Liquid-crystal display element

A liquid crystal display element comprising:

• a first transparent insulating substrate and a second transparent insulating substrate, which are disposed so as to face each other;
• a liquid crystal layer containing a liquid crystal composition, which is interposed between the first substrate and the second substrate;
• for each pixel on the first substrate, a first electrode containing a transparent conductive material and a plurality of gate bus lines and data bus lines being disposed in a mesh shape, a thin film transistor provided at an intersection between the gate bus lines and data bus lines, and a second electrode containing a transparent conductive material which is driven by the thin film transistor;
• and
• alignment film layers which induce homogeneous alignment between the liquid crystal layer and each of the first and second substrates and whose alignment directions of each alignment film are parallel to each other,
• wherein a distance R between the first electrode and the second electrode is smaller than a distance G between the first substrate and the second substrate so that the first electrode and the second electrode form fringe electric fields therebetween, and
• the second electrode is disposed closer to the first substrate than the first electrode.