“The Kiss” in Elfen Lied
A painting that is very striking to me is “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt. The reason for this is because the painting appeared in the opening sequence of one of my favorite animes, Elfen Lied. Many of the underlying themes of the anime relate to Klimt’s work, the main of which being rejection.
Prior to “The Kiss” much of Klimt’s work was greatly rejected by the art community for being grotesque and pornographic. He was known as “the painter of women” and many of his paintings that featured women were marked as frank erotisism. Similarly, when the anime was first released, it had very mixed reception. Many people found it to be, like Klimt’s work, grotesque and pornographic since the opening scene of the first episode featured the main character, Lucy, escaping and massacring an entire research facility while completely nude other than a helmet covering her head and face.
The reason that Lucy was trying to escape this facility is because they greatly mistreated her for being different. Lucy is a diclonius, a species very similar to humans except for their possession of telekinetic vectors which are essentially long, invisible, ghost like arms that can manipulate objects at the diclonius’ will and transmit a virus to humans so that their children are born as a diclonius.
Elfen Lied is also a love story which leads me back to “The Kiss”. Lucy falls in love with the secondary main character Khota after he rescues her when she washes up on a beach after taking a bullet to the head and falling into the ocean just as she escapes the research facility. The wound isn’t fatal, but leaves her with severe brain damage that doesn’t allow her to recall her past and awakens an alter ego called Nyu since that is the only thing she can say.
What Nyu is oblivious to because of her injury is that Khota and her were childhood friends. Khota upon seeing her on the beach recalls vivid memories of a ten year old Lucy who was playful and friendly with him until one day she snapped and murdered a train full of people, including his family, in front of him. Initially he is frightened of her because of this but after meeting the sweet and innocent Nyu he is convinced that this is not the same person and decides to take her in.
As the series continues, Nyu learns how to speak properly again and slowly regains her memories. Eventually, Lucy reawakens and falls in love with Khota after his kindness to her as a child and as Nyu. It is unclear whether or not Khota returns Lucy’s feelings and this is depicted in the show’s rendition of “The Kiss”.
Khota is shown kissing a blank faced dummy and to me this symbolizes his uncertainty towards Lucy/Nyu. To him, she’s sort of a mystery. He’s seen both her fun loving, playful and human side, as well as her merciless killer side. He is not sure whether or not he should fear her and the other diclonius, or embrace them. Similar to the dummy he is holding, Lucy is very much a mystery to him.
The painting makes another appearance later in the opening sequence this time with Lucy being kissed by another blank faced dummy. Similar to how the dummy represents Khota’s uncertainty towards Lucy, in this rendition, I believe it represents Lucy’s uncertainty of humanity. Like the blank face on the dummy, humanity to Lucy is unclear. She’s seen the worst sides of it, as a child she had a puppy that was beaten to death by other children who bullied her, she was locked in a research facility for years, tied up in constraints, and the victim of many experiments which were anything but humane. However, there were a few people like Khota, who looked past her mutation and treated her kindly and like a human being.
There is a also theory behind the original painting that the woman is not enjoying the man’s kiss. Perhaps this is the case in the show’s rendition of the painting. Another interpretation of this could be that the dummy is humanity trying to forcefully embrace Lucy into it against her will by inhumane methods, mainly by experimentation, in order to benefit themselves.
When I look at the painting “The Kiss” I recall this anime and the many emotions associated with it. I can feel the warmth of the kindness of Khota to Lucy/Nyu. I can sense the innocence of of Nyu as well as many of the other diclonius featured in the show. However, I can also feel the sadness that is prevalent throughout the entirety of the anime. I can feel how Lucy felt when she lost her first friend, the puppy, to a merciless and brutal death. I can imagine the fear felt by Lucy towards humanity as well as humanity towards Lucy.
But the biggest thing that I sense is the good and bad sides of humanity since, that is my interpretation of the anime’s rendition of the painting, as well as a sum of all of the other emotions depicted throughout the show and what I feel when I look at the painting.
