By giving this series an overall rating of 6 is me being generous. Elfen Lied to me feels like a series that had so much potential. The ideas behind the story were deep (extinction of humanity, the moral question of what is human compassion). However, the way they were brought out were horrible.

Nearly every other page contains somebody crying in drama; so much that it got old fast. To those that will eventually read Elfen Lied; prepare for a big cry-fest. Rest assure though, the artist does randomly throw in comic relief, which end up make those moments incongruous with the flow of the story.

There came a point when the story became predictable. Many chapters ended with a cliff hanger... Too many actually. Cliff hangers ended up being so absurd (a character being killed off way too soon) that when I started the next chapter, I could almost exactly predict the outcome. My thinking process was "Nope, the artist doesn't have the guts to kill him/her off yet."

As mentioned before, the delivery of the story could've been better. 107 chapters were not necessary. I enjoyed the anime more than the series; it kept the main themes of the story short and sweet without dragging on. Around chapter 80 was when I realized that the artist is now trying too hard to hammer in her themes.

All in all, Elfen Lied was a huge waste of potential. With better story telling antics and better character development, this could've been a great series.