The good "Elfen Lied?!"
Dec. 3rd, 2017 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redwoodalchanMany moons ago now, I tried my hand at sporking the old ultraviolent horror anime “Elfen Lied.” I remember at the time there were a few people who criticized the spork, telling me that I was too harsh on the show, or on its characters, and so on. And if they feel that way, then fine. It wasn’t my best work, I admit.
But here’s the thing: we now have another ultraviolent horror anime that isn’t utterly terrible. In fact, when I watched it I was kind of amazed at just how much this show has in common with “Elfen Lied”—and yet it manages not to bungle most everything! So, to those of you who think I dislike “Elfen Lied” because I just don’t like that kind of show, well…no, that’s not it at all. There are some ultraviolent horror anime I think are good; “Elfen Lied” really is just that terrible.
The show I’m referring to is “Deadman Wonderland.”
For those of you who’ve not seen this show, the story follows the adventures of a young teenage boy named Ganta. After being framed for the grisly murder of his classmates, Ganta is sent to a penal colony called Deadman Wonderland, a giant amusement park where inmates are the main staff, and are routinely forced to participate in gory death matches. Once there Ganta befriends a mysterious white-haired girl named Shiro and learns that he is what’s called a Deadman, a type of superhuman who can manipulate and weaponize his own blood. There are many Deadmen on the premises, but their existence is a closely-guarded secret.
It doesn’t take Ganta long to discover that there’s more going on at Deadman Wonderland than meets the eye. Furthermore, Shiro herself is not all she seems to be at first, nor are many of his newfound friends. All these and many more secrets are gradually revealed over the series’ run.
I’d known this show existed for years, but the first time I saw any of it was at this past year’s AnimeIowa. I was bored so I wandered into an English-language screening to kill some time and this show was playing. I found my curiosity piqued and subsequently decided to buy the show and watch it from beginning to end. Like I said, this show is actually very similar to “Elfen Lied” in a few important ways. Both feature a seeming everyman protagonist who is caught, against his will, in very exceptional circumstances. Along the way he befriends a mysterious girl with a dark past, amidst much bloody violence. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The big difference is, “Deadman Wonderland” is actually good. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even despite its sharing of some of “Elfen Lied’s” structural problems (for instance, it too has a noncommittal ending on account of cutting off before the source manga’s natural end). I wouldn’t say it’s a masterpiece by any means; it definitely has its share of flaws, some of which are easier to overlook or dismiss than others. However, ultraviolent horror anime have a scale of quality too, and even on that scale, “Elfen Lied” comes up short. Once I’ve broken these stories down and compared them directly, I think you’ll agree.
Oh, and, full disclosure, I will only be referring to the anime version of “Deadman Wonderland” for this. I want to make sure I’m comparing apples to apples (since my reviews of “Elfen Lied” only consider the anime as well).
TEN REASONS “DEADMAN WONDERLAND” IS A BETTER SHOW THAN “ELFEN LIED:”
#1: The opening sequence is better
Sure, the "Elfen Lied" opening looks nice, and it sounds nice; but what does it actually mean? What does it tell us about who the featured characters are and what their business is? The answer: not much. About all you can really glean from it is that the series is both angsty and really, really pretentious. By contrast, if you watch the opening to “Deadman Wonderland,” you immediately get a sense of what kind of show it is. You also see more of the characters, and they look a lot more lively and dynamic as they move and pose in time with the music (as opposed to the stiff statues you see in the “Elfen Lied” OP). Think about it: if you were to watch these two opening sequences without any background or context, which looks more interesting? Which of the shows would you rather spend the next few hours watching? I definitely know which one I would choose!
#2: The art style is a LOT more appropriate for a horror series
Much has been made of the fact that the art style in “Elfen Lied” is, frankly, totally wrong for the kind of show it is. There are horror anime that use a cute or colorful art style (I know “Madoka Magica” is one of them) but it’s very, very hard to do well. When I’m watching a horror series I generally expect the characters and setpieces to look more subdued and stripped-down, or just plain weird. Furthermore, “Madoka Magica” is an artsy tragedy based on magical girl shows, so you would expect it to have a colorful style to reflect this. In “Elfen Lied’s” case, the entire gimmick seems to be that it’s an ultraviolent horror series that just happens to look like a cute harem series with no real rhyme or reason.
By contrast, “Deadman Wonderland” just looks the part of a horror series a lot more. For starters, it has a darker and more muted color pallet that makes heavy use of black, white, gray, and red—all good horror colors. As for the characters, while they do tend to be conventionally attractive overall (at least the really important ones), they’re still drawn with darker lines and sharper angles, and overall are less cute than the ones in “Elfen Lied.” It really helps you to keep a perspective on just what kind of show you’re watching.
#3: It has a clearer sense of tone
The English tagline to “Deadman Wonderland” is “Death is the main attraction.” I actually love this because it perfectly captures the ethos of the series, namely, violence as entertainment. The series is aware that its entire point is to entertain you with violence, and so it endeavors to make every scene both as horrifying and as ridiculous as possible and doesn’t take itself too seriously. It also explicitly calls attention to the entertainment aspect of what it does in some pretty clever ways; it’s no accident that the story is set in an amusement park, or that the deadliest villain the heroes have to fight wields a gun that doubles as an electric guitar.
“Elfen Lied,” by contrast, can’t pin down its tone at all. Instead, it engages in what some charitably call “genre hopping.” In practice, this entails slamming awkwardly between scenes of intense horror and sadism and light-hearted “comedy” sketches with little to no transition. To make matters worse, it’s not self-aware in the slightest: rather than admitting to being basically ultraviolent filth, it continually pushes the notion that it’s a deep, complex show that makes bold statements about the human condition! And most of the supposedly humorous and heartwarming scenes are anything but anyway, as they all seem to revolve around grotesque, leering misogyny. Which nicely leads to the next point on this list.
#4: It is less sexist
I admit this one surprised me a bit, albeit pleasantly. You remember how “Elfen Lied” has all those gratuitous scenes of naked women and girls being tortured (physically and sexually)? Well, “Deadman Wonderland” doesn’t do this—at least, not to the same extent. While there are a few questionable scenes involving female characters in “Deadman Wonderland,” overall there is a lot more equality in suffering between men and women. The female characters themselves are also much better written, and seem to need the men in their lives somewhat less. For instance, the most prominent female character, Shiro, may be somewhat bubbly and ditzy but she doesn’t take it to the same disgusting extreme as Nyu. Finally, the show is more equal-opportunity in terms of its fanservice: the “Deadman Wonderland” men and women are equally as likely to be depicted wearing little to no clothing.
Additionally, “Deadman Wonderland” gives its characters of either gender a wider range of roles to play. In “Elfen Lied,” it seems, every female character is either a tragic waif or disposable prop; and every male character besides Kouta is a sadistic evil monster. Meanwhile, the “Deadman Wonderland” characters each have their own unique, tailored personalities, and gender is less of a determining factor in what those are. There’s even a male character in “Deadman Wonderland” who turns to the dark side for entirely sentimental reasons—reasons which would almost certainly be treated as typically female were they given by a woman!
This is not to say that “Deadman Wonderland” is any great triumph of feminism, and I wouldn’t recommend it on feminist grounds alone. However, it is, on balance, a lot less sexist than I feared it would be. Given the choice, I would much rather be a woman in “Deadman Wonderland” than a woman in “Elfen Lied!”
#5: The characters are better in general
In my spork I pontificated often on how utterly horrible and obnoxious the cast of “Elfen Lied” is, and how I couldn’t bring myself to care what happened to any of them. Suffice to say “Deadman Wonderland” is a marked improvement in this regard. I’ll start with the obvious: you actually like the characters the show wants you to like, and hate (most of) the ones the show wants you to hate!
What’s even more impressive is that “Deadman Wonderland” has grasped the concept of a good villain backstory! You can read more about the specifics here, but to put it succinctly, while “Elfen Lied” tells you that it will give its villain a backstory to make you see them in a whole new light, “Deadman Wonderland” actually fucking DOES it!
#6: The plot is more imaginative and substantial
Let me pitch two stories to you (and try, if you can, to ignore the context about the stories in question).
This is a story about a young everyman, who is swept up in a world of danger after he meets a mysterious girl with a dark past. Said girl comes to him having the mind of a toddler, but gradually reveals herself to be a dangerous enemy that a lot of people want to kill. Oh, and said everyman also owns a giant house in which he likes to collect pretty girls.
This is a story of a boy who is accused of a crime that he did not commit and thrown in a top-secret prison. While there, he makes a number of friends, including a mysterious girl with a dark past, none of whom are quite what they seem to be at first. Said boy is forced to go on a quest to clear his name and hone some superpowers he didn’t know he had.
Again, pretending for a moment that these stories are unfamiliar to you, which sounds more interesting? Which would you rather spend the next few hours of your life watching?
#7: The violence is better animated
If there’s one thing most people remember about “Elfen Lied” it’s the graphic violence. Ironically enough, it’s actually not very good violence. If you look closely at the violent scenes in this show, you’ll notice that they all seem to follow a certain trajectory. Generally, what will happen is that a Diclonius will start ripping apart targets, causing scarlet-red high-pressure blood to fly everywhere and a bunch of plastic-looking limbs and heads to fall to the ground. Then it’s on to the next scene and the whole thing starts all over again. It’s artificial, repetitive, and overall not very impactful once you get used to it.
The violence in “Deadman Wonderland” is a lot more visceral. I think the big difference is that, while the violence in this show isn’t always “realistic” per se, the victims tend to behave a lot more the way you’d expect a brutal murder and torture victim to actually behave in real life. If a redshirt falls onto an electric grid, they really look like they’re being electrocuted. The blood (when not being weaponized by the Deadmen) behaves like real blood. The wounds look like real wounds.
“Deadman Wonderland” also makes far more creative use of violence than “Elfen Lied,” and there’s a lot more variety in the forms the sadism takes. This is important because it helps the violent scenes evade the diminishing returns that haunt those of “Elfen Lied.” I like to say that “Shiki,” my favorite anime, is so accomplished at being scary that you will find something terrifying in it no matter what you personally fear. “Deadman Wonderland” is much the same, only with violence rather than scares. Wanna see someone get shot full of arrows? Done. Surgical removal of an eyeball while the victim is conscious? Done. How about a young man ripping off his own arm, or a teenage boy cutting people up with a pair of gardening shears? Done and done. I could carry on like this all day!
#8: The English dub is better
To be fair, that isn’t exactly hard, since the English dub of “Elfen Lied” is notoriously terrible. And that’s only partly the voice actors’ fault because all the characters are constantly spouting really bad dialogue. While it is true that many of the voice actors in “Elfen Lied” are relatively unknown or not known for being especially good, there is genuine talent in the cast—for instance, Luci Christian, Jason Douglas, and Jay Hickman—but good voice actors can only do so much with such woeful material.
“Deadman Wonderland,” on the other hand, has a slick, modern-quality dub with a solid voice cast all around, who are clearly having tons of fun with it. The dialogue in that show is pretty ridiculous a lot of the time too; but the voice actors rise to the occasion and deliver some really unforgettable lines. According to TVTropes, the English dub of “Deadman Wonderland” was so good it basically made the show an overnight success in itself! I especially like Patrick Seitz as Senji and Leah Clark as Minatsuki. It’s also pretty cool to see J. Michael Tatum as Nagi doing his best Noein impression in the second-to-last episode.
What’s even more remarkable is that Jason Douglas, who provides the voice of Bandoh in “Elfen Lied,” also appears in “Deadman Wonderland.” There he provides the voice of one Azuma Genkaku, who is my favorite character in the entire cast. In other words, he’s basically gone from playing one of the worst characters in “Elfen Lied” to one of the best in “Deadman Wonderland.” Talk about a full-circle moment!
#9: It shows off society’s ugliness more believably
In “Deadman Wonderland,” the primary action begins when Ganta is sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. They lock him up and send him away, completely deaf to his pleas that he’s innocent; and the guy whom he thought was there to defend him turns out to have been a bad guy all along. Once he’s in jail, he’s forced to consume special drugs, lied to by his newfound friends as well as those in power, and generally treated like shit. Furthermore, the prison is at least partly a front for a shadowy enterprise that performs torturous experiments on people (innocent or otherwise).
Doesn’t this sound rather a lot like how a sufficiently paranoid person might describe our own society? The notion that you can be locked up against your will on false pretenses, and that those supposedly entrusted with your welfare will then be free to do whatever they want to you and yours, is a source of real fear, especially in this day and age. For all the ridiculousness that goes on in the world of “Deadman Wonderland,” the underlying premise is genuinely terrifying.
There is no such unease in the world of “Elfen Lied.” Yes, we’re told that it holds up a harsh and unforgiving mirror to the way humankind mistreats those who are different; but it doesn’t work because the Diclonius aren’t sympathetic and because the show can’t even commit to whether the Diclonius are inherently dangerous or not. It wants to horrify you with its shadowy evil laboratories and dead puppies; but it’s so heavy-handed that it falls flat again and again. Worst of all, though, is how artificial it all feels. None of the characters act or talk like real people, or react to the hardships in their lives the way a real person would, and so relating to any of their struggles is basically impossible. What’s left, then, is that the show expects you to sympathize with the plight of its characters just because the idea of having their life is inherently depressing and scary, and you can’t build a meaningful commentary on the human condition on that.
#10: I was actually disappointed when it ended
This may not seem like much of a positive, but hear me out, here. Both “Elfen Lied” and “Deadman Wonderland” come in two different versions: a longer and more comprehensive manga and a shorter, truncated anime. Because the anime are based on longer manga that delve into the lore a lot more, they can both feel pretty rushed, and both leave many unanswered questions. That being said, even knowing that the “Elfen Lied” manga clarifies many of the ambiguities from the anime series, I didn’t care enough to check it out, because the anime is already so horrible that, having watched it once, I never wanted to spend any more time with it again. “Deadman Wonderland,” though, is enjoyable enough that when I was finished with the anime I still wanted more. I wanted to see what the surviving characters would do next, and I wanted to know the answers to the final unsolved mysteries. If that isn’t a pretty definitive marker of the relative quality of these shows, then frankly, I don’t know what is.
And there you have it. To be clear, I’m not trying to make the point that “Deadman Wonderland” is amazing and wonderful in every possible way. It definitely has its share of flaws; I’d say that on an overall scale of quality it’s above-average in terms of entertainment value but not as well-made as some of the other things I’ve watched. The main headline is simply this: “Deadman Wonderland” is everything “Elfen Lied” claims to be but can’t pull off. They’re so similar, in fact, that I have to wonder if some of the similarities were deliberate. Maybe the creators of “Deadman Wonderland” were “Elfen Lied” fans who realized that their beloved show had a million holes in it, and so decided to make their own version that corrected its various mistakes? That admittedly may be a stretch, but if nothing else the timeframe works out.
So, in conclusion, if you are one of those people who likes “Elfen Lied,” give “Deadman Wonderland” a watch; you’ll probably enjoy it. If you enjoy “Elfen Lied” ironically, know that “Deadman Wonderland” is funny and entertaining on purpose and you can enjoy it unironically, without a nostalgia filter. If you hate “Elfen Lied” as much as I do, watch “Deadman Wonderland” to see an example of how to do “Elfen Lied’s” tropes correctly. It truly is the anti-“Elfen Lied” in every conceivable way!
