NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Lucy (Elfen Lied)

Lucy (ルーシー , Rūshī^?) is a fictional character from the anime and manga series Elfen Lied. She is a teenage diclonius mutant girl roughly 18 years old. Due to brain damage she suffers at the beginning of the series, "Lucy" develops an infantile split personality dubbed "Nyu" because that is initially the only word she can say. "Nyu" means "milk" in Japanese, and so her name can be considered a form of wordplay, seeing as how milk itself is neutral and soft. Each side of "Lucy", her murderous, mature "Lucy" side and her benign "Nyu" personality, are treated as effectively two different characters in the series. Both characters are voiced by Sanae Kobayashi in the Japanese version, and by Kira Vincent-Davis in the official English dub. Image File history File links Information. ... Elfen Lied, episode 4, Lucy. ... Elfen Lied, episode 4, Lucy. ... Alice, a fictional character based on a real character from the work of Lewis Carroll. ... The main cast of the anime Cowboy Bebop (1998) (L to R: Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Ed Tivrusky, Faye Valentine, and Ein the dog) For the oleo-resin, see AnimÃ© (oleo-resin). ... This article is about the comics published in East Asian countries. ... Elfen Lied ) is the title of a Japanese manga series originally created by Japanese author Lynn Okamoto as well as a TV anime series based on it. ... A separate article is about the punk band called The Adolescents. ... Often shunned by normal humans, diclonius attempt to conceal their horns. ... This article is about the album by Cassidy. ... Sanae Kobayashi ) (January 26, 1980 - ) is a female seiyÅ« who was born in Shizuoka. ... Kira Vincent-Davis (Born July 9, 1979 in Houston, Texas) is an American voice actress, noted for her roles in English-language dubs of anime series. ...

Lucy

Lucy (ルーシー Rūshī^?) is a teenage diclonius girl (approximately 18 years old), a mutant subrace of humans born with telekinetic powers. These telekinetic powers take the form of invisible "arms" termed "vectors" that extend out of her back, which she can use to lift objects many times her own weight, or slice humans beings in half with. She has 4 vectors (many more in the manga) with a limited range of two meters. However, she can be swift and lethal within that range, and will also use any nearby inanimate objects as high velocity projectiles to kill at a greater distance. She is also capable of stopping or deflecting most standard ammunition when she concentrates on the task. Image File history File links Evil_Lucy. ... A separate article is about the punk band called The Adolescents. ... Often shunned by normal humans, diclonius attempt to conceal their horns. ... A projectile is any object sent through space by the application of a force. ...

Early life

Lucy hates humans mainly because of how she was treated by her human peers as a child. Lucy was abandoned as an infant and placed in an orphanage, where the other children bullied her mercilessly because of her horns and she had no one who cared about her. When she was about ten years old, Lucy found a stray puppy and began taking care of it, but the other children eventually found out about it and forced Lucy to watch as they bludgeoned it to death with a vase for no other reason than to make Lucy cry. In this moment of great stress, Lucy's inborn diclonius powers awoke and she ripped the other children apart with her vectors. Cruelty to animals refers to treatment which causes unacceptable suffering to animals. ...

Lucy then buried her puppy where she first found it, whereupon she first met Kouta, who was in town visiting relatives. Unlike all humans Lucy had previously known, Kouta pitied Lucy because she seemed sad and wanted to be her friend. Kouta took Lucy on a trip to a zoo and spent a whole day playing with her. Kohta was the first person to ever treat Lucy with affection and like she was wanted, and Lucy fell in love with him. However, fearing that Lucy would become upset if she found out that the cousin he was visiting was a girl, Kohta lied and said his cousin was a boy. When later that night at a festival Lucy discovered that Yuka was in fact a girl and Kohta cared about her as well, Lucy panicked and jumped to the conclusion that Kohta had been lying about everything, and like the children in her orphanage was just pretending to be nice to her in order to tease her. Falling into a mental fugue, the stress of "losing" Kohta broke Lucy emotionally and she came to the conclusion that the only way for her to survive would be to kill off the human race. Lucy proceeded to go on a rampage killing several people at the festival. Soon afterwards, she intercepted Kohta as he was leaving at the train station and killed his sister Kanae and his father, and planned to kill Yuka. However, Kohta tackled her to the ground and demanded that she stop, and Kohta's horrified reaction made Lucy realize for the first time she had done something awful that she could never undo, and guilt over what she had done to Kohta would follow her the rest of her life. Image File history File links Elfen_Lied_Ep_8_Lucy. ... Image File history File links Elfen_Lied_Ep_8_Lucy. ...

Capture and Imprisonment

Lucy proceeded to live the next 5 years as a runaway, alternatively keeping a low profile and when pressed, sneaking into residential homes and killing the families inside in order to obtain a place to stay (and also partially as revenge at not being able to have a normal life herself). Three years before the series begins, Lucy met Aiko Takada, her only true friend besides Kohta. Aiko's father had become cruel and would beat Aiko after he was re-married to a drunkard. Aiko's father tried to stab her with a knife but she pushed his arm back, causing him to slash his own throat. Lucy and Aiko then went to find Aiko's true mother (who was a very talented artist). At the same time, Kurama began searching for Lucy and followed her to the museum where Aiko's mom worked. While inside, Aiko pushed Lucy out of the way of a bullet headed towards her. Lucy agreed to go with Kurama if he promised to save Aiko. Lucy was then captured by Kurama, and imprisoned in the diclonius research institute where she was subjected to inhumane medical experiments. Upon her imprisonment, Kurama informed Lucy that Aiko had died. Hearing this news, Lucy responds:

"I won't kill you. One day, I'll have you experience the same thing I did. I will erase everything related to you. One day, for sure."

By the time Lucy escapes from the research base in the first episode of the series, what little is left of her sanity is hardened into boundless hatred against all humans.

During the Series

In the first episode's infamous 7 minute opening action scene, Lucy fights her way out of the diclonius research institute's island base, slaughtering two dozen guards in the process. After she has escaped the base and is about to flee into the sea, Director Kurama has a sniper try to kill her with an armor-piercing .50 caliber anti-tank round, which is heavy enough that her vectors cannot fully block it. However, while the sniper aims for her the back of her skull, a combination of Lucy's head moving at the last moment, partial deflection with her vectors, and the metal helmet restraint she was wearing cause the bullet to not kill Lucy, but instead knock her unconscious and into the sea. She also suffered brain damage from the round that split her mind between her homicidal "Lucy" personality and a new infantile "Nyu" personality. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

Lucy then washes up on a nearby beach in Kamakura, where she is found by Kohta and Yuka. Having no memory of who she is and the mind of a baby, Kouta and Yuka take her back to the former inn where they live, the Kaede Inn (Maple Inn). Because the only word she can say is the nonsense word "Nyu" they dub her "Nyu". Categories: Cities in Kanagawa Prefecture | Japan geography stubs ...

When Lucy flees to the beach again after making Kohta angry, Lucy is attacked by special forces SAT soldiers including Bando, but kills them and maims Bando by cutting off his right arm, breaking his left, and destroying his eyes.

After this, Nyu trips and hits her head, restroing her original "Lucy" personality, but instead of hurting Kohta and Yuka she runs away. At the same time, Kurama sends the Silpelit-Diclonius Nana to find Lucy. Nana finds Lucy and tries to talk her into coming back, which she refuses. Lucy originally says that she does not want to kill Nana because she has never actually killed "a person" before, revealing that she does not consider non-diclonius to be actual people. However they soon start fighting, and engage in a massive telekinetic battle in a nearby cemetery. Just as Nana gains the upper hand, she stops when Mayu arrives rather than risk injuring her, giving Lucy an opening: Lucy process to rip all of Nana's arms and legs off, and would have finished her off had not Kurama then arrived. However, Lucy then flees to the inn and reverts back to Nyu.

Fearing simply leaving Nyu unattended at home, Yuka and Kohta take her with them to their university class, where Prof. Kakuzawa finds her. Kakuzawa claims that she is his niece and that they should leave her with him, which they do despite Nyu's apparent aggitation. In fact, Kakuzawa is the son of Director Kakuzawa, who runs the diclonius research base that Lucy escaped from, and it is Prof. Kakuzawa that released the locks in Lucy's prison, allowing her to escape. Prof. Kakuzawa sedates Nyuu and prepares to rape her. By the time he is unbuttoning his shirt, Lucy is in control as Nyu is unconscious. Kakuzawa reveals to her that he is in fact half-diclonius (watered down through years of inbreeding with humans to the point of having no vector-powers) and wants to use her to father a new race of diclonii that will kill off the entire human race. However, rather than take up his offer, Lucy simply decapitates him.

Eventually, Nana (having been freed from the research base and on the run herself) arrives at the inn, almost sparking another fight with Lucy, but Lucy reverts to Nyu and her new family grows in number by one.

However, the research base finally sends in Mariko, the strongest diclonius ever, to retrieve Lucy, and she confronts Mariko rather than try to hide and end up getting anyone else involved again. Lucy slaughters several dozen more SAT soldiers sent after her, and Kohta remembers their true past together. Lucy is ultimately beaten to a pulp by Mariko, and one of her horns gets knocked off. However, Mariko is self-destructed by her father Kurama, who also dies in the blast. Lucy then saves Nana from being shot, and tells her to live a happy life in the inn that Lucy herself could not. Lucy is able to talk to Kohta again and finally tell him that she is sorry for killing his father and sister, and that the only reason she kept on living through her nightmarish life was in the hope that she could one day apologize to him. Kohta says that he still cares about her and they share a kiss, however, she then walks off to fight the remaining squads of SAT soldiers from the research base. This may or may not have resulted in her death as the fight is not shown, however it did knock her other horn off. The ending, which has the Kohta's music box ending and the clock beginning to tick, gives a strong hint that Lucy has died but Nyu is still there. The clock being Nyu's favorite thing to fix in the anime series, and the music box being Lucy's favorite object in the series. Also, when everyone is eating lunch, and Kohta goes to to garden, to see what disturbs Wanta there is a shadow, looks like Lucy standing at the other side of the gate, and thats the time, when he recognises, that the old clock is working.

Personality

Lucy shows various signs of jealousy throughout the series towards Kohta's cousin, Yuka. This is proven when she slaughters the people at the festival and then Kohta's sister and father after she sees Kohta and Yuka together. This occurs once again when she sees Kohta and Yuka at the shrine and shortly afterwards attacks Yuka.

As a result of her traumatic childhood and imprisonment, Lucy 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), as well as remorse 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: Lucy is surrounded by needlessly cruel humans who want to do her harm, while she reacts the way any "normal" human child would if in the same situation and armed with the ability to lethally retaliate. Not to be confused with Pity, Sympathy, or Compassion. ... Flogging demonstration at Folsom Street Fair 2004. ... People feel remorse when reflecting on their actions that they believe are wrong. ... Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). ...

Lucy distrusts and hates normal humans, and after the death of her friend Aiko Takada when she was captured by Kurama, she will indiscriminately kill any human she comes across without hesitation even if they do not pose an immediate threat to her, such as Kurama's secretary Kisaragi. However, she will not kill Kohta and refrains from seriously harming Yuka, as this would upset him. Gradually over the course of the series she finds normal humans who show her genuine affection and she tries to come to terms with this - for example, her reaction to Mayu's expression of concern for her at the beginning of episode 10. Although as a "Queen Diclonius" Lucy allegedly possesses an innate drive to kill off all of humanity, she never expresses a clear plan for this beyond her general feeling that normal humans are horrible and all deserve death. Indeed, when Prof. Kakuzawa specifically offers to use her to wipe out humanity so a new race of diclonii can take over the Earth, rather than accepting his offer, she simply kills Kakuzawa himself.

Notes

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 human ancestor whose fossilized remains were found in Ethiopia (named for the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds). In the manga, her real name is revealed to be Kaede (楓^?) (which is ironic, because Kohta's home where she finds a place to live is named the "Kaede Inn". "Kaede" translates as "Maple"). Lucy (Amharic á‹µáŠ•á‰…áŠáˆ½ dinqneÅ¡, you are wonderful) is the common name of AL 288-1, the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered on November 30, 1974 by the International Afar Research Expedition (IARE; director: Maurice Taieb, co-directors: Donald Johanson and Yves Coppens) in the Awash Valley of Ethiopias Afar... // For the history of humans on Earth, see History of the world. ... The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 as part of their first tour of the United States, promoting their first hit single there, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ... Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a song written mainly by John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney) in 1967, and recorded by The Beatles for their album Sgt. ...

Nyū

Nyū (にゅう^?) 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. Image File history File links Nyu. ... Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (DSM-IV Codes 300. ... Brain damage or brain injury is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. ... .50 BMG rounds and 20MM Vulcan round, with a golf ball and a stick of RAM posed to provide scale. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. ...

One example of this is when Lucy's presence surfaces when Nyū sees a picture of Kohta's little sister Kanae, whom Lucy had encountered eight years before. At the same moment, Nyū starts to cry and eventually tells Kohta 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). Kohta embraces her, and the Lucy side of her settles. Both Lucy and Nyū are in love with Kohta.

Initially, Nyu is totally infantile: she has no idea how to feed or clothe herself, and urinates on the floor because she doesn't understand what this signifies. Living with Kohta and Yuka, Nyu soon learns basic skills, etc. Still, Nyu's spoken language skills are mostly just limited to "Nyu" (which is a nonsense word in both English and the original Japanese), but over time she gradually learns more words like "Kohta" and "yes", and by late in the series she is able to string together basic sentences. As Nyū, Lucy cannot be sensed by other Diclonius and Silpelits. Nyu never uses her vectors when she is the dominant personality, even for benign tasks such as moving household objects, etc. Elfen Lied, episode 4, Nyuu. ... Elfen Lied, episode 4, Nyuu. ...

Kohta chooses not to take "Nyu" to the police as a missing person, because the night Kohta found her SAT soldiers trying to recaptured her attacked both of them and sent him to the hospital with a mild concussion. Police detectives trying to debrief Kohta seemed ominously shifty and clearly knew more than they were saying, which convinced Kohta that they could not be trusted and he could not turn to the police. Similarly, Kohta realized that the police were staking out local hospitals for someone matching Nyu's description, and fearing that they would hurt her, he didn't try to take her for medical attention.

In the anime, it is suggested that Lucy partially manufactured the Nyū personality. She explains to Kohta (as Lucy) that having to face him terrified her, due to her compounding guilt about killing his family in a jealous fit. She wasn't able to find a way to apologize, so she instead became Nyū. It's worth noting that the Nyū personality seems to have disappeared after Kohta regains his memory.

An open question in the anime is if "Nyu" was partially a psychological by-product of Lucy's guilt and emotional trauma, at exactly which point this happens: certainly, Nyu was originally created by brain damage Lucy suffered in the first episode from the ricocheting sniper's bullet. It would seem that this gradually shifts to the point that her brain physically recovers, but psychologically she still has the split personality because she cannot stand the guilt of being "Lucy" while she is with Kohta. Exactly when this shift happens is not clear.

Notes

The character is called "Nyū" because, when Kohta 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 Chī, the female lead of Chobits, where when she is activated, the only word she can say is "chī", and her vocabulary later grows, much like Nyū's. Serialized in Young Magazine Original run 2001 â€“ 2002 No. ...

At the end of the Elfen Lied manga Lucy dies at the hands of Kohta, and ten years later two diclonius twin children appear. One of them holding Lucy's memories of Kohta and named Kaede, which was Lucy's real name. The other who was not named, but contains all of Nyuu's memories of Kohta. They call Kohta their "very special friend" the same he calls Lucy when recalling her to his daughter.

Nyu also becomes the name of Kohta and Yuka's child, who is friends with the diclonius twins. She looks like child Yuka.

Manga version

In the original manga, there is never stated to actually be an exact limit to the length of vectors diclonii have, nor is it stated that they possess a limited number of vectors. However, Lucy is depicted as having over twelve vectors, Nana possessing approximately six vectors, and Mariko controlling up to 50 vectors. In the anime, Lucy possesses four vectors, each two meters in length; meanwhile Nana also has four vectors, which are five meters long, and Mariko has 26 vectors, which are eleven meters long. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (729x1194, 305 KB) Summary A page from the Elfen Lied manga to show drawing style and character design. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (729x1194, 305 KB) Summary A page from the Elfen Lied manga to show drawing style and character design. ...

Diclonius vectors are rarely shown being physically attached to the body in the manga (the anime shows them extending from the back, while the manga has them simply appear levitating).

The diclonii are shown to be more diverse in the manga: Lucy still has pink hair and dark pink eyes in both the manga and the anime. However, in the manga Mariko is blond, and Nana has dark purple hair.

Some of the other notable differences between the original manga and the anime adaptation include:

Categories: Anime and manga articles that need to differentiate between fact and fiction | Elfen Lied | Fictional mutants | Fictional mass murderers | Fictional characters with multiple personalities | Fictional characters with extra arms | Fictional telepaths | Anime and manga characters with telekinesis A selection of antique, hand-crafted Chinese jade (jadeite) buttons Unworked Jade Jade is used as an ornamental stone, the term jade is applied to two different rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals. ... A time capsule is a historic cache of goods and/or information, usually intended as a method of communication with people in the future. ...

Contents

Lucy GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Early life

Capture and Imprisonment

During the Series

Personality

Notes

Nyū

Notes

Manga version

Lucy