ThatAnimeSnob

Most creators get better with time but Okamoto is not one of them. I mean, holly shit, he had a decade to make a new story that is not repeating the atrocious problems Elfen Lied (EL hereon) had, and instead of that, he rehashes the exact same thing in Brynhildr and made it worse.

Both stories try to sell their shit by being edgy as hell, full of gore, splatter, nudity, and any other manipulative jump scare tactics you can think of. EL is better, not because it had more of that crap, but because said crap were still a fresh thing back then, as far as tv anime go (and no, 90s OVAs don’t count). The thing is, nowadays animated violence is too mainstream, and thus nowhere near as special because we see it all the time. Brynhildr doesn’t have the instant hook effect of EL, and thus loses simply for not being made in that time period. Retro always wins, even if it’s a terrible anime.

But even if we don’t stick to how fresh the gore feels today, Brynhildr is still worse. Bleeding in EL was to the most part a result of torture by the military dudes. In Brynhildr they were bleeding because they were not taking their medicine. It doesn’t have the same punch as when you are coughing blood from metallic spheres that are being thrown at you as part of a satanic experiment. Also, many of the girls turn to goo when they die, instead of leaving behind dismembered bodies. Even that feels silly compared to the non-dissolvable corpses of EL.

Both of them have a very catchy opening song but the EL one is infinitely better for having stolen artwork by a famous artist. The pseudo-artistic looks of it, combined with pretty damn good opera singing, resulted in one of the best opening songs of all time. On the other hand, Brynhildr’s song may be catchy, but it’s also dubstep, a patchwork of music clips from earlier works, stitched together with computer. There is hardly as much effort put into making it, as there is with an actual singing performance accompanied by a whole orchestra. The same thing applies for the artwork they used in the intro. There is nothing pseudo-artistic about it; it’s edgy shit and clips from some action show. You can actually replace the song with any other you like and nobody will be able to tell the difference. That makes it lazy, contrived, and even tasteless. Furthermore, for some retarded reason this show gets a second opening in the last 3 episodes, and this time it is a horrible mismatch of screams and epileptic scene changes. Whatever good impressions one would have from the music it is completely trashed because of this mind baffling decision to replace an average opening with ear bleeding junk.

Both of them are full of girls being constantly naked and bleeding, but EL is excusing it far better. The military bad guys kept the girls naked, so they won’t use clothes as weapons, plus it was depicting how they were not treating them as people but rather as beasts. Even when they are shown naked in front of the harem lead, it was being masked as innocence, because they all had the intelligence of a monkey. There is no such thing in Brynhildr, it is shamelessly throwing at you boob jokes, cloth fetishes, tsundere talking, and forced bath scenes for no other reason than having fapping material. It’s not even trying to present itself as innocent, since some of the girls are mean bitches.

A big chunk of the drama in EL was its grey morality. The supernatural girls were constantly killing people as means to survive, and because the normal people were mistreating them. The military dudes were cruel as means to control the girls and protect humanity from them. It falls apart later on when you realize it all has to do with genes, but at least on a very superficial level it was excusing the cruelty. Brynhildr doesn’t do that. The girls are not shown killing normal people and are simply running away from generic megalomaniac evil dudes, because they will be killed if they are captured. There is no grey morality, it is more than obvious to tell who are the bad and who are the good.

Both shows have a blunt male hoarding girls in his place, but EL does it better. Kouta was just an average guy with a ridiculously high amount of trustworthiness. He was not bright or cunning; he was just your typical visual novel vanilla guy with a big heart all chicks are supposed to love. Ryouta on the other hand is an asshole. He is constantly making boob jokes, and is trying to look like a smart-ass in every chance he gets. In fact, the show is constantly trying to make him look like he is a genius who always plans ahead, and is thus an amazing protagonist. The problem is, the plot makes no sense, the writing is horrible, the twists come out of nowhere, and thus any so-called deduction procedure he uses comes off as completely silly. If the quality of the writing does not support the intelligence of your characters, any attempt to pass as competent and intellectual will feel pretentious and stupid.

Both shows have girls with superpowers but EL is better because they had no variety. The only difference Dicloni had was simply the maximum reach, or the amount of ethereal hands someone could use. The witches on the other hand have completely different powers. It seems like that is a positive thing, but in such a story it isn’t. Every girl ends up being defined by the power she uses instead of whatever personality she has. Because the Dicloni had similar powers, it was much easier to remember them for whatever stereotype they were, but not the witches. There is also a ridiculous amount of plot convenience because of this variety. One can predict the future, one can travel in time, one can teleport, they can do anything with such broken powers. There is no consistency if anything is possible, and nothing is important because nothing is solid.

Thus Elfen Lied is better in pretty much everything. Not that this means it’s a great show by any stretch of the imagination. They are both terribly written edgy shit for those who think gore and nudity equals maturity, and promote the stigma of anime being deviant animated porn. It’s just means that one is a bit less crap than the other.