

In the _Elfen Lied_ special episode 10.5, there was a scene where Nana is
standing next to a wall where bearing this graffiti:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7miaJ.jpg)

I don't know if is important or not, but the writing is so noticeable that I
would like to know: what's written there?


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2015-03-28T22:52:53.190
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2017-09-26T16:00:16.880
2015-03-30T15:41:25.277
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question
elfen-lied
What does this (possibly Japanese) graffiti say?


This does not look like Japanese (kanji, hiragana, or katakana). The closest
you could get to Japanese would be by flipping the final ‘letter’ on the top
line horizontally to get 「ツ」( _tsu_ ) or a「レ」 ( _re_ ) plus a 「"」( _tenten_ )
and reading the final 2 ‘letters’ on the bottom line as「水」( _mizu_ ), but 1)
since the rest of the lettering does not match anything in Japanese, that
would be illogical to do, 2) the chance of mixing katakana with kanji is low,
and 3) “re” is never paired with a “tenten.”

If we take it to be the alphabet, you can come up with a backwards “N”+“USH,”
OR possibly “WASH,” OR you could interpret the final letter as an “L.”
However, none of those explain the two vertical dashes on the right side. The
bottom line could be either “PARNZIK” OR “PNRNZIK.”

**The artist would not expect the Japanese audience to be able to decipher the
lettering of the graffiti** in this scene. Students in Japanese schools learn
to read and write English letters in a certain, standardized, clean form, and
get tripped up if they see the letters in an unconventional form. In general,
they do not develop individual handwriting for writing in English. Thus, this
graffiti was not meant to convey any particular message to the viewer and is
not necessary for understanding the plot.

As an aside, in real life, many examples of graffiti are not written in
letters/spellings that allow outsiders to read them. It may be that this is
what the artist was going for, either 1) for realism or 2) for the ability to
avoid coming up with an actual message for background art.


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2015-04-17T05:20:01.387
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2015-04-17T05:20:01.387
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answer


I've made my comment into an answer.

Actually, the graffiti has been there at the beach all along since episode 1.
As people have pointed out, the yellow part could be a stylized "wash".

[![wash](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xp4Fd.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xp4Fd.png)

If you rotate the image 180 degrees, it now reads like "Asian" (and the
signature-like part "RMdVd").

[![Asian](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjobG.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjobG.png)

Now, no racism or anything, just making an observation. There is a term in
Urban Dictionary (I know, it's written by random people) that is exactly this:
[Asian
Wash](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=asian%20wash)[(ed)](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Asian%20Washed),
which means

> Some one of non-asian decent who is highly confused and believes they were
> born into the wrong race and are truly asian. They obssess over the people,
> food, and language.

I won't even try to claim that it defines those (Asian) humans/Diclonii who
wants to live as (Asian) Diclonii/humans. It might just be what is written in
the graffiti, which could be anything, right?

Likewise, I won't try to claim that the symbol on Kouta's shirt defines who he
is. But it is the [baka
symbol](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%E2%91%A8), right?

[![Baka
Kouta](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7dfko.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7dfko.jpg)


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answer