Nozomi

“	I...I've made up my mind. I'm going to live my life!	”
–Nozomi, standing up to her father in Another Happy Future

Nozomi is a recurring key character of the Elfen Lied manga series, a young woman of high school age. She is a manga-only character. Gifted with a beautiful singing voice, because of her father, she can't practice singing at home. She is aided and encouraged to pursue her dream by her senpai Yuka, and all the residents of Maple House, where she eventually moves in.

Biography

Nozomi is a friend of Yuka's, who met her in high school where Yuka served as Senpai to the nervous Nozomi's kohai. While possessing a beautiful singing voice, her family, most especially her father, forbid her from using it to pursue a career. Her father's efforts even reach abusive extremes. Both Nozomi and her mother possess the Dramatic Soprano (called "Soprano Dramatico" in-series) voice type, (a powerful projecting style) which is said by Nozomi's father to be uncommon for Japanese people. When she was only a small child, Nozomi's mother committed suicide after her voice was ruined, presumably by her over singing and putting constant stress on her vocal chords. Nozomi's father sought to stop her interest in opera, thus keeping her from suffering the same fate as her mother, through this abuse, which was at least once physical in the form of severe spanking. On other occasions, it was a dismissive angry tone that surely evoked that earlier brutal action for Nozomi.

The childhood trauma from her father's abuse lead to her wetting herself whenever she became too nervous, therefore wearing a diaper for her overactive bladder, even up to the time she was invited by a now college-age Yuka to practice at Maple House. This offer, in turn, lead to several awkward encounters with Kouta, whom she develops a secret crush on, and Nyu, who gropes and nearly sexually assaults her (along with everyone else she gropes). Kouta discourages her from thinking herself a coward, even calling it an insult to his friend, being herself, and to him by extension. The 'family' of Maple House delighted in her singing, bringing her joy as well, and slowly increasing her confidence.

Liking the people and atmosphere of Maple House, Nozomi often chose to stay there instead of at her father's home. Presumably, it is the knowledge that Nozomi is staying with her responsible Senpai that allows her controlling father to permit this. It is Nozomi who teaches Nyu how to sing the song Elfenlied. Sometime after the events involving Mariko, Nozomi moved into Maple House on a full-time basis, at last, having reconciled her father to the dream she refused to give up.

The End

Nozomi is among those injured during the invasion of Maple House by forces seeking to recapture Lucy. A soldier forcefully seizes her by the throat when she expresses concern for Yuka. The rest of the series is unclear whether or not this permanently affected her singing voice. During the climactic events of the series, she openly defied her father's wishes to remain in her sick bed and instead rushed to be by the side of Kouta and their friends as Lucy/Nyu is dying. It is possible that, narrative-wise this new strength of character is more important than fully regaining her voice. However, it is not unreasonable to speculate that she regained this as well. In fact, in the final chapter, she was able to talk with Yuka, proving her throat healed and at least her speaking voice returned. Given her closeness to Yuka and the others, it seems likely that she was also close to any children her friends later had.

Trivia

Nozomi is also a seamstress, at least once repairing Nana's tattered clothes.
Nozomi's family life, including standing up to her father, is the subject of a bonus manga chapter at the end of Volume Eight.
The producers excluded Nozomi from the anime altogether. This exclusion was said to be a point of contention between Director Mamoru Kanbe and series creator Lynn Okamoto. Her role as the teacher of the song that touches Lucy's hardened heart appears to have been passed on to the music box that Kouta purchases as a boy in the anime adaptation.
- According to Okamoto Lynn himself, Mamoru Kanbe removed Nozomi simply because he disliked her and said it didn't matter whether she was there or not. Apparently, another source states that the reason was because there wouldn't have been enough time to develop and flesh Nozomi out by the time she would have appeared in the adaptation. It can be theorized that for the compressed adaptation, it may have been a better choice to introduce a musical object as a device to provide a song (although the song not being Elfenlied renders this point moot) rather than introduce an entire new character for a song, as she would have been left severely underdeveloped and show up at a later time than anyone else, so her appearance may have even come across as random to those unfamiliar with the manga. Other reasons that may have complicated adapting her character is how her character arc revolves around entrance exams, which traditionally take place during the winter in Japan, necessitating the series to cover the timeskip in order to give her closure, as well as how German opera singing is hardly a part of the typical Japanese voice actor's skill set.
- Her exclusion from the anime causing contention between the director and mangaka wasn’t the only thing to be contentious about her. In the Elfen Lied community or people who review/discuss the series itself, Nozomi has quite the mixed reaction of if she was a truly impactful central character or if she was a “unimportant character who did nothing”. Along with some other controversies in regards to her character. This is explained in further detail in her own controversy section.
  - In the manga, she is probably the second most controversial character (in the sense of there being a common debate and discourse on the character rather than pure hatred) after her friend Yuka.
Although one could argue that the Diclonius are meant to be the reason the series is called Elfenlied, as the lyrics of the song are meant to represent them (Lucy in particular) or at least the idea of being an outcast, Nozomi is the one responsible for actually putting the full poem and song itself within the story and singing it to the very queen of the species.
When Nozomi first appears, it is her family's desire she takes over the family business that is the basis for their opposition to her dream. Later on, only her father is shown to be opposed, and for very different reasons. However, this is likely simply a misunderstanding due to taking the word "family" in the English translation literally, as the original Japanese dialogue is phrased in a way where it being just her father would make just as much sense. Also, as her father's true reasons for opposing her dream weren't known to her, it would make sense that Nozomi and her friends would assume his opposition was solely about wanting her to be his heir.
Nozomi appears by herself on six manga chapter covers.
The dramatic soprano voice type Nozomi and her mother possess notable for being powerful enough to sing over an entire orchestra. In operas, a dramatic soprano will often play long-suffering tragic heroines, as is certainly the case for Nozomi's mother and, though she is implied to pursue her dream, in the end, Nozomi herself.
The disease “Soprano Dramatico” does not exist in real life and there are many other factors for how one could loose their voice.
On March 4, 2021, Okamoto confirmed on Twitter that Nozomi's birthday is June 8th.
Nana replaced the role of a friend of Yuka who was a human that was the same age as Yuka and failed to get into the university they applied for the time being and was going to be an onee-san type character. Meanwhile, Nozomi is another friend of Yuka who stayed in the story and was said to be part of the initial outline for Elfen Lied as well. As two friends of Yuka it is unknown how Nozomi and the scrapped friend would have interacted.
In the series that was meant to serve as Elfen Lied’s spiritual successor, Brynhildr in the Darkness has a character partially based off of Nozomi (but mostly Nyu) called Kotori Takatori. Just like Nozomi, she was sort of a pseudo-third option love interest for the main male character, Kouta and Ryouta respectively. Whereas Nozomi had a crush on Kouta and doesn’t do anything about it (likely because he seems only interested in his cousin but this is never confirmed), in reverse Ryouta is attracted to Kotori but doesn’t see her as anything more than a friend and they only act platonically.
She is the only other female member of the Maple House that is genuinely attracted to Kouta. Where as Lucy got with Kouta in the anime (albeit very briefly because of her death) and Yuka is implied to get with Kouta in the manga, there is no media and barely any fan fiction where Kouta and Nozomi got into a romantic relationship. Likely because of not much media for Elfen Lied to begin with, them only staying friends and preferences for other ships.
- TVTropes lists her as a subversion of the third option love interest trope.
- Ironically, she seems like the least controversial option for Kouta as a love interest, given the criticism both Yuka x Kouta and Lucy x Kouta have with the former being his cousin that is also viewed as an abuser and the latter has been criticized due to her accidental, but still heavy, traumatizing of him, as well as a possible, but undefined, age gap between manga Lucy and Kouta. It makes it all the more peculiar how even among those who know of her, a ship between her and Kouta is rare to almost non-existent. Doubly ironic, this could also be because of some people having issues with Kouta himself and not caring to give him a good or any option for a love interest.
- She shares some similarities with Kouta as both are black-haired brown-eyed (both of their eyes look black due to low quality in common images) people with disabilities (severe amnesia on Kouta’s part and incontinence for Nozomi) who are gentle, kind and have dealt with constant beatings from a relative (Yuka for Kouta, and Nozomi’s father for herself) who may have “truly cared for them deep down.” They also were probably some of the most passive characters of the Maple House with more active, lighter haired characters based off of them in Brynhildr in the Darkness (Ryouta for Kouta and Kotori for Nozomi.)
She and her friend Yuka appear to be heavily inspired by a previous character from another of Okamoto’s works named Sara Wyoming from Elfen Lied, a short story that shares the same name with but is separate from the more famous one. While Yuka appears to take inspiration from Sara’s design, personality, childhood friendship and romance in the story, Nozomi shares a similar backstory, goal, motivation and occupation to Sara. Both are musicians with mothers who were famous musicians and have parent(s) that pressure them into achieving their desired goal through a child in some way but the child decides to do things in their own way as well as some other similarities mentioned more on the page for the short story. Despite being called “Elfen Lied” the short story had no connection, references, inspirations or even loose or vague things tying to it, Lynn Okamoto stated himself he just really liked the sound of the words and would title some of his works that. It appears when he made the most popular Elfen Lied, he wanted the actual poem/song to be more involved or influenced in some way and, aside from the Diclonius representing the elf/elves partially, he likely created Nozomi as a “retake” of Sara to make a character similar to her that would be more connected to the poem/song the series is named after as Sara was meant to be the main character of the previous story.
- Them being “split” inspirations for Sara could also be the reason Yuka and Nozomi are best friends as they come from the same “source.” Sara has a love interest called Akira who seems to have inspired Kouta and both Yuka and Nozomi have romantic feelings for him.
There is a minor fan theory that Nozomi was likely supposed to play a similar role to Aiko Takada, having a similar personality, backstory, motive and goal .etc. and, aside from Kouta and Yuka, was the only person that Lucy/Kaede saw in her childhood before re-meeting her in the Maple House. Nozomi was also the only person Kaede never acted harsh, cruel or violent towards both directly and indirectly (as Kaede had deliberate negative feelings for Yuka and was almost going to kill her and traumatized Kouta after perceiving him as “betraying” her) and likely either may have had positive or neutral emotions to Nozomi in the past. Even more, since Lucy still had her dog in the flashback that also means Nozomi was the first person Lucy technically “met” or at least knew of among the Maple House and there were implications Lucy often liked hearing her sing and both would go out to the same “comfort spot.” The idea of Lucy/Kaede and Nozomi at least having some sort of past in their childhoods is at least there but it cannot be certain for sure if there was a scrapped idea of Nozomi sharing an Aiko-like role or not. It does at least seem strange their past relationship wasn’t more expanded upon explained more here.
- If Nozomi was meant to share that similar role, it was likely scrapped because Akko’s (supposed) death is meant to be very important as the “promise” to Lucy that Aiko would be saved is the only reason that stopped Lucy from murdering Kurama and his colleagues, giving herself up willingly as an experiment and eventually having a vendetta against Kurama wanting him to feel the same pain by forcing him to watch the deaths of those he loves while he lives on to suffer. If Nozomi were to have a similar fate (even if a debatable one) like Aiko then it would not make sense for her to be able to join all fine and okay at the Maple House, as well as be a friend to Yuka for years, and thus the idea could have been ditched for that reason.
- If Nozomi wasn’t then perhaps Nozomi and Aiko were made as intentional “parallel” characters from the get-go with different fates, with both being the only two normal humans Lucy was fully kind too and being characters that subconsciously reminded Lucy of one another (this could even further parallel, in a way, how Kouta would often project other girls and women as his own sister, Kanae, especially Lucy/Nyu) hence her treatment towards them.

Nozomi

Contents

Biography

The End

Trivia

Gallery

Sources

Fan Feed