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This OVA was a complete waste of time and just downright nasty... The original Konosuba is nothing special in my honest opinion, but it's a decent anime with some serviceable characters. In this though, everyone is treated like a sex toy for our shut-in Otaku Protagonist... Even Megumin (Who is 13 years old!!!). I know Kazuma is 17, so this doesn't make it pedophile behavior, but it's still super uncomfortable for me just to watch every action transpire... -_-
This OVA just exists as dumb filler that will only please perverts and masochists maybe... It is not entertaining whatsoever to see these characters being exploited ... sexually for Kazuma's amusement. The only one not suffering is Aqua just because he doesn't find her alluring or sexy, while everyone just ends up miserable throughout most of the runtime to this travesty...

If I had to pick out a few good things to this OVA, it would be that, at the very least Kazuma felt bad for what he did to his friends at the end of the day and the animation itself isn't bad at all. It's not Amazing or anything, but it's good for OVA standards. Also Yunyun was introduced here before season 2 and she seems like a fun character if her introduction has anything to go by. I do like her relationship to Megumin which was kind of cute, giving the explosive rather cheeky character a rival to mingle and fight toward.

Other than that, this is an OVA that I wholeheartedly would skip entirely in a heartbeat. The new character was wasted here... I'll just watch Yunyun in Season 2 and see if she will hopefully be introduced much better there... Iif I ever get to season 2 that is...)

Here it is... My review for "Elfen Lied". This will be a very long review and one of the hardest reviews I may ever have to do for any anime ever. It took me awhile to come up with a score for this one as I had to flip-flop some of the ratings here and there. But overall my feelings remained the same with a few changes over the past few days. And while at one point I thought the anime was deep and fascinating, I don't think so anymore, having viewed the series 3 times over it left me feeling more frustrated with it ... than as a guilty pleasure sort of viewpoint. While I really do admire what the anime does right, I'm afraid it's too far and few between, there are a lot more problems if anything, which I will now be discussing, so for your viewing curiosity, I present to you... my review of "Elfen Lied".

-:(Spoiler Alert):-

(The Bad)
This is one of the strangest anime that I have ever had to tackle, not only would I classify this as a generally bad anime with some of the dumbest choices certain characters make, the confused tone-al shifts of certain scenes and the absolutely absurd overuse of gore for the sake of being shocking. The story is also an absolute mess as well... There is also something about this anime that is disturbing, evil and nasty. Giving the audience an insight into the psyche of the human mind (Through some of the worst traits you could see in people) and the psyche of the mutant human mind as well- known as the "Diclodius" who are a diseased race of humans infected through birth, having physical abnormalities such as pinkish / redish colored hair, bone shaped appendages shaped like cat ears protruding from their skulls, having "vectors" (which are multiple invisible arms that stretch from the back and can cut through nearly anything) and mental aspect containing an instinct for one thing and one thing only, to annihilate the human race. The story is about how the government keeps the Diclodius locked away on a remote island, kept unknown from the public view, and experimented / tortured for the sick gains of said government lead by an evil just to be evil Diclodius Man named "Chief Kakuzawa", which he doesn't seem to be interested in conquering the world with his infected Diclodius brethren and sisters, but just to torture humans in general (Mainly his own kind, the Diclodius). We have no backstory with this guy and why he does this to his own kind, exposition would be much appreciated, but yet, we get none of that... Another Diclodius man who is his son had a different goal to accomplish, He wanted to breed with the Eve of the Diclodius, the first infected child of the race, her name is Lucy / Nyu and she is one of the two protagonists of the series. She is also a psychopath and a murderer who has killed 24 people in the first 7 minutes of the anime and towards the real end we get a grand total of 66 deaths committed by her hands, "Most of her victims being either soldiers / officers doing their job (Which granted Lucy has been tortured by them so I would expect her to have a grudge against them personally, so I can let that slide) and completely innocent people!!!" and without hesitation as well. I get it, I really do, she has an instinct that tells her to kill people, and she can't fully control that urge all the time. So with this in mind, it's incredibly difficult where I'd put her on a moral pedestal, but the way I see it... she is a MONSTER, pure and simple; and need I remind you that this is one of our main characters. How can the anime itself possibly show sympathy for such a dangerous and psychotically diseased person, well they certainly try in areas, but unfortunately it just doesn't work, even with her childlike counterpart Nyu mixed in (Who came to be after she got shot in the head), Lucy herself is just NOT a redeemable person if not barely at all, even if she is infected, even if she has feelings for Kouta (the second main protagonist), and ends up apologizing to him for ruining his life. It still doesn't work, as she is a danger to nearly everyone around her and is practically classified as evil. I understand that she has suffered to the prejudice of humanity (even in forced ways, like having 3 seemingly regular normal children brutally murder a dog she befriended just to spite her and no I'm not joking, it is unrealistic shock for the sake of being UNREALISTICALLY SHOCKING!!!) {If you are a dog lover I HIGHLY recommend you don't watch the scene or even the anime in general}, but that still doesn't help her case or make me feel bad for her having to see her one and only friend at the time die, as she is sick in the head even as a kid due to her murderous intentions and psychopathic diseased nature, and honestly while she shouldn't be tortured, she still needs to be locked up again for the sake of the human race. Even if most of the humans in this anime seem vile and nasty just to make us feel worse for Lucy which I must once again establish, just doesn't work either as it is, say it with me... UNREALISTICALLY CRUEL!!! As for the romantic angle between the two protagonists well it barely hits home and makes zero sense as to how or why Kouta would forgive her for brutally murdering his younger Sister and Father!!! I get that he is a generically written nice guy, but this is way too much... This is such a forced display of romance and it almost comes across like a bad fan fiction love angle. Speaking of bad fan fiction, we got a dose of incest relations as well... YUP, Yuka - the most frustrating / annoying character in the anime, has a love interest with her cousin Kouta... I should be disgusted, which don't get me wrong I am, but I feel like I might be immune to this kind of crap after watching the disturbing anime known as... "Boku No Pico"...... Back on Topic, There is no beating around the bush, Yuka is every annoying generic lovey dovey anime girl you've seen and the fact that she is in love with her cousin, makes it EVEN WORSE!!! Also there is a soldier named Bando who is known to be the best combatant out of all the facility's trained men, but he's also incredibly violent and cruel too, he doesn't care who he kills as long as he gets the job done and as said in his very first sentence (in his own words) while fighting hordes of fake pop up targets in the training room, "What the hell is the point of shooting at targets that don't scream or bleed, it's getting old, I'm ready for real people." If that doesn't get the point of how unlikable he is, then I don't know what does (but to be fair, he is viewed as the antagonist to the main characters, so that sort of works out fine... I guess...) Too bad he's rendered completely useless after Episode 2... all he does throughout the remainder of the series is stick around on a beach and wait for Lucy to come and give him another rematch, he would have had no impact on the remainder of the story if he had just died in the second episode... As for the narrative, while it is clear what it is trying to convey, the narrative doesn't go much of anywhere throughout its entire run, it kind of ends abruptly on the war between the Diclodius and the governmental facility imprisoning them. We don't know the outcome after the anime finishes on whether the Diclodius through more infections rise up and do end up conquering the world or if the Facility successfully imprisons every single Diclodius and or future born Diclodius' in the country. Just because the characters arcs end, doesn't mean you should leave the story hanging in the middle of a huge world wide conflict. And since it's a big narrative to the anime, it is quite flawed... I know the manga might have a more clear ending to the conflict for sure, but I simply refuse to read it as I've heard the Elfen Lied manga has tons of fetishes implemented by the author, from cat ears maybe being one of them, to a manga exclusive high school girl having to wear a diaper from having common fears and pissing herself... Yeah, no, I can't read the manga, Thankfully she is 18, so it isn't that bad, but at least the anime had the decency to not showcase fetishes, besides a few perverted scenes, the anime really wasn't all that over the top with it and could have showcased way more fetishes if it wanted to, but didn't anyways, so i am thankful for that. Also one other thing I'd like to point out is that the cliched memory loss trope that is used in this anime has been done before and it's been done a lot better. Basically Kouta goes into a state of shock when he's reminded of his tragic past and instantly goes into a semi-amnesia state forgetting what happened right before his remembrance of what happened to his sister and father, (Who yes, were both killed by Lucy intentionally, that's the biggest reason why the shipping between them doesn't work...). So the amnesia trope is used to avoid the big reveal until Episode 12, along with Lucy turning into Nyu every so often to avoid Lucy from interacting with Kouta too long. They both go on a very repeated cycle of this throughout 11 episodes and it becomes very noticeable, tedious and just padding every time it happens until the big reveal FINALLY comes into play...

(The Decent)
Despite a lot of the characters being absolutely clueless to situations or blind to reality by blocking traumatic events from their memories much like with Kouta, There are some characters that are actually not bad, Nana is one of them. She is also a Diclodius, but for some reason she doesn't have the killer instinct like Lucy and Mariko do. Maybe the instinct varies from the infected individual, it's hard to say why or how, but that's just what I get out of it. Anyway, Nana is a likeable young (according to the wikia she has the body of a 16-17 year old, but is actually 6-7 years old, I'm not even gonna question that tbh...) girl who seems to see good in everyone and tries her best to make amends with humans and Diclodius alike. Of course she isn't perfect, she has her own flaws too, like she can succumb to vengeance and is prone to being moody from time to time. With all that said, she is a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the characters in this show. I wouldn't call her a good character per say, though she does come close. She ends up living with Kouta, Yuka and Nyu. As for Lucy's alternate counterpart "Nyu" (Who came to be when Lucy got shot in the head and ended up suffering from a split personality disorder), she falls into the okay category as well, it is nice when she shows concern for Kouta and Yuka when they get really upset, even if she has very limited speech and she does have a very colorful personality though, but what makes her falter is that she isn't very useful or may cause more harm than good, she's much like someone with the mentality of a 3 year old toddler. Oh god... I really hope this isn't some fetish for the Author...... Anyway, lastly we move onto Mayu a poor orphan girl who left her home because her stepfather......... would commonly make her strip naked and molest her... Omg I'm so glad he barely appeared in the anime, in fact we barely get to see his face and I will say that it is good that the anime itself views him as bad through the visuals alone. He was indeed a vile despicable piece of Sh*t! Her mother also became jealous that Mayu was getting all the attention from her stepfather and that he wasn't paying attention to his wife at all... Both the father and mother are perfect for each other, awful excuses for parents... So Mayu starts to live with Kouta, Yuka and the others who openly accept her with open arms. She is barely that much of a character, she does help out with comforting Nana if anything else, but for the most part, she's just kind of there to fill up a bigger Harem for Kouta and yes, that is what it feels like, a mother f*cking Harem... except only Lucy and Yuka are in love with him. As for the nudity to which there is quite a lot of it, it isn't overly sexual looking despite what some people may say, sure we see two naked girls, one 13 years old and the other being 7 years old, thankfully even though the studio who made this is "Arms" who are well known for making lots of Hentai including Venus 5... they still didn't resort to fanservice with two very young children, which would have INSTANTLY KILLED the entire anime. The nudity is just kind of there to be there, and the female characters barely have shine spots, erected nipples and jiggling breasts if none at all. So I'm able to bypass it as just being artistic nudity... Besides one scene of Mayu posing for her stepfather in a sexualized manner (Which was one of the worst scenes in the entire anime)................................. >:(

(The Good)
So much crap I had to say about this strange f*cked up anime... but finally I can get to the good stuff, and surprisingly there are a few good things, for one, The opening and ending sequences feature artistic drawings of Lucy and the other main characters. And they are drawn in a style based on Gustav Klimt's paintings, like "The Kiss", "Adele Bloch-Bauer I", and others with similar imitating poses, colors, and patterns. It's honestly very beautiful and inspiring to watch and with the visuals being accompanied by the legendary Lilium OST it makes for one of the best anime openings I've EVER SEEN (And no, I'm not even kidding). It'd be in my Top 20 best anime openings of all time easily. That brings me into the Lilium soundtrack that is used all throughout this anime, there is a reason why it is played a lot, both the female sung and male sung versions are absolutely divine and wonderfully crafted with lyrics based on the Biblical passages in Psalms, and the Epistle of James, and the Renaissance hymn, they are sung in Latin and both versions carry the scenes they are played over and amplify them by like 10. The Female Version amplifies scenes of Happiness, Relief and Beauty while the Male version amplifies scenes of Fear, Sadness and Disappointment. Also I must address the only fleshed out / well developed character of this anime, That character being "Kurama", the head scientist of the facility who oversees the experimentations performed upon the Diclodius. One of the Diclodius "Mariko" is actually his daughter and had promised his wife before she died to protect her child no matter what, he had done everything in his power to make sure she was kept from total execution as "Chief Kakuzawa" wanted all newborn Diclodius' executed as they had too many at the facility and taking in more would prove to be dangerous. He made a deal with Kurama and in the end she was spared to be kept in a vault deep in the lab. While Kurama may not seem too interesting upon first glance he is actually the best character of the entire show as he goes through struggles and harsh decisions that can be relatable to parents protecting their children from the dangers of the outside world (Even if those children are Diclodius...) And he had also taken Nana in as a step daughter as she was kind and well respected toward the scientists of the lab despite the torturous procedures they performed on her, she had hope that all the torment and suffering would lead to a life of eventually living with her father figure where they'd live alone together away from all the corrupt people in the world, Kurama was pretty much forced into doing the chiefs decisions and had to continue the inhumane experiments on the Diclodius' because if he had disobeyed, he'd easily be killed off by the chief on a single command. So he may not be perfect, but I can at least understand his situation. And he had a soft side as the chief told him to kill Nana when she couldn't kill Lucy and had lost all her limbs in battle rendering her completely useless. And Kurama disobeys his boss and secretly makes a plan to get her away from the facility with synthetically engineered limbs and sends her away to start life anew with a bag of yen. (Which she doesn't even know what yen is, so basically Kurama just gave her money and didn't explain to her the concept, value and or importance of it... *sigh*...) Problems left and right with this anime... Anyway, He took the job in the first place not knowing of the consequences and how awful he would be for experimenting and torturing the Diclodius, but he finally comes face to face with his actual daughter for the first time and through a harsh action by pointing a gun to her, he struggles with what he should do next, but after seeing her cry for him, he ultimately decides that he can't live with himself anymore and wants to be blown up along side Mariko who had a bomb implanted inside her. He goes through an arc that makes sense and is reasonably told well. So I have to give the anime props for writing one character quite well. Also the last positive thing I will say about this anime is that the backgrounds and some of the set locations themselves are very nice to look at and rich in design and aesthetic.

(Overall)
Well that's about it, All I have left to say is that overall, this is NOT a good anime, far from it. But yet, it's not the worst anime I've seen either, as I've seen "Boku No Pico" and "Eiken" which are much worse for being perverted for no reason but to be perverted. At least with Elfen Lied there is some artistic merit and fascinating concepts that are brought up from within the show's lore. It is a beautifully awful kind of anime and it really pushed the boundaries of what can be shown to the public back in 2004, with that said, it may be captivating in areas but it is still a really bad anime. A really bad snuff anime. It is a sh*t stain covered with a touch of brilliant ideas (that were executed poorly in the end) as well as some nice art and simply mesmerizing music thrown in. The anime itself has fans, and I can see why people would like it, and the anime has haters and I can also see why people would hate it (In fact I'm mostly on the same boat as the people who hated it). This anime is incredible in how bizarre and distasteful it can be, but at the same time I can recognize some of the brilliance and thought provoking choices put into it as well. As a horror genre fanatic, this is not good horror, it's overly gory and edgy just for the sake of shock and if I wanted to watch a good horror action anime that actually has good characters and a well told story, I'd just watch the 90's anime of "Berserk", which is soooooo much better. As for recommending it, I DO NOT, unless you like gory, disturbing and violent killer anime girls then I'd say maybe... just maybe give it a shot. But be warned it is not easy to sit through. I'd say the only thing everyone over 18 should listen to is the Lilium soundtrack which is simply brilliant along with the opening and ending credits to the anime itself. As for me, I think I'm done with disturbing / horror anime for awhile, I need to watch Hamtaro or Cardcaptor Sakura to know what it feels like to watch wholesome and innocent anime again... Good Bye and I hope you liked my review.

Final Rating: (4 / 10) {Poor Anime}

A story about two brothers overcoming their greatest past mistake from childhood, they learn the harsh reality of fair trading with the supernatural, or in the case of what the anime itself calls it, "the law of equivalent exchange", and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood makes this message perfectly clear all throughout. It masters many elements of the story it tries to convey, from fleshly developed characters, dynamic battle sequences, and the setting of the world these characters inhabit. It is all shown without feeling too fillerish or forced as well. This is an anime that I highly recommend to anyone looking for a shonen of top ... quality, there is a reason why people say this is the best anime of all time. I just might agree with them, though I can't say for certain as I have a tough time deciding whether this is my favorite anime series or "One Piece" (And that is still ongoing).

With all that said, this anime is not perfect, sometimes the comedy while mostly good, can be a bit forced, certain jokes can be showcased during moments that don't call for them, whether it is directly after a very serious conversation or a very serious fight. I'm all for a good laugh but it's best to keep your comical moments far away from the very emotional scenes and they can appear very abruptly too. Thankfully, this doesn't happen too often and most of the comedy (while not the series' strongest point) is relatively good. Also another problem is the tiny handful of characters that annoyed me, like Mei Chang and Olivier Armstrong, this is merely just a nitpick as they aren't necessarily bad characters, just not well developed characters that I've grown to respect compared to a lot of others that are way better.

With all that said, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is a beautifully crafted story with moments of sadness, fear, excitement and happiness all blended together to form one of the best anime of all time that will stand the test of time and live on in anime history as a testament on what makes a good anime. To end this on a metaphorical note, "Human life is short lived and time is precious to every single person on this planet, but the sacrifice of watching all 64 episodes / 1408 minutes / 23 hours of this series is most certainly worth the time I gave away, I'd say that it's a fair equivalent exchange. :D

When it comes to parodying a certain anime genre, it can be difficult to get right. One Punch Man does this extremely well. It parodies the Shonen fighting anime like DBZ and One Piece. With its fast paced battle sequences, to the sheer ridiculousness of some of the characters and their powers, even an anime as over the top as this one can be considered good. So the stories are good and the fights are good, but how are the characters? Well they are pretty enjoyable too. The Main character is Saitama who by the ending of season 1 will convince you that no one ... in the shows universe can defeat him in a fight. Overpowered characters in anime can be handled awfully, Zoro from One Piece isn't that bad in this category. Natsu from Fairy Tail is pretty bad. but Ayato from the asterisk war is probably the worst one in the category of overpowered characters. Saitama however is an overpowered character done right. Why, cause the whole world around him sees him as a no good cheater. Even all the heroes (Besides Genos and Bang) don't see him as anything special. The other characters are also a lot of fun. Genos is a decently fun character with interesting powers. Bang is a wise old man who thankfully hasn't trained Saitama, Cause that would be an overused trope in the shonen genre. Tornado is a spoiled brat and Puri Puri Prisoner is the over the top gay character of this anime. Normally this would turn me off from any series. But since One Punch Man is incredibly weird it just adds to that weirdness of the anime. I'd say if you want to see parodying done right then watch One Punch Man. It'll surely give you what you've been looking for.

One of the worst anime that I've ever seen. Even the name of the anime makes no sense. It's called "The Asterisk War", But there are no wars whatsoever. Maybe one will appear in season 2 but as far as I'm concerned it should have been called "The Academy City on the Water" because that's where its been taken place and there are 'NO' wars. It's terrible series with anime cliches, an annoyingly overpowered main character and forced in fan-service, (BTW, Fan-service is not my cup of tea in general, so that puts more weight into this shit fest of an anime). Even after finishing ... Season 1, We are still in the middle of the arc. What kind of series would end a season in the middle of an arc?! That's like Yu Yu Hakusho finishing season 2 at the fourth round of the dark Tournamnet. Ayato is perhaps the worst main character from any anime that I've ever seen. He's basically the textbook definition of a Gary-Sue, which I can not stand in storytelling. The supporting characters are also just as bad. We've got Julis, The Typical Tsundere chick. Kirin, The overly cute chick. And Claudia, a psychotic sexual predator, who is probably the worst character in this travesty. They even have the nerve to make the most interesting character a robot. I'm not even kidding, the best character in this anime isn't even a living being... What more can I say... My advice is to stay away from this trash. You'd get more experience from watching paint dry.