Elfen Lied

Elfen Lied revolves around the race of diclonius, a mutant human species identified by two cat-ear like horns and transparent "vectors", and the ways in which the humans abuse and reject them as part of society, instead seizing them for storage and experimentation in an offshore laboratory. The series is centered around the teenage diclonius girl "Lucy", said to be the first diclonius, becoming sadistic as a result of her vengeance and delivering it on the humans who rejected her. Elfen Lied involves themes of social alienation, identity, revenge and the value of humanity. The series employs graphic violence and nudity, especially the graphic opening sequence of the first episode. So far, only the thirteen-episode anime series has been licensed in the United States, by ADV Films. ADV Films said the series was one of their bestselling and "most notorious" releases of 2005.

"Major characters"

• Kohta (コウタ/耕太, Kōta, also romanized as Kouta) - He is a 18 year-old student and one of the main characters of the series. Kohta enters the story when Yuka's family rents him a closed down inn as long as he maintains it, and begins living there with Yuka while going to a university. Kohta understandably has traumatic memories from witnessing the deaths of his father and sister, late in the series revealed to be by Lucy's hand, which he has repressed, ending up in a psychiatric ward for over a year for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Due in part to his loss, Kohta is sympathetic towards girls in trouble and is extremely generous and protective to the girls around him, because he can relate to them and they remind him of his late sister. He feels guilty because the last thing he said to her was that he'd hate her for her whole life if she didn't apologize to Lucy when he didn't believe that she had actually killed so many people.

• Yuka (ユカ, Yuka) - She is Kohta's cousin around his same age and lives with him at the inn. She is in love with Kohta, and is therefore jealous of Kohta's attention to Nyuu, to the point of being very irrational. Mayu once described her as the "mother" at Kaede House, and Kohta as the "father"

• Mayu (マユ, Mayu) - Mayu is a young teenage girl of around fourteen years old (she turns fourteen in the anime and turns thirteen in the manga). The viewer first meets Mayu when she arrives at the inn being inhabited by Kohta, Yuka and Nyu to return an umbrella she found at the beach where she met Bando, lying in the sand with his eyes gouged out and his arm ripped off from his encounter just a few minutes before with Lucy. Mayu is also the one who gets help for Bando. Mayu is also a homeless girl who subsists mostly on bread crusts from a bakery. Mayu had endured molestation by her stepfather before she ran away from home. Her own

• Kurama (蔵間, Kurama) - He is the chief of research, aged in his mid-30's, of the diclonius children in the research containment facility. He is also the surrogate father of Nana and biological father of Mariko. His wife, Hiromi Kurama, died from Caesarean section complications shortly after she gave birth to Mariko. Although he had previously been tasked with killing all diclonius births, he falters when he must kill his own daughter. Lucy carries a deep hatred toward Kurama, stemming from his failure to save Aikon Takada (seen in the Elfen Lied OVA); however, she states that she will not kill him but will kill everything that loves him. It is revealed late in the series that the General Director of the diclonius research program kept his daughter alive, increasing Kurama's perceived debt to him. Kurama dies at the end of the anime after the explosives inside Mariko (whom he is cradling in his arms while walking away) are detonated at his command. It should be noted that right before the explosion, Kurama has a series of images flash in his mind. In them, his wife is still alive and Mariko is a normal baby, and together the images make up Kurama's idea of how life presumably would have played out if Mariko had been born normal (Mariko as a toddler, Mariko on her first day of school, etc.).
  

• Bandō (坂東, Bandō?) - He is an operative in his mid-30's for the National Police Agency's Special Assault Team (SAT). Though he is fully human, he is as homicidal and apathetic to other people as the worst diclonius are. He is a hardy and effective soldier. After being maimed by Lucy and repaired with bionic, cybernetic and prosthetic implants, he escapes on a quest for revenge against her. He gets two or more Desert Eagle hand guns. In the manga he gets other weapons such as an RPG. The guns fire custom .50 Action Express rounds which are so powerful the rounds can not be blocked with vectors. But the bullets can be pushed off course at long range though; however at close range not even Lucy can stop them. He gets sidetracked several times in this quest, and ultimately receives aid from Kurama to "kill a diclonius that was coming." Bandō is driven by the will to fight and to prove his superior ability in combat, not to mention avenge the wounds he suffered at Lucy's hands. At the end of the anime he is crippled again by Lucy. In the manga his role is extended a bit more and he is shown to have a more compassionate side, such as saving Kurama, and burying the dead. He is reluctant to accept positive emotions from others, such as Mayu and Nana. While he is violent, ruthless and all too willing to kill, he takes great offense to acts of perversion, such as child molestation; when Mayu asks for his aid when she is attacked by the Unknown man (see below), Bando expresses intense disgust over the Unknown man's actions. In the manga, Bandō eventually dies while protecting Mayu from an attack by Lucy after the latter is exposed as a killer to the young girl. Lucy rips off his remaining arm and cuts him in half, then flees. While dying in Mayu's arms, Bandō reflects that he had always wanted someone to cry for him after he died, since he had isolated himself from human contact for all his life. He seems to be at peace when he dies; Mayu continues cleaning the beach where Bandō had come to live in his memory.
  

• Kanae (カナエ, Kanae) - She was Kohta's younger sister between the ages of 8-10 years old. She was protective of her brother and was jealous of other girls' attentions to him. Kohta cares about her very much, but repressed much of his memory of her after Lucy murdered her on a train by ripping her torso in half. Kohta's mourning of her death makes his father come closer to the body. Although he doesn't see Kanae's body, he is quickly decapitated by Lucy anyway. In the anime, Kouta's repression of the events leads him to believe she just "got sick and died.".

• Lucy (ルーシー , Rūshī) - is a teenage diclonius girl around 18 years old, Lucy has four vectors with a limited range of two meters.[3] However, she can be swift and lethal within that range, and will use any nearby objects as high velocity projectiles to kill at greater distances. She is also capable of stopping or deflecting most standard ammunition when she concentrates on the task. Lucy hates humans mainly because of how she was treated by her human peers as a child. Consequently, she discounts non-diclonii, claiming they are not real people, to the point of telling Nana that she has "not killed anyone yet". She seems to lack empathy, kills without much concern, and acts somewhat sadistically. Despite this lack of concern for human life she will not harm Kohta, crying and apologizing for killing his family. She refrains from killing in his presence, except at the end when she kills a whole army in front of him, which reminds him of his suppressed trauma.

• Nyu (にゅう, Nyu) - is a split personality of Lucy that developed after an .50 BMG round ricocheted off a metallic helmet encasing her head. Nyuu has a childlike personality and infantile knowledge of the world, and lacks spoken language skills, only able to say "Nyu" and "Kohta" most of the time. Near the end of the anime, she develops a wider vocabulary, being able to say phrases like "Don't cry, Kohta!". Nyu is innocent and incapable of violent acts, a foil to the normally cold and sadistic Lucy; she is the manifestation of her "good side". When Nyu is attacked violently (or hit on the head), she regresses into Lucy; likewise, when Lucy is treated with love and kindness, or wants to hide herself from Kohta, she will uncontrollably switch back into Nyu. While Nyu exists first due to trauma, it is believed that Lucy subconsciously encourages her presence due to her feelings of guilt towards Kohta and to prevent her from harming him (directly or indirectly). In the manga, this is confirmed by Lucy herself.

• Nana (ナナ, Nana) - Also known as Number 7, she is a young Silpelit girl who has the physical appearance of being 12-14 years old (though because Silpelits age rapidly, she is actually only about 6-7 years old). Her name, 'Nana', is Japanese for the number seven, the number by which she was called at the research facility ("Nana" is also a fairly common female name in Japan). Most diclonius babies are euthanized at birth in sweeps of hospital maternity wards, but Nana was one of a handful kept alive for use as a test subjects; as a result she has spent her entire life in the diclonius research facility. Nana sees Kurama as her father, whom she calls "Papa," because she needed something to keep her from going insane during the torturous experimentation, believing that she is making him proud. Kurama in turn sees her as his daughter and cares very much for her. In an attempt to recapture Lucy, Kurama sent out Nana to find her (diclonii can telepathically sense each other), then retreat until Kurama could arrive with soldiers, but Nana wanted to impress Kurama so she tried to capture Lucy herself. Lucy and Nana engaged in a brutal telekinetic battle that ended with Lucy dismembering Nana. Kurama personally came to stop Lucy and save Nana, then also disregarded Director General Kakuzawa's order to kill her by giving her new prosthetic limbs and setting her free with money to survive. Unlike many other Diclonius, because Kurama treated her with kindness, she is not homicidal or sadistic. She has the ability to temporarily disable other Diclonius' vectors by having her vectors go through their pineal gland. Although her vector power is slightly superior to Lucy's in terms of range (5 meters to Lucy's 2) and certain abilities, she lacks Lucy's sheer strength (Lucy can lift and throw many times heavier objects than Nana can), and violent nature; Nana's empathy for others does not allow her to fight as vigorously. With her vector arms, she is later able to manipulate prosthetic appendages and even throw them like a rocket punch.
  

• Mariko Kurama (蔵間マリコ, Kurama Mariko) - Also known as Number 35, she is a young girl described as the only surviving "third generation" Silpelit (a Silpelit born from one infected by another Silpelit, as opposed to one born from one infected by a Diclonius), and the daughter of Kurama at five years old. She is described as the most powerful of the Silpelits. During an escape attempt by Number Three (who was actually Nana's sister), Kurama was infected by her vectors and thus turned into a carrier of the diclonius virus, and his daughter was born a silpelit. In the anime she possesses 26 vectors (up to fifty in the manga), each with an approximate range of 11 meters (the number and range is much higher in the manga). Mariko was imprisoned as an infant and raised inside a steel container with human contact consisting of nothing more than a scientist acting as a sort of foster mother through speakers and monitors. Her physical impairment is seen in her atrophied limbs as she moves around in a wheelchair. It is ironic that the most sadistic and bloodthirsty of the diclonii is also the youngest and cutest.
  

• Chief Kakuzawa (角沢長官, Kakuzawa Chōkan) - He is the head of the research center at 70+ years old performing experiments on diclonius. He is from a long line of diclonius ancestry that has been watered down by inter-breeding with humans (much of this is, however, only revealed in the manga). As a result of this he has no vectors and much smaller horns on his head, which he hides under a wig. His and his son's aim is, in part, to replenish their bloodline with the diclonius they are experimenting on (of which Lucy is the first to be able to reproduce) and thus gain power as "kings" of the new race, which would wipe out humanity and replace it whole. In the manga, he even claims to desire the position of a god of the new, Diclonius-ruled world he envisions. He is the father of Anna Kakuzawa, professor Kakuzawa and one or more other male offspring.