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Mrs. Cain. Cain's wife. If, in the beginning, there were just Cain and Abel, and Adam and Eve, where did this extra woman come from? Did you ever stop to think about that?

Spencer Tracy (as Henry Drummond), Inherit The Wind, 1960

Narrative Gaps are an inevitability. No story can ever see full completion. The effort to write and read such a thing staggers the mind, and even if someone undertook this endeavor, not every answer is available. Creators of a work choose a focus on different levels and stay for the most part with that. Elfen Lied focuses mainly on about ten to twelve major characters, and only on five or six of those in the main. Most actions occur in three or four locations, with two of those seeing the vast bulk of the scenes. Kamakura, Japan, is the center of this universe. While the struggle against the Diclonius in Belgium or British Columbia might make for an excellent story, such will never be the focus of this series. Invariably, an answer provided by even the most comprehensive work may only open up more questions, perhaps even much more. This limit is to say nothing of the answers that dissatisfy those taking in that work. A decision must occur about who, what, when, where, why and how, and at the root of the word decision is the Latin word for 'To Cut.' Stories are not bad or weak for having narrative gaps. However, usually proceeding in an inverse to the passion for the series, such a gap, if not directly explained or addressed in series, can be badly distracting, diminishing affection for the piece or increasing intense dislike.

For this article, a narrative gap is an unknown, a plot hole, inconsistency or something that truly does not fit into the story because of other conditions of the fictional universe as stated or implied in the series.

Some things are plainly not narrative gaps. A wish that a character had met a different fate is an opinion. That we don't learn the fates of people like the Bakery or Crepes Merchant is just something the story chose not to cover, and their and other similar characters' fates do not change the outcome or the future history of that world. The actual fate of Aiko Takada or Nana's possible connection to Number 3 do fall in here, but must be shown with broad qualifiers, and are more fan controversies than narrative gaps, and in any event are fully covered elsewhere.

Explanations for these things can be extrapolated or guessed at, some much more quickly than others. What will be noted here is a lack of directly stated information. Items placed in here as narrative gaps must meet a high if flexible standard and are subject to user scrutiny: As the Good Doctors are apt to say, Spoilers!

Plot Examples[]

Elements in the manga series' final chapters[]

  • The identity of Nyuu Jr's mother is left directly unstated. However, she is identical to young Yuka and is Kouta's daughter, meaning Okamoto most likely chose to state her mom's identity by way of her appearance rather than words. Furthermore, Nyuu tells Kouta that if they're late getting home, "Mama" will be angry with them, which fits with Yuka's character.
  • Nyuu Junior's exact age has context problems. She would have been born after the lifting of the worldwide birth ban, this perhaps as much as two years after Lucy's death. We first see her with her father, ten years after Lucy died, where he tells her he played at that place when Kouta was her age; in fact, if she is eight at most, then he was two to three years older. Though Kouta was likely speaking broadly, when he lightly chastises Nyuu for going to that area before without him, she counters that he just said he did the same at her age. While children going out on their own at a relatively young age is common in Japan, Kouta perhaps felt that she was below that threshold, and also had not informed her parents she was doing so, again raising questions about her age.
  • The final fates of much of the main cast and major characters, aside from Kouta, are not expanded upon in the last chapter. The only exception is Yuka, who, since she's hinted to be Nyuu's mother, can be inferred to be at home waiting for Kouta and Nyuu to return from their outing.
  • The clash between Yuka and her mother over whether Nana could remain with them is never resolved or brought up again after the first instance. However, Nana is still living at the Maple House in one part of the story's ending and is shown to be part of their lives still. Because it is brought up in-story and is not merely an inference, it meets the criteria for a plothole, but only just, quickly resolved by other story elements.
  • In Conclusion, Kouta states that the World Health Organization placed a birth ban on Humans to prevent the creation of more Diclonius. The W.H.O. does not possess any authority to enact any of its policy recommendations; it can only advise members of the United Nations on health matters and offer suggestions. Nowhere in Elfen Lied's narrative is there any mention of conditions that would give the W.H.O. power over that decision, which member nations would make for themselves, even in the direst crises imaginable.
    • Even if they had an authorized position, it is very unrealistic that the entire virus can be wiped out and every infected man on Earth will be vaccinated and that all the people in the world will follow rules and laws given to them. Once the virus is out on a mass scale it is out. Not everyone is in support of taking vaccines or will be able to do so. There are many people in the world who won’t be able to meet or seek medical professionals in the first place, such as uncontacted/isolated tribes as an example. It also doesn’t take account of things like accidental/unwanted pregnancies, how people can hide their children, how parents may die and the children may live or with around other people, how people may actually want to make more Diclonius children for a variety of reasons or many other scenarios where a virus can’t be eradicated and a species exterminated by just people taking a vaccine.
  • Despite in earlier chapters Professor Kakuzawa having a brother was meant to be a lie, later on the grandmother of Anna and the professor states that Anna’s brothers are smarter than her. Furthermore, it is ambiguous if the Unknown Man is one of these brothers/relatives or not.
  • While several explanations are possible, the apparent final surprise of Lucy/Nyu's actual name brings to mind the question of who knew it and who didn't. Kouta, despite spending a day or so with this girl, apparently never learned it, as even when his memories returned, he only learned it a decade later. He does comment on this in the manga, however, remarking along the lines of "Oh yeah, I never heard her name." yet did not ask her for it afterward. However, it's possible that he assumed Lucy was her real name, as Nana calls always her in that way. While Kurama and the Kakuzawas did not have an interest in humanizing Lucy, knowledge of her original name and origins would seem natural, though such information in and of itself would be far less relevant than knowledge of Lucy's nature and powers. If Kurama and Professor Kakuzawa learned of her partly from the report of the murders at the orphanage and if reported as missing, then part of that story would likely contain her actual name. While they and Lucy seemed to have little use for that original name, only two groups didn't know it: Those dwelling in Maple House and the readers themselves. Of course, "Kaede" may not even be her "right" name at all, as she was abandoned as an infant and was perhaps only given a name upon being sent to the orphanage. Chief Kakuzawa makes no mention of what name her mother would have known her by, so the name ends up lost with the lack of Lucy's father in the story and the deaths of her mother and Chief Kakuzawa. However, Lynn Okamoto said the origins of the name were "a secret", leaving it a mystery how she came to have this name.
  • While at the beginning there may be some minor things in difference in tech from the current real world like hyper realistic prosthetics and eyes that can give sight, most of the technology is fairly realistic and not at all that advanced. But in the second half of the story, the technology gets more insane and bizarre going from 1 to 1000 in terms of extremely sci-fi and bordering on absolutely futuristic. It feels like something totally planned much later rather than an established part of the universe and it starts giving the question of why they wouldn’t use many of this advanced tech from the start if they had these high-tech objects that can give them such a great advantage. While it could be argued that the apocalyptically-minded Kakuzawas were holding much of this neo-technology back for their 'new world', no such explanation is ever offered.
  • How the facility came to know how they could clone Diclonii in such a way is unknown along with how they were able to grow the brain parts to such a large size.
  • When Nousou presents the clones to Kakuzawa, it seems he has never heard of a mind control device. However, when his youngest son is introduced to Lucy, he has it implanted as well.
  • On the attack on Maple House, Nana was unable to sense the mind controlled clone Diclonii. Meanwhile, when it came to Lucy meeting her mind controlled brother, both siblings were able to detect and sense they truly were related to one another.
    • While possible, there is no explicit evidence the siblings used their cell manipulating vectors (if the boy even had any) to detect one another's DNA as proof either, but seems to be that they could just sense their state of siblinghood telepathically.
    • It could also be possible that Nana could sense the other Diclonii, but the mind controlled ones just had dumbed down thoughts and she didn't perceive it as a threat. But if this is the alternate case, then it would question why she didn't find it suspicious there were more Diclonii outside of the lab heading straight for Maple House. Since Lucy and her brainwashed brother were able to detect each other it would be contradictory to say that Nana could not detect the clone Diclonii who were the same exact state as Lucy's brother.
  • While less of a plot hole and more of an unanswered question that could have been answered easily, it is not entirely clear whether the Clone Diclonius uprising occurs because of the perfection of Arakawa's vaccine or if Lucy's presence on the island also excited them. It is highly possible it is a mix of both factors, but as Lucy has been on the island before and it is unknown when in all that time all of the clones have exactly been made, it could have just been that the vaccine was so potent that the Diclonii felt such intense negative emotion towards it made their vectors become intensely more powerful than before.
  • Why Nousou or no one else possibly in the know of the mind-control devices, or some other anti-Diclonius technology like the pain giving devices similar to Number 28, didn't decide to implant them in all of the unstable and "imperfect" clones is a huge question. As all of those clones of an extremely powerful Diclonius, even before their vectors went extremely haywire, being left mentally or physically "free" to some extent is just waiting for disaster and something that should of been a no-brainer for anyone aware of them at the facility. Given the whole point of all of their creations was because they originate from the most powerful Diclonius, even if the clones were imperfect and their powers weren't fully developed, it was not the most intelligent thing to leave such a massive number of clones who'd obviously harbor intense negative emotions with a huge urge to kill.
    • Perhaps, this is mostly at fault of Lynn Okamoto's writing itself, as he probably wanted a quick and easy way to set a Diclonius horde against some humans but didn't know how else to do it as all of the known silpelits are (for the most part) well contained and the clones are very unknown from a lot of the facility. But even the so-called geniuses who were aware of the clones should have at least known better to insert some type of device in or on them to prevent such a disastrous event to happen. A single silpelit is already seen as a dangerous threat, regardless of range or vector ability, so over a thousand would have obviously been seen as much worse.
    • During the start of the uprising, despite all clones only having 10 meters of vector range, given how low they are in the facility, their vectors were first shown to go near miles above their positions with how high, large and destructive they went. Oddly they didn’t suffer from melting or a similar condition from dealing with the “entropy” of overexerting their vectors either.
  • While understandably, Mariko was released as the next “monster” sent to capture Lucy because Director Kakuzawa didn’t like Kurama’s betrayal of him and choosing her was meant to be his punishment in return, strategically given how many clones of the child they have; they could have had so many spares at their disposal to target the singular queen. Additionally, as mentioned in the point above, they could have put in so much Anti-Diclonius technology in the clones, from bombs like Mariko to pain givers to mind control devices like the perfect clones, to keep them under check and control as much as possible.
    • The real world explanation for why didn’t they just send an army of expendable, inhibited and restrained clones of Mariko, who only have one meter shorter than the original, after Lucy instead of just the real deal is likely because they seem to be a later addition to the story rather than planned beforehand.
  • It is unknown what happened to the other remaining Silpelits contained at the lab during the clone uprising as, while it can be assumed they were kept under lock and chain until they finally died upon the island’s sinking, why the free and abused clones weren’t shown helping the other equally abused members of their kind is a question as they are all protesting against the humans who abused them. Likely, Lynn Okamoto wasn’t thinking about it as they probably just be newly distinct characters introduced only to get lost among the clone horde and probably mostly be killed off as well among their short appearance.
  • A major plot point at series' end is Lucy's final rejection of the Kakuzawas' agenda. This dismissal is based, at least in part, on her sensing that, their claims about their ancestry aside, they are not real Diclonius like her. While part of this comes from affection for those at Maple House and her love for Kouta, the former has an alternate interpretation. She could not know for certain the Kakuzawas' claims were false since, by their account, their supposed non-Human bloodline saw dilution, and she had never encountered such a person before since characters are Diclonius or they are not. Of those and many more unseen, she and her brother are the only ones capable of creating children. There would in effect be no way she could compare a pure bloodline to a diluted one. Again, though, her rejection was not only based on this idea.
    • While it is understandable why Lucy herself wouldn’t know this, it seems contradictory that the story itself is using how Diclonius’ ability to sense each other is what determines a true Diclonius when even real Diclonius like Nyu and the Myu personality of Mariko and her clones couldn’t be sensed.
  • The reason all clones of Mariko, even the “perfect” ones, have slightly shorter vectors than her is because of telomere degradation. In real life telomere degradation effects on a clone can vary from clone to clone and how the process the cloning was done. Given how vectors are purely psychic/mental in factor, where even two system members in the same body have differences in vectors, it doesn’t make sense why genetics should have an effect on their mental powers. It is also unknown how many vectors in total each of the clones have but some of them probably have less than Mariko as in one panel two of the perfect clones were shown with much less vectors trying to lift up the helicopter Nousou was under.
  • Despite killing her half-brother, saying that their bloodline had to end, Lucy tells Kouta she has to keep herself bloodstained in order to allow her kind to displace humankind. Later on, the Voice tells her they must increase in number, spreading her DNA worldwide. Also, while she thought there was no sunny future for their race, she knew that in Maple House she and Nana were accepted the way they were, and also that with the Chief gone, Diclonii wouldn't have experimented tortures anymore.
  • Kakuzawa claims that interbreeding between fertile Diclonii and Homo sapiens would just result in diluted human hybrids and purebred fertile Diclonii can only exist through inbreeding and the story uses this as one of the reasons their kind needs to end, aside from them being seen as dangerous. Given how he thought his entire family were Diclonii but were actually just homo sapiens with a bone mutation, he should not be seen as an expert on Diclonii. If the diclonii were truly beings nature, or whoever “God” is meant to be in the story, wanted to last and serve as a successful species then it makes no sense for there to be so many factors for them to not last.
    • There is no reason ever given on why the only two fertile Diclonii have to be related to each other with one even being born years later and through a different father. So if one of them was never born there would be no other existing fertile ones at all.
    • As beings who make more of themselves through a virus there is no reason the story gives on why they can’t infect more than a single sex and potentially make more fertile Diclonii by infecting more women or even have a chance for there to be both fertile or sterile Diclonii with parents from any infected sex.
    • The structure of the Diclonius hierarchy is meant to be based off of bees, the usual ratio for bees in a hive is that there is one queen and about 100 female workers for every drone bee with there being about usually 50,000 bees in total in a single hive. So if at the very least the Diclonius caste system were to be more "realistic" or accurate to it's very inspiration, then there should be a drone born for every hundred or so silpelits and an even rarer chance at a queen. If "drone" or "king" Diclonii, which are never given an actual name in the series, are meant to be exactly the same as the queen caste but just of a different sex, then an equal amount of queens and drones can be born. This can make it so that while the fertile class comes in lower numbers, it can at least cause more of them to spawn while still having much more silpelits. There are billions of humans in the world, so even if the fertile class is rarer, depending on how many humans get infected, then at least hundreds, thousands or even millions of them can exist. Given the debatable goal of the virus itself trying to replace (or at least displace) humanity, this more realistic look at the hierarchy's inspiration would be much more beneficial if one were to believe nature or "God" wanted the Diclonius to actually be successful in the first place.
    • As for interbreeding, since it is revealed the Kakuzawa clan were just Homo sapiens all along that were completely delusional, they truly don’t know how interbreeding between an actual fertile Diclonius and a homo sapien would turn out to be. So Chief Kakuzawa should have no actual knowledge on what the actual result is, especially if the story is trying to reveal that he is insane and believed myths about his clan being diluted Diclonii all this time.
  • Since Lucy was captured for 3 years and her younger brother, of indiscernible age, has to at least be some few years old, it is unknown why Kakuzawa just didn’t initiate his “Adam and Eve” plot while he already had Lucy captured, just like how Lucy’s brother was forcefully made during their mother’s capture. Given Kakuzawa’s repulsive and irredeemable nature he has already displayed throughout the story, especially with what he already did to Lucy’s mother, it would be folly to think he wouldn’t have forced Lucy and her brother to go through something despicable when he had her contained already.
    • There could be two factors in play for this, given how some things in the story were planned while some weren’t, if the idea was that the brother plot was already planned then Lynn Okamoto just waited until the climax of the series to introduce him for the sake of it having a big reveal for the sake of drama and surprise. If it was one of those things planned later, then it seemed like Lynn wrote himself into a corner about the contradictory Diclonius biology and nature and had to come up with an even more mind boggling explanation for how there’s only one male Diclonius who can reproduce, and either to add more shock or because he had no other idea of a way of how to do it, he decided to make this true male Diclonius the brother of Lucy. Either way, planned or unplanned, it seems like the male Diclonius was also made to find a dull excuse to kill off the species. Since a huge point the story tries to sell is that the Diclonius race can only live on in future generations through inbreeding and sterile workers made from humans, and thus use this as one of the points for why they need to be killed.
    • It is unknown what terrible experiments Lucy exactly went through, but why didn’t Kakuzawa also knock out the already captured Lucy and have some kind of surgery on her performed so she can have the mind control device into her is also a question. Again, likely answered by how the devices seem to be a very late addition into the story and as mentioned in one of the previous gaps above, the contradiction between Kakuzawa not knowing what a mind control device is at first when it gets introduced, only to have had one already in his son.
  • It seems strange how the mind controlled clone Diclonii can manifest vectors yet the half-brother of Lucy seemingly does not and appears to be of physical age where he would gain vectors. It is never mentioned if he could or couldn’t manifest vectors, if he would only use them under command like with the clones or something else. Adding to this idea, if the boy did or could have vectors, a potential plot or idea of how his way of spreading the virus would infect humans, such as the possibility of making more Diclonii of the fertile caste through infected females as a reverse of female Diclonii only creating sterile caste ones through infected males, is never brought up. If the boy never had the chance of gaining vectors to begin with, it still seems strange the story never discusses this at all, other than him having a mind control device implanted in him presumably to just keep him obedient and nonviolent towards Kakuzawa.
  • Since Mariko was easily capable of being cloned, it is unknown why the Kakuzawas behind the research facility didn't think of cloning Lucy, an actual fertile Diclonius. The only known Diclonius to be cloned is Mariko herself, the most naturally powerful one. It is obvious why the people trying to get rid of Diclonii wouldn't want Lucy to be cloned but any mention of those in support of making more having at least some sort of secret plan to get Lucy cloned is never mentioned. It is likely because the clone project was revealed to the Kakuzawas much later and by the time Lucy was recaptured she killed the elder Kakuzawa and her half-brother and the story was starting to reach it's end. It is possible that if the Kakuzawas thought of making more fertile Diclonius clones they would fear they would just go back to being diluted by non-horned humans and since the only known fertile Diclonii are ones related to each other any other implications would have been disturbing, however this still wouldn’t change I why the Kakuzawas also wouldn’t potentially think up of Lucy clones with mind control devices implanted in them to keep them completely controlled.
  • By the end of the manga it claims vectors weren't made for replacing humans but to destroy the world entirely so in this version of the story it's not like they could have ever survived if that event became a reality. While it could explain why most diclonii are born infertile and only spread through a virus, if their objective is just to destroy the world rather than be it's new dominant species, it still would have been better for them to not be completely sterile as being fertile could of added more too their numbers giving more of a higher chance for them to destroy the world in case of being killed as not everyone who gets infected may have kids of their own. There is a lot of insane, nonsensical and questionable factors as to why Earth would biologically program a species to have ingrained weapons to destroy the world but this seems like a huge afterthought for the sake of an action packed climax at the end of the manga, as well as probably a reason for why Lucy’s vectors go to space.
  • In the final chapter, as the ladies of Maple House greet Kouta as he leaves the hospital, Nana is seen without headwear of any kind, her horns out for all to see. She may have been under some form of protection arranged by Kurama, and while this exposure could have conceivably imperiled her during the tensions to come, no evidence for that exists. It is also possible most people would look at her horns and think them a hairband or accessory, but those in the know about Diclonii certainly wouldn't think so.
  • Not truly a plothole but seemingly a deliberate cliffhanger left to the readers' imagination is the standing of Kurama and Nana's relationship. The debate in this instance centers on whether Kurama was set to tell Nana (gently) that she was being silly about becoming his wife, or if he would allow for the future possibility of it. The various aspects of this option are in this article.
  • In the final chapters of the manga, Kurama gets his arm chopped off but in the final chapter he has two arms again. It is unknown if he was able to get his arm reattached, replaced with a prosthetic or the author forgot Kurama lost his arm.
  • Again seeming like a deliberate cliffhanger are the stated, depicted but unresolved fates of Anna Kakuzawa and the Agent. Alive but in the underground grotto that once housed Anna's over-large shell, their survival is by no means certain. The place was said to be oppressive, radioactive and sealed off by the sinking of the island facility. Add to that, to be rescued; someone would have to realize that they were alive, where they were, and how they might be gotten to safely. Still, the Agent was resourceful, and her fear of being alone would have her keeping Anna alive until a possible lucky break came their way.
  • Less of a cliffhanger, yet still an unresolved question is the final status of the relationship between Bando and Mayu, the controversies of this gone into elsewhere. Also at issue is just how cybernetics were able to keep a man so destroyed by Lucy alive and mobile. In this case, the fate of Diclonius Silpelit # 28 offers a clue about the mechanics of how this might have happened. Also stated in Number 28's narrative was the fact that her attachments could only keep her alive for three days. Whether Bando suffers shortened life expectancy is never brought up or addressed.
  • Another supposedly deceased individual possibly revealed to be alive is Lucy's only other childhood friend, Aiko Takada. In Wanta's wanderings, a poster that seems to show her as a young woman is seen, with an advert for her art show. Of all those revealed to have possibly survived certain death, only she remains unseen.
  • While it does make sense and is not impossible that Chief Kakuzawa would have two different research facilities to split the information for his own benefit and plans, the fact that the divide between them is that the main facility in the story just studies the Virus while the other facility just studies Vectors is hugely contradicted by the fact a lot of the experiments on the Diclonii at the “virus only” facility was testing, measuring and studying anything they could on their vectors and there are many infamous harsh scenes of how the scientists will test their vectors. Even if the secondary facility only focused on vector based technology, it is incorrect to say that the divide between them is because one studies the virus only and the other studies vectors only.
  • The development of the Vector Attack Craft tanks seems to have been a joint development between Chief Kakuzawa, his Diclonius Research Institute and the forces in the Japanese government that would come to oppose him. These tanks were not used by or even seen at the island facility. Also, each tank seemed to require the spinal columns of many Clone Diclonii, yet they seemed abundant during their last uprising. It seems possible that the Chief knew of this weapon's profound and vast limitations, and used cooperation on this front to maintain the pretense of an alliance even as both sides prepared for war.
  • Kouta relates in the finale that Doctor Arakawa became revered as a worldwide hero for her creation of the Diclonius birth vaccine, yet always looked sad when he saw her on TV. This narrative would indicate her role in helping to create the weaponized form of the birth virus went undiscovered. However, it is unclear whether this was due to an effort by the government of Japan (and perhaps allied ones like America's) or because most of those who knew her secret were dead.
  • On a similar note, the results of the efforts by the Japanese government to keep quiet their sponsorship of Chief Kakuzawa are unknown.
  • Nothing of the very process by which the birth virus was isolated and weaponized is known, though this is not without precedent; the many media adaptations of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein offer far more explanation for the Doctor's creation than the original book ever did.

Elements in the anime[]

  • In Anime Episode 3, there is perhaps the most obvious goof in the anime. While Kurama is lecturing to an injured Bando about the nature of the Diclonius, he includes X-rays and visuals with his presentation. Bando was still blind in that scene and wouldn't have been able to see these visuals. They were included solely for the sake of the audience in what is nearly a 4th wall break.
  • In Anime Episode 12, Kouta and Nyu find the police and soldiers at a barricade unconscious. The DRI staff depended on this barrier to keep civilians away from the island. Nothing ever is shown or said to indicate, that say, Bando did this at the behest of Kurama, or anything of the sort. The most likely reason for so many people suddenly left unconscious is that Nana incapacitated them, as she arrived in front of Mariko, Shirakawa, Isobe, and a team of SAT soldiers on the bridge leading to Enoshima, reachable by the path blocked by the barricade. While it insinuated that this is well within her abilities if she can pinch a pineal gland and disable vectors, there is no onscreen example of her using this knockout power. While Lucy was shown knocking out a young woman using her vectors in episode 6, Nana never demonstrated this ability, and it is unclear if the young woman survived Lucy's assault.
  • In Anime Episode 2, Yuka has a still-image flashback to when she saw Kouta and his family off at the train station for the last time. Accompanying her is a man in a kimono. Later on, when this same scene replays in full and animated form, she is alone. In the similar manga scene, she is accompanied by her mother. Yuka's mother does not appear in the anime, while neither version even broaches the broadly implied fate of her father. It seems likely this was a mere error during early production of the anime, but with who this man even might have been remaining a mystery.
  • This might be dub only but Nana claims that all Diclonii have the same amount of 4 invisible hands when explaining what her kind is to Mayu. While it's clear the anime gave Diclonii less vectors so it's easier to animate, the reason why all of them have the same amount is unknown. This can make Mariko having so many more vectors compared to the rest of the species more confusing but it is possible that due to her being in the worse state of captivity she was the first seen Diclonius to grow more than 4 vectors because of immense stress. Another possibility is that her being a third-generation adds some differences to her from previous generations. Whether Mariko always had her amount of vectors or more started growing over time is unknown in the anime. This is opposite to how in the manga vectors are widely more varied among the individual and are known to grow more in amount over time while in the anime it seems more stationary but they can still grow in length over time.
  • The anime claims that only Lucy is capable of passing on the virus where as Silpelits are just killing machines incapable of spreading on the infection. The anime contradicts itself as it clearly shows Silpelit Number 3 infecting Kurama. This has led to a misconception that Number 3 was supposed to be Lucy as a little girl, despite being shot and killed very quickly and her opinions on Kurama being the exact opposite of Lucy's, and that Lucy being the only Diclonius capable of reproduction means that she's the only one capable of spreading on the virus rather than being capable of actual reproduction. Furthermore this had led to a misconception that the Diclonii are all her literal children when all she is doing is infecting the actual parents so that their own children will be born with a genetic infection.
  • The anime doesn’t mention the silpelits’ rapid aging however it still very much clearly applies.
  • When Mariko killed Saito in the manga all she was was cut in half, leaving her still reasonably alive enough to detonate the bomb. In the anime, huge parts of Saito’s body explode and many guts come out and it makes no sense how’d she’d still be alive in the same scene let alone how she’d still be capable of breathing.
  • While in the manga Shirakawa’s death was the cause of her trying to catch Mariko’s bomb controlling phone-like device from Lucy, in the anime her death was caused by just walking into her despite knowing what she’s capable of.

Whole Series Elements[]

  • The ages of the main characters have concerns. Aside from Mayu and Mariko's age, none of the main characters are given precise ages aside from Nozomi, who must be around 18 since she is in her third year of high school. In the anime, Lucy's age is 18 according to a file on Professor Kakuzawa's desk, which also contains her height and weight. In the manga, she is assumed by Kouta to be 15 (which he notes would be Kanae's age if she were alive), but when they are children, Lucy is as tall as Kouta, if not taller. Due to Lucy being in her Nyu personality at the time, he perhaps based this assumption on her behavior or incorrectly assumed it based on her appearance (which is poor judgment since many people can be older than they look or vice versa). Kouta and Yuka also must be around 20 years old for them to be allowed to adopt Mayu under Japanese law even with her mother's permission, as twenty is the age of majority wherein one is a legal adult, and minors are not allowed to adopt children. Since Mayu attends public school, it is impossible that her guardians would not be on file within the education system. The narrative doesn't clarify whether they can adopt her because of their age or if Yuka's mother perhaps took up the adoption instead, but the simplest answer is that either one or both of them is of the proper age. Following this train of thought, Kakuzawa's threat of kidnapping when he took Nyu from them would hold more weight to a pair of adults than a pair considered to be minors in the legal system. Since such a small amount of information exists, all of the above is left to conjecture to find answers.
  • The depictions of Lucy's puppy vary. In some sequences, the dog looks very much like Wanta, while in others it is seen to be brown with patches of white fur. This mistake seems to originate in a scanlation error that washes out the dark brown spots on the pup's fur.
  • While easily dismissed as subjective to young Lucy's frenzied state of mind, also placed here are individual story elements concerning the girl who befriends Lucy at the orphanage. Her real motivation and her half-hidden smile aside, the bloody aftermath of Lucy's outrage over her puppy's killing seems to show the girl died by decapitation. Lucy later imagines her as an undead taunting specter with a hole blown through her head but still attached. The earlier scene is unclear, and again, Lucy's state of mind makes this worth noting only on a technical level.
  • It is unknown how fully educated Lucy was. While it is known she is more educated and knowledgeable than the average lab raised and younger Diclonius, she did not know what an elephant or giraffe was but knew what a wizard/witch/magician/magic user was. It seems to implicate her orphanage was so cruel it didn’t even teach her what many popular foreign animals were that many other children would already know. But if she got her knowledge on magic people from overhearing stories at her orphanage or from hearing it from an outside source from other people is unknown. How the orphanage managed to keep her knowledge away from information on real world things like some popular types of animals yet she would become aware on the idea of magic, something many kids would hear in stories told to them, isn’t clear.
    • One possibility is that, since the orphanage was said to actually be cruel to everyone who was an orphan there, not just Lucy, that they didn’t properly teach any of the children at all there and depending on how long the kids stayed there or were taken there, were more uneducated than others. But it is never shown how educated the other kids are there, just that the place makes them unhappy so they take it their unhappiness out on others because of the terrible environment.
    • Another possibility is that Lucy never even knew of magic until she left the orphanage, and probably got to learn many more things during her 5 years of constantly roaming around and spying on people and killing them to live in their houses for some time. But lots of information on Lucy’s life is scarce, outside of showing flashbacks that lead to or explain the most significant moments in her life, so it’s hard to come to some kind of conclusion.
  • Whereas in the anime this plot point is never mentioned, in the manga it stated that Lucy was ready and meant to be set up to go to a “safer location meant to contain her, as the current one wasn’t even enough” in Kurama’s conversation with the Prime Minister. This plot point is never brought up or mentioned again, nor is what location she was specifically meant to be sent to or what it was like. Given how important it was made to relocate the queen from one place to another, because she was considered too dangerous in one place and presumably safer in another, it is kind of a big deal and thus a bit of a plot hole in how anything with it is never brought up again. Since it was only mentioned very early on in the story, it is unknown if the reason it wasn’t mentioned again was because Lynn Okamoto forgot, he retconned it or just didn’t care to bring it up again. Likely it could be the former two, as he could have thought Lucy’s escape with help from a suspicious scientist, going against the lab’s rules, was enough and didn’t know what to do with or didn’t feel like expanding on the idea of her being sent to another institutionalized location or he simply forgot that he even added that discussion into the story after a while.
    • Another potential reason is perhaps he planned Lucy to be even more powerful or have more abilities and sets of powers in early writing and then the idea got scrapped or ditched. As there wasn’t anything the story provided in showing that Lucy with her current powers, pre-massive vector growth, was all that dangerous that she needed to be transferred from her already sizable location compared to some other Diclonii who were even more powerful than her at the time, such as Mariko, and have no mention of them needing to be transferred (but perhaps even their greater power was planned later.) Take how Kisaragi’s manga death had her killed by Lucy’s bare hands rather than vectors only for nothing like this to ever happen again, with any Diclonius, as they only use vectors and not raw brute strength from their physical bodies. While it is highly speculative, it still has a chance to be a possibility.
  • Probably less of a plot hole and more of a question had by a number of fans, given how Lucy is psychopathic yet still has been able to show sympathetic and empathetic traits towards people, even refusing to initially fight Nana because she saw her as one of the only “(actual) people” at the time until Nana refused to go away, it has been a question among some people, both fans and non-fans, of why Lucy didn’t try to free the other Diclonius at the lab. It makes no sense for a girl who actually has and gotten to even sympathize with non-Diclonii humans, who at one point saw Diclonii as the only actual people, to not even try to have any plans to find ways to let them free at every opportunity she had at her times at the lab. While narratively, it can be assumed that in the beginning there was meant to be a secret kept that there were other people like Lucy at the lab in the series’ opening and thus, we wouldn’t even see her try to let others escape because of it as she freely massacres the guards in the facility, on her second time on the island when she was roaming around the facility once again, it is awkward how there is no presentation or implication of her at least trying to use the opportunity to free the remaining Silpelits. Even at times where it would have been from a less sympathetic standpoint but a hateful one, it would have been a better strategy to free them based on the DNA Voice wanting their kind to spread out and eradicate all non-Diclonius humans.
  • While a common complaint or criticism about Lucy’s escape is why she needed a key to escape if she could just break her surroundings containing her can be easily answered by how her vectors were growing over time and were weaker before she was taken to the facility, a much more questionable situation is how Lucy was experimented on in the time of her capture in the first place. It is never explicitly stated, but heavily implied in both versions, that Lucy was in the same contained position with her straight jacket and anti-Diclonius technology over her all through out her time in confinement. Since the Diclonii clones were shown feeding through a hole near their mouth area in one chapter, that could explain how she was being fed and drinking. But how and when she were to be bathed, have to remove waste/urine or get checked up on for any other reasons is very unknown.
    • A possible plot hole that is an actual canon example of this criticism for the escape of Lucy can be applied to Mariko. Unlike the less powerful Lucy, Mariko was the most powerful one of her kind and can use her vectors pretty well and efficiently. So it is unknown why she didn’t use her vectors free herself, either by consciously or unknowingly/accidentally being destructive. While one possible reason is that, as a little girl trapped in constant darkness, she could have been much more scared of the outside world and thought whatever room she could have come out to would have been way worse and wouldn’t come out unless commanded to by her manipulative “mommy”, there is no proof or implication she thought this way either and one big desire was her always wanting to come to the outside world and see the light and she always hated her time in confined constant darkness.
  • Mariko was in a room in complete and constant darkness all her life but is somehow able to see perfectly fine once released. This seems odd as there is logical thought put into her not being able to move, and thus physically weak, due to only being fed on grains but no thought about how constant darkness would effect her sight. It is also unknown why she had a unique “mask” of bandages and a small metal surrounding across her face instead of the usual anti-Diclonii helmets which could have served the same purpose. There is no need for it either as she lacks any injuries other than a fully weak body and her constant time in darkness makes the mask or face covering redundant as it doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than making her seem more mysterious or spooky towards the audience.
  • While not much of a plot hole as it is something left unanswered, it is unknown if the flip-phone like device needed to control Mariko’s bombs was something she needed every few minutes of her life ever since she had bombs implanted in her or if the device was recently set to go off every 30 minutes to go off if the password wasn’t typed once she was set on her mission. Neither is ever confirmed and only left up to speculation.
  • It is unknown how Nana knew she could make a fire when she needed it, perhaps there was an experiment she was in or saw that involved fire that made her learn about it, but this is never confirmed at all and highly speculatory.
  • The size of the vectors is heavily inconsistent, even more so in the manga. While in the anime they can vary from actual arm sizes to thinner to much bigger, the manga has vectors that change to be small to growing to enormous sizes. It can make some sort of sense that really long vectors can become very big vectors, such as when Lucy's vectors started reaching out to space, there have even been shorter vectors that look absolutely huge. When Lucy's powers first awoke in the manga the size of her vectors were absolutely massive and huge sets of arms can be seen ripping Tomoo apart. It should be noted that at this point, Lucy's vectors weren't even 2 meters yet being only around 1 meter. While the length and amount of vectors is answered in both versions the actual widths and massiveness of them is never answered in either.
  • After Lucy escapes from Professor Kakuzawa, she is once again struggling to avoid reverting to Nyu. By the next time she is seen only a few chapters later, this seems to no longer be a concern.
  • It is unknown if Kouta, Yuka, and Kanae are related by blood, adoption or marriage. There seems to be likely explanation, that while not explicitly stated is implied, in the manga version of the train departure scene in Lucy's childhood flashback. In this, in the original untranslated version, Kouta's father uses a form of address to Yuka's mother that one would only use to a younger sibling. It now seems likely that Kouta's father was the older brother of Yuka's mother, also making the fact that they're staying together allowable to polite society. It still remains uncertain if there’s a blood relation or not. However, this information remains only implicated by phrasing but at least gives a point of reference of whose side is on who’s.
  • It is unknown if Yuka and Kouta’s first ever interaction was their visit to each other on that same infamous summer where his father and sister got killed or how many times they got to interact in childhood in total, pre-amnesia Kouta.
  • In Anime Episode 13, Yuka states that Kouta spent one year in a hospital following Lucy's murder of his family. What sort of hospital remained unstated, and though Yuka states it was for shock, it is also unknown if this was for the physical or mental shock. If he had been ten to eleven when this occurred, and possibly/likely as old as 20 when he returned at the start of the series, then seven years of his life are unaccounted. Not even the vaguest mention of who he stayed with or where he lived is brought up. Also left out is the criteria for releasing him from care when his memories had not yet returned. The manga offers no information for Kouta's years between the murders and his return to Kamakura. However, the manga mentions that he is from Hokkaido, and his grandmother is referred to in present tense just before his family is murdered, leaving her a strong candidate for guardian during those missing years but still remains uncertain and it still seems odd to not at least mention or imply who could have raised him in all that time.
  • The story does not mention the existence of Kouta’s mother at all. While it is known that a biological mother should exist for Kouta, absolutely nothing about her, explicitly or implied, is even mentioned. Why the story didn’t either just give some quick and easy explanation of what happened to her is unknown.
  • In his childhood, Kouta mentions that he likes drawing and wants to become a biologist when he grows up, as well as some other interests. Neither of these interests, goals and/or hobbies are mentioned later again in the story. While it could be because of his amnesia making him forget many things and doing less activities in life, this is never pointed out and was probably more of a point of Kouta’s life/character that Lynn either forgot or didn’t care to expand on. Although, given his regrets on how he felt on how underdeveloped Kouta was, showing more interests and traits for the character would have been helpful and it seems more likely he forgot to touch upon it again.
  • No mention is made of the fate of Mayu's birth father, or of her mother and stepfather after she leaves them for good. Given the acrimony and pain of her departure, this is hardly surprising.
  • The woman who claimed Wanta from Mayu, saying he was her dog, James, is never seen again after Wanta returns to Mayu. While the vanishing of such an ancillary character is not noteworthy, in her one scene, she was vociferous and determined to reclaim what she saw as her dog. While any number of explanations exist (including Mayu being on the lookout for this woman), the police in the area knew about Mayu, and her new home was likely registered. This lack of effort at least calls into question either the woman's veracity or her attachment to a dog she had already lost once. Another explanation is that she gave up on "James", realizing he was better with his new owners. There is also the theory that she was one of the people killed later on in Lucy's murders but this remains unconfirmed. Also, Wanta's startled reaction at seeing the woman, along with her general attitude and the parallels between Mayu and Wanta suggest that she was abusive towards him, explaining why he would run away from her not once but twice.
  • When first introduced, Yuka explains that Nozomi's family opposed her singing, feeling instead she should train to take over the family business. In a manga chapter focusing solely on her, we see only her father, and not only are neither the company nor other members of the family brought up, but his sometimes violent opposition is said to stem from health concerns regarding her mother's death. However, this can be explained by how the original Japanese wording is somewhat less specific and doesn't really imply the existence of other family members the way the word "family" does, instead using terms like ノゾミちゃんの家 (lit. Nozomi-chan's house) and おうちの人 (lit. the person/people in the house) that can just as well refer solely to her father. Also, as Nozomi's father was keeping her throat condition a secret from her so as to not send her into despair like her mother, it is likely that the only reason Nozomi (and thus Yuka and the others) knew for him forbidding her from singing was because he wanted her to focus on inheriting his company.
  • While many factors can and do rob gifted singers of their voice, the particular throat flaw said to give and then rob Nozomi and her mother of their singing voices (perhaps their speaking voices as well), does not exist in the real world. Further, her father cites some ideas about the Japanese throat not being made for opera, a claim that is wholly unsupported. While culturally, there would not be a large base of prior Western-style opera singers to study and emulate, there would be no physical limitation on pursuing this. Soprano Dramatico, the booming, projecting voice that Nozomi and her mother were gifted with, is vulnerable to over-use, but this can be exacerbated by substances like alcohol and tobacco. It is not known whether Nozomi's mother took any precautions against potential loss, or if she was just very fragile in that regard. There is also no guarantee that Nozomi would inherit that vulnerability along with the gift. At least some of these ideas seem to stem from either a misunderstanding by the mangaka or in-universe on the part of Nozomi's badly upset father.
    • Given how later on in the story Nozomi does actually lose her voice to “Soprano Dramatico” only to get it back, it seems to be treated as an actual condition and not a superstition. While a misunderstanding on Lynn Okamoto’s behalf is possible, it could also be likely he intentionally made up Soprano Dramatico as a source for conflict and drama surrounding singing as a result of not knowing many real world factors and conditions that could cause one to lose or ruin their own voice. He also probably thought it’d be simpler if there was some kind of “genetic factor” that played into it as an easy way to connect it with her mother, but there still could have been similar things that could have caused fear of Nozomi suffering that same fate of losing her voice like her mother by other conditions.
  • In one flashback it is revealed that Lucy actually knew of Nozomi in the past, even if not so closely or personally. It is implied that she would regularly hear her sing in the forest and listen to her. It is unknown how long this would last as Lucy was shown carrying her puppy who died on the day she would gain her powers and become a killer. But it is never brought up again how Lucy technically knew of Nozomi in the past, even when her personality awakens and became sympathetic over all the Maple House and viewed them all as friends. Nozomi would go to the same location for 10 years and it seems strange how one of the two knowing the other in the past is not only never brought up again but also when Lucy became murderous, how that affected Nozomi going out more and often to a place where Lucy was close to specifically that Nozomi described as a “nearby mountain” which indicates it’s not far from where she lives. It was never shown if the murderous Lucy managed to treat Nozomi without negative actions similar to Kouta or Aiko Takada, if Lucy ever thought of interacting with her and forming some kind of relationship in some way like she later would do with Aiko or the chance of Nozomi’s strict father finding many ways to keep Nozomi trapped and shut in more, as a man stricter than Kouta’s dad, and she would go to that place less and less over the years while coincidentally avoiding times when Lucy is there. While it doesn’t have to be seen as a plot hole, it is rather something very unexplained and quite the question for two characters who would later be part of the same household.
  • Most characters in the series have either only a given name or only a family name. Some few otherwise important characters have no name at all; as stated above, this may include the series main character. Technically this is less of a narrative gap and just an intentional “themed” choice from Lynn Okamoto as he said he found the idea of a series where some characters go by given names and other go by surnames to be “cool.”
  • In the anime, Kurama leaves a voice recording in Nana's escape pod explaining his actions in sending her away. In the manga version, however, he leaves a note which the unworldly Nana should not be able to read.
  • Thankfully for the residents of Maple House, none seemed to have been arrested or held and questioned for harboring a fugitive so wanted and dangerous, the Japanese government felt it necessary to invade a private home and neighborhood. While the government's desire to keep things quiet was also in play, this just as easily could have been achieved by locking them all up. While the residents' cooperation could be inferred after the fact since they had no information to bargain with, they would at least be in the peril of imprisonment. This possibility does not come up again.
  • After rescuing Mayu and Nana from the vicious Unknown Man, Bando offers to bury the mutilated body of Number 28. As he leaves Maple House, he at last encounters Lucy as Nyu, and attempting to kill her, instead, awakens the Lucy personality. The two decide to settle their feud at Yuigahama Beach and proceed there to do battle. Given the immediacy of this confrontation, including Nana still being ill from the toxins fired into her by Unknown Man's specialized crossbow, and Bando's fate from that battle, there seems to be little to no time for him to have buried Number 28, even in a makeshift grave. The possibility exists that when Bando's body was taken away (presumably by government forces opposed to the Kakuzawas), those who did so also collected Number 28's remains. Analysis and reverse-engineering of her life support could explain the equipment later used to keep Bando himself alive, though his long-term survival remains an open question.
  • Near the end of the series, Chief Kakuzawa shows Lucy her half-brother, the only Male Diclonius seen in either version of the series. Kakuzawa declares the boy to be rare, almost unheard. There is no given reason, scientific or science-fictional as to why the overwhelming majority of Diclonius shown or inferred were female. However, since all Diclonius except for Lucy and her brother were sterile, this point, while a curiosity, is moot.
  • Chief Kakuzawa's plan to erase Humanity by causing all future births to be Diclonius seems to have concerns. If the Diclonius being born are Silpelit-only, then even if Lucy had agreed to join him, she and her brother could not have even begun to reasonably repopulate the Earth with fertile Diclonii, all concerns about inbreeding aside. Given that he wished to control this situation, it seems unlikely he would allow other "Primary" Diclonius to exist, if they did or if they were to emerge by accident. This discrepancy could be chalked up to the Chief's other delusions corrupting his logic on these questions as well.
  • Given how the name Kakuzawa means "horn dale" or "valley of the horns", how no one came to find people with such an oddly specific and coincidental last name who experiment on horned people to be suspicious is quite odd. Especially given how it doesn't seem to be a normal name in Japanese and just a term. No character points it out not even mockingly or jokingly that the family with "horns" literally in their name have established a whole facility researching about people with horns.
  • The alignment of Doctor Kurama against the plans of Chief Kakuzawa does not depict his learning of or joining Saseba. During the Mariko arc, he is obviously in command of military forces not under the control of the Chief. It would seem likely he was recruited by his former subordinate Shirakawa, secretly a Saseba mole (at least in the manga), but again this is never stated or implied after Kurama sends Nana away to save her life and prepares to flee the Diclonius Research Institute.
  • While fighting Bando, Nana has part of one of her artificial arms shot off by gunfire. This damage, which would require plastic repair she has no access to, is never seen or brought up again.
    • In a similar way, she's presented with scars nearly everywhere, but after the 2nd volume her body is clean.
  • Since Lucy's initial method of seeking shelter (killing whole families and staying in their homes) while on her own drew attention and the scrutiny of law enforcement, it is reasonable to assume she adjusted her strategies in doing so. How she did this during the five years between the murder of Kouta's family and her capture is never addressed.
  • The exact nature and origins of the Diclonius DNA Voice are never made entirely clear in the anime but given the manga’s end it makes it more clear it’s part of the Diclonius’ natural biology, what could be more questionable is if the personality only manifests after a Diclonius’ violent instincts are “unlocked” somehow.
  • The anime decides to give all the Diclonii pink hair and pink or red eyes, likely to look even more different from normal humans, yet this change is never given any story relevancy. While it's easy to assume that maybe a Diclonius seen in public could have hair dye and eye contacts, no one ever mentions how weird it is for a child to actually be born with such noticeable traits as they only ever mention horns. The fact some humans who had unrealistic hair colors (like Mayu who's hair went from dark green to brown yet her purple eyes were changed to pink) are changed to have more realistic ones makes this a bit more strange. But one can assumed their hair is dyed as well. Since Kouta and Arakawa have blue eyes, which isn't very common for a Japanese person, and Kanae has purple eyes in the anime the unusual eye color aspect being ignored could be forgiven. It could also possibly be a purely stylized choice among the anime and not what is actually seen, similar to how the light skinned characters on The Simpsons are depicted with yellow skin but aren’t actually meant to be yellow, but this is also unconfirmed.
  • The anime seemed to make the Diclonius vectors come out of the backs to give a more consistent area for them to come out of. However this might just be an animation thing as there are times when the vectors are shown coming out of thin air or behind the Diclonius' body but not from the body. In the manga some panels look like the vectors come from behind the Diclonius' and it is unknown if the anime chose a certain body part for them to come out of so it's easier to tell a Diclonius' range or if it was just easier to focus on a certain spot to animate. It is hard to tell where the vectors can exactly start in the manga.
  • It is never known what the exact limit is on the range Diclonii can detect each other. A Diclonii's telepathic range does not have to be consistent with their vector range as they can seem to detect Diclonii from more than their own meter length or even miles away. Nana managed to detect Lucy all the way up on the Sea Candle, while being miles away from each other, before Lucy's vectors went into space.
  • It is never said how the scientists or anyone at the facility came to the objective conclusion, and what evidence they provided, to determine that the silpelits were indeed sterile. All the series does is tell us that they are sterile but there is no mention in either version how anyone came to know that. Perhaps through certain experiments, like X-Ray scans or horrific ones like being cut up or operated in some way revealed they lacked a functioning reproductive system or certain parts of it like ovaries, cervixes, uteruses etc. or if they even had any of those types of internal parts at all. It has been implied that the Unknown Man may have not only assaulted Number 28 but other diclonii as well so it is possible they found out they were sterile through very disturbing ways. However Unknown Man’s free given assault of the silpelits, aside from them being seen as subhuman, seems written in more so because of how the silpelits are already known to be sterile and not because it was one way they could have found out. Given the inhumane treatment of the silpelits, a lot of conclusions are possible, but the story never gives a direct or even implied answer of how the scientists knew silpelits as a whole were all innately sterile.
  • Silpelits are said that in turn for having rapid aging, that they become sterile. There is no natural logical reason for this to happen other than finding a way to reference how the silpelits are meant to be inspired by worker bees which are usually sterile. There are also some examples of "laying worker bees" or reproducing workers in other eusocial species that can happen (sexually or asexually), so there is no reason a similar phenomena can't happen with silpelits either. Given what causes sterility in humans in real life, a species that Diclonii are in the same genus as and closest related to, a better reason for their sterility would be that it is common for silpelits to be born with a common disorder, condition or deformity that causes issues with the hypothalamus or the pituitary gland to form hormones properly, an issue with their ovaries or several other infections that can cause sterility issues. Why this common disorder would happen in the first place is another question on it's own, perhaps one excuse could be some weird instability in the Diclonius genome causes weird side effects for the newly evolving humans trying to adapt and evolve from this strange and unique virus, but it would make more sense than rapid aging being the sole reason for sterility.
    • Given how Silpelits are clearly shown to be able to at least artificially be cloned with the Mariko clones, yet there seems to be no knowledge or existence of human clones in the world, why Okamoto didn’t think of the sterile Silpelits having some special or “unlocked” potential kind of asexual reproduction ability, just like their worker bee inspiration, is unknown. Perhaps he thought all workers bees were always/could only be sterile, given how much of a common myth it is that only queens in a eusocial species are ever capable of reproduction and that workers are never capable of making offspring of their own.
  • In the manga, it is made clear that Lucy is the first ever true Diclonius and her mother was just a human with a mutation to give birth to the first ever one. It is never explained how her mother came to have or get this mutation or why she is the only one in the world with it in the first place. The earlier parts of the story imply that nature or “God” (who if this a real god or not in the story is left ambiguous) want the Diclonius species to be successful and surpass humans so if that is what whatever existing force intended, then it would make more sense to have other people be able to reproduce more “queen” Diclonii themselves if it is meant to be the new evolved species to successfully replace the previous humans.
    • The anime gives more of a reason to why Lucy seems to be the first and only known living “queen” in that there were actual children with the same mutation born before her but Lucy was the only “stable” one that was born as most others died early on and Lucy is said to be the only living one who can reproduce. This does create another plot hole in why the Kakuzawas seem to be “actual Diclonii” but are clearly far older than Lucy and clearly have reproduced as the Chief and Professor are biologically father and son. Since this was long before it was revealed in the manga they were really just normal humans with a scalp mutation, it is highly likely the creators behind the anime thought they were actually Diclonii as nothing contradicts that they aren’t in the anime.
  • Given how Nana only has four vectors, how she uses her vectors to control her prosthetics is questionable. It is unknown if she controls them by her vectors phasing through them, wrapping around them or something else. However the case, how it is visibly supposed to look like is unknown and when she is actually using her vectors while also having her prosthetics in stable use it adds more confusion. In the anime when her vectors are visible after she has her prosthetics, only two of her vectors may appear so maybe her two lengthy vectors could wrap around or phase the prosthetics but how this looks is still unknown. In the manga there is a scene where she is saving Kurama while holding him in her arms and all four of her vectors push against a light house to give her a push while all of her prosthetics are still intact.
    • It is possible the mangaka wanted Nana to use vectors to control her prosthetics, as he may have found the concept of a diclonius using vectors to manipulate prosthetics to be an interesting concept, but didn't know how to depict them visually.
  • Despite how the story says that numbers and length make vectors more powerful, only length actually gets used as an important factor with the effects of vectors, as the exact amount of numbers of vectors a Diclonius has doesn't make much difference in the story. In the Nana vs. Lucy fight the only advantage that is used and mentioned is that Nana's has longer ones but never how Lucy has way more than Nana's. Aside from a few, very little, scenes of Lucy picking multiple objects up where she would need more vectors, it wouldn't really change much. The only instance where more vectors as a factor is actually used is in the anime fight between Lucy and Mariko where Lucy has to run away after being overpowered by Mariko's larger amount of vectors. The fact most vectors are invisible could make it matter much less of how many hands are really drawn or depicted. So other than what are mostly very minor scenes, it would not matter if the viewer imagined a Diclonius with a few dozen or a few thousand, as numbers aren't used or shown to make a difference most of the time compared to range.
  • Something that has especially become more jarring in a post-COVID-19 Pandemic perspective, it is quite questionable about how the facility can keep the Diclonius and Vector Virus secretive and contained, as it has been going on for a near decade once the story starts. While it is not impossible to mitigate or lessen a virus, it is impossible to completely wipe a virus out, let alone contain it. Once Lucy started infecting people it should have been then and there that the virus started being able to spread out of Kanagawa Prefecture. With how many people she’s been infecting for so long, it would be way too coincidental to assume everyone she has ever infected is some inhabitant who lives there and not foreigners, travelers or people who may reproduce with foreigners or travelers. It would also not be wise to think that they won’t continue making more Diclonius children, accidentally or on purpose, and the lack of education about the virus would make things more tricky causing people to continue to make more of these babies without knowing what causes it. Not all children are born in hospitals or in public places so not every possible child with the virus could be recorded. Given how in real life Kamakura is a huge tourist attraction with many people, in a more realistic scenario Lucy’s first wave of infection should have spelled doom from the beginning.
    • As for keeping the virus and the Diclonius a secret, while it is maybe possible to keep such creatures a secret for about a month, something like a new wave of telekinetic, rapidly aging children with horns being born is not something people will just ignore, especially families who have those kids taken away, the entire plot of the Diclonius and the virus being kept a contained secret for almost a decade is a huge suspension of disbelief.
  • Less of a gap and more of a strange coincidence, the word "Silpelit" is a made up one that comes from the name of a female hybrid figure in the Elfenlied poem, so it is quite peculiar how not only the scientists decided on naming them after the figure in the poem but it is also the poem/song that was sung to the Diclonius queen by Nozomi.
    • What could be more of a possible gap is that, even though it is unknown who exactly decided on the name or when they first started calling them that, is how the figure Silpelit is a being born from a human and a monster but for many years the scientists had no idea how these children were being born, let alone the very idea of a “queen” infecting humans is what caused them to happen. So even by coincidence given how they had no idea of the true origins of this children, it seems odd that the unaware scientists would go with naming these children after a hybrid since for the most part, they were only known for just originating from humans.
  • From a more realistic perspective of evolution, the reason for evolution and new species to evolve in the first place isn’t because they are meant to replace a previous or more “primitive” species, but species will diverge from each other because of environmental and adaptational reasons. So if a species like the Diclonius would emerge, it wouldn’t be to replace Homo sapiens sapiens (or to cause any kind of apocalypse) but it would make more sense if the virus or any kind of infection that would make them came first and altered a human’s biology so that the newly diverged human can spread the infection itself. In real life the objective of a virus isn’t to hurt, harm or kill its target, as much as it can be one effect of it, but to replicate itself and it happens to need a host to make more of itself. Thus realistically this new infection spreading human species specifically made to spread the infection would have more of an instinct of infecting people than to outright replace and kill them all. However there are of course violent impulses they can still have, either out of instinct or environment, it would not be the main objective of the species to cause violence and kill life to the point of extinction.
    • To make reference to another media with a dangerous disease, in The Last of Us there are infected humans who become these infected to spread the Cordyceps brain infection. Cordyceps is a real life fungus that turns its victims into zombies but it only can infect simple life such as insects and not more complex life like larger more complicated animals. In real life there is no reason for it to start infecting humans (and it would definitely not just make the jump to overnight), as it would have done so already. The method that the fungus uses on the same creatures has been working for it and has been working for millions of years. But if a human infecting Cordyceps were to happen, The Last of Us still takes a more realistic approach to this alternate reality of infected. The series has the focus being more about the fungus itself wanting to spread to humans as much as possible to make more fungi, albeit through a disastrous way, rather than the focus of infected becoming violent on instinct and to kill people, even if the infected do become murderous as a side effect of loosing control to the infection. So similarly if a new mutated infection were to cause new kinds of humans or infections upon humans, the evolutionary focus would be much more on spreading the infection than killing the target. It may just have to harm a target in order for the infection to do so.
    • It would also take many, many, many, years for a complex species like the Diclonius to evolve. While speciation can happen fast and doesn’t always take thousands or millions of years, as there are examples in animals that only take a few decades or even less, a newly emergent psychic race of human beings meant to spread a virus with invisible hands with so many abilities would take multiple years and generations to evolve rather than it being that one day a random singular woman had a mutated womb and a psychic baby came out. While we can’t disprove that something like vectors or psychic powers can evolve in the later future, as what defines a psychic power can be broad other than it being mental in origin/nature, it would have to be the result of some environmental reason as to why it would evolve overtime. The following sub-bullet points is massive speculation about the possibilities of what a more “realistic” species like the Diclonii would evolve like and how/why they would or may evolve that way;
      • Going with how it’d make more sense for the virus to come first then the infected; a more sensible scenario would be a group of humans evolving in some area (like an island for example, a place where officially many Diclonii were held at and a type of secluded land in the real world where many species diverge and evolve) where they contracted a unique retrovirus virus, they evolved in species for several years to help spread the virus as some sort of symbiotic relationship and are naturally born with this virus in their microbiome, they evolved invisible appendages (which invisible; transparent and translucent animals and animal limbs/bodies do exist) to help spread this virus more efficiently to their targets and now those they infect have their genetics altered to only give birth to this virus-making species with fertile or infertile members.
      • If the sex of the parent wouldn’t determine the class of this species born then perhaps there could be a strain/variant of the virus that would determine which is born of the fertile class and which of the infertile class, as viruses come in many strains/variants in real life. Aside from spreading the virus and altering DNA/genetics there would also need to be some other factor in why they evolved these telekinetic molecular manipulating appendages as well. Given the bug inspiration for Diclonii, perhaps an explanation for why they have constant bloody attacks on humans is because, like a female mosquito who needs blood to produce children, they may need more blood or human cells to successfully produce the rare fertile strain as viruses infect the cells of the host to make more of themselves. The more blood/cells they have the easier the strain can be produced. The sterile class’ strain is easier to produce in mass numbers naturally as it is more automatically ingrained and common in their microbiome.
      • This could also add further to the debate about their instincts. Maybe they do not have to kill and chop people up to make more of this viral strain and could just take a fair amount one by one, but their slicing of individuals is a side effect of their molecular manipulating nature going out of control. While it could become possible there would also need to be some factor in why eusociality in this species evolved, but perhaps a more socially interconnected telepathic species could help mitigate and control the individuals better and help them keep their abilities under control. They could all naturally learn from each other, and evolved an easier way of obtaining information and being educated. It is possible separation from each other causes them to become uncontrolled and they start using their powers out of whack just like how ants that become separated from the main colony can start acting in unusual and unhealthy ways they aren’t meant to, like when ants form the infamous death circle. Like other humans they could act violent and out of control because of their environment or other reasons.
      • There wouldn’t be any hybrids technically as this species works more like a very complex medical condition and congenital viral infection. You either have a virus or you don’t so you either are a Diclonius (or whatever this adjacent virus-made species is called) or you don’t. Perhaps the way reproduction functions is if a human (regardless of sex) is infected with the infertile/sterile class strain and reproduces they only produce sterile members of that class, if a human is infected with the fertile strain and/or mates with a member of the fertile class it only produces members of that class and maybe if a human mates with another human and both are infected by two different class strains, it could vary.
  • It is unknown how the Diclonius at the lab were exactly numbered. If it either has to do with oldest age, their time of capture and being sent there, their room number or another factor entirely is unknown. If we assume Mariko being the last Diclonius sent to the facility post-mass euthanization of Diclonius babies is any possible indicator, then perhaps there were 35 main Silpelit Diclonii, one queen and 1108 Mariko clones which in total would make 1144 Diclonii at the research institute in total. However this can’t truly be 100% because of lack of knowledge of how they are numbered in the first place, and thus just speculation. It is possible Saseba had a similar number of Diclonii as well or many Silpelits that were once at the Kanagawa prefecture’s lab were just taken to Sasebo’s.

Time Frame Examples []

  • Mayu's time of living homeless is vague at best. It simply could not have been much more than a few months, since her clothes still fit her and are still intact enough to be worn. Known to the local merchants, her time in that place could not have been too short. A related issue is precisely how far away her mother's house is from where she fled to and from Maple House. Mayu had to register at a new school, yet Kouta and Yuka found her mother easily once Mayu was willing to let them contact her, and they made no indication the trip was long or expensive.
  • The period that Anna Kakuzawa spent as the monstrous Oracle is very indeterminate. She appears to be roughly the same age as before her operations, which could indicate either a short time frame or her real body being kept in stasis while she was the oracle. In any event, no narrative clues exist as to even a rough period in which Chief Kakuzawa would have made his request of her.
  • The capture, captivity and suicide of Lucy's mother at a minimum push the time frame and what few narrative clues exist to near the breaking point, though it can still work. Chief Kakuzawa asserts that once Lucy was known, finding her mother was his next step. At no time does he indicate whether it was merely the knowledge that a Diclonius Queen existed or the actual capture of Lucy herself that precipitated this. The former is possible, since, if his son and Kurama knew of Lucy from her class photo, they might also know her name (while never referencing it). Once that name was known, a search for a woman who had such a child (presuming Lucy was born in a hospital or had another legal record of her birth) and was known to be inquiring about her would narrow the search dramatically. No evidence about time frame exists as to how long Kurama's search for Lucy took. It is somewhat difficult to imagine Lucy's mother being taken too far before Lucy's captivity, and her being taken sometime after this seems to make more sense.
  • Also, a puzzle is how old Lucy's half-brother was, especially when placed against Lucy's captivity and the time frame of the series itself. If the rules governing aging were the same for both siblings, then the boy Kakuzawa presented to Lucy could have been seven at most, and then only if every last factor broke the way of his conception and birth. In short, the search for Lucy would have to be nearly a year in duration, with her mother captured sometime during the search. She would have to be impregnated almost immediately after this. The series events would then have to stretch over more than three years when the depicted passage of seasons does not support this. The greater likelihood is that he was less than five since not all of the events needed for him to be older would likely fall into line. The boy seemed quite tall for someone who likely could not have been that old, and who his father presented as ready for mating. Adding to the confusion, in this case, is the directly depicted and inferred height of Chief Kakuzawa, perhaps one of the tallest characters in the series. If the boy comes up to his waist, this implies an age past five years. The boy's mental maturity is made impossible to measure due to the control device his father implanted in him. As shown with the viable clones of Mariko, use of these devices inhibits coherent thought.
  • While context clues and inferences from the limited account by Kouta concerning the Diclonius War provide some guidance, some questions are raised by what is said. Chiefly, though never stated, it seems that the Diclonius born from Chief Kakuzawa's engineered virus were attacking much earlier in their lives than Diclonius created from Lucy and other horned girls vector-based infections, who seemed to gain their powers at the end of three calendar years of age. While mentioned, certain time points regarding the duration of the war said to place Humans on the edge of extinction are not made clear. It seems likely that the rules stated in-series for Diclonius aging and power usage did not apply for those created by the weaponized virus.
  • One of the major settings for the series after Maple House itself is the Diclonius Research Institute, and while not truly a plothole, questions abound about how and when it came into being. Lucy could only have been infecting males on a meaningful scale since the end of the summer she first met Kouta; her powers only fully manifested shortly before this. It would have been at least nine months after this that the very first horned children would have been born, and, by Kurama's and Professor Kakuzawa's accounts, three years after that before their powers manifested. Since not every one of these children would automatically begin killing right after this, it would seem odd that such a large facility already existed to contain them. While an existing building could have been re-purposed from the original National Institute of Human Evolution, one so large would require at least some construction and quite a bit of refitting. If Lucy was captured five years after meeting Kouta and taken to a facility already built, built-up, staffed and ready for her, then this leaves a very brief period for this campus-like building to have been planned. Its construction or enhancement required financing and authority, and its holding areas filled up to the point of ordering further births euthanized. Add to this, Kurama was recruited to work there after the facility's completion. It is hard to ascertain, absent a real or perceived immediate threat, why this would go forward in this manner.
  • It seems to be implied that the possibly oldest silpelits to be born that were taken to the labs were captive there since near birth. This is put into question as it would take until 3 years after the first silpelits were born to be truly seen as a threat.
  • Mariko Kurama was said by one source to be about five years old at the time of her release and subsequent death. The Elfen Lied series proper (present time frame) seems to have run two years or less in-universe, from Lucy's escape to her death. Mariko was said to be the result of Kurama's infection by Diclonius Silpelit test subject Number 3. Together, these events create timeline puzzles, not impossible to resolve, but still leaving a very tight window for events to occur. At best, Lucy could have infected her first surviving male at the summer festival where she first killed on a large-scale basis. Possibly, a male orphanage worker could have been affected by her emerging powers, but that still places such infection within the same year or so. Presuming this very first man infected were to sire a child immediately, and that child was Number 3 (Low room number aside, no indication was ever given that Number 3 was the first such child ever found), the time frame is still tight. Whether she was taken away immediately or found out later, the girl Kurama and Oomori met would have had to have been circa four years removed from the year of young Lucy turning against humanity. One account has the tests on Number 3, in fact, taking place four years after the first known (which Lucy was not at that point) appearance of horned infants. Kurama's narrative indicated that Mariko's mother, Hiromi, found out she was pregnant six months after this encounter, placing Mariko's birth very near to Lucy's capture and captivity, said to last three years. The confrontation between Mariko, Nana and Lucy seems to have taken place within a year of Lucy's escape. It is not impossible for Mariko to have been five years old at the time of her death; it merely places the timeline in a straitjacket, with every last coincidence falling in place to achieve this. However, given that Okamoto is no stranger to contrived coincidences (ex: Lucy's escape coinciding with Kouta returning to Kamakura; Lucy washing ashore at the moment Yuka and Kouta go to the beach), it's not at all unreasonable for the series to take place in a very tightly constrained series of events.
  • Earlier in a flashback in the manga, a hint scientists at the research institute used to find out the time of the start of the infection was noticing that all of the silpelits look around the same age, which was 4 years old, and the same amount of years they would be around the time of the flashback. Except at least according to the flash back it is meant to be when they were 4 years old but when calculating the years from when the infection first started and when Kurama got infected, then him having a daughter who would be 5 when she is introduced in the series, it should have been three as it was the same flashback showing the story of how that happened. When the series starts the infection started 8 years ago and Mariko is 5, making the oldest Silpelit Diclonius 3 at the time. Given how Silpelits do gain their powers at 3, there is nothing wrong with them being 3 years old at the time but it is strange how they are meant to be 4. Another thing is that Silpelits are meant to rapidly age so they shouldn’t look the same as a homo sapiens child would usually age. While the rest of the story does mention this, this flashback never got corrected in itself and was oddly used as one of the clues to guess the time of the infection. Even stranger as mentioned above, Mariko, does age like a normal child as she is 5 and looks and acts it. It is never explained why this is the case and while it is pointed out as odd for a silpelit, no one in the story ever questions why and how this is the odd exception when it comes to silpelits. Technically the flashback Silpelits such as the Ambush Diclonius and Number 3 have the same situation as Mariko, being “4”, around the time of their deaths but all other Silpelits outside of the flashback outside of Mariko rapidly age.
    • Even stranger, Mariko's clones should be even younger than her but do appear as if they do have the rapid aging silpelits usually have. They look much older than Mariko, appearing in their physical teens, but no one seems to bring up the odd difference between how the original ages and her exact genetic copies.
    • There is the question of how exactly old the Mariko clones were chronologically, as Mariko is 5 and the fact she is a silpelit but ages like a queen or normal human makes when she gained her vectors super questionable. If all silpelits gain vectors at age 3 no matter what, then because the clones were made to come from the diclonius with the most natural power, they would have only been made in 2 years or less. If the clones were 2 year old silpelits then they should look like very young children and not teenagers and even with the rapid aging would just be one year away from when they should actually gain their vectors, unless the clones themselves were engineered to age faster than the average silpelit. If 3 is just because it is a puberty age for the rapidly aging silpelits, as Lucy gained her vectors around ~7 (manga) or ~10 (anime) then, unless she had the Diclonius equivalent of precocious puberty but her lack of rapid physical development makes this seems unlikely or at least questionable, Mariko shouldn't even have her vectors yet in the first place which makes her situation truly an anomaly and the clones shouldn't have even been made yet in the story.
    • The aging of the Silpelit Diclonii as a whole is a bit inconsistent. It is said that they age more rapidly than humans but by how much is unknown. It is commonly assumed by viewers/readers that they age exactly twice as fast as humans but there is no concrete evidence of this. Depending on the version, it is often assumed that Nana is around physically 14 at youngest or 17 at oldest when the story starts. But the logic used to determine this is that is often used is that if she were to be as young as 4 then she would be 14 when 7 is actually half of 14 and 4 multiplied by two would be 8. More popularly, many see Nana as someone who is a 16 year old who has been around for six years but again, 6 x 2 = 12 and 16 ÷ 2 = 8 so none of the math people use is correct. An exact comparative number for how much Silpelits age compared to queens and non-Diclonii humans is never actually confirmed. The easiest explanation is that Lynn Okamoto wasn't thinking so deeply on how consistent this aging would be as they would just age according to how he sees fit. The anime version of the series never bring up how Silpelits age at all but because of the more developed appearance of characters like Nana, for a child who should be no older than 8, the rapid aging still applies.
    • The Diclonius infection went on for 8 years in total before the time-skip and Lucy was captured for 3 years sometime after Kurama realized that after the birth of his Diclonius child, Mariko, that vectors are responsible for infection. Before the capture of Lucy the infection was around 5 years old but the oldest Silpelits were supposed to be 3-“4” (the oddity with the flashback Silpelit age discussed above.) Since Mariko was a baby during the time they would search for Lucy and capture her, Mariko should have been chronologically ~3 when introduced and upon her death in the series and if she aged like a normal Silpelit then she would have been ~6 years old, through rapid aging, which is close to five. This makes it even stranger Lynn Okamoto chose to make Mariko a 5 year old Silpelit who ages like a human as he could have still made her a close age that aligned a bit better with time.
    • Given how Nana is much older than Mariko (but how exactly in both versions is unknown) it doesn’t make sense how Nana was meant to be a “replacement” for her by Kurama, being raised by him since birth, even though the person she is “replacing” wouldn’t be born yet when Nana becomes Kurama’s adopted daughter.
  • In episodes 10 and 11 of the anime, as well as the OVA, there are two pictures of Nana are shown wearing the dress she was given shortly before being sent to find Lucy. This dress was later her only outfit after being sent away by Kurama to be spared from Kakuzawa's orders for her death. One of the photos is in possession of Kurama, with Nana doing a mock-dance with a smile on her face. The other is in possession of the two Kamakura Police detectives seen in earlier episodes. In neither case was she near a position where these photos could have been taken, and never for very long. Their origins can be speculated on, but are otherwise muddled.
Nanaphoto

The photo of Nana on Kurama's desk.

Non Sequitur or Plot Elements seemingly against common sense[]

  • While often mocked or derided even in positive reviews, the act by Kouta and Yuka of bringing an odd unknown wounded girl home after finding her wet and nude seems at times to merely be a gift to the plot. The legal, physical and other dangers involved would appear to demand the intervention of law or health professionals. While there could have been more sensible reasons behind why they would even think of taking this random disabled girl in, the scene remains in question.
    • Adding to the strangeness is two college students trusting a strange teacher claiming to be this girl’s uncle, without any real proof or evidence, and giving her away like that. As well as how they needed to be told by a little girl years younger than them that the professor could have just been lying. Understandably, while one could at least guess Kouta’s severe amnesia could have hindered his intelligence and logical decision making by a lot, the fact that the more “normal” Yuka who has no conditions at all decided to just go with what could have been (and was) a lie was uncharacteristically unintelligent on this character’s part.
  • While later events may have (and indeed seemed to have) quieted some of Mayu's worries about Kouta's intentions towards her, at no point is she shown leaving those fears behind her. Given how terrified she was that Kouta was like her stepfather, this is unusual. However, Kouta's own actions within the series could easily have kept Mayu concerned.
    • While it is clear Mayu’s mother just wants her gone, it seems odd that her predatory step-dad wasn’t looking for her in some way, some mention of him moving onto another victim or a follow up of him actually getting arrested after being caught (either out of something like the insane jealous mother being angry that her new husband “cheated” on her and thus getting him arrested but for the wrong motivated reasons or someone else finding evidence about his history) or even being murdered. It is just strange to not follow up on these events, both narratively and realistically.
  • Though late in the series and in her life, when Lucy learns that her mother spent the remainder of her life searching for her, she has no direct reaction. Believing both parents had abandoned her drove much of her rage and resentment. The fact that one had not done so may have affected following events like her decision to spare the world and heal Kouta, but this dramatic reveal is never mentioned again after Lucy executes Chief Kakuzawa and her brother.
There are twins that live around here!

Nyuu Jr., raising the series's very last narrative gap

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