Kimi ga Nozomu no Eien (Completed 13 episodes)

Story: When I watched the first and the first half of the second episode with my friend, the both of us thought that it was going extremely fast. This is the first time that I've seen two main characters fall in love with each other AND confessed to each other AND almost had sex (if not for the knowledgable little sister). And then the crash happenned. The third episode introduced to the same characters a number of years from the accident.

Then I just realised that THIS is the start of the anime. Indeed it turned from what I thought to be another harem anime into one of the most real and emotional anime about love and life, about jealousy and fullfilment, and most importantly about goodbyes.

All the characters of this anime you can relate to. This is one of the romantic animes where the main character is not an idiot, but a rather determined and hardworking guy. The three girl characters are also very realistic. This is a very real anime.

If you wish to have something that will shock your emotional self, while having a bit of a laugh, then this anime is for you to watch.

Music

The music is one of the best I've heard (Air, however will always be on top) and has a pretty good cover for the story line. It's quite ironic how in the opening, the word "zutto" is repeated quite a number of times. And if my japanese is correct zutto means always.

Animation

All the characters are drawn quite nicely. Clothings and body is mostly realistic except for the anime face and hair. The background is quite decent as well.

Score

5 out of 5. Why? well it has a nice story line with enough emotions to rock your own emotions...

Elfen Lied (completed 13 episodes + extra episode between 10 and 11)

Story

Search for the music of the anime. Lilium, the opening song, and Be Your Girl, the ending song, will sum up the anime quite well. It is a sad and tragic anime, where people willl be dying in quite a number of ways. It's not for the faint of heart. This is a story about the darkness of the human heart which happens in the world. When you see kindergardeners stoned a dog to death for the sake of being cruel...

The first scenes you'll see will be a naked girl escaping a special prison. You will be speechless at the amount of blood that was shown, and the sheer pointless violence of people dying. The girl, Lucy, managed to escape, but took a 50 calibre anti-tank rifle bullet to the head, and because of that lost her memory. Switch scene to a peaceful town, where Yuka was searching for her cousin Kouta, who just arrived in town.

This anime is a real dark one. It talks about how violence begets violence, how humans are very unaccepting of something different, and of how much life can hurt. To kill one another, to beat the competition with any and all ways possible. It's humans being human. To love someone. To be sad. To be hurt. To survive. To find peace and acceptance. To be a family. To belong. This is Elfen Lied.

Animation and Music

Music is quite nice and definately fit the anime. The opening sound connects to the darker side of Elfen Lied (which is 90% of the thing anyway), while the ending song will give a chance for yourself to unwind after an episode.

I can't really complain about the animation, but it's nothing special for this calibre of a story. It is enough to deliver the message that was supposed to be delivered.

Rating

4 out 5 (-1 for some of the awkward humour. So unless you really like to see a girl naked THAT much...)