Thread: The Devil You Know: Inside the mind of BlisteredBlood

Sunday Morning, May 23rd, 2010 Alright, I might as well get this started with a few things. One, a review on an anime - I'll also take requests from the board as well! - and maybe discuss a few things. The review I'd like to get outta the way at the moment is none other than Elfen Lied. The show itself is set in the near future, home to all things scientific. We begin the show as one young woman - probably has the look of a 17 year old at that, even though we get a look of a severed arm twitching occasionally - with a power that enables her to summon forth four nearly invisible arms and butchering the absolute fuck out of a few guards that were near their post. And quite in a visceral way, I might add. This goes on for about several minutes into the beginning where everyone is going batshit nuts in trying to figure out a way to stop her from escaping when they can't. Ultimately, they wind up shooting the young woman in the side of the head with an antitank rifle - the sniper was told to aim for the back of it, actually - and fires, smacking the helmet the girl was wearing accidentally, leaving her to fall from the edge of the cliff unconscious. Several hours after the incident and fearing that she would terrorize all of humanity, the government then proceeds to carry out a plan to recapture her at all costs. You'll find out why later in the series. During this time, we see two cousins by the names of Kouta and Yuka reuniting after a lengthy time apart and eventually move in together. But before their plans are finalized, the two stumble upon a stark naked pink haired young woman with two odd looking horns on her head, completely unaware of the fact that she is in fact a ruthless, cold-blooded and constantly calculating evil son of a bitch called a Diclonius capable of ripping a human being into pieces without a whit of remorse. Hey, that sounds like Trygon's - I mean Nicholas's - kind of gal. youtube All jokes aside, the two eventually take in the young woman despite the only thing she's capable of saying is the one word which would evenutally become her name, which is Nyuu and has the personality unlike of her frighteningly evil demeanor this time around More along the lines of a sweet and innocent three year old. So basically, it's the most common case of bipolar disorder but taken to new extremes. I won't give too much away from there, as you will have to check this out for yourself. But I will have to warn you all right now for those of you who read this article. The show does not take any prisoners in terms of the amount of graphicsemi-realistic amounts of blood, gore and violence as well as the occasional visual and psychological nudity. Reason as to why I say psychological nudity is the fact that there is plenty of moments in the show where your jaw will hang open in morbid shock and say to yourself... This isn't just counting the number of times you see dismemberments throughout the show, but also the number of times where the occasional humor comes in. I can guarantee you that despite you'll probably laugh at the jokes, but at the same time you'll be thinking in the back of your mind, Am I supposed to laugh at this when in reality, you can't help but feel bad for the characters - both the tragic protagonist LucyNyuu as well as some of the antagonists as well - due to the fact that they are all pawns in some twisted game of chess. The music in the show is deeply phenomenal, to say the least. Especially with the opening theme Lillium meaning lily in Latin which I can almost swear was a Gregorian hymn from thousands of centuries ago as heard here. I personally didn't mind the voice acting - despite I was listening to the original Japanese voice cast over on Anilinkz - as each person did their roles quite well. I'm certain the same can be said about the American voice acting as well. Overall, I believe this show definitely pulls on the heartstrings in terms of its WTF moments, but there are also moments in the show that I found were quite entertaining. I wouldn't recommend it to those of you who happen to be squeamish or faint-hearted due to the amount of savagery you'll see in the show, nor do I recommend it for the little kids. But for those of you that can handle the types of themes the show gets into, then you're in for a real treat. OK, now that that's done, what else has been going on in my little world? Well, aside from the fact that I decided to come back downstairs because of my mom having recurring nightmares for three nights in a row, I suppose that's about all I can say about that as well as mention that I've also been taking up watching anime again. Elfen Lied is the prime example thus far. On top of all that, I also need to get back into Darker Than Black so I can have the ammunition I need if I feel like RPing it but I may also do a review on that at some point once I get done with the series. Well, I'm out for now, folks. See ya next time!