I think culture has been buried under irony for so long the pendulum is due to swing back if it isnt already and we're going to get some shamelessly edgy stuff. I kind of see stuff like danadadan and chainsaw man's popularity as some early symptoms of this, both things that arent afraid of their adolescent feelings or edgy imagery.
I would say that, in general, there's been something of a revival of '00s anime sensibilities in a post-ironic context across the board, particularly in terms of the heightened melodrama of romantic-tragic visual novels and ultraviolent seinen manga and the raunchy humour of, well, very *different* sorts of visual novels and seinen manga, but also in the return of band anime and a new wave of zany/morbid absurdist comedy, as well as more experimental and ambitious fare sprouting up in between. And this isn't just reflected in what's being adapted, but also in the kind of original series which are being greenlit; Akiba Maid War and Girls Band Cry on the more auspicious end, Love Flops and Magical Destroyers on the disappointing side, and Giant Beasts of Ars somewhere in the middle all feel pretty spiritually connected to different aspects of that period, just to name a few. I would also argue that this return to otaku sincerity through new eyes has been something which has been bubbling up through the culture for years, particularly in manga: Before Chainsaw Man, Fujimoto's first big series Fire Punch was even more brazenly transgressive and emotionally raw in a way which feels very attuned to this particular revived sensibility; and even before that, Made in Abyss feels like the spiritual offspring of the sort of out-of-pocket blend of moe aesthetics, ero-guro and the high weird that you see in the likes of Hitoshi Tomizawa, Riichi Ueshiba and Dowman Seyman's output from the turn of the millennium-which itself further feeds into the work of younger artists such as Tsukumizu, Tsubana and Imitation Crystal, but that movement feels like its own phenomenon worth discussing separately. What I think I'm driving at is, Momus was right about cultural revival cycles in that article he wrote fifteen years ago on the "anxious interval" and, to make a timely reference, that gum we all liked is going to come back in style.
"adults are all running away from what you are feeling right now" fantastically succint way to put it and only somethihg that one can realize with life experience as nice as it would have been to know it as a kid.
Hazel's stellar breakdown of the show/manga itself and the cultural context surrounding it is still one of my favorite things on this website. Rings eternally true c:
Genuinely one of my all-time favourite video essays. Also, the introduction of "traumabitch" into my lexicon immediately clicked into place why certain characters mean as much to me as they do.
The opening is one of the best I've ever seen, and that opinion has not changed. It is hooks you and you wonder where it could go from there. But then, to me, it immediately and completely dropped that ball. I didn't watch much past that. However, my wife watched the whole thing and still thinks of it as good.
brynhildr's god-tier second opening mentioned lets go ... anyway, elfen lied has a lot of value to me as a story about loving a victim of abuse. you briefly go over it when talking about relationships and characters comforting each other, but there's definitely more in the show that speaks to me in that regard. the contrast between a super childish nature that would occasionally shift into a distant and depressingly sad persona portrayed by reminded me a lot of an ex-partner w/ a brutal upbringing. protagonist-kun's ignorance of the whole situation and eventual helplessness is also very relatable. as much as you may want to help, trying to comfort a really broken person on a bad day feels as hopeless as fighting something with unstoppable telekinetic powers. hell, the line that fucks me up the most is in the last episode when main girl tells protag-kun about their time together being a "super happy dream in a life that's been an everlasting nightmare" or something like that. it's their final interaction, and it reminds me a lot of my eventually break up with my partner. it's so on the nose I cant help but wonder if Lynn Okamoto had the same experience I did. letting go of a partner whose happiness seems so dependent on you, especially with them being so accepting of your choice, felt very similar watching main girl walk off afterwards to be killed for the happiness of the ones she loved.
also, while having main-girl be the murderer of protag-kun's family is just one of many emotional ass-pulls the show pulls, metatextually it works well having a victim of abuse spread their trauma to the ones they love. especially to such a degree that protag-kun should have trouble forgiving them. another part that spoke to me personally.
I watched Elfen Lied as an adult after seeing some recommendations of it being a good sci-fi anime. Dude, going in blind was hilarious, I had no idea what I was getting into and had to stop two or three episodes in.
Imagine how awesome Elden Lied could have been if the whole show was just the government trying to take down a fucked up psychic experiment the whole time instead of the pissbaby-highschool-underage-pedoadjacent-sisterporn that the show turned into immediately after the opening sequence. Also I noticed so many live action shows are totally ripping elfen lied. It feels like all of these western TV producers saw Elfen Lied and they were like “oh my God we could do that” and then that’s how we got the hallway sequence from “Raised by Wolves” and like all the gore in “The Boys” and just all these crazy scenes you’re seeing in things like “Three Body Problem”
"it's not what I'd call a gem, but it's certainly a unique object of historical note." I think "Curio" is the word that fits here. A noteworthy curiosity that offers insight into something very specific
Elfen Lied is the anime equivalent of an amusingly inaccurate textbook from the 1700s that you found at a flea market and hang on to because you think it's neat
re: euphoria I think the media representing the next generation hasn't been written yet, mainly because the next generation hasn't really been defined yet. I feel around 2012 ish the reigns of the culture was mainly dominated and defined by younger millennials, and it was only 2014 that "zoomers" started to create a distinct identity/culture for themselves. And because anything that's popular with the kids will become mainstream, that zoomer culture later became the mainstream culture of the late 2010s/early 2020s. This hit its zenith with TikTok exploding onto the global market and exporting a new dictionary of AAVE to kids around the world, and shows like Euphoria creating the biggest stars of 2025. Now I feel like we're back at the time of 2012, zoomers and younger millennials are still defining culture, creating memes, being the biggest influencers and thought leaders, but kids are slowly creating and defining their own culture now. With memes like skibidi, games like fortnite/roblox, which are seen as people who are around 20 as sort of cringe but are being unironically adopted by younger kids. Once that generation creates their own distinct culture, they'll get their own Euphoria. This is all of course a bit speculative, I think it's impossible to accurately define something as nebulous as this into any solid analysis. I do feel like there is a cultural disconnect between zillennials and zoomers though, and a disconnect between zoomers and, idk, alpha-ers? younger zoomers? Is being formed right now.
Lol i dont really remember much about this, but i distinctly remember having nothing to say about it except "oh, you saw that one? It sure was fucked up"
I agree that the show was largely (at least in terms of how it distributed its runtime) a trash fire consumed by representations of the author's not actually concealed at all (thinly or otherwise) fetishes, but, besides some of the scenes, like the ones you mentioned (the hallway and bath scene) and the music, which were all exceptional, what really stood out to me about it, even back when I first watched it in high school, and I still think is done exceptionally well in it (spoilers follow for anyone who still cares), is the revelation that the psionic girl had killed the protagonist's parents, and the way he reacted to that. It's very rare, especially in anime, but I think in film more generally, to have such a good representation of the sheer weight of a phenomenon so fundamental and common as psychological ambivalence. It's one of the rare cases where, even though the drama is over the top, I don't think it actually descends into melodrama, but treats it very, I want to say realistically and respectfully. It perfectly captures the moment when opposite emotions, love and hate simply coincide with the same object, how he wants to both hurt and protect her and this debilitates him and causes him to run away (if I recall correctly). It's a small scene but it's done so well. There are glimpses of a masterpiece littered throughout a lot of just garbage fanservice and filler, which is really why I think it has the cult status it has. There are elements of something serious and very well executed there, lost amid a much worse anime that is neither serious nor well executed. If we take it seriously and try to give Caesar their due, we should recognise those elements, and that they have much greater explanatory value (with respect to its success) than the asinine stuff in it or the general attitude of SUFFERING. There are tons of SUFFERING anime, and there is tons of infantile fanservice going around, but those anime don't acquire the same status, because there is nothing else there.
This was one of my first few anime, and was my fave for several years. I watched it a bunch of times, read the manga in a night, and the cliffhanger ending is what got me into fanfiction. I would never call it a good series, nor dispute that it's prurient trash which doesn't respect its own story nor characters, but i think i'd be hard pressed to say i don't love it still. At the end of the day, i still feel for the main characters, and feel like the trauma and shared backstory of the main guy was more characterization than the vast majority of other anime with similar levels of action, violence, or sexual themes which were available in the west at the time. I still feel like somewhere in there, there's a really compelling story buried under all the fetishes, and it was something that resonated strongly with a lot of people who felt outcasted.
I grew up watchin Elfen Lied in the 2000s. I was not a teen when I watched Elfen Lied... Plenty of scenes R still seared in my brain & since I'd only rewatched it once a few yrs back jus cus. It def spoke to me even if it prob also scared the shit out of me at some points. Not in the same way as u tho lol. I do remember back then u were pretty much the only person on utube who would talk regularly bout CGDCT. I think most others lightly joked bout it or straight up brushed it off as sorta not the "real anime shit" or somethin it's been so long it's hard to perfectly describe. I still like it tbh tho I've only recently started the manga & I've been on & off on startin Brynhildr(def plan to start it now lol). Personally while I don't think I went out of my way to hide it I never made a point to showcase my love for anythin in particular in most of my school life. I was either super quiet & distant(which gave an unintended air to me I didn't realize till 2 diff incidents caused ppl to point it out) or I jus fit in since I never really disliked the things ppl were into tho many of those things I can't say I was ever fully into or strongly fixated on more than I felt necessary to be to "get by(?)". I'm still the same in regards to still havin those things not be a strong part of my interest but I appreciate em. Back to Elfen Lied I still adore & randomly play the op cus ofc it's even today is beautiful & unique in both visuals & song especially for anime. Pretty sure there's only 1 other anime wit an OP jus like it & funnily enough it's directed by the same person, & is ofc a CGDCT SoL "feel good" show lol(Maybe minor-ish spoilers: tho the show takes a pretty wild & epic sorta turn near the end u would not C comin despite the show bein military themed lol). It's def the kind of thing these days ppl would call "overly edgy" content wit "no substance" or somethin to that effect but I got & get a bit out of it. I still like it quite a bit but that could be nostalgia talkin as well as an inherent part of my taste in my earlier yrs & now prob bein strongly affected by it. Nana's Everyday Life I haven't seen but I'm sure I'd heard of semi-regularly yrs back but I'm def plannin to C it now jus cus lol, thx. Oh I also saw the extra special ep which is hilariously the least gory part of the series. It's mostly jus everyone havin a comedic time wit some character reflection & extra backstory for the main girl. Ofc an ecchi bath scene of the girls at the end. Neat time if u like the show enough for any more of it but nothin special outside the extra backstory I mentioned.
When you read a clinical description of this show's plot it's actually kind of great science fiction. The biggest thing holding it back was the dismal male lead. Also, I choose to believe Spy X Family takes place in the same universe and i won't be dissuaded.
Am I crazy for thinking the closest thing to elfen lied these days is made in abyss? Has kind of a reputation for bad things and a rite of passage for young modern weebs. It might be a little too old now though and perhaps there's something more relevant in elfen lied's role.
I think the main difference is the MiA is widely considered to actually be a good story, and most people who watch it are doing so because they heard it's good and not because they heard it's "the darkest most fucked up thing ever".
in my experience as a 21 y/o that was posting on /a/ the moment i hit double digit age I feel like elfen lied functioned exclusively as a sort of virtue signal to be able to fit in with the most insane right wing anime fans imaginable at the time. also lol, i had no idea about nana's everyday life, this thing is a trip for sure. great video as always
honestly in my working schizo theory of how culture repeats every thirty years or it rhymes or what ever i think what zoomers have in place of anime is memes so if there's a zoomer thing like EL it's probably a really fucked meme some zoomers are into
Hazel vid on it is a great retrospective and deep dive analysis on the series Yes I am a manga reader But it's still a Core taste of anime for me personally since I startes loving Horror around 5th-8th grade and just hit all the right notes in what appealed to me in that 15 yr old edgy media consumer and very memorable for that despite the trashy quite which is more you can say for most other series that you forget about after consuming it once Been okomoto new work for years now since High School parallel paradise which is basically the most Hardcore Softcore Hentai story
For me it will always be a time capsule of fun trash from my edgy teen years. The gore blew my mind and most of the rest was ridiculous WTFery. I can easily go back to it and enjoy it in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Interestingly, there is something I genuinely like about Lucy’s backstory. The main character befriending a damaged serial murderer just gives me mixed feelings because while she’s done horrible things, it’s hard not to root for her in a way and sympathize considering what she went through. There was an interesting chemistry in that and I enjoy when art challenges me in that way. I also like to imagine a good version of Elfen Lied that extracts the good ideas of the story and is a genuinely good piece of media by cutting out all the BS. I wanna see a boy on the run with a girl who is struggling not to tear apart people who cross her and fighting against her genetic disposition to wipe out humanity. That would be a complicated, screwed up relationship with edge-of-your-seat thrills and explosive moments of shock and gore. I can only dream.
Nana's everyday life sounds wild! I love when media is simultaneously the funniest thing ever and the saddest thing ever. It feels very true to life, as life can be irreconcilably cruel and tragic, but because it is so baffling I find it hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all 😅.
I watched Elfen Lied back in 2012 as one of the first "anime" I watched intentionally as an anime fan, and I remember thinking it wasn't very good even back then. I was torn because I found the extreme violence to be novel, but also kind of pointless? Regardless, I wouldn't watch it again lol
2000s seems to be the era for really solid yuri in shows that otherwise don’t involve it. Since Yes Precure 5 went all the way with a yuri ship in 2007 (literally catching each other on Horseback like Utena), And also Puni Puni Poemy has pretty blunt yuri elements, And then there’s this show like you have mentioned, and there’s also Kannazuki No Miku from the 2000s a yuri mecha show, and there’s Kiddy Grade which is a Nier Automata esque robot girls show with heavy yuri undertones and they kiss in the OP, And there is of course Nanoha! Who has about as blunt yuri as they were allowed to do, I wonder what caused the 2000s to be so on board for this. Maybe there’s some origin point of this which inspired the others
Elfen Lied is better and worse than you give it credit for. The type of tension it creates has yet to be replicated despite being copied so much. Also, I can't think of Nana without thinking of the "Nana why don't you get a job?" joke from AMV Hell.
No masterpiece, but I think it’s not as bad as people say it is. It wasn’t ironic or meta, it was genuine, even if it was kinda shit and cringe at times. Plus I thought the sex and gore were cool and the show had a real sense of tension. Frankly I think a good portion of the hate is millennials who are embarrassed and are trying to disavow their prior edgy phases (which, nbd, everyone has parts of their life they’d rather forget). Idk, that’s just my perspective as a zoomer. Maybe it’s a reaction to my generation’s puritanism, ironic detachment, and overall “sanitized” vibe. I also suffer pretty badly from contrarianism and it generally leads me to prefer older works over newer ones.
It's really bad but it still has one of the greatest opening themes around
And yet, I've never heard anyone who isn't my age who even knows it 😭 makes me sad ahahah
“It’s not what I’d call a gem… but it’s certainly a… unique object” 🤣🤣🤣
Girl I’m so using this line now
I think culture has been buried under irony for so long the pendulum is due to swing back if it isnt already and we're going to get some shamelessly edgy stuff. I kind of see stuff like danadadan and chainsaw man's popularity as some early symptoms of this, both things that arent afraid of their adolescent feelings or edgy imagery.
I would say that, in general, there's been something of a revival of '00s anime sensibilities in a post-ironic context across the board, particularly in terms of the heightened melodrama of romantic-tragic visual novels and ultraviolent seinen manga and the raunchy humour of, well, very *different* sorts of visual novels and seinen manga, but also in the return of band anime and a new wave of zany/morbid absurdist comedy, as well as more experimental and ambitious fare sprouting up in between. And this isn't just reflected in what's being adapted, but also in the kind of original series which are being greenlit; Akiba Maid War and Girls Band Cry on the more auspicious end, Love Flops and Magical Destroyers on the disappointing side, and Giant Beasts of Ars somewhere in the middle all feel pretty spiritually connected to different aspects of that period, just to name a few. I would also argue that this return to otaku sincerity through new eyes has been something which has been bubbling up through the culture for years, particularly in manga: Before Chainsaw Man, Fujimoto's first big series Fire Punch was even more brazenly transgressive and emotionally raw in a way which feels very attuned to this particular revived sensibility; and even before that, Made in Abyss feels like the spiritual offspring of the sort of out-of-pocket blend of moe aesthetics, ero-guro and the high weird that you see in the likes of Hitoshi Tomizawa, Riichi Ueshiba and Dowman Seyman's output from the turn of the millennium-which itself further feeds into the work of younger artists such as Tsukumizu, Tsubana and Imitation Crystal, but that movement feels like its own phenomenon worth discussing separately.
What I think I'm driving at is, Momus was right about cultural revival cycles in that article he wrote fifteen years ago on the "anxious interval" and, to make a timely reference, that gum we all liked is going to come back in style.
@ these are the types of comments trixie videos deserve
"adults are all running away from what you are feeling right now" fantastically succint way to put it and only somethihg that one can realize with life experience as nice as it would have been to know it as a kid.
Hazel's stellar breakdown of the show/manga itself and the cultural context surrounding it is still one of my favorite things on this website. Rings eternally true c:
Genuinely one of my all-time favourite video essays. Also, the introduction of "traumabitch" into my lexicon immediately clicked into place why certain characters mean as much to me as they do.
The opening is one of the best I've ever seen, and that opinion has not changed. It is hooks you and you wonder where it could go from there. But then, to me, it immediately and completely dropped that ball. I didn't watch much past that. However, my wife watched the whole thing and still thinks of it as good.
brynhildr's god-tier second opening mentioned lets go
... anyway, elfen lied has a lot of value to me as a story about loving a victim of abuse. you briefly go over it when talking about relationships and characters comforting each other, but there's definitely more in the show that speaks to me in that regard. the contrast between a super childish nature that would occasionally shift into a distant and depressingly sad persona portrayed by reminded me a lot of an ex-partner w/ a brutal upbringing. protagonist-kun's ignorance of the whole situation and eventual helplessness is also very relatable. as much as you may want to help, trying to comfort a really broken person on a bad day feels as hopeless as fighting something with unstoppable telekinetic powers.
hell, the line that fucks me up the most is in the last episode when main girl tells protag-kun about their time together being a "super happy dream in a life that's been an everlasting nightmare" or something like that. it's their final interaction, and it reminds me a lot of my eventually break up with my partner. it's so on the nose I cant help but wonder if Lynn Okamoto had the same experience I did. letting go of a partner whose happiness seems so dependent on you, especially with them being so accepting of your choice, felt very similar watching main girl walk off afterwards to be killed for the happiness of the ones she loved.
also, while having main-girl be the murderer of protag-kun's family is just one of many emotional ass-pulls the show pulls, metatextually it works well having a victim of abuse spread their trauma to the ones they love. especially to such a degree that protag-kun should have trouble forgiving them. another part that spoke to me personally.
I watched Elfen Lied as an adult after seeing some recommendations of it being a good sci-fi anime. Dude, going in blind was hilarious, I had no idea what I was getting into and had to stop two or three episodes in.
Elfen Lied when Elfen Told the Truth comes into the room 🤯
underrated comment
pretty close to october 17 I guess
What happened on that date?
@@alicetornbom1041The Elfen Lied anime finished airing. Surely nothing else of greater significance has happened on that date in recent years :)
Imagine how awesome Elden Lied could have been if the whole show was just the government trying to take down a fucked up psychic experiment the whole time instead of the pissbaby-highschool-underage-pedoadjacent-sisterporn that the show turned into immediately after the opening sequence.
Also I noticed so many live action shows are totally ripping elfen lied. It feels like all of these western TV producers saw Elfen Lied and they were like “oh my God we could do that” and then that’s how we got the hallway sequence from “Raised by Wolves” and like all the gore in “The Boys” and just all these crazy scenes you’re seeing in things like “Three Body Problem”
00:38 - 00:53 This is so incredibly true!
"it's not what I'd call a gem, but it's certainly a unique object of historical note." I think "Curio" is the word that fits here. A noteworthy curiosity that offers insight into something very specific
Elfen Lied is the anime equivalent of an amusingly inaccurate textbook from the 1700s that you found at a flea market and hang on to because you think it's neat
There's only one word that describes this show best, fatality
Elfen Lied is the Genocyber of the 2000s
re: euphoria
I think the media representing the next generation hasn't been written yet, mainly because the next generation hasn't really been defined yet. I feel around 2012 ish the reigns of the culture was mainly dominated and defined by younger millennials, and it was only 2014 that "zoomers" started to create a distinct identity/culture for themselves. And because anything that's popular with the kids will become mainstream, that zoomer culture later became the mainstream culture of the late 2010s/early 2020s. This hit its zenith with TikTok exploding onto the global market and exporting a new dictionary of AAVE to kids around the world, and shows like Euphoria creating the biggest stars of 2025.
Now I feel like we're back at the time of 2012, zoomers and younger millennials are still defining culture, creating memes, being the biggest influencers and thought leaders, but kids are slowly creating and defining their own culture now. With memes like skibidi, games like fortnite/roblox, which are seen as people who are around 20 as sort of cringe but are being unironically adopted by younger kids. Once that generation creates their own distinct culture, they'll get their own Euphoria.
This is all of course a bit speculative, I think it's impossible to accurately define something as nebulous as this into any solid analysis. I do feel like there is a cultural disconnect between zillennials and zoomers though, and a disconnect between zoomers and, idk, alpha-ers? younger zoomers? Is being formed right now.
Lol i dont really remember much about this, but i distinctly remember having nothing to say about it except "oh, you saw that one? It sure was fucked up"
Elfen Lied was just so SA and Newgrounds and that type of content was special because it could only exist at the time
I agree that the show was largely (at least in terms of how it distributed its runtime) a trash fire consumed by representations of the author's not actually concealed at all (thinly or otherwise) fetishes, but, besides some of the scenes, like the ones you mentioned (the hallway and bath scene) and the music, which were all exceptional, what really stood out to me about it, even back when I first watched it in high school, and I still think is done exceptionally well in it (spoilers follow for anyone who still cares), is the revelation that the psionic girl had killed the protagonist's parents, and the way he reacted to that. It's very rare, especially in anime, but I think in film more generally, to have such a good representation of the sheer weight of a phenomenon so fundamental and common as psychological ambivalence. It's one of the rare cases where, even though the drama is over the top, I don't think it actually descends into melodrama, but treats it very, I want to say realistically and respectfully. It perfectly captures the moment when opposite emotions, love and hate simply coincide with the same object, how he wants to both hurt and protect her and this debilitates him and causes him to run away (if I recall correctly). It's a small scene but it's done so well.
There are glimpses of a masterpiece littered throughout a lot of just garbage fanservice and filler, which is really why I think it has the cult status it has. There are elements of something serious and very well executed there, lost amid a much worse anime that is neither serious nor well executed. If we take it seriously and try to give Caesar their due, we should recognise those elements, and that they have much greater explanatory value (with respect to its success) than the asinine stuff in it or the general attitude of SUFFERING. There are tons of SUFFERING anime, and there is tons of infantile fanservice going around, but those anime don't acquire the same status, because there is nothing else there.
This was one of my first few anime, and was my fave for several years. I watched it a bunch of times, read the manga in a night, and the cliffhanger ending is what got me into fanfiction. I would never call it a good series, nor dispute that it's prurient trash which doesn't respect its own story nor characters, but i think i'd be hard pressed to say i don't love it still. At the end of the day, i still feel for the main characters, and feel like the trauma and shared backstory of the main guy was more characterization than the vast majority of other anime with similar levels of action, violence, or sexual themes which were available in the west at the time. I still feel like somewhere in there, there's a really compelling story buried under all the fetishes, and it was something that resonated strongly with a lot of people who felt outcasted.
I grew up watchin Elfen Lied in the 2000s. I was not a teen when I watched Elfen Lied... Plenty of scenes R still seared in my brain & since I'd only rewatched it once a few yrs back jus cus. It def spoke to me even if it prob also scared the shit out of me at some points. Not in the same way as u tho lol. I do remember back then u were pretty much the only person on utube who would talk regularly bout CGDCT. I think most others lightly joked bout it or straight up brushed it off as sorta not the "real anime shit" or somethin it's been so long it's hard to perfectly describe. I still like it tbh tho I've only recently started the manga & I've been on & off on startin Brynhildr(def plan to start it now lol). Personally while I don't think I went out of my way to hide it I never made a point to showcase my love for anythin in particular in most of my school life. I was either super quiet & distant(which gave an unintended air to me I didn't realize till 2 diff incidents caused ppl to point it out) or I jus fit in since I never really disliked the things ppl were into tho many of those things I can't say I was ever fully into or strongly fixated on more than I felt necessary to be to "get by(?)". I'm still the same in regards to still havin those things not be a strong part of my interest but I appreciate em. Back to Elfen Lied I still adore & randomly play the op cus ofc it's even today is beautiful & unique in both visuals & song especially for anime. Pretty sure there's only 1 other anime wit an OP jus like it & funnily enough it's directed by the same person, & is ofc a CGDCT SoL "feel good" show lol(Maybe minor-ish spoilers: tho the show takes a pretty wild & epic sorta turn near the end u would not C comin despite the show bein military themed lol).
It's def the kind of thing these days ppl would call "overly edgy" content wit "no substance" or somethin to that effect but I got & get a bit out of it. I still like it quite a bit but that could be nostalgia talkin as well as an inherent part of my taste in my earlier yrs & now prob bein strongly affected by it. Nana's Everyday Life I haven't seen but I'm sure I'd heard of semi-regularly yrs back but I'm def plannin to C it now jus cus lol, thx. Oh I also saw the extra special ep which is hilariously the least gory part of the series. It's mostly jus everyone havin a comedic time wit some character reflection & extra backstory for the main girl. Ofc an ecchi bath scene of the girls at the end. Neat time if u like the show enough for any more of it but nothin special outside the extra backstory I mentioned.
I’m dedicated to having this show be perpetually on my watch list
The first episode is worth a watch, it's pretty neat.
When you read a clinical description of this show's plot it's actually kind of great science fiction. The biggest thing holding it back was the dismal male lead.
Also, I choose to believe Spy X Family takes place in the same universe and i won't be dissuaded.
Trixie's bog swamp is so chill frfr.
I'm a MIllenial yet I first watched it in 2023. After seeing it twice I made a post on my Blog titled Elfen Lied is Wholesome Actually.
Am I crazy for thinking the closest thing to elfen lied these days is made in abyss? Has kind of a reputation for bad things and a rite of passage for young modern weebs. It might be a little too old now though and perhaps there's something more relevant in elfen lied's role.
I think the main difference is the MiA is widely considered to actually be a good story, and most people who watch it are doing so because they heard it's good and not because they heard it's "the darkest most fucked up thing ever".
@@Zanador I agree but I also bet it's a little bit of both as to why people check it out.
the zoomer/alpha equivalent has gotta be FNAF and the various FNAFlikes right
in my experience as a 21 y/o that was posting on /a/ the moment i hit double digit age I feel like elfen lied functioned exclusively as a sort of virtue signal to be able to fit in with the most insane right wing anime fans imaginable at the time. also lol, i had no idea about nana's everyday life, this thing is a trip for sure. great video as always
honestly
in my working schizo theory of how culture repeats every thirty years
or it rhymes or what ever
i think what zoomers have in place of anime
is memes
so if there's a zoomer thing like EL it's probably a really fucked meme some zoomers are into
Hazel vid on it is a great retrospective and deep dive analysis on the series
Yes I am a manga reader
But it's still a Core taste of anime for me personally since I startes loving Horror around 5th-8th grade and just hit all the right notes in what appealed to me in that 15 yr old edgy media consumer and very memorable for that despite the trashy quite which is more you can say for most other series that you forget about after consuming it once
Been okomoto new work for years now since High School parallel paradise which is basically the most Hardcore Softcore Hentai story
For millennial/zoomer cuspers we had Tokyo Ghoul as the "this is so definitional and edgy"
As someone who was in high school in the mid-2010s this was definitely more relevant for my age group than Elfen Lied
For me it will always be a time capsule of fun trash from my edgy teen years. The gore blew my mind and most of the rest was ridiculous WTFery. I can easily go back to it and enjoy it in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way.
Interestingly, there is something I genuinely like about Lucy’s backstory. The main character befriending a damaged serial murderer just gives me mixed feelings because while she’s done horrible things, it’s hard not to root for her in a way and sympathize considering what she went through. There was an interesting chemistry in that and I enjoy when art challenges me in that way.
I also like to imagine a good version of Elfen Lied that extracts the good ideas of the story and is a genuinely good piece of media by cutting out all the BS. I wanna see a boy on the run with a girl who is struggling not to tear apart people who cross her and fighting against her genetic disposition to wipe out humanity. That would be a complicated, screwed up relationship with edge-of-your-seat thrills and explosive moments of shock and gore. I can only dream.
Nana's everyday life sounds wild! I love when media is simultaneously the funniest thing ever and the saddest thing ever. It feels very true to life, as life can be irreconcilably cruel and tragic, but because it is so baffling I find it hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all 😅.
what is this Elfenlied slander I'm hearing? It got me into anime and I had fun rewatching it. Way better than ecchi harem comedy nr. 200 :p
I watched Elfen Lied back in 2012 as one of the first "anime" I watched intentionally as an anime fan, and I remember thinking it wasn't very good even back then. I was torn because I found the extreme violence to be novel, but also kind of pointless? Regardless, I wouldn't watch it again lol
The yuri between the two hurt girls is the main thing I remember, yeah. Very cute. Almost makes up for the rest being complete ass.
2000s seems to be the era for really solid yuri in shows that otherwise don’t involve it. Since Yes Precure 5 went all the way with a yuri ship in 2007 (literally catching each other on Horseback like Utena),
And also Puni Puni Poemy has pretty blunt yuri elements,
And then there’s this show like you have mentioned, and there’s also Kannazuki No Miku from the 2000s a yuri mecha show, and there’s Kiddy Grade which is a Nier Automata esque robot girls show with heavy yuri undertones and they kiss in the OP,
And there is of course Nanoha! Who has about as blunt yuri as they were allowed to do,
I wonder what caused the 2000s to be so on board for this. Maybe there’s some origin point of this which inspired the others
@@auralunaprettycure Perhaps this warrants a deep dive! Trixie, get on it.~
OH MAH GOSH IT'S HERE ❤❤❤
Elfen Lied is better and worse than you give it credit for. The type of tension it creates has yet to be replicated despite being copied so much. Also, I can't think of Nana without thinking of the "Nana why don't you get a job?" joke from AMV Hell.
I am happy to own the manga. I do remember the show is really bad but we have the manga at least.
No masterpiece, but I think it’s not as bad as people say it is. It wasn’t ironic or meta, it was genuine, even if it was kinda shit and cringe at times. Plus I thought the sex and gore were cool and the show had a real sense of tension.
Frankly I think a good portion of the hate is millennials who are embarrassed and are trying to disavow their prior edgy phases (which, nbd, everyone has parts of their life they’d rather forget).
Idk, that’s just my perspective as a zoomer. Maybe it’s a reaction to my generation’s puritanism, ironic detachment, and overall “sanitized” vibe. I also suffer pretty badly from contrarianism and it generally leads me to prefer older works over newer ones.
this show is absolute trash, i finally watched the whole thing like 6 years ago and its AWFUL - but yeah seeing gory clips of it was fun as a kid
I fucking hated this show lol
Ur carrer is dead littlebro
It took me a second to parse wtf you're aaying
TH-cam keeps deleting my comments, so i had to type it out like that little bro @WeWatchAnime1
2:42 two thousand sick 😎🛹🔥
Also the person who made Nana’s Daily Life is still active so thats cool