Violent and grotesque romance action series, Elfen Lied, is releasing a Blu-ray set on December 19th this year – and the cover artwork of the collection has now become available, proving a rather complex illustration.
Reminiscent to the many intricacies of the series’ opening sequence, an unmissable, and rather peculiar, facet of this art piece is that it has an extensive series of spiraling pattern in the background. Now as unusual as such may be in itself, the entirety of it also consists of a metallic orange glow, amongst some other rusty tones – all of which are rather unconventional in practice, especially with anime artwork.
The abstraction background leaves the image feeling as if taking place in its own condensed realm – having the eloquence of a museum, and the oddity of a surreal painting.
Notice how the winding patterns escape onto our heroine in center – this intends to represent that she is part of the abnormality, and the shift in hue from orange to red exhibits the transitions and aftereffects of her encounters. One could speculate that the usage of red is intended to mean blood, and the orange rusted tones mean to show how life decays with the presence of our heroine – although a detail that can be said with certainty is that neither orange nor red represent life or happiness.
Whilst the heroine may be free of ensemble as seen here, it is not a tact of lustful implication – she’s enveloped by the background, and the present depth doesn’t flesh out her physique in an overly emphasized manner. In fact, the value wrapping her form only goes to show her entrapment as it seems darkness is encroaching upon her from the right. Not to mention, the entire illustration has an odd texture laid atop it – a coarse, albeit seemingly viscous material, spanning across the canvas in a fashion which contributes to the profoundness of our heroine.
A final aspect worthy to recognize, the asymmetry of balance is astounding – perfect symmetry may be present in the center arrangement of our heroine, however a variety of miniature additions make the illustration sway into informality. Her hair of a striking crimson weaves around freely – and more interestingly, do take notice of the gradual stream downward from the eye. The accent on a single eye is something often seen – although rarely executed to a level of such marvel, in part as the eye seen here is truly endowed with definition, and a deep sanguine tone.
Of course, the overall complicated nature of the image is in part what contributes to its message and meaning – our heroine, unsurprisingly, has quite an involved life.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 8:04 CDT
this was unexpected for a series of many years ago, by the way seven, do you know of any differences to the anime with this blu-ray set to make it worth buying besides the artwork?
Oct 18, 2012 @ 8:16 CDT
Wonder if it’s just an upscale, seeing how long ago the series originally came out.
Nice to see they’re continuing the Gustav Klimt theme in the artwork, though.
Oct 19, 2012 @ 10:15 CDT
At most, they may have done Sony PCL upscaling – which adapts the picture quality nearly as if it originally came in the higher resolution.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 8:29 CDT
This anime is quite old. I guess they just made it into 1080p/720p, improved the animation a little, and added an artbook. But I do say, that image looks beautiful.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 8:39 CDT
by the way, wonder if any of you guys noticed this, but did you see that she was made too look like Asura, the god of Wrath? because if you look at the artwork closely, she was made to look like she had three faces, and the presence of four invisible arms at her back, totaling to six arms including her own, and clearly the artwork is based on asura, and by this description i looked up:
“The state of an Asura reflects the mental state of a human being obsessed with force and violence, always looking for an excuse to get into a fight, angry with everyone and unable to maintain calm or solve problems peacefully.”
i’m not surprised to see this was actually the case, as the description of the heroine is really not so different with it
Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:00 CDT
Ohhh no fan service it hurts my soul, i can’t believe they are using fan service to sell this series.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:08 CDT
I’m curious if you read the article, because relevant indications say “no”.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:11 CDT
I don’t get it, where do you see fan service? The cover is a piece of art not fan service. If nudity for you is fan service, then Elfen Lied is fan service anime. Seriously, Elfen Lied had a lot of nudity but not in an indecent way.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:14 CDT
I think he’s trying to be sarcastic – but the issue is there’s no one calling this “fanservice” to begin with.
That’s only assuming he’s being sarcastic however – otherwise, he apparently never watched Elfen Lied.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 22:25 CDT
It’s obvious sarcasm but people seem to go “Ohh a pair of tits obvious fan service”
Oct 18, 2012 @ 22:28 CDT
The issue is though, no one here mentioned “Ohh a pair of tits obvious fan service” save for yourself.
In your plight to discredit such individuals, you may become one yourself.
Oct 19, 2012 @ 5:00 CDT
By saying an over exaggerating statement of how people view a certain issue i think i did pretty well, yes no one said that word for word but it seems to be the case with most people who discount a series on merely the fact that there are suggestive scenes.
Oct 19, 2012 @ 5:50 CDT
“yes no one said that word for word but it seems to be the case with most people who discount a series on merely the fact that there are suggestive scenes.”
No one mentioned anything dealing with “fanservice” at all, not word for word, nor any other arrangement of words – so it is unclear who you are referencing when you say “most people”, unless you saw this image elsewhere, saw people complaining about fanservice, and then decided to comment about it here.
The only person to mention fanservice is alan, yet his comment was made after yours – and he’s not doing what you’ve mentioned.
Now my point is, if you’ve decided to just comment for the hypothetical individuals who could come here and complain about fanservice, it would seem that there’s really just one person complaining about fanservice.
Oct 19, 2012 @ 13:45 CDT
Seven is right. Also, some people call naruto and bleach good anime series and they’re not sarcastic about it, so in anime field it’s quite difficult sometimes to tell if someone’s being sarcastic or not.
“Ohh a pair of tits obvious fan service” I actually never heard anyone saying anything like this, huh. Maybe you’re sarcastic again, guess no.
Oct 19, 2012 @ 14:12 CDT
That’s precisely why it is best not to make statements or assumptions in regards to what others may feel as you will more than likely be incorrect – additionally, it is important to be aware of the difference between fact and value, as well as to be tolerant of either.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:18 CDT
I loved this anime, not because of the fanservice but for all the blood in it, it was crazy. I’m definitely getting the new version of this anime when it comes out, and hopefully the BDs may come with the episodes needed to finish the anime since is totally worth finishing it.