Forum - View topic

Has anybody checked out Elfen Lied yet?

I was going to check it out, but then I did some more research and it reminded me of Kite, which is probably my least favorite anime ever.

The only time little kids have gotten splattered is the flashback in the latest episode. And they actually deserved it. Every other time it's just been a guard, soldier, or some jerk that...usually deserved it, really.

As for fanservice, I personally haven't noticed very much beyond about the first two or three episodes. There's plenty of casual nudity, yes, but much of it isn't shown in an exploitative light and some is even shown in a directly negative fashion (spoiler[Mayu's past in episode...I think five]).

Please listen to yourself: "the kids actually deserved to die horribly". Did you really mean to sound that callous and bloodthirsty?

As for the other people that Lucy killed "deserving it".... did the secretary in ep. 1 deserve to die? How about the guards? Were they all sadistic concentration-camp types, or were some of them just working 9-to-5 jobs and paying the bills?

What I'm getting at is this: Nobody deserves to die. Sometimes, as in self-defense, killing becomes necessary or unavoidable, but it should never be turned into a moral act. Taking another person's life is the ultimate immorality. If you kill someone, even in defense of a weaker individual that they are preying on, you should feel guilt and shame.

abunai wrote:

Please listen to yourself: "the kids actually deserved to die horribly". Did you really mean to sound that callous and bloodthirsty?

I'm sorry, but the depiction of those kids spoiler[brutally beating a puppy to death] sort of...shut off the section of my brain that gives children the benefit of the doubt when spoiler[deliberately and knowingly murdering innocent living things that can't fight back.]

Also, I'm not saying any real, living person is "deserving to die" here, I'm using the term a bit more lightly than usual with the full knowledge that I'm referring to cartoon characters. Fictional beings with exaggerated personalities (or at least I'd hope a child wouldn't be that disgustingly sadistic, but I've been proven wrong before). If it were a real life instance I probably wouldn't speak so coldly (well...spoiler[brutal puppy slaughter] might elicit that sort of response no matter the realm), but these people aren't real and are specifically written to elicit such responses, so I play along with what the screenwriter pretty much wanted us to feel.

JON Venables and Robert Thompson, both aged 11, became the youngest convicted murderers in Britain for almost 250 years when a jury at Preston crown court found them guilty yesterday of abducting and murdering two-year-old James Bulger.

They were sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure and were expected to be kept locked up for at least 20 years.

Mr Justice Morland described the abduction and murder of James on the railway track at Walton, Merseyside, as a cunning and wicked act of 'unparalleled evil and barbarity'.

abunai wrote:

As for the other people that Lucy killed "deserving it".... did the secretary in ep. 1 deserve to die? How about the guards? Were they all sadistic concentration-camp types, or were some of them just working 9-to-5 jobs and paying the bills?

I should have been a bit more precise in my language here, I apologise. The "deserving it" part wasn't in reference to the guards & soldiers, but rather to the "some jerk" portion of it. I also used the term "usually," because I did remember the secretary and no, she didn't deserve it. BUT that spoiler[Diclonius scientist guy] and Bando (granted Bando didn't die, but...), they were incredibly despicable individuals.

abunai wrote:

What I'm getting at is this: Nobody deserves to die. Sometimes, as in self-defense, killing becomes necessary or unavoidable, but it should never be turned into a moral act. Taking another person's life is the ultimate immorality. If you kill someone, even in defense of a weaker individual that they are preying on, you should feel guilt and shame.

Nobody in the real world probably deserves to die, but again these are fictional characters written to elicit either exaggerated sympathy, exaggerated hatred, or whatever purpose the production team has designated them. As the viewer, I choose to play into it and provide a response that the writer probably intended.

I'm not going to watch footage of, say, the Columbine High School massacre and passively state "oh they had it coming," because that really would be sick, twisted, and truly heartless. Bu~ut in a piece of gritty fiction like this, where the antagonists have the "scumbag" meter turned to eleven on purpose, I don't particularly see the problem with it.

Elfen Lied's been licensed by ADV, but the DVDs haven't been released yet.