with the partial exception of its unbroadcast bonus episode, it sustains a brutal, adult seriousness throughout. Morbid, mature anime are an exception in the current Japanese market because they exist contrary to the current Japanese demand for sweet, lighthearted, romantic and fun anime. Furthermore, unlike other recent dark, horror themed shows such as Gantz and Tsukihime, Elfen Lied exhibited and maintained a high level of artistic competence, which is why it’s more respected and more popular among Americans than, for example, Tsukihime. However, while Elfen Lied is excellent, it’s arguably not a masterpiece.

In my personal opinion, the Elfen Lied anime had attractive character designs, gorgeous background art, interesting characters, and benefited from its unreserved depictions of nudity and grotesque violence. At the same time, the Elfen Lied anime relies upon an emotional connection with its viewers in order to attain its fullest potential instead of developing its characters and story enough to supercede the necessity for viewer empathy. Anime including Fushigi Yuugi, Berserk, SaiKano, and Graveyard of Fireflies are powerful and moving because their characterizations and story contain all of the ingredients necessary to create strong emotional reactions in viewers. On the other hand, Elfen Lied’s characters internalize too much and its story reveals too little too late to create the emotional punch that it seems to want to create. Viewers have to invest a lot into the Elfen Lied anime in order to be genuinely moved by it. Genuinely powerful anime will move even a stone cold heart. So Elfen Lied is superficially gorgeous, and it does have a strong visceral impact, but its weakness is its story and character development, which aren’t as impactful as they seemingly could and should have been.

Presuming that my evaluation of the Elfen Lied anime is reasonably accurate, allowing for some variance among personal opinions, the show clearly does have some depth and emotion, so claims that cliché’s render the show totally ineffectual are mistaken. Elfen Lied is certainly subject to the principle of “nothing new under the sun.” Ostensibly Elfen Lied is a romantic harem comedy, albeit a morbid and violent one. In true harem anime convention, Elfen Lied is the story of a young, introverted young man living with four attractive young girls (five if Lucy and Nyu are counted individually). And both Yuka and Nyu/Lucy are attracted to Kouta, the young male protagonist. Elfen Lied also borrows a conventional storyline from earlier shows like Madox-01, Megazone 23 and Guyver. The young male protagonist is in possession of an advanced technology which has slipped from the grasp of its secretive owners, who resort to violence to get it back. Elfen Lied also utilizes anime clichés for specific explication. Characters have deep, dark secrets; there’s always someone stronger waiting in the wings; Kouta will inevitably get caught in innocent situations that are easily misinterpreted.

Being preoccupied with such clichés in Elfen Lied is like, to cite a cliché, not seeing the forest because of all the trees. In other words, obsessing over clichés in Elfen Lied may prevent a viewer from appreciating what lies beyond those clichés – what they exist in service of. Cliché is not immediately a flaw. I suspect that fans who inordinately stress the presence of clichés in Elfen Lied are merely looking for a means to criticize the show out of spite or jealousy- because they feel offended that the show is too popular or too highly praised. It’s virtually impossible for a new anime to entirely avoid cliché or influence from prior anime. In fact, the effective treatment of cliché can result in anime that’s very accessible and unique at the same time. A good example is Evangelion. Evangelion is the same “boy pilots his father’s robot to save the world from evil” plot that can be traced back to 1972’s Mazinger-Z. Evangelion merely updates the cliché by adding religious symbolism and shifting the story focus from extroverted action to internal psychology. Likewise Elfen Lied is a distinctive show which uses clichés but isn’t beholden to them. Elfen Lied definitely isn’t suitable for everyone, and it’s not a flawless show. But any viewer interested in it should at least sample it without being concerned that excessive clichés or unoriginality will spoil the experience.