Elfen Lied/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


This page lists the characters of Elfen Lied and their associated tropes.

Lucy / Kaede

Voiced by: Sanae Kobayashi (Japanese), Kira Vincent-Davis (English)

The female protagonist of the series, she is a teenage Diclonius around 18 years old. Lucy has four vectors with a limited range of two meters. However, she demonstrates prodigious control over her vectors and can be swift and lethal within that range in addition to being able to use nearby objects as high velocity projectiles to kill at greater distances. She is also capable of stopping or deflecting most standard ammunition. Her great skill, murderous intent and ability to reproduce have caused her to be regarded as the most dangerous of the Diclonius.

Lucy hates humans mainly because of how she was treated by her human peers as a child. Consequently, she discounts non-Diclonii, claiming they are not real people, to the point of stating that she has "not killed anyone yet". She seems to lack empathy, kills without much concern, and acts sadistically. Despite this lack of concern for human life she will not harm Kouta, as he was her only childhood friend.

Tropes exhibited by Lucy include:


Nyu

Not a separate character in the strictly technical sense, Nyu is the split personality of Lucy that developed after a .50 BMG round grazed the metallic helmet protecting her head. Nyu has a childlike personality, an infantile knowledge of the world, and lacks spoken language skills, only able to say "Nyu" and "Kouta" most of the time. Nyu is innocent and incapable of violent acts, a foil to the normally cold and sadistic Lucy; she is the manifestation of Lucy's "good side".

When Nyu is attacked violently she regresses into Lucy; likewise, when Lucy is treated with love and kindness or wants to hide herself from Kouta, she will switch back into Nyu. While Nyu exists first due to trauma, it is believed that Lucy subconsciously encourages her presence due to her feelings of guilt towards Kouta. In the manga, this is confirmed by Lucy herself.

Tropes exhibited by Nyu include:
  • Anything That Moves: Nyu tends to be rather... indiscriminate when it comes to others.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: Nyu is innocent and no threat to anyone. Her other personality is a world-killing weapon.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Put Nyu in danger or do anything to Kouta, and you are seriously going to regret it.
  • Brought Down to Normal: The anime cuts off before Lucy is reduced to an extended coma and Nyu is allowed to develop. She is even able to talk in full sentences, and is, at that point, a full personality that directly contrasts Lucy perfectly. She still keeps her Verbal Tic, though.
  • Cute Mute: In the sense that her trauma left her with a very limited vocabulary.
  • Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Just contrast the innocent Nyu persona's wide, bubbly eyes with the narrow, hateful, tortured eyes of the Lucy persona.
  • Helpless Good Side: In spades.
  • Heroic BSOD: When she is captured again, she thinks it was impossible that her actual side is the killer.
  • Important Haircut: Nyu's long hair gets chopped off to impersonate Kouta's younger sister Kanae to signify Lucy's guilt over the incident where she killed her.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Too many incidents to count.
    • Probably the most notable is that she has walked up to Kouta and shoved his hand against her breast, twice, and the 2nd time they were both naked.
  • Pokémon-Speak: Technically, she was nicknamed after the only word she could speak at first. It later becomes subverted after the cutoff from the anime.
  • Shallow Love Interest: Kind of the point.
  • Skinship Grope: She recognizes this behavior as acceptable due to Kouta's mishap.
  • Verbal Tic Name

Kouta

Voiced by: Chihiro Suzuki (Japanese), Adam Conlon (English)

An 18-year-old student who arrives in the Kanagawa Prefecture to attend college. He is the male protagonist of the series. Kouta lives in a closed-down inn with his cousin, Yuka, while attending university.

Kouta has repressed traumatic memories of witnessing, firsthand, the deaths of his father and sister. He ended up in a psychiatric ward for over a year following the event, but eventually made a full recovery. As a result, he is particularly sympathetic towards girls in trouble and is extremely generous to and protective of the girls around him. He is very kind and gentle as well, offering to shelter the various suffering characters he and Yuka stumble across, and treating them as part of his family. He and Yuka both initially meet Lucy as she washes up on the shore of a nearby beach.

In actuality, Kouta initially met Lucy in his childhood after she killed her first victims. Unlike everyone else, he found her horns fascinating and forged a strong bond of friendship with her, thus keeping her murderous Diclonius instincts repressed. However, we all know what happens when Morality Chains inevitably break...

Tropes exhibited by Kouta include:


Yuka

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese), Nancy Novotny (English)

Kouta's cousin, who is around 19 years old and planning to attend the same university as Kouta. She moves in with him at the inn after having not seen him in many years. Having had a crush on Kouta since childhood, she still harbors strong feelings for him, and is openly jealous of Kouta's attention to Nyu, to the point of being irrational.

Despite her brash tendencies, Yuka is geniunely as kind and caring as Kouta. Though she is hesitant and reserved, she is accepting of Kouta's decision to use their inn to shelter those in need.

Tropes exhibited by Yuka include:
  • Absurdly Youthful Mother: She and Kouta both adopt Mayu despite the fact that Yuka is only 19 and Mayu is 14.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: In a grating manner as well. People tend to dislike her for this... while forgetting that Lucy can be even clingier. At least Yuka would NOT try to kill Lucy, whereas Lucy HAS used her vectors to push Yuka down and started her Roaring Rampage of Revenge because she was jealous of her..
  • Cool Big Sis: Arguably. She tries, bless her heart, but it doesn't necessarily work.
  • Kissing Cousins: She is infatuated with her cousin Kouta. Kouta is also attracted to her, as the temple scene indicates, but then there's Lucy/Nyu muddying things up.
  • Misery Poker: Very much so. She spends so much time fuming over the fact that she can't get close to Kouta when everyone else has been to hell and back.
    • In the final chapter of the manga, Kouta's daughter resembles Yuuka.
  • Team Mom: As the older of the girls, she is sometimes referred as the "mother" of the group in the anime.
  • Tsundere
  • Victorious Childhood Friend: In the manga, if Kouta's daughter is any indication...
  • Yandere: Early on, definitely, but she fortunately decides to back off.


Mayu

Voiced by: Emiko Hagiwara (Japanese), Cynthia Martinez (English)

A young 14 year-old girl, abandoned by her mother and a victim of sexual abuse by her stepfather. She has run away from home and is homeless at the start of the series, subsisting on bread crusts she is given at a local bakery under the pretence that they are for the small puppy, Wanta, that accompanies her. She ends up living with Kohta and Yuka as her legal guardians. Mayu befriends Nana and tries to take her under her wing.

Tropes exhibited by Mayu include:
  • Break the Cutie: Her Abusive Parents. Yes, nary a cutie escapes unbroken in this series.
    • There's also when she hears about Lucy, she doesn't believe that the person she knew as Nyuu could be a sadistic killer and saves her during her 2nd fight with Bandou, after which Lucy tries to kill her.
  • Does Not Like Men / Hates Being Touched: She follows this to a degree; the manga implies that her traumatic experience with her stepfather has soured her on men in general, and finding Kouta in the bath groping Nyu doesn't help. Ironically, she appears to bond most closely with Bandou, who generally treats her like crap, except for when he saved her from the "Unknown Man".
  • Rape as Drama: She was sexually abused by her stepfather, and very nearly raped by the Unknown Man.
  • The Runaway: A textbook Abused Runaway.
  • Shrinking Violet

Nana

Voiced by: Yuki Matsuoka (Japanese), Sasha Paysinger (English)

Also known as Number 7, she is a young Silpelit (Diclonius born from a human) girl who has the physical appearance of being 14 years old. Most Diclonius babies are euthanized at birth, but Nana was one of a handful kept alive for use as test subjects. As a result she has spent her entire life in the Diclonius research facility. Nana can be seen as the exact opposite of Lucy. While Lucy's default personality is serious and cold, Nana's is fragile, friendly, and kind. Nana's default personality is very similar to Nyu and she also has an endearingly immature knowledge of the world.

Nana was a stand-out subject among the Diclonius for being able to effortlessly repress her murderous instincts. Accordingly, she has never used her vectors to harm humans (or anything for that matter). Chief Kurama sees her as his daughter and cares very much for her. In the end, Nana and Kurama are regarded more instead as a couple with Nana referring to herself as his 'wife', as Kurama couldn't accept Nana as her daughter.

Tropes exhibited by Nana include:
  • Adaptation Dye Job: Her hair was purplish-blue in the manga, but is purplish-pink in the anime. Also her eyes were green rather than rose-pink.
  • Artificial Limbs
  • Badass
  • Berserk Button: Threaten to hurt her "papa". I dare you.
  • Break the Cutie: An extremely clever inversion. It's explicitly stated that her "Cutie" persona is a psychological defense mechanism that she developed as a result of the universe's constant attempts to break her.
    • Beware the Nice Ones: The few times said cutie-persona/psychological-defense-mechanism is broken through. During Nana & Bandou's first meeting on a moonlit beach, Bandou pushes her too far and she snaps on him, gaining the same dead look in her eyes that Lucy almost-constantly has and trying to kill him (and coming very close) until a .50-caliber bullet grazing her head knocks her back to her senses. Later in manga Chapter 74, The Unkown Man threatening Mayu and casually killing Number 28 right in front of Nana is enough to set her off again. Unfortunately, he blasts her before she can attack, taking her out of the fight.
      • Oh, and her fight with Mariko? Mariko was basically beating her sensless, and Nana was not able to fight back at all, just laying there. And when Mariko was about to finally finish her off, she still could not do anything...but then Mariko said that she will kill her papa as well. Bad idea.
  • Can't Catch Up : Despite smarts in battle and ever-increasing savvy, she has a good showing but always gets curbstomped by opponents.
  • Cute Clumsy Girl / Dojikko: Combine with Artificial Limbs that are quite prone to popping out and, well...
  • Detachment Combat / Rocket Punch: Prosthetic limbs plus vectors equals projectile appendages!!! Must be seen to be believed.
  • The Determinator
  • Disability Superpower: See above, plus her prosthesis are naturally Immune to Bullets (as Bando realized during their brief first fight).
  • Hero Antagonist: To Lucy.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Everything dumped on her only made her sweeter and more heroic, not less.
  • Lethal Chef: Given that she was raised in a lab, this isn't all too surprising.
  • Morality Pet: For Chief Kurama
  • Mundane Luxury: To someone who was raised as a test subject like she was, a simple hot bath is a luxury.
  • My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Nana invokes this one constantly, usually just after she's been dealt a severe injury in combat, with "This doesn't hurt at all!" Also usually, the trope is horrifically subverted. Occasionally the reverse occurs, and Nana goes on to triumph in the encounter (albeit, usually, temporarily).
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Diclonii are genetically driven to murder, right? Not this one.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Her battle with Lucy.
  • The Pollyanna: Admirably and heroically. Under ridiculously brutal circumstances that turned other Diclonii into killers. Choosing not to be one of the series' unstoppable killing machines, Nana maintains an unshakable positive outlook, anchored by her belief that everything will be OK when she can be with papa again.
  • Power Nullifier: She can use her vectors to temporarily disable other Diclonius's vectors.
  • Redemption Equals Life: If you count simply being a Diclonius as a state in dire need of redemption, Nana definitely qualifies. She is one of the kindest characters in the series, meaning she staunchly rejects the inherent, ingrained desire to eradicate all humans. She never takes a single life throughout both the anime and manga and is amply rewarded by being the only Diclonius to survive the manga.
  • Seven Is Nana: Nana is Diclonius subject Number Seven.
  • Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: raised in a lab, and thus, unable to even cut a cabbage with an ordinary knife.
  • Took a Level in Badass
  • You Gotta Have Pink Hair
  • Younger Than They Look: Silpelits age at about double the rate of normal humans. Nana looks 14 and is really around seven years old.

Nozomi

A 15-17 year old girl who's Yuka's best friend and kohai, she aspires to become a famous opera singer like her late mother. However, her father does not approve of her dream, due to her being the only heir of his business, and also because she has a throat defect that will eventually make her lose her voice if she strains it too much.

Due to Dad's rather... violent opposition of her dream, Nozomi developed a psychological trauma that makes her wet herself whenever she becomes too nervous. Despite this, she tries to get into a music high school, secretly training at the Maple Inn, which Yuka invited her to, during her free time and moving there permanently after getting accepted.

Tropes exhibited by Nozomi include:
  • Ascended Extra: She has a special chapter in the manga depicting her past. Arguably the Lightest and Softest chapter in the entire series.
  • Cute Mute: In chapter 83, her throat gets crushed by a soldier, turning her into this until the final chapter.
  • Demoted to Extra: Surprisingly few people are aware of Nozomi's existence. Despite being a main character, and the reason the show's called Elfen Lied (it's the name of her favorite song), she was written out of the anime.
  • Potty Failure
  • Pursuing Parental Perils: Nozomi's mother lost her voice from singing due to a vocal cord defect. Nozomi has this same defect and never learns about it. Except when her father tells about it.
  • The Runaway: While she didn't really run away in a direct way like Mayu, she still kind of qualifies as an Abused Runaway.
  • Shrinking Violet: With damn good reason.

Dr. Kurama

Voiced by: Osamu Hosoi (Japanese), Jay Hickman (English)

The chief of research of the Diclonius children in the research containment facility. He is also the surrogate father of Nana and biological father of Mariko. His wife died from when she tried to stop him from killing their daughter shortly after she gave birth to Mariko.

Kurama was initially respected for his stern, no-nonsense attitude and his devotion to his job, in spite of the horrible atrocities that were being carried out. However, recent events cause Kurama's ironclad devotion to waver...

Tropes exhibited by Dr. Kurama include:


Bando

Voiced by: Joji Nakata (Japanese), Jason Douglas (English)

An operative for the National Police Agency's Special Assault Team. Although he is technically human, he is as homicidal and apathetic to other people as the worst Diclonius are. He is incredibly skilled in combat and widely-regarded as a lethal and bloodthirsty soldier.

Tropes exhibited by Bando include:

Director Kakuzawa

Voiced by: Kinryu Akimoto (Japanese), Andy McAvin (English)

The director of the Diclonius research facility. He is a repulsive, power-hungry man lacking any sense of morality and will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. He is from a long line of Diclonius ancestry that has been watered down by inter-breeding with humans. As a result, he has no vectors and much smaller horns on his head. The aim of him and his son is, in part, to replenish their bloodline with the Diclonius they are experimenting on (of which Lucy was the first specimen capable of reproducing) and consequently become "kings" of the new race.

Tropes exhibited by Kakuzawa include:

A human has no more than two hands. To take something, one must drop what one's holding.

  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Satisfyingly killed by Lucy in the manga.
  • Karma Houdini: In the anime, in addition to barely getting any screen time, he never faces a bit of danger and is free to gleefully continue his abhorrent research facility.
  • Large and In Charge: According to the full-cast shot in the last chapter, he is taller than the rest of the cast by a notable amount.
  • Large Ham: He really loves to say his plans out loud.
  • Macho Masochism
  • Stalker with a Test Tube: A rare male example.
  • The Reveal: During his final confrontation with Lucy, it is made known that his family were never true Diclonius, merely Humans with a minor genetic mutation who invented legends and eugenic myths to cope with the persecution they faced in medieval times. The strife he caused our heroes and the world takes on a whole new light.
  • The Unfettered
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: His goal is to destroy the human race and produce more Diclonii using Lucy, the only fertile female Diclonus, to replace them. He doesn't want to do this for any moral reason, though, but only so that in 100 or 200 years he can be worshipped as the god of the new species.
    • Idiot Ball: His plan to do the above involves making it so that all children except Lucy's are born slipelits, which are sterile, thereby reducing the Earth's population to one breeding pair (Lucy and himself) plus his male Diclonius son, which will almost certainly result in extinction of the Diclonii as well even if Lucy cooperates.
  • Wicked Cultured

Mariko Kurama

Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)

Also known as Number 35, she is a young Silpelit girl who is the biological daughter of Kurama. She is regarded as the most powerful of the Diclonius, possessing 33 vectors each with an approximate range of 11 meters in the anime (the number and range is much higher in the manga).

After her mother's Death by Childbirth Mariko was imprisoned as an infant and raised inside a steel container with human contact consisting of nothing more than a scientist acting as a sort of foster mother through speakers and monitors. Her physical impairment is seen in her atrophied limbs as she moves around in a wheelchair. Despite the environment she was raised in, she is relatively well developed psychologically (for a given degree of "psychologically"), unlike Nana. She is extremely homicidal and sadistic, and enjoys torturing and dismembering her victims. However, her personality is not blatantly evil: she is only having fun, and the pleasure she gets from it is equivalent to a child playing with toys, not really noticing the differences.

Tropes exhibited by Mariko include:

Kanae

Voiced by: Maria Yamamoto (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)

Kouta's little sister who died before the series start. She was actually brutally slaughtered by a jealous Lucy, and along with his father, serves as the trigger for Kouta's Trauma-Induced Amnesia.

Tropes exhibited by Kanae include:

Arakawa

Voiced by: Eriko Ishihara (Japanese), Jessica Boone (English)

A researcher working alongside Professor Kakuzawa to find a vaccine for the Diclonius virus. She, along with Kouta, ends up seeing Professor Kakuzawa's mutilated body. She reports to Chief Kakuzawa what she's seen, but he doesn't intend to let her off scot-free, and threatens her with death lest she take up the rest of Professor Kakuzawa's research.

In the anime, she's basically only there for comic relief, but in the manga, she plays an extremely important role as the story progresses on.

Tropes exhibited by Arakawa include:

"I'm never going to get to take a shower!"

Nousou

The head scientist of Chief Kakuzawa after Kurama's departure.

Tropes exhibited by Nousou include:

The Agent

An ambiguously looking operative that goes alongside Nousou at the assault of Maple Inn. Is the one that knocks Lucy out and brings her back to the facility.

Tropes exhibited by The Agent include:

Tomoo

The ringleader of the children who tormented Lucy as a child. Is also the one most responsible for her hatred of humanity.

Tropes exhibited by Tomoo include:

The Unknown Man

A minor manga-only character, a man clad in a black trenchcoat and wide-brimmed hat, with opaque sunglasses and greasy-looking hair. At first appears relatively civil, he soon reveals his true colors as one of most horrifically evil bastards, if not the most evil, in the entire series. A brutal Hidan-level sadist; rapist; heartless; and all-around not very nice. He delights in causing pain and suffering, especially in Diclonius and/or teenage girls. Killed by Lucy.

Tropes exhibited by The Unknown Man include:
  • Agony Beam: A low-tech variation, in the form of a crossbow that fires spiked metal spheres coated in a toxin that causes horrible, cripplingly agonizing pain to those it hits. Bites him in the ass - literally - during his fight with Bandou.
    • Abnormal Ammo: Let's just say that heavy spiked balls coated in potent toxins isn't exactly what you'd expect a crossbow to fire.
  • Ax Crazy: Perhaps the craziest. And considering the likes of Bando and Lucy, that's saying something!
  • Badass Longcoat
  • Complete Monster: The Complete Monster of the series![context?]
  • Dirty Coward: He gleefully tortures and rapes defenseless Diclonii and normal children, but runs away when he confronts Bando.
  • Eviler Than Thou: definitely worse than Bandou and/or Lucy, and arguably worse than even Kakuzawa Sr.
  • Expy: Of Alucard. In both looks and personality (Minus the Dirty Coward part).
  • Fan Nickname: For note, the above name is a fan term given to him. He never speaks his name, nor does anyone know his name.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Shortly after he tries to rape Mayu, Bandou comes in kicks his ass.
  • Karmic Death / Hoist by His Own Petard: During Lucy and Bandou's showdown, he tries to save Lucy from Bandou, and she responds by popping off his head and throwing it at Bandou since there was nothing else around for her to throw.
  • Nice Hat: In tune with his "Alucard wanna-be" appereance.
  • No Name Given: This arguably just makes him worse.
  • Psycho for Hire: Less Hammy than Bando, but much more sadistic.
  • Rape as Drama: Does this to Number 28, and tries (and comes terrifyingly close) to do it to Mayu (And probably would've done the same to Nana).
    • It's also implied that he was allowed to rape many more Silpelits by the staff of the facility.
  • The Sociopath
  • Sunglasses at Night

Number 28

A relatively minor manga-only character, 28 is mainly known for the absolutely nauseatingly horrifying fate she suffers at the hands of the Unknown Man.

Tropes exhibited by Number 28 include:
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  1. ↑ Three children killed a puppy just to mess with her. Children.
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