WARNING: I do not do a total rehash of what happened in previous volumes. That is not the way I write reviews. What I do is hope that whoever is reading this has already experienced the previous volume(s) or has read my previous reviews. If you don't like it, that's unfortunate for you. Look elsewhere for a "better" review. Everyone else, please enjoy!


Maybe you don’t want to know about #35, the frightening diclinous introduced at the end of volume 3, but tough luck for you. #35 is such a horrible creature that she is locked away in a giant prison that acts basically as a womb for her to live in. #35 has not seen the outside of this prison since she was born, and she is not at all friendly.

Ms. Saitoh is a woman who is the caretaker for #35, and she refers to herself as #35’s “mother.” Why anyone would want to claim such a heartless being as their own is beyond me. The organization who is holding #35 prisoner is not foolish, and while they are letting her free, they don have backup measures in place in case she decides to do what she does best.

I don’t mind spoiling it, because you can probably guess that #35 doesn’t exactly play nice with humans. She makes Lucy look like a gentle lamb in comparison. Speaking of Lucy, the organization who wants nothing more than to control her and her kind is finally going to meet her new family, Kohta and the rest of his odd harem.

It is showdown time, and although I beg for a happy ending, I know that Elfen Lied is probably not going to end with a picnic. So #35 is brought out into civilian life, and through the bond that all dicloni have, Nana feels #35’s presence and decides to go fight her. Big, big mistake. Big Mistake #2 is when Kohta decides to run out to find Nana, putting him right into harm’s way.

Nana has absolutely no defense against #35, who has the longest reach of any dicloni, and she doesn’t possess the killer instinct that Lucy does. Nana does manage to do one thing, though that gives Lucy an advantage. Maybe now Lucy can survive. Winning the fight is another matter entirely.

One thing that is kind of silly is that Kohta and Yuka have been totally in the dark about Lucy being a killing machine and Nana wanting to kill Lucy. Now, without a doubt, Kohta knows what’s going on, and the show’s almost over. Well, neither Kothta nor Yuka were portrayed as particularly brilliant people.

When Kohta intrudes upon the fight between Nana, #35 and Lucy the story flashes back to when Kohta was a child, and we finally learn how the tragedy of his family dying happened. It wasn’t hard to figure out, but there are tiny, bloody details that still make the flashback worth it. The flashback is shocking, and in the end of this episode, both Lucy and Kohta have totally “awakened.”


Episode 2 is the final episode. This is when I was wondering what moment Lucy or Nana would die. I thought it just had to happen, because this show is about a lot of misery and very few moments of happiness. In this episode, Yuka opens up to Mayu about why she feels so jealous about Kohta showing interest in Yuka. Basically, until the end, Yuka is most in the dark about everything. I can’t understand why someone would not know that all this carnage is going on so close to them. I just take that as something to expect when enjoying supernatural fiction like this.

Back on the bridge Lucy, Nana and #35 (who learns her real name) fight. It doesn’t end in the way I expected it to, and that’s very satisfying. Now that Elfen Lied is finally over, I feel that this was an incredible anime. It effectively made me feel for very wicked people who were all but irredeemable. The dicloni are hideous monsters, and yet they didn’t ask to be, and some of them do want to be forgiven. So Elfen Lied, while totally outrageous, taboo and bloody, is an anime I think anime fans should recommend to their friends. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it in years.

Extras

Extras Include original DVD cover art, Elfen Lied artwork and the usual extras that came in every other volume of the series.


Das Ende.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age