Elfen Lied is one of the most beloved anime and manga anime community, since it has become one of the best known stories today, due to the themes it touches and its raw story that caught not only the fans, but became a cult anime for many. Originally, it is a manga with the same name as the anime, written and illustrated by the master Okamoto Lynn.
Did you know that the ending of the Elfen Lied manga is very different from that of the anime?
cIn the anime, Elfen Lied tells us a very raw and serious story where humans have been playing god, modifying human DNA to create a new race of superhumans, eventually succeeding and a species of humans called Diclonius. These new genetically modified humans are born with a gift that could be called the famous sixth sense. Giving them the power to wipe out all of humanity without batting an eyelash. This worries the scientists and people involved in this project, so they begin to study them to find a method to cure them or eliminate them in the process.
This is where we are introduced to Lucy, one of the Diclonius, who manages to escape from her confinement cell, killing anyone who gets in her way, until she falls into the sea. The next day she ends up on a beach, where Kouta and Yuka find her and put her up in their estate under the name Nyu.
Anime ending
At the end of the anime of Elfen Lied, in the final battle, Lucy ends up losing one of her horns when she fights with Mariko, who dies with her father because of an explosion, then Lucy goes to Kouta where she confesses everything, starting with the fact that she is the same girl with whom she played when they were children. She also confesses to him that she was born with the purpose of destroying the human race and that in only five years she could destroy everything in order to repopulate the world with thousands and thousands of Diclonius, but that if that were to happen he could no longer live in the world with her.
After expressing her feelings and after apologizing for murdering her sister and father, Kouta forgives her and the two reconcile. But Lucy heads to her destination, leaving to face a large number of soldiers whom she attacks with her powers, but in the end it is only shown that her other horn flies off into the air, which gives us to understand that Lucy was destroyed by the soldiers.
Although here begins the confusing part, since in the epilogue we see that Kouta receives an unexpected visitor, and although it is not clear who it is, the silhouette of the shadow looks like Lucy, although it is unknown how she could have survived, leaving viewers to draw their own conclusions about this ending.
End of the manga
In the manga of Elfen Lied things happen that clearly, as in all anime adaptations, not everything can be adapted and in the manga, Nyu, Lucy’s other personality, manages to mature and begins to understand everything that happens around her. Lucy is pursued by the government, which does everything possible to kill her, while Kouta has a much more participatory role to the point of giving his life to save Lucy from a gunshot.
After this, Lucy gets angry so she unleashes all her power with which she could destroy the world for what they did to Kouta, but she realizes that her powers are not unlimited and doing so would end her own life. So he decides to use his powers in another way to heal Kouta and save his life, although this would also end his existence. A voice inside her begins to tell her not to do it, but she is completely determined that she must save Kouta, because although she wants to destroy the world, her desire to protect the people she loves is greater.
Lucy then begins to use her powers to heal Kouta, in addition to creating a strong force field that protects them from attacks, but when Kouta wakes up he realizes that Lucy was melting alive, so Lucy tells him that she is a mess. The others arrive on the scene and Kouta is reluctant to hand over Lucy’s body, but something that no one expected was that the Diclonius‘ killer instinct was still alive, and he began to kill all the soldiers around him.
Both they and the soldiers could not imagine seeing such a scene, if here it could already be seen that Okamoto Lynn would love to melt his female characters. With the personalities already dead, the diclonius’ killer instinct begins to eliminate everyone. But when she tries to attack Kouta the personalities Lucy and Nyu show up to save him once again, but without first reminding Kouta about the promise he made with Kaede, that if she killed humans, the duty to eliminate her was Kouta’s alone.
Kouta refuses to kill Lucy, since all the personalities would be eliminated, but they tell him that if he doesn’t, all humanity will be wiped off the face of the earth. Kouta takes the gun, but finds himself unable to do it, but to his surprise Nyu takes control and passes him the gun and he kills her.
Time passes and all the girls are seen cleaning their home, and then go to Kouta who was being discharged from the hospital, during that time a disease caused many babies to be born with horns, which grew and killed people. This is why a global organization banned humans from being able to procreate so that these new humans would become extinct, while the professor’s assistant was creating a vaccine for this disease, which she was not happy about.
At the end we are shown that Nana and Kurama are together, unlike the anime where he dies along with Marika, he is still alive in the manga, plus Kouta visits almost daily the grave of Kaede’s puppy. The years pass and we are given to understand that Kouta married Yuka and both had a daughter whom they named Nyu Jr, he explains that it is an important place and that he hopes to see an old friend again.
They talk for a long time and Kouta’s daughter tells him that near this grave she plays with two twins who just moved, and discovers that there is a note buried next to a jar, which said that “we could see each other” and that this stone is special so it would be a good wedding ring.
Kouta begins to cry for joy, but to his surprise the twins that his daughter mentioned earlier appear, which surprises Kouta because his daughter calls them the Kaede sisters, who mention that they come to see a very special friend, showing us two sisters wearing lasos in their hair, similar to the ones Lucy and Nyu had, ending this story.
Curiosities
When Lucy dies, Anna Kakuzawa, the daughter of Chief Kakuzawa, learns that she never suffered a mutation but was locked in a monster.
Within the story of the Elfen Lied manga there are many diclonius that did not appear in the anime, besides Nana, Kaede (Lucy/Nyu) and Mariko such as: Alicia, Barbara, Number 28, Cynthia, Kaede’s half-brother besides being the only male of his species and Mariko’s defective clones.
- Some Elfen Lied characters suffer from different disorders throughout the story, Kouta suffers from repressed memory, Lucy from schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder and Nana from fixation disorder.
- Many Elfen Lied fans claim that the Kaede twins are the reincarnations of Lucy and Nyu.
- Okamoto Lynn would return important part for her stories, the melting in her characters as it happened with Lucy from Elfen Lied, this can be seen in her most recent works as for example Brynhildr in the Darkness and Parallel Paradise.
Undoubtedly Elfen Lied is one of the most significant anime for fans of anime and manga, with a super incredible story that touches serious and very controversial issues today, so we hope this post has been to your liking, remember that you can watch Elfen Lied through Crunchyroll.