Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer

Episode 7

It's a time-honored tradition for shonen battle series to have some destined number of something; warriors, treasures, weapons, scrolls, whatever. There are lots of practical reasons why, from a writer's point of view: having a set number gives you an immediate goal for the story, gives the audience a strong point of reference for how far the plot has progressed, and allows you to cap off important long-term story beats by checking off a box on your big check list of Important Things. It can be a gamble though, like with Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru, which was canceled only four samurais in, making it obvious that the series was rushing to a conclusion long before it was meant to. Still, whenever you hear that there's five or eight or twelve magic Something Or Others, you expect the bulk of the series to be about ferreting those out. Ever the structural rebel, Biscuit Hammer decides this week it's spent enough time on the opening act, and just tosses every remaining Beast Knight at us with little warning.

That sounds like it should be a repeat of last episode, since we add at least six (twelve if you count their familiars) new characters in this episode alone. But it actually works a lot better here, because the show itself is aware of how unusually simple and easy these introductions are, welcoming more than a couple of them in as a droll joke, to the point where even Yuuhi and Sami balk at casually encountering the final two Knights just out on the streets. It's intentionally undercutting the expected gravitas of these new arrivals, and works a lot better as comedy than the more dramatic attempts at introducing Nagumo and Yayoi last week. It remains to be seen if that's a narratively wise decision, but in the moment I'll take mildly successful comedy over failed dramatics.

Though just because their arrival is funny doesn't mean there's much to these characters yet. Owl Knight Akane's only notable trait is being like, 10 years old. Mouse Knight Taro and Mantis Knight Hanako seem to have grown up together, but anything else about them is a mystery. We get a bit more time with Cat Knight Hyou, but mostly just to learn that he's an adult with a job. He's also a chubby character in anime who predictably loves to eat, but the show doesn't make a big joke out of it or anything, so I can't really take issue. Plus any time he's around that means there's also a cat on screen, so he might be my favorite. I also like our middle school duo of Rooster Knight Subaru and Turtle Knight Yukimachi. Mostly because it's funny that Mikazuki just shows up with them. I'm not entirely sure he didn't kidnap them from school. Also Yukamichi's face just gives off good vibes.

Of course, there's one other character who makes his long-awaited appearance, and it sure is a weird one. Animus, the wizard/mage/whathaveyou who made that big old cookie mallet in the sky just up and crawls out of his own Golem's mouth, to quite literally tell our heroes that it's about time for the second act escalation to begin. Along with that we even get confirmation about the increasing deadliness of the Golems corresponding to the number of eyes they have, and learn that the Swordfish Knight died offscreen just to prove how serious this whole battle really is. Seven episodes in is certainly a bold time to start earnestly fleshing out your actual premise, and while I appreciate a lot of the character work that went into this first section of the story, it sure does feel like overcorrecting after treating the Golems as an afterthought for so long.

That said, there's a lot of promise in the setup we've finally arrived at. I love that Yuuhi, our low-energy pessimist, has wound up the babysitter to a dozen shonen protagonists, forced to humor things like Mikazuki's thirst for fights and the like despite just wanting to go home – though even that's not a refuge with everyone treating his tiny apartment as the designated hang-out spot. He wants so badly to be a loner anti-hero playing loyal knight to his super-powered crush, and technically that plan is still in action, but the forces of friendship are going to do their best to drag him, kicking and screaming, into the warm embrace of companionship. I also love the chuuni as hell declaration he and Sami make before welcoming all the knights. Even in this highly compromised form, hearing Yuuhi declare his love for his “Lucifer” and Sami profess the same for her knight is just cheesy enough to land perfectly. They're messed up wannabe-villains, and them succeeding would be objectively terrible for the world at large, but by god I kind of want to see them pull it off.

And I am genuinely interested to see where we go now that all the pieces are seemingly on the board. After weeks of scraping by on character and theme, we now have an actual plot to rest those ideas on, and more than enough characters to fill out the rest of the story. Production is still scuffed, pacing is still set to Turbo Boost, but there's still a lot of interesting places this show can go from here.

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Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.