Lycoris Recoil

The number of terrorist acts in Japan has never been lower, thanks to the efforts of a syndicate called Direct Attack (DA). The organization raises orphaned girls as killers to carry out assassinations under their "Lycoris" program. Takina Inoue is an exceptional Lycoris with a strong sense of purpose and a penchant for perfection. Unfortunately, a hostage situation tests her patience, and the resulting act of insubordination leads to her transfer out of DA. Not thrilled about losing the only place she belonged to, she reluctantly arrives at her new base of operations—LycoReco, a cafe in disguise.

Takina's new partner, however, turns out to be quite different from what she imagined. Despite being the famed Lycoris prodigy, Chisato Nishikigi appears almost unconcerned with her duties. She drags Takina along on all kinds of odd jobs under the simple explanation of helping people in need. Takina is even more puzzled when Chisato takes down a group of armed assailants without killing any of them. Feeling like a fish out of water, Takina itches to get reinstated into DA—but Chisato is determined to prove to her that there is more to a life than just taking them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nishikigi, Chisato Main

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Inoue, Takina Main

Wakayama, Shion Japanese

Kurumi Supporting

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Majima Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Mika Supporting

Sakaki, Kousuke Japanese

Nakahara, Mizuki Supporting

Koshimizu, Ami Japanese

Harukawa, Fuki Supporting

Kawase, Maki Japanese

Otome, Sakura Supporting

Koichi, Makoto Japanese

Janome, Erika Supporting

Yagami, Yuka Japanese

Himegama Supporting

Ootani, Satomi Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Jinguuji, Manabu Producer

Yoshida, Yoshihiro Producer

Masaki, Miyu Assistant Producer

Reviews

Dec 27, 2024

MidniteAndBeyond

Recommended

I love how easy it is to convince me to watch something. I find so many shows I never would've imagined enjoying if I was being too strict with my conditions for what to watch and not watch. I simply saw the character designs for this show a while back and thought they were gorgeous, so it got put on the to-watch list for that, alone! And now that I finally watched it, I'm very happy I did! The character designs were definitely the highlight for this series! Animation was gorgeous all around, but I just loved watching the characters in various different lighting and ... facial expressions! Chisato and Takina were absolutely wonderful leads! They were super adorable and I enjoyed every single one of their interactions with each other. They have such a great dynamic with one another, being more or less total opposites. The villains also wound up being a lot more interesting than I was expecting. I kinda wish we got more time to learn about them, and perhaps some of the other characters and their backstories. But it was genuinely solid and constantly entertaining, from beginning to end. Could've easily been twice the length and I still would've enjoyed it just as much.

8.5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 8, 2024

Martynn_93

Mixed Feelings

I want to explain why I should make you watch this anime and why I shouldn't make you watch this anime.

Let's talk about the "backbone" of this anime, what the outline of its themes is and how the story itself comes to life. So, it should be noted that this anime is very good at showing action scenes, with one drawback, namely the logic in the story itself. But before I reveal everything, I want to give my personal assessment of two categories from Visuals, and Story.

[Visual]
If I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 7.50/10. ... Maybe you feel that the score is too average, and indeed, the visuals of this anime itself are not much different from the visuals of other anime. But if I have to compare it with other anime, I myself choose Lycoris Recoil as the winner.

[Story]
John Wick, I say in one name. Why? It's because of the main character herself. For those of you who don't know who John Wick is, in short, he is the typical person who is able to ruin an entire enemy base alone with just a pistol, a book, or even a pencil. However, our main character here is a girl, which makes no sense when compared to John Wick, a man. Incidentally, and this is just my feeling, the story contains elements that are similar to the John Wick film itself. Like our MC who is able to take down many enemies alone with only a gun, very good at acrobatics, and is not too overpowered with her abilities.

Let's imagine a special security organization funded by Japan. With only one goal, it is national security. Their daily activities involve thwarting acts of terrorism, bombs, organized crime, or acts that disturb society. But, this is what I don't like, cause that their organization only consists of girl dressed like High School Student. Of course, that way they can disguise themselves and are able to clean up targets without being noticed. For me personally, it really doesn't make sense considering a woman's limitations, especially if she has to deal with a man face to face.

[Conclusion]
I like the main theme of this anime in showing its Action. But how this anime shows its own world, I'm quite doubtful. So if you like a bunch of girls who can shoot guns, and defeat bad guys, this anime will be perfect and I recommend it. But if you are someone who is quite sensitive to the logic in a story, this anime will be quite annoying.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 22, 2024

ScarlettSkone

Not Recommended

I wanted to like Lycoris Recoil, but I found myself disappointed.

Lycoris is a comfort show masquerading as a more complex one. The dystopia is not meaningfully examined, and the problems with it are scape-goated onto a “return to monkey” anprim idiot. For the main two characters, I could ship it, but they are a little generic, as are all the characters. The existence of Kurumi’s character, in particular, makes me want to commit hate crimes.

It’s fine to write a silly show about cute girls doing cute things, but seeing Lycoris Recoil’s set up and promises of more exciting complexities while having characters dodge bullets on ... reaction time is infuriating. Watching it, I felt like I was watching something written but someone too scared to say anything for fear that it’d be polarizing. Lycoris Recoil’s cowardice leads to two big problems: 1) pro censorship and 2) it’s not gay enough.

1) The whole dystopia setting of Lycoris Recoil is used more so as an edgy backdrop than as the pretense for any real social commentary. This ends up as a big problem when the status quo of the world is one of censorship and main character Chisato explicitly defends the status quo against main antagonist Majima. It’s pro censorship, there isn’t any other way to read it than that. To me, it seems that Lycoris Recoil is too scared to say anything meaningful against the world it creates, trying to write girls that just want to live, it refuses to comment on the dystopia and ends up approving and accepting it.

2) Lycoris Recoil isn’t gay enough. I see this anime on all these gay lists, and everyone that I see accepts this anime as a fun little gay anime. Frankly, it isn’t gay enough. Yes, I do want these characters to scream from the rooftops that they are homosexuals attracted to each other. I’m somewhat exaggerating, that was a little hyperbolic, but my sentiment is sincere.
Stories exist in the context of the world around them, and in our current world, I could fully see a homophobic idiot watching Lycoris Recoil and then coming away feeling happy about how cute these “two best friends” are together. I don’t want to get into an argument about whether this anime is supposed to be gay or not, and dammit, my subjective desire and wants tell me this anime isn’t gay enough.


If you want to write a comfort anime about gay characters being gay, sure, but don’t try to use dystopia’s for their aesthetics, and it’d better be gay, damnit. BE MORE GAY!

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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