Elfen Lied (Season 1)

Elfen Lied (2004) is a Japanese anime series you can watch online on iFILM — dark fantasy and sci-fi folded into 13 episodes by studio Arms. It follows Lucy, a Diclonius: a mutant human with small horns and invisible vector arms capable of tearing through steel. She escapes a government research facility in a brutal sequence that sets the tone for everything that follows. A bullet to the head wipes her memory, and two college students, Kouta and Yuka, find a harmless-seeming girl washed up on the beach.

They name her Nyuu — the only sound she makes. She moves into Kouta's house and acts like a child discovering the world for the first time. The problem is that Nyuu and Lucy share a body. One trigger, one moment of fear or anger, and the Lucy who dismantled a lab full of armed guards comes back. Meanwhile the institute's agents are closing in, and they are not interested in a peaceful resolution.

The series was voiced by Sanae Kobayashi and Chihiro Suzuki and carries an OVA episode rounding out the arc. Beneath the gore and action, Elfen Lied is a study of what happens to a creature raised in isolation and treated as a weapon — and whether something like trust is still possible after that. Stream Elfen Lied (2004) online on iFILM.