Characters of Elfen Lied
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This article lists the fictional characters in the manga/anime series Elfen Lied.
Major characters
Humans
Kouta (コウタ) (also spelled
Kohta) is one of the main characters of the series. Kouta enters the story when Yuka's family rents him a closed down inn as long as he maintains it, and begins living there and going to university. Kouta has
traumatic memories of the
deaths of his
father and
sister, late in the series revealed to be by Lucy's hand, which he has
repressed. Due in part to his loss, Kouta has a soft-spot for girls in trouble and is extremely generous and protective to the girls around him.
Age: 18-20 years-old
Yuka (ユカ) is Kouta's
cousin [Elfen Lied Ep. 1: Yuka greets Kouta and then says "Yuka desu... Itoko no..."「ユカです…従姉妹の…」, which quite unambiguously translates as "I'm Yuka. Your cousin."] and lives with him at the
inn. She is in
love with Kouta, and is therefore jealous of Kouta's attention to Nyū, to the point of being very irrational. Mayu once described her as the "mother" at Kaede House, and Kouta was the "father."
Age: 18-20 years-old
Note: Yuka's relationship with Kouta is often considered taboo or illegally incestuous by western viewers, but marriage between cousins is not necessarily taboo, even in many Western cultures. Cousin marriage is not scandalous in Japan.
Mayu (マユ) is a young girl, abandoned by her mother and a victim of
sexual abuse by her
stepfather. In the beginning, she is
homeless and subsists on
bread crusts. Mayu is typically accompanied by a small
puppy whom she found and christened "Wanta." She later ends up living with Kouta and Yuka as her
legal guardians. Mayu befriends Nana and tries to take Nana under her wing.
Age: 13-14 years-old
Note: In order to have become Mayu's legal guardians, both Yuka and Kouta must have the legal age to acquire custody rights on her. Given that in Japan the age of majority is 20 (二十), therefore, their ages will be placed at 20 years old.
Kurama (蔵間) is 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
Caesarean section complications shortly after she gave birth to Mariko. Although he had previously been tasked with killing all diclonius births, he falters when he must kill his own daughter. It is revealed late in the series that the General Director of the diclonius research program kept his daughter alive, increasing Kurama's perceived
debt to him. Kurama appears to die at the end of the anime after the explosives inside Mariko (whom he is cradling in his arms while walking away) are detonated at his command. It should be noted that right before the explosion, Kurama has a series of images flash in his mind. In them, his wife is still alive and Mariko is a normal baby, and together the images make up Kurama's idea of how life presumably would have played out if Mariko had been born normal (Mariko as a toddler, Mariko on her first day of school, etc.)
Age: mid-30's
Bandō (坂東) is an operative for the National Police Agency's
Special Assault Team (SAT). Though he is fully human, he is as homicidal and apathetic to other people as the worst diclonius are. He is a hardy and effective soldier. After being maimed by Lucy and repaired with
bionic,
cybernetic and prosthetic implants, he escapes on a quest for revenge against her. He gets sidetracked several times in this quest, and ultimately receives aid from Kurama to find Lucy for a final showdown.
Age: mid-30's
Kanae (カナエ) is Kouta's younger
sister. She is protective of her
brother and is jealous of other girls' attentions to him. Kouta cares about her very much, but repressed much of his memory of her after Lucy
murdered her on a
train along with Kouta's father. Kouta's repression of the events leads him to believe she died of a long sickness of some kind.
Age: 8-10 years old
Arakawa (荒川) is Professor Yuu Kakuzawa's partner who works alongside him to create a
vaccine in order to counter the threat of the Diclonius virus. She along with Kouta inadvertently discovered Professor Kakuzawa's severed head and warned the boy not to disclose anything of what he saw or heard with anybody else. Afterwards, she reported her finding to Director Kakuzawa at his compound facility, but he wouldn't let her go scot-free after seeing his son's horns. She was threatened by Chief Kakuzawa to take charge of his deceased son's research or else be killed.
In the anime, Arakawa is a minor character whose role provides little or no contribution at all for advancing the plot, as later she's often seen complaining about that being so busy does not allows her to take a shower which becomes a recurrent gag in the series. However, her character eventually plays an important, key role for humanity's salvation in the last story arc of the manga.
Age: mid-20's
Hiromi (ひろみ)[Elfen Lied manga; Chapter 88, page 25] is both Kurama's wife and Mariko's biological mother. She only appears in episode 10 of the anime during the series of flashbacks that Kurama recalled to relive his first experiences with the Diclonius. Prior to Mariko's birth, she was diagnosed
uterine cancer during her last month of
pregnancy. The doctors were forced to perform an emergency Caesarean section to save her life and the baby's, however, the operation resulted in the
complete removal of her uterus leaving her in a delicate state of health due to
massive blood loss. After Kurama found out the child was borned Diclonius, he told Hiromi that she (the baby) have to be disposed of. Hiromi immediately went hysterical upon hearing this, furthering aggravating her condition until passing out.
One night, afterwards, she walked into the nursery, drenched in blood, to find her husband there attempting to strangle their daughter. She approached him in a zombified-trance state and told him, "Why does she has to die? You ever wanted to have a child, but I won't be able to give you children anymore." Hiromi then committed suicide so as to make Kurama to promise her that he will keep their daughter (Mariko) alive by bleeding herself, then collapsing dead in front of him.
Age: mid-20's
Saito (斎藤) is Mariko's
foster mother and one of the scientists working at Chief Kakuzawa's compound facility. Although she has never actually seen Mariko in person, everyday she and the Diclonius girl have been verbally interacting with each other through the use of loud speakers.
When Shirakawa and the scientists were forced on necessity to release Mariko from her confinement tank, which she had been sealed inside and kept from outside contact all of her life, they pondered their options as how to make Number 35 submit to their commands. Saito was the first to volunteer in greeting Mariko to appease her, mistakingly believing that allowing herself to be seen by Number 35 will help to identify herself as the Diclonius mother. At first the reunion went as expected, Mariko overjoyed for seeing her "mother" Saito for the first time ever, and Saito immediately feeling pity for the Diclonius upon watching the abysmal condition of her body: dehydrated, undernourished, unable to walk.
Once an unsuspecting Saito approached close enough, the mischievous Mariko revealed her true colors responding unemotionally, "My mother... you are not." Then, she blew up the lower half of Saito's body and brutally threw the upper torso through the window of the control room to catch the operator off guard.
Mariko would have killed everyone and gone in a rampage, if it wasn't for the barely alive Saito who used her last breath to detonate the explosive in Mariko's right arm in order to subdue her by force.
Age: mid-20's
Takada Aiko (高田愛子)[Full name and kanji provided by ] only appears in the
Elfen Lied OVA, though her full name is never revealed in that episode. She is Lucy's friend 3 years prior to the start of the main story, and becomes the second human who has both given love and come to accept Lucy by who she is, regardless of her Diclonius condition (
i.e. her horns). Unfortunately, Aiko is killed during the ambush that caught both Lucy and her by surprise, orchestrated by Kurama and his team in order to capture the Diclonius girl. The death of Aiko serves the final straw for Lucy to become resolved in killing deliberately every human at sight (though Kouta and those familiar with him are spared), and triggering the start of her ill-fated
vendetta against Kurama.
Age: 11-12 years-old
Note: The full account of her background story and how she met Lucy is thoroughly explained in the manga.
Isobe (磯部) is the head staff manager of research on the diclonius children in Chief Kakuzawa's island facility and also Kurama's subordinate. He's portrayed as an uncaring, callous, and analytical figure towards the Diclonius just like the rest of the scientists experimenting on them. Both his role and physical appearance are slightly altered for the manga, seen few times paired up with Bando in the latter, but do not seem to affect the general plot in anyway. Isobe views all Diclonius as dangerous threats to humankind's existence that need to be permanently caged or "
put to sleep" like animals. In the final episode he is decapitated by Lucy, when he tries to take advantage in shooting at Nana after the latter was taken aback by Kurama's death.
Age: mid-40's
Shirakawa (白河) is another member of the Diclonius research and termination staff, as also Kurama's right-hand woman. Though her personality on the surface reflects a business-like demeanor, she holds a secret affection and genuine concern for Kurama and on all the matters related with his mysterious past, implicitly hinted from time to time in the series. However, Kurama does not returns the feelings because focuses most of his time in attempting to find and terminate Lucy, therefore, keeping the relationship strictly professional. Her personality in the manga is mostly servile and submissive, going to such extents as letting Chief Kakuzawa to
sexually abuse and play
humiliation games on her. Nonetheless, her character plays an important role in the manga than the anime, but meets her demise at the hands of Lucy literally in both.
Age: mid-30's
Diclonius
It is likely that Lucy's name was assigned to her by Chief Kakuzawa because she never refers to herself by that name, and it pays homage to "Lucy", the oldest human ancestor whose fossilized remains were found in Ethiopia.
Consequently, she discounts non-diclonius as 'non-humans'. On the surface, she lacks empathy, kills without much concern, and acts somewhat sadistic. Nonetheless, her capacity for love (both romantic and for friends) is integrated throughout the series. Indeed, one of the major ironic elements of the anime is the interaction between the all-too-human diclonius and the savage and sadistic humans who purportedly need protection from them.
Notes: Lucy seems more consciously aware of her alter ego in the manga.
Nyū is a
split personality of Lucy, possibly created from
brain damage caused by a
.50 BMG round ricocheting off her head (due to a metallic helmet). Nyū has a
child-like
personality and infantile knowledge of the world, and lacks spoken
language skills. Nyū is lovable, innocent and incapable of violent acts, a
foil to the normal Lucy; she is the manifestation of her 'good side'. When Nyū is attacked violently (or hit on the head), she will regress into Lucy; likewise, when Lucy is treated with love and kindness, she will uncontrollably switch back into Nyū, showing a
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde complex. As Nyū, Lucy cannot be sensed by other Diclonius and Silpelits.
One example of this is when Lucy's presence surfaces when Nyū sees a picture of Kouta's little sister Kanae, whom Lucy had encountered eight years before. At the same moment, Nyū starts to cry and eventually tells Kouta that she's sorry. While she does so, she starts to remember something, and suddenly grabs her head as if in pain (much like Lucy had done when she switched back to Nyū as she tortured Bandou). Kouta embraces her, and the Lucy side of her settles. Both Lucy and Nyū are in love with Kouta.
Notes: The character is called "Nyū" because, when Kouta and Yuka first meet Lucy on the beach, this is the only word she is capable of saying. Some anime fans compare this childlike state to Chi, the female lead of Chobits, where when she is activated, the only word she can say is "chi", and her vocabulary later grows, much like Nyū's.
Age: 16-18 years old
Silpelits
Nana (ナナ) (also known as Number 7) is a young Silpelit girl. Her name, 'Nana', is Japanese for the number seven, the number by which she was called at the research facility. Kurama sees her as his daughter and cares very much for her. When Nana's limbs were torn off by Lucy, he personally came to stop Lucy and save Nana and also disregarded Director General Kakuzawa's order to kill her by giving her new limbs and setting her free with a lot of money. Unlike many other diclonius she is not homicidal or sadistic. She has the ability to temporarily disable other Dicloniuses vectors by having her vectors go through the pineal gland. Although her vector power is slightly superior to Lucy's in terms of range and certain abilities, she lacks the strength and violent nature of the latter: her empathy for others does not allow her to fight as vigorously, and she loses her arms and legs when she is viciously
dismembered by Lucy. With her vector arms, she is later able to manipulate
prosthetic appendages and even throw them like a
rocket punch.
Nana can be seen as the exact opposite of Lucy. While Lucy's default personality is serious and cold, Nana's is friendly and kind; Lucy's split personality "Nyu" is similar to Nana's default while Nana sometimes goes into trances and acts cold like Lucy's default personality.
Age: 13-14 years-old (anime); 6 years-old (manga)
Mariko (マリコ) (also known as Number 35) is a child girl, described as the only surviving "third generation" Silpelit, and the daughter of Kurama. In the anime she possesses 26 vectors , each with an approximate range of 11 meters (the number and range is much higher in the manga). 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; she moves around in a
wheelchair.
Despite the environment she was raised in, she is relatively well developed psychologically. 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.
In order to keep Mariko under control, the research institute implanted at least two bombs (probably more) in her body during infancy; one is used to remove her right arm after she attacks scientists at the institute. Kurama later orders the other bomb(s) detonated as he walks away embracing his daughter and the resulting explosion kills Mariko and kills Kurama as well.
Age: 8-10 years old (anime); 5 years-old (manga)
Number 03 (３番) is a child Silpelit whose name is her designation number given by the human scientists at the research facility, as she does not possess a personal name of her own. She appears only in episode 10 of the anime when Kurama experiences a series of flashbacks back when he became director at Chief Kakuzawa's island facility.
Kurama's flashbacks give insight on the activities the scientists were performing on Diclonius to measure the range and power of their vectors. Everyday, Number 03 was chained up on a wall, and on a far end a machine shot small iron balls at her from different angles. The purpose of that test was to evaluate the maximum range at which each Diclonius's vectors could reach and deflect the balls.
When the experience became too traumatic for Number 03, Kurama voiced out his protest for witnessing such inhuman activities. Afterwards, the locks on Number 03's bounds were mysteriously opened up, and she went on a killing spree until she found Kurama. She immediately placed her vector on his head and thanked him in a haunting manner, before being shot dead at the head by Yuu Kakuzawa with an armor piercing bullet. Several months later, Kurama's wife gave birth to a Diclonius baby (Mariko) much to Kurama's fear and astonishment. But, it made Kurama to quickly recall his near-death experience with Number 03 and finally realized that the virus is passed on through the vectors.
Age: 3-4 years-old (anime & manga)
Note: The official Elfen Lied website confirms that Number 03 is Nana's older sister, which would explain viewer's confusion who often mistake Number 03 for Nana.
Part-Diclonius
Director Kakuzawa (角沢長官) is the head of the research center performing experiments on diclonius. He is from a long line of diclonius ancestry that has been watered down by inter-breeding with humans (much of this is, however, only revealed in the manga). As a result of this 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 is the first to be able to reproduce) and thus gain power as "
kings" of the new race.
Age: 70+ years-old
Professor Kakuzawa Yū (角沢教授) is the son of Chief Kakuzawa and also a watered-down diclonius with smaller horns and no vectors. When he and Kurama were younger, they both went to university together and it was Kakuzawa that originally got Kurama involved in the research on Diclonius. He ends up, coincidentally, being the lecturer for a course at the
university in which Kouta and Yuka are enrolled. He was the one responsible for releasing Lucy at the research center. He is later
beheaded by Lucy after he abducts her and attempts to have
sexual intercourse with her.
Age: mid-30's
Minor characters
Kisaragi (白河) is Kurama's personal secretary and a graduate of
Tokyo_university. She is an outright clumsy but pure hearted woman who seems to
space out at work, oblivious to the situation she accidentally stumbles into it. Despite her failures, she is optimistic and has good intentions in doing anything to please Kurama. Her bumbling, airheaded, and innocent demeanor is parallel to that of Mutsumi Otohime. She is killed by Lucy at the start of the story. Kisaragi trips (completely oblivious of what is going on) in front of the rampaging Lucy who takes advantage of her interference to
tear off her head and use her body as a shield to fend off the security team's gunfire.
Age: 30-32 years-old
Nozomi (ノゾミ) is a soft-spoken and shy friend of Yuka who only appears in the manga from chapter 43 onwards. She has a
bladder problem and therefore wears
diapers. Kouta first encounters her while walking to the store (not realising they both know Yuka), and both are embarrassed when the wind blows her
skirt up. They later meet at the inn and Nozomi is revealed to have a great talent for
singing. Nozomi is the person that sings the song "
Elfenlied", while teaching Nyū how to sing.
Age: 15-17 years old
Kouta's father (コウタの父) is killed along with his daughter, Kanae (Kouta's sister), by Lucy as a retaliation against Kouta. Upon seeing the tears of sorrow and listening over to the painful screams of a grief-stricken Kouta, she realizes with horror that she made a terrible mistake and goes on to regret it deeply.
Age: mid-30's
Tomo (トモ) is an
orphan boy living together with Lucy and several other parentless kids in a
child welfare facility. He along with two other bullies constantly pick on Lucy everyday primarily because of the latter's physical difference (her horns), though he also adds later on that seems weird for him to see that Lucy never displays emotions. He takes pleasure in making Lucy as miserable as possible with malice by deliberately playing mean pranks on her (like spilling milk on her backpack), calling her "horns" (a pun about her horns), subjecting her to various acts of
humiliation, and physically assaulting her. When he finds out that Lucy has been taking care of a puppy, he forces her to witness a plain act of extreme cruelty by repeatedly
smashing a flower vase on the dog several times just to watch her cry in order for him to quench his sick curiosity. Instead, a shocked Lucy violently snaps in a murderous rage, beheading him and his
accomplices with her vectors.
Age: 10 years-old
Note: He and Bandō are the only human characters in the anime shown to express outright sadism without regret or inhibitions at all.
Spoilers end here.
Notes
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