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				Review* Elfen Lied by Zachary Hardison (Kyo) Original Air Date: July 25, 2004 Network: AT-X Official Web Site: Click Here
			The story begins as a young girl is seen, completely nude by the way, with the exception of her face being masked. This girl is escaping a facility where she is kept and begins to annihilate everyone that stands in her way. Violence and blood aplenty in this anime. She soon escapes and washes up on a beach where a boy and girl find her; Kouta and Yuka. These two are cousins and Yuka has feelings for Kouta, unbeknownst to him though. Kouta is living in an old inn in the city with plenty of rooms so they take the girl back to the inn. We soon find out that this wickedly evil girl is named Lucy, but has ‘another self’ that is completely innocent and nice, but doesn’t speak well. She has a habit of saying “nyuu” all the time, so that’s what they decide to call her. Yuka is not pleased that this seemingly always nude girl is around, so she begins to live at the inn as well. Lucy’s power comes from these invisible arms called “vectors” that move silently, quickly, and with immense power. And oh yeah, Lucy isn’t a normal human, she has horns coming out of her head, but they look like typical anime cat ears. So the secret test facility is after her, the cops, and along comes her ‘sibling’ named Nana, by order of the director of the facility, Kurama. Nana has the same power as Lucy, but has a much kinder nature, and therefore thinks of Kurama as her papa, and vice versa. What Lucy and Nana are referred to as are Diclonius, which means a type of dinosaur (because of the horns). And even later we meet the ultimate killing machine Diclonius (even worse than Lucy which is hard to imagine after you see what she does), needless to say, a normal Diclonius has four to six vectors with only somewhat close range. This girl, holy wow, has 26 vectors, with an immense range. And that’s all I’ll tell you ;) Another girl (yes there very nice to look at, but no touchy), goes by the name of Mayo, yes I thought of mayonnaise. Anyway, she is homeless to get right to it. She witnesses Lucy completely destroying a soldier and severely wounding another, and then later sees her literally rip apart Nana. And even through all that, she’s convinced it was a dream. Was it? But Kouta and Yuka legally adopt Mayo for various reasons that you can find out, so she is living with them as well. Up to one boy, and three girls living under one roof (squee!). We learn over the episodes about the past of all the characters, but the most interesting is not the insanely powerful girls, but actually Kouta. We found out soon that he saw his younger sister and father murdered before his eyes, but the details are only revealed later on. This anime definitely makes you want to watch more of it, if not for the intense action, or the random nudity, or comedic moments, then just the story itself to see how it all plays out. This one has various themes as I just mentioned; action, comedy, drama, and romance. It’s a great story that I highly recommend. It has very powerful emotional moments, some sad and some happy. When watching though, be sure to watch the credits all the way through at the end of the last episode. Woot for happy endings! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Later days!