The characters in the Elfen Lied manga and anime series & movie were created by Lynn Okamoto, with character-design assistance from Seiji Kishimoto for the anime adaptation. The plot and characters are described, below, using in-universe tone. Elfen Lied takes place in Kamakura, Japan, where a fictional mutant human sub-species, with violent telekinetic powers, has been discovered. Known as a Diclonius, any person showing signs of the mutation have either been contained in the Diclonius research facility or exterminated.
Primary characters
Lucy
, also known as and , is a diclonius girl and the main protagonist of the series.
She is assumed to be fifteen by Kōta, but never stated (eighteen in the anime).Elfen Lied (anime) | Episode 4: Attack ~ Aufeinandertreffen Lucy has vectors with a limited range of about two meters (6.56168 ft). However, she can be swift and lethal within that range, and will use any nearby objects as high-velocity projectiles to kill at greater distances. She is also capable of stopping or deflecting most standard ammunition when she concentrates on the task.
Lucy hates humans mainly because of how she was abused by her human peers as a child, several of whom she eventually killed after they captured a puppy which Lucy had been caring for and beat it to death in front of her, which led to her brutally murdering them out of revenge. Consequently, she discounts non-diclonii, claiming they are not real people, to the point of telling Nana that she has "not killed one of her own yet". She seems to lack empathy and kills without much concern as a usual first reaction, often killing on reflex or simply because she can. She is incredibly sadistic, severing limbs and blinding foes, sometimes leaving them to bleed to death rather than killing them outright. Despite this lack of concern for human life, she won't harm Kōta, and cries and apologizes for sadistically killing his family in a fit of jealousy eight years before; she loves him, but due to her actions in the past, she believes he'll be content without her existence. As such, she tries to make her Nyu persona emerge when he's around and refrains from killing in his presence, except at the series' end, when, in the anime, she kills an entire Special Assault Team unit in front of him and in the manga, she kills them after an unnamed Agent shoots at Kōta while he's holding Nōsō at gunpoint. However, Lucy still is not above acts of jealousy, once using her vectors to shove Yuka when she saw her holding hands with Kōta, but didn't try to kill her.
Nyu
is an alter ego of Lucy that developed after a .50 BMG round pierces the metallic helmet encasing her head when she escaped. Nyu has a childlike personality and infantile knowledge of the world, and lacks spoken language skills, being able to say only "nyū" and later "Kōta" most of the time. As the series progresses she develops a wider vocabulary; by the halfway point she is able to speak perfectly normal, however still saying "Nyu" sometimes. She's innocent and incapable of violent acts, a foil to Lucy. When Nyu is attacked or hit on the head, she regresses into Lucy; likewise, when Lucy is treated with love and kindness, or wants to hide herself from Kōta, she'll change back into Nyu. While Nyu exists at first due to trauma, Lucy subconsciously encourages her presence due to her feelings of guilt towards Kōta and to prevent her from harming him more than she did eight years before.
Nyu cuts her hair to try to look like Kōta's deceased younger sister Kanae, whom he said horrible things to before she was killed by Lucy. However that hair cut was the same she had eight years before, making him vaguely remember her.
Nyu suppresses Lucy for a large portion towards the series' end, due to one of her horns being damaged, but reemerges in her second fight with Bando. She returns again in chapter 83, when her horns return even larger than before and her vectors are much longer (long enough to reach a flying helicopter) as she slaughters soldiers in front of Kōta after he has been critically injured. This causes him to remember that she's the one who killed his family. However, her horns are damaged again and she is captured and brought back to Director Kakuzawa. He reveals his plot to terminate mankind and to fill the world with Diclonii and convince her to join him. But despite still being Nyu, she is able to use her vectors and later, as Lucy, she kills him. She escapes the sinking island in order to face Kōta once again.
Still injured, he's waiting for her and takes her to the top of a lighthouse that his sister liked the view from. There Lucy tearfully apologizes and Kōta, who refuses to forgive her, has her promise to never kill again. She does and goes to get an ambulance, but a vengeful Kurama is waiting for her and shoots at her. Lucy is prepared to die but her newly (fully) manifested third personality, based entirely on Diclonius instincts (the one which in flashbacks was what urged Lucy to start killing), cuts off his arm. Kōta appears and thinks that she has already broken the promise. Kurama then fires again, but Kōta steps in the way to protect her, making her remember Aiko's sacrifice. Lucy then goes on a rampage with her vectors now even longer, destroying the city and causing the military to attack her. However, her entropy reaches its limit and her body begins to deteriorate (something that Kakuzawa advised before), so she uses her remaining powers to put Kōta's cells back together and save him as she sings "Elfenlied". The entire Kaede inn family arrive as do the military, and Lucy, now unrecognisable, definitively switches into her DNA voice, beginning to attack them and then spread her vectors worldwide, threatening to blow up the entire planet and kill every living being. Fulfilling the vow he made to Lucy as children, Kouta reluctantly shoots her.
Ten years later, it's revealed that both Lucy and Nyu have been reincarnated into twins, one of them named Kaede.
In the anime Lucy seemingly lets herself fall to death instead though an audio drama revealed she did survive it, coming back as Nyu.
Kouta
is the main male protagonist of the series and is first introduced when he arrives in Kanagawa Prefecture to attend college, having previously arranged to stay with his cousin Yuka while at school.
Kouta enters the story when Yuka's family gives him a closed-down restaurant, the Kaede House, as long as he maintains it, and begins living there with Yuka while going to a university. Kouta has repressed traumatic memories of witnessing the deaths of his father and younger sister, Kanae, which is later revealed to have been by Lucy's hand, who acted out of jealousy. Due in part to these losses, Kouta is sympathetic towards girls in trouble and is extremely generous and protective to the girls around him.
He first met Lucy in his childhood while his family was visiting Yuka's for the summer. When he goes to the mountain to draw, he ran into Lucy, who ran away after she murdered the bullies who abused her and beaten her puppy to death. In the anime, he takes with him a music box he had recently purchased which played "Lilium" and strikes up a conversation with her when she apparently likes the song from the music box. He finds her horns fascinating and gives her a hat to cover them up while in public. He asks her if they can be friends and spends time with her, taking her to the zoo, telling her that he likes to look at the "weird animals." In Lucy's hallucination, she perceives this as a reason for why he was so nice to her. He lies to her about the gender of his cousin by saying that it is a boy, so she would not be upset or jealous. When she finds out that he lied to her, she kills dozens of people at the party, stows away onto his train and kills his family. Before she goes to kill Yuka, he tackles her and yells at her to stop killing people and she flees in tears, realising that she might have lost him forever.
His repressed memories are triggered when Lucy uses her vectors to kill over a dozen soldiers (and a Mariko clone in the manga) in front of him. The reunion between Kouta and Lucy is vastly different. In the manga, Lucy apologizes and Kouta, who's very harsh towards her, has her vow to never kill again, but Kurama shoots at her and Kouta steps in the way to protect her. As Lucy's body begins to deteriorate, she uses her remaining powers to put Kouta's cells back together and save him. After soldiers tried to kill her, Lucy, now unrecognisable and switched to her DNA voice, spreads her vectors worldwide, threatening to blow up the entire planet and decimate every living being in it. Fulfilling the promise he made to Lucy as children, Kouta reluctantly kills her. Ten years later, with the Diclonius menace eradicated, Kouta and Yuka are married and subsequently name their daughter Nyu.
In the anime adaptation, Lucy assures Kouta that she can do so in five years, but refuses to because that would mean his death. Kouta seems to understand that something truly horrible must have happened to shape her into a cold-blooded killer and, while still stating he is unable to forgive her, Kouta professes his love for Lucy. Lucy then kisses Kouta and they hug. Sometime later, Kouta along with the "family" of Kaede house, including Nana, settles down until the music box stops, a figure appears at the front door and the grandfather clock starts ticking.
Yuka
is Kouta's cousin, around his age, who moves in with him at the Kaede's inn after realising that Nyu can't be left alone. She has had feelings for Kouta since childhood, and she reacts jealously to Kouta's attention for Nyu. However, it is later shown that she is jealous of any girl, regardless of age, who she suspects may be close to Kouta, to the point of being irrational, although in the anime, Yuka's jealousy is mostly limited to Nyu.
At first she is angry when she finds out Kouta doesn't remember her, but when she realises the reason, she cries.
At one point he reciprocates the feelings, while Kouta and Yuka are searching for Nyu (after she escapes from the Professor's lab), they take shelter from the rain at the Sasuke Inari Shrine.The Sasuke Inari Shrine (佐助稲荷神社) is a Shinto Shrine located in the city of Kamakura. While holding each other in an attempt to keep warm, Kouta apologizes for not remembering anything about the time they were together as kids, but states that he remembers that he liked her then and that he always liked her. The tw kiss, with Yuka even becoming sexually aroused, and promise to always be with each other. However, when they subsequently find Nyu, Kouta and Nyu share a long hug, and Yuka immediately becomes jealous again.
In the anime Mayu once described her as the "mother" at the inn, and Kouta as the "father". Yuka possess a caring and mature side, and seems to be protective of both Nyu and Mayu, and later Nana. It is clear that Yuka cares for the girls deeply since she, like Kouta, is unable to turn away people who have been abandoned by their parents and society. However, in quite a few ways, she is a typical teenager, particularly when it comes to dealing with her feelings for Kouta and friendships with the girls who come to live with them.
In the last chapter she is shown rebuilding the inn with the others. Ten years later, Kouta and Yuka are married and subsequently name their daughter Nyu.
Mayu
is a young thirteen year old homeless girl (In the manga she is introduced at age twelve and turns thirteen; but in the anime she is introduced at age 13 and turns 14). She's first introduced when she arrives at the closed-down restaurant (then inhabited by Kouta, Yuka and Nyu) to return an umbrella she found at the beach. She's homeless and lives on the beach with a stray puppy that she calls Wanta, subsisting mostly on bread crusts from a nearby bakery.