List of Elfen Lied characters

The characters in Elfen Lied manga and anime series were created by Lynn Okamoto, with character design assistance from Seiji Kishimoto for the anime adaptation. Elfen Lied takes place in Kamakura, Japan where a mutant human sub-species with violent telekinetic powers has been discovered. Known as Diclonius, any person showing signs of the mutation have either been contained in the Diclonius research facility or exterminated. f The story revolves around a Diclonius named Lucy, who escapes from the research facility by killing several humans, but sustains a head injury which switches her to an infantile split personality that is clueless of the world around her and is reduced to only saying, 'Nyu'. Alongside Lucy, the story revolves around an older teenager named Kohta, who has returned to Kamakura for school, ten years after the death of his father and younger sister. After meeting with his cousin, Yuka, whom he hadn't seen for a very long time, they begin to live with each other in a closed down restaurant, which has been given to Kohta by Yuka's parents. After walking down a beach together, in where the two cousins used to play with each other as small children, they meet a wounded and naked Nyu, who they at first take in as a lost teenager. But, after strange occurrences with people searching for the escaped Lucy in the Kamakura area, Kohta and Yuka allow Nyu to stay in their house, seeing as she had no other place to go. Eventually, they meet the runaway girl Mayu and her dog Wanta, another Diclonius named Nana, and the incontinent singer Nozomi, who they also let stay in their house.

Lucy/Nyu
Lucy (ルーシー) is a diclonius girl, around 18 years old and the central protagonist of the series. Lucy has four vectors with a limited range of about two meters. 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 alienated by her human peers as a child, several of whom she eventually killed after they captured a puppy Lucy had been caring for and beat it to death in front of her. Consequently, she discounts non-diclonii, claiming they are not real people, to the point of telling Nana that she has "not killed anyone yet". She seems to lack empathy and kills without much concern as a usual first reaction. She is incredibly sadistic, amputating limbs and blinding foes, leaving them to bleed to death rather than killing them outright. Despite this lack of concern for human life she will not harm Kohta, and cries and apologizes for killing his family in a fit of jealousy; she loves Kohta, but due to her vengeful nature, she believes he will be content without her existence. As such, she refrains from killing in his presence, except in the anime, when at the end, she kills a whole army in front of him. However, Lucy still isn't above acts of jealously, once using her vectors to shove Yuka when she saw her holding hands with Kohta. She never refers to herself as Lucy, but her real name is "Kaede", which is revealed when she uses it to sign her letter to Kohta in the manga. After her death in the manga, Kohta and his daughter are approached by two twin girls with ribbons in their hair, heavily implied to have some connection to Lucy and Nyu.

Nyu (にゅう) is a split personality of Lucy that developed after a .50 BMG round pierces the metallic helmet encasing her head. Nyu has a childlike personality and infantile knowledge of the world, and lacks spoken language skills, being able to say only "Nyu" and "Kohta" most of the time. Near the end of the anime, she develops a wider vocabulary, with the ability to say phrases like "Don't cry, Kohta!". Nyu is innocent and incapable of violent acts, a foil to the normally cold and sadistic Lucy; she is the manifestation of her "good side". When Nyu is attacked violently (or hit on the head), she regresses into Lucy; likewise, when Lucy is treated with love and kindness, or wants to hide herself from Kohta, she will change back into Nyu. While Nyu exists first due to trauma, it is believed that Lucy subconsciously encourages her presence due to her feelings of guilt towards Kohta and to prevent her from harming him (directly or indirectly). In the manga, this is confirmed by Lucy herself.

During the final episode, Nyu cuts her hair to try to be in appearance like his deceased little sister Kanae, whom Kohta claimed to have said horrible things to her before she died in the hands of Lucy. When Kohta mused if Kanae would ever forgive him for what he said, Nyu copied Kanae's appearance of short hair and a bow and, on account of Kohta asking Nyu what she was up to, said, 'I'm Kanae!' and said she forgave Kohta so he wouldn't be sad. Coincidentally, this is the same hairstyle Lucy donned in her youth. She is subverted by Lucy for a larger portion of the manga's final volumes, but reemerges in chapter 106, helping her other personality stop a third personality, based entirely on Diclonius instincts (which in flashbacks, was what urged Lucy to start killing), from harming Kohta. She then urges him to kill her and fulfill the promise he made with Lucy so long ago, which he does. After her death, Kohta names his daughter after her.

Kouta
Kohta (コウタ/耕太) is main male character of the series and is first introduced in Volume 1 when he arrives in Kanagawa Prefecture to attend college, having previously arranged to stay with his cousin Yuka while at school.

Kohta enters the story when Yuka's family rents him a closed down restaurant as long as he maintains it, and begins living there with Yuka while going to a university. Kohta has repressed traumatic memories of witnessing the deaths of his father and sister, which later in the plot is revealed to be by Lucy's hand, who acted out of jealousy. . He suffers from Amnesia brought on by the trauma of this event, caused him to end up in a hospital for over a year following the event. Due in part to his loss, Kohta is sympathetic towards girls in trouble and is extremely generous and protective to the girls around him, because he can relate to them and they remind him of his late younger sister, Kanae.

He meets Lucy in his childhood when she is burying the dead puppy and running away from the orphanage where she killed 4 children (three boys, and one girl to be precise). In the anime, he was visiting his cousin with his family and decided to go to the mountain to draw, taking with him a music box he had recently purchased which played Lilium. He 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 could be friends and spends time with her. He takes 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 to 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 wouldn't be upset or jealous. When she finds out that he lied to her, she 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.

His repressed memories are triggered when Lucy kills a whole army in front of him, afterwards singing Lilium, the song that brought them together. He is more forgiving in the anime, even kissing Lucy and stating that he still loves her and her Nyuu persona though he proclaims that he cannot bring himself to fully forgive her for the murder of his family. In contrast, He is less forgiving in the manga, and he is truly unforgiving towards her for killing his family. In the last chapter, he fulfills his promise to Lucy and kills her. Later, he and Yuka are married, and subsequently name their daughter "Nyu".

Yuka
Yuka (ユカ) is Kohta's cousin around his age and moves in with him at the restaurant. It is revealed in both the manga and the anime that she has had feelings for Kohta since childhood and she reacts jealously to Kohta's attention to Nyū. However, it is later shown that she is jealous of any girl, regardless of age, who she suspects may be close to Kohta, to the point of being irrational.

At one point her feelings are returned by Kohta briefly. This occurs when Lucy goes missing and the two of them are resting under a shrine. Holding her, Kohta apologizes for not remembering anything about his past, or how he once felt about her. The two share a kiss, but shortly after, Lucy appears and their relationship is halted. Mayu once described her as the "mother" at Kaede House, and Kohta as the "father". Yuka does possess a caring and mature side, and seems to be protective of both Nyū and Mayu, and later on Nana; however in quite a few ways, she is a typical teenager, particularly when it comes to dealing with her feelings for Kohta and friendships with the girls who come to live with them.

In the last chapter she is shown rebuilding the inn with the others. At the end, it is shown that years later she and Kohta have married and have a daughter named Nyu.

Mayu
Mayu (マユ) is a young homeless girl of around thirteen years old (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.) Mayu is first introduced when she arrives at the closed down restaurant (then inhabited by Kohta, Yuka and Nyu) to return an umbrella she found at the beach. . Mayu is homeless and lives on the beach with a stray puppy that she calls Wanta, subsisting mostly on bread crusts from a nearby bakery.

During the fight between Lucy/Nyu and Nana, Mayu is slightly injured. When she awakens in the hospital, she calls Kouta because he and Yuka are the only people she knows. Kouta and Yuka ask Mayu to stay for dinner, as Yuka suspects that Mayu may be homeless. Mayu, deciding that the fight between Lucy/Nyu and Nana was simply a bad dream, develops a friendship with Nyu as they bathe together. The next day, Kouta and Yuka discover that Mayu has left, leaving a note thanking them for their help but stating that she does not want to be a burden on anyone.

In a flash back, it is revealed that Mayu had endured molestation by her stepfather before she ran away from home. Her own mother would not protect her, because she was jealous of the attention Mayu was receiving from the stepfather. Mayu ran away from home, and upon arriving at the beach, she befriended Wanta, who was also alone.

Back in the present, Mayu and Wanta return to the beach, but Wanta's original owner arrives and takes him away, while turning down Mayu's offer to help take care of him because of her dirty clothing. Mayu tries to comfort herself with the thought that Wanta will at least be able to live in a safe home with plenty of food, but later breaks down and cries. Losing her only friend, Mayu is devastated and spends the night, which is her birthday, alone, trying to shelter herself from the rain and cold. She wishes that Wanta was with her so she could brag about turning 14 (13 in the manga). When two police officers on patrol find her huddled in a shack, she tries to run, but bumps into Kouta, Yuka and Nyu who have come looking for her. After telling the police that Mayu is family (much to Mayu's surprise), they return to the Kaeda house, where Kouta and Yuka offer to let her stay with them. Yuka then presents Mayu with a small cake from the bakery — the woman at the bakery who provides Mayu with breadcrusts had saved it for her since it was her birthday. Mayu becomes overwhelmed with emotions, crying and feeling happy at the same time, prompting Kouta, Yuka and Nyu to comfort her. Meanwhile, Wanta is seen waiting on the front steps of the Kaeda house, deciding that he would rather be with Mayu than with his original owner.

When Kouta and Yuka offer to become Mayu's guardians, her mother officially transfers Mayu into their care without a second thought. In the anime, Kohta states how strange it was that her mother was so eager to abandon her own daughter and why she never notified the police that Mayu was missing. However, he and Yuka agree not to ask questions.

The next time Mayu is seen, she is happy and smiling. She has enrolled in a nearby school and leaves each morning in her school uniform with a smile on her face (Kouta and Yuka are amazed at how Mayu has changed from when they first met). Nyu, who has become Mayu's friend, helps to take care of Wanta while she is at school. Mayu helps around the house with chores whenever she can, and comes to view Kouta and Yuka as her parents and Nyu as a sister.

Later in the anime, Mayu meets up with Nana and the two become friends. Mayu convinces Kouta and Yuka to let Nana stay at the house as well. Nana eventually opens up to Mayu and tells her the true story of the Diclonius, Lucy/Nyu, and her vectors. Mayu does everything she can to convince Nana that Nyu is not dangerous, still refusing to believe that Nyu and Lucy could possibly be the same person.

In the manga, it appears that Mayu has feelings for Bando which eventually becomes love, even kissing Bando before he "died". She is extremely happy to found out that Bando is still alive in the last chapter of the manga.

Nana
Nana (ナナ), also known as Number 7, is a young Silpelit girl who has the physical appearance of being 12–14 years old. Nana's actual age is actually about 6 years old; the manga explains in greater detail that Silpelits age more rapidly than humans (or a "Queen Diclonius" like Lucy). Her name, 'Nana', is Japanese for the number seven, the number by which she was called at the research facility ("Nana" is also a fairly common female name in Japan). Most Diclonius babies are euthanized at birth in sweeps of hospital maternity wards, but Nana was one of a handful kept alive for use as a test subjects and has spent her entire life in the Diclonius research facility.

Nana sees Kurama as her father, whom she calls "Papa," because she needed something to keep her from going insane during the torturous experimentation, believing that she is making him proud. Kurama in turn sees her as his daughter and cares very much for her. In an attempt to recapture Lucy, Kurama sent out Nana to find her (diclonii can telepathically sense each other), then retreat until Kurama could arrive with soldiers, but Nana wanted to impress Kurama so she tried to capture Lucy herself. Lucy and Nana engaged in a brutal telekinetic battle that ended with Lucy dismembering Nana. Kurama personally came to stop Lucy and save Nana, then also disregarded Director General Kakuzawa's order to kill her by giving her new prosthetic limbs (a running gag is that they always fall off at some point) and setting her free with money to survive. Nana later becomes friends with Mayu and Mayu bring her to the house. Nana is initially hostile towards Nyu (who she recognizes as Lucy) but adjusts to life at the house as well as she can after Kohta and Yuka agree to take her in.

In the anime, after Kurama dies, Nana is devastated. When Lucy and Nana meet shortly afterward, Lucy tells her to return to the house and live happily with her new "family", which Nana does.

In the manga, Nana saw Kurama in a much more romantic light and he possibly returned her feelings; during the ending, Nana and Kurama (who does not die in the manga) were shown together visiting a grave marked "Kurama" and Kurama holding Mariko's ashes. Nana then reveals that they are now living together. Nana asks him to take her as his wife and began crying, questioning whether Kurama wanted to "make babies with Nana", to which Kurama smiles and responds, "Why are you saying such silly things? Nana is my...", as the scene fades.

Unlike many other Diclonius, because Kurama treated her with kindness, Nana is not homicidal or sadistic. However, her fighting skills are extraordinary. She managed to almost defeat Mariko and her clones but was stopped by Kurama's presence. She also has the exclusive ability to temporarily disable other Diclonius' vectors by having her vectors go through their pineal gland. Although her vector power is superior to Lucy's in terms of range (5 meters to Lucy's 2) and certain abilities, she lacks Lucy's sheer strength (Lucy can lift and throw many times heavier objects than Nana can), and violent nature; Nana's empathy for others does not allow her to fight as vigorously kill. While physically skilled and intuitive with her vectors, she loses many fights in the series solely because of her kind nature. With her vector arms, she is later able to manipulate prosthetic appendages and even throw them like a rocket punch.

Nana can be seen as the exact opposite of Lucy. While Lucy's default personality is serious and cold, Nana's is friendly and kind; Lucy's split personality "Nyu" is similar to Nana's default while Nana sometimes goes into trances and acts cold like Lucy's default personality. One time in particular was remarkably similar to Lucy's fall into the path of a cold-blooded killer, and it literally took the force of a magnum bullet grazing her skull to knock her back to her senses. Nana is in the middle of the spectrum of Lucy's split personalities: she's not as mature as Lucy, but more mature than Nyu. She is in fact extremely childish due her young age.

Nozomi
Nozomi (ノゾミ) is a 15-17 year old soft-spoken and shy friend of Yuka who only appears in the manga. She has a psychological bladder problem because of her father frequently physically abusing her when she was a child for wanting to become a singer and therefore wears diapers. Kohta first encounters her while walking to the store (not realizing they both know Yuka), and both are embarrassed when the wind blows her skirt up. They later meet at the restaurant and Nozomi is revealed to have a great talent for singing. Nozomi is the person who sings the song "Elfenlied", while teaching Nyū how to sing. She later on is shown to have become a successful singer a poster in the final chapter.

Kurama
Kurama (蔵間) is the central antagonist of the series. He is also the surrogate father of Nana and biological father of Mariko. His wife, Hiromi Kurama, died from cesarean section complications shortly after she gave birth to Mariko. Although he had previously been tasked with killing all diclonius births, he falters when he must kill his own daughter.

Lucy carries a deep hatred toward Kurama, stemming from his failure to save Aiko Takada (as seen in the Elfen Lied OVA); however, she states that she will not kill him but will kill everything that loves him. It is revealed late in the series that the General Director of the diclonius research program kept his daughter alive, increasing Kurama's perceived debt to him. It is also revealled that his wife Hiromi died from medical complications only because she attempted to stop Kurama from killing Mariko in her craddle, and that after seeing his wife die in his arms, Kurama decided to let Mariko live.

In the final episode of the anime, is one of the series' most emotional scenes, Kurama and Mariko meet, and she realizes that he is her father. Mariko tells him that during her entire life at the institute's prison, she dreamed that one day he and her mother would come to take her home and live as a real family. She then demands to know why he abandoned her. Kurama raises his gun to shoot her but is unable to do so, and instead walks over to her and hugs her tightly. He reflects on the fact that he killed dozens of Diclonius girls in their craddles but left his own daughter to suffer in a dark prison her entire life. He then picks her up in his arms and promises they will never again be apart. As he walks away, Kurama signals an assistant to detonate the remaining bomb inside of her body. He then tells Nana to go and live happily. Kurama tells Mariko that he never stopped thinking about her for a moment and that her mother loved her until the moment she died. The assistant hesitates, wondering if Kurama had been planning this all along, then activates the bomb. Hearing the bomb about to denotate, Kurama and Mariko tightly embrace; Kurama then has a brief vision of their lives might have been like if Mariko had not been born as a diclonius (he and his wife with Mariko after her birth, feeding her in a highchair, comforting her, carrying her on his shoulders, and her first day of school). The bomb then detonates in a massive explosion, killing both of them.

Kurama survives in the manga; Mariko (worried about the safety of her father) confronts Lucy and clings to her as the bomb inside her detonates; this results in Lucy's horns being destroyed and turning back into Nyuu, as well as Mariko's death. Kurama, depressed by his pathetic ability as a father, attempts to commit suicide with a nearby MP5, but is saved by Bandō. Kurama now lives in a small shed on the beach and is partially insane. He later clings to a dead body of what he thinks is his daughter, Mariko, and won't let anyone come near him (it is actually a clone). Later, Nana finds him but he shuns her away, still clinging to the clone Mariko. Another clone Mariko shows up and Kurama tries to embrace her too. She however attacks him and fights with Nana. When she is about to finish Nana off, Kurama shoots her in the head and regains his sanity. He then reconciles with Nana and confronts Lucy at the end, who shows a third personality and rips his arm off. However, Nana saves him. In the last chapter, he is shown with two arms (meaning he got a prosthetic as well) and is revealed to be living with Nana.



Bando
Bandō (坂東) is an operative in his mid-30's for the National Police Agency's Special Assault Team (SAT). Though he is fully human, he is as homicidal and apathetic to other people as the worst diclonius are. He is a hardy and effective soldier. After being maimed by Lucy and repaired with bionic, cybernetic and prosthetic implants, he escapes on a quest for revenge against her. He gets two or more Desert Eagle hand guns. In the manga he gets other weapons such as an RPG. The guns fire custom .50 Action Express rounds which are so powerful the rounds can not be blocked with vectors. But the bullets can be pushed off course at long range though; however at close range not even Lucy can stop them. He gets sidetracked several times in this quest, and ultimately receives aid from Kurama to "kill a diclonius that was coming." Bandō is driven by the will to fight and to prove his superior ability in combat, not to mention avenge the wounds he suffered at Lucy's hands.

In the last episode of the anime, Bandō is crippled again by Lucy, who simply tells him that they will never meet again before leaving him on the beach. However, it is implied that he survives, although the extent of his injuries are unclear.

In the manga his role is extended a bit more and he is shown to have a more compassionate side, such as saving Kurama, and burying the dead. He is reluctant to accept positive emotions from others, such as Mayu and Nana. While he is violent, ruthless and all too willing to kill, he takes great offense to acts of perversion, such as child molestation; when Mayu asks for his aid when she is attacked by the Unknown man (see below), Bandō expresses intense disgust over the Unknown man's actions. In the manga, Bandō is severely injured while protecting Mayu from an attack by Lucy after the latter is exposed as a killer to the young girl. Lucy rips off his remaining arm and cuts him in half at the waist, then flees. While dying in Mayu's arms, Bandō reflects that he had always wanted someone to cry for him after he died, since he had isolated himself from human contact for all his life; and he now seems to be at peace. However, Bandō is in fact still alive and Kurama later returns and takes away his body. In the final chapter, Mayu is seen cleaning the beach where Bandō had come to live in his memory when Bando returns to see Mayu, where it is shown that his lower half of his body has been fitted with bionics.

Mariko
Mariko Kurama (蔵間マリコ), also known as Number 35, is the daughter of Kurama She is described as the most powerful of the diclonius. During an escape attempt by Number Three, Kurama was infected by her vectors, turning him into a carrier of the Diclonius virus, which ultimately caused Mariko to be born a diclonius, much to her father's shock and horror.

As an infant, Mariko was imprisoned and raised inside a massive steel container with no human contact other than with Saito, a scientist acting as a foster mother through speakers and monitors. She has been kept alive on pure nutrients that are intravenously fed into her body through a large tube connected to her body. After she is released, it is revealed that she is physically impaired, as shown by her atrophied limbs; she moves around in a wheelchair. This is most likely due to her suffering from near-starvation and dehydration, as well as from to being heaviely restrained, which made her unable to move, while she was locked up at the institute.

Despite the environment she was raised in, Mariko is relatively well-developed psychologically. She is extremely homicidal and sadistic, and enjoys torturing and dismembering her victims. She have no problems in torturing and murdering others, no matter what race or species they belong to, be it Human or Diclonius. The only one she will not harm is her father Kurama. However, her personality is not blatantly evil. She is only having fun, seeing killing as a game, and the pleasure she gets from it is equivalent to a child ripping the wings off of an insect or burning ants with a magnifying glass. She is in fact capable of caring about others and has a strong love for Kurama.

In order to keep Mariko under control, the research institute implanted bombs in her body during infancy; one is used to remove her right arm, after she attacks and mortally wounds the scientist at the institute who acted as her foster mother. When she is sent to kill Nana, Mariko is also given a prosthetic to move with her vectors.

In the manga, during confrontation with Nana, Kurama tells both of them about the circumstances of the birth of Mariko. Feeling rejected by her father and that he favors Nana, Mariko attempts to kill her as an act of revenge, but is stopped by Bando, who at the request of Kurama, escapes carrying Nana with him, although he is not able to prevent her from returning to the fight.

Meanwhile, Kurama reconciles with Mariko, who immediately afterward protects him from being hit by a non-explosive missile. After being hit by this missile, Mariko temporarily manifests a split personality like Lucy/Nyu that is infantile and affectionate towards her father. Lucy then appears, searching for Nana with the rest of the inhabitants of the Inn. Upon seeing Kurama, Lucy attempts to kill him, but Mariko sacrifices herself to save her father. She tries to kill Lucy to protect Kurama by activating the bomb(s) that were inside of her body, while holding on to Lucy, but fails despite her efforts.While the bomb(s) indeed goes off, they do not kill Lucy. She instead only loses her horns, and becomes Nyu for the next serval months, but not before seemingly tearing Marikos head off just mere seconds from the explosion. .

In the final episode of the anime, Kurama and Mariko meet and she realizes that he is her father. Mariko tells him that during her entire life at the institute's prison, she dreamed that one day he and her mother would come to take her home and live as a real family. She demands to know why he allowed her to suffer in the institute her whole life, and becomes jealous when Nana calls Kurama "papa." Mariko threatens to kill Nana, and Kurama raises his gun but is unable to shoot her. Instead, Kurama walks over to Mariko and hugs her tightly. He then picks her up in his arms, and promises they will never again be apart, while ordering an assistant to detonate the remaining bomb inside of her body. Kurama then tells Mariko he never stopped thinking about her and that her mother loved her until the moment she died. The assistant, after hesitating, activates the bombs, killing the both of them.

Director Kakuzawa
Director Kakuzawa (角沢長官) is the head of the research center at 70+ years old performing experiments on Diclonius. He is from a long line of Diclonius ancestry that has been watered down by inter-breeding with humans (much of this is, however, only revealed in the manga). As a result, he has no vectors and much smaller horns on his head, which he hides under a wig. His and his son's aim are in part to replenish their bloodline with the Diclonius they are experimenting on (of which Lucy is the first to be able to reproduce) and thus gain power as "kings" of the new race, which would wipe out humanity and replace it entirely. In the manga, he even claims to desire the position of a god of the new, Diclonius-ruled world he envisions. He is the father of Anna Kakuzawa, professor Kakuzawa and Lucy's Diclonius half brother. Even after revealing to Lucy all his plots to terminate mankind and to fill the world with Diclonius, he is decapitated by Lucy along with his Diclonius son. She then reveals that he is not a Diclonius at all, and that his horns were the result of an unrelated mutation. In the anime, he isn't killed, and continues with his plans.

Professor Kakuzawa
Professor Kakuzawa (角沢教授) is the 30-something son of Director Kakuzawa. Like his father, he is a watered-down Diclonius with small horns and no vectors. When he and Kurama were younger, they both went to university together. It was Kakuzawa who originally got Kurama involved in research on the Diclonius. He is the lecturer for a course at the university in which Kohta and Yuka are enrolled. After tricking Kohta and Yuka into releasing Lucy/Nyu to him (under the pretense that she is his younger brother's missing daughter), he sedates and attempts to rape her. However, while Nyu falls asleep, Lucy wakes up. He then removes a wig to show her his horns — through genetic engineering he attempted to make himself into a diclonius). He also reveals that he was the one responsible for releasing Lucy at the research center. He attempts to solicit Lucy with the promise of creating a new race of Diclonius together, but Lucy turns him down and beheads him.

Arakawa
Arakawa (荒川) is a young researcher in her early 20's who is also Professor Kakuzawa's partner who works alongside him to create a vaccine in order to counter the threat of the Diclonius virus. She along with Kohta inadvertently discovered Professor Kakuzawa's severed head and warned the boy not to disclose anything of what he saw or heard with anybody else. Afterwards, she reported her finding to Director Kakuzawa at his compound facility, but he wouldn't let her go scot-free after seeing his son's horns. She was threatened by Chief Kakuzawa to take charge of his deceased son's research or else be killed.

In the anime, Arakawa is a minor character whose role provides little or no contribution at all for advancing the plot, as later she's often seen complaining about that being so busy does not allows her to take a shower which becomes a recurrent gag in the series. However, her character eventually plays an important, key role for humanity's salvation in the last story arc of the manga.

Kanae
Kanae (カナエ) is Kohta's younger sister, already deceased by the time of the story. Kanae was protective of her brother and became jealous whenever other girls showed him attention.

At the festival Kanae watched as Lucy killed several people around her. It's not shown but Kanae claims in the manga that she saw Lucy killing people using her vectors, which are normally unseen to the human eye (with the exception of Mariko's vectors); unlike everyone else, who did not connect Lucy and the deaths, and were led to believe it was a bomb.

She is later brutally murdered by Lucy before her father, on the train leaving Kamakura. In the anime, Kohta and Kanae's father comes over to see what is happening, unaware his daughter has died, before he is also murdered by Lucy. In the manga he witnesses Kanae's death as well and apparently intends to avenge her by attacking Lucy (instead, he is killed). However the trauma of witnessing their murders, in both series, causes Kohta to repress his memories of the events; in the manga, he believes that Kanae was killed in a car accident, whereas in the anime he believes that she simply got sick and died (and that their father died in a car accident). It is only after witnessing Lucy brutally murder a group of soldiers in front of him with her vectors that his repressed memories emerge.

Kisaragi
Kisaragi (如月) is Kurama's personal secretary who seems to space out at work often and is often quite clumsy. She is killed by Lucy at the start of the story when she, completely oblivious of what is going on, trips in front of the rampaging Lucy, who tears off her head and uses the body to shield herself from the security team's gunfire. In the manga, Kisaragi was taken hostage by Lucy while walking down the hall. Since Kurama's men were unable to get a clear shot of Lucy, Kurama told Kisaragi they had to sacrifice her. Kisaragi did not seem upset after hearing this, instead saying she was happy to give her life if it meant she was helping. Kurama assured her that her death would not be meaningless, but before Kurama could tell his men to shoot, Lucy tore off Kisaragi's head. After using Kisaragi's decapitated body as a shield and killing the men, Lucy told Kurama that Kisaragi's death was meaningless, and left laughing. After she is killed Kurama picks up her decapitated head and vows to avenge her death.

Saito
Saito (斎藤) is Mariko's foster mother, in her mid-twenties, and one of the scientists working at Chief Kakuzawa's compound facility. Although she has never actually seen Mariko in person, every day for over 5 years, she and the Diclonius girl have been verbally interacting with each other through the use of loudspeakers. Mariko always referred to Saito as "Mother" during these interactions.

In both the Manga and the Anime, when Shirakawa and the scientists were forced to release Mariko from her confinement tank, which she had been sealed in all of her life, they pondered their options as how to make her submit to their commands. Saito was the first to volunteer in greeting Mariko in an attempt to appease her, mistakenly believing that by allowing herself to be seen by Number 35 would help to identify herself as the Diclonius' mother. Saito, who is always smiling, believes she is in no danger and looks forward to finally meeting Mariko face to face. Shirakawa agrees to let Saito meet Mariko, believing that Mariko views Saito as her parent and that she would never do anything to hurt her.

At first the reunion went as expected; Mariko overjoyed for seeing her "mother" for the first time ever, and Saito happy to meet her "daughter" for the first time, immediately feeling pity for the Diclonius upon watching the abysmal condition of her body: dehydrated, undernourished, atrophied, and unable to walk. When Mariko collapses as she attempts to walk, Saito runs over and comforts. Afterremoving the bandages covering Mariko's body, Saito smiles at Mariko's seemingly innocent face.

However, as Saito comforts Mariko in her arms, Mariko's true sadistic and violent nature emerges. Unemotionally asking "Mommy?", when Saito answered "Yes," Mariko replied "No you're not!" She then explodes Saito in half, throwing her upper torso through the window of the control room to catch the operator off guard, and thus preventing him from activating the bombs implanted in her body. Mariko then propels herself with her vectors toward Shirakawa; but Saito uses her final moments to detonate the explosive in Mariko's right arm in order to subdue her. As she struggles to take her last breaths, Saito bears a look a shock, but also sadness, as evidenced by the tears in her eyes.

Shirakawa
Shirakawa (白河) is a scientist in her mid-30s that works very closely with Kurama at the Diclonius research facility. Though her personality on the surface reflects a business-like demeanor, she holds a secret affection and genuine concern for Kurama and on all the matters related with his mysterious past (her feelings are implicitly hinted from time to time in the series). However, Kurama does not return the feelings because most of his time he focuses on attempting to find and terminate Lucy, therefore, keeping the relationship strictly professional. Her character plays a more important role in the manga than in the anime; The manga portrays her personality as mostly servile and submissive, to the extent of letting Director Kakuzawa sexually abuse and humiliate her to get information from him. It is also revealed she has feelings for him and considers admitting it before decapitated by Lucy. In episode 11 of the anime, Shirakawa attempts to protect Kohta from both Mariko and Lucy, but is sliced in half at the waist by Lucy; in her final moments, she hopes that Kurama will forgive her for failing to stop Lucy. .

Aiko Takada
Aiko Takada (高田愛子) appears in the manga and the Elfen Lied OVA, though her full name is never revealed. She is Lucy's friend three years prior to the start of the main story, and becomes the second human who has both given love and come to accept Lucy by who she is, regardless of her Diclonius condition (i.e. her horns). She saw always saw Lucy on the playground and liked to sketch her saying she wanted to be an artist. She lives with her abusive step-father who does not want her to be an artist, and his girl friend. She becomes good friends with Lucy and tells her how her mother was an artist and traveled around many place (she is alive however) and showed her a picture she made she wants to give her when she is in town. Lucy then worried about if her step-father found it and when she goes to see Aiko, she had killed her step father, but accidentally (he was about to stab the drawing with a knife and when she went to stop him, she cut his throat). Knowing the police would come, she and Lucy run off the art museum so Aiko could deliver the picture to her mother before they are caught. Unfortunately, Aiko is shot after an ambush captures Lucy and Aiko by surprise, being mistook for another Diclonius because she is wearing Lucy's hat, even though all diclonii have pink hair and Aiko's is brown. Kurama, who accompanied the police, promised Aiko's well-being in exchange for Lucy's capture. Lucy agrees to be captured, but Aiko eventually dies at the hospital of her injuries. The death of Aiko serves the final straw for Lucy to become resolved in killing deliberately every human at sight (though Kohta and those familiar with him are spared), and triggering the start of her ill-fated vendetta against Kurama, promising him that she will not kill him and instead erase everything related to him to make him suffer.

The full account of her background story and how she met Lucy is thoroughly explained in the manga.