It was serialized in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Jump from June 2002 to August 2005, with its 107 chapters collected into twelve tankōbon volumes.

Elfen Lied involves themes of discrimination, social alienation, identity, prejudice, revenge, abuse, jealousy, regret, and the value of humanity.

Their appearance is similar to humans, but with several differences, namely horn-like protrusions on the forehead, the presence of telekinetic invisible arms called "vectors" and unconventional hair colour.

One such Diclonius, Lucy, is the main character of the series: Initially held in a facility built for experimentation, located off the coast of Kamakura, she manages to escape and wreak havoc, but is injured in the process, an event which causes her to develop a secondary, childlike personality known as Nyu.

They take her in and become involved with the numerous, often brutal, attempts to recapture her by a Special Assault Team and a number of other Diclonius, who shift frequently from oblivious to murderous.

Diclonii powers involve the use of invisible arms, known as "vectors", that can grasp and impact things as if they are solid, but also become insubstantial and pass through objects.

It is disputed and contradicted during the series as to how Diclonii develop their violent behavior, whether it is part of their genetic code or whether it stems from abuse by humans.

Yoshioka believed that Kanbe's general drawing style and composition would be ideal to adapt the manga, still in publication at the time, into an anime series.

In comments made by director Mamoru Kanbe on the Elfen Lied website, he stated that he intended for the anime to question and discuss values relating to the way in which humans divide each other by difference, as well as the belief that atrocities such as those committed by Lucy in the series are strongly influenced by the way in which people are treated by their fellow beings.

The series juxtaposes many different tones and genres and was described by Bamboo Dong of Anime News Network as "mixing insane amounts of violence with a heavy dose of ultracuteness.

These characters are drawn in a style based on Gustav Klimt's paintings, including The Kiss, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, and others with similar imitating poses, colors, and patterns.

[14] Written and illustrated by Lynn Okamoto, Elfen Lied was serialized in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Jump from June 6, 2002, to August 25, 2005.

The anime's opening theme song is "Lilium", performed by opera singer Kumiko Noma [fr], sung in Latin, with lyrics extracted from biblical passages and Christian sources, including the Book of Psalms, the Epistle of James, the Kyrie prayer, and the hymn "Ave mundi spes Maria".

However, the channel's Broadcast Standards and Practices department would have required the series to be so extensively edited ("it would have been cut to shreds", she described in the post) in order to air that it would have been "unintelligible".

Anime UK News criticized Okamoto's art as poor throughout the book, but enjoyed the extra unrelated stories included at the end.

They felt the art style changed with the characters' emotions and said it reminded them variously of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the work of Junji Ito.

[36] Rai of TheOASG gave the omnibus a 3 out of 5 star rating, criticizing the art and fan service, and overall preferred the anime which she acknowledged having bias for.

[12][3][38][39] Due to the many scenes of nudity and gore, Dominic Laeno of THEM Anime Reviews criticized the series as being "overly blatant.

"[40] Stig Høgset, also of THEM Anime Reviews, called Elfen Lied "a very special show, good and bad parts taken into consideration.

"[10] On June 12, 2015, the now-defunct Chinese Ministry of Culture listed Elfen Lied among 38 anime and manga titles banned in China.

[43] The anime opening theme "Lilium", with its Latin lyrics extracted from biblical sources, is sometimes sung as a hymn in churches around the world, including in countries such as Ukraine, Sweden, Brazil, and Chile.