Lycoris Recoil

Episode 8

Lycoris Recoil has always been an anime defined by its duality, and at this point it's proven its ability to marry sweet slice-of-life scenarios with more serious action and intrigue in a way that's soundly won me over. So how better for the show to celebrate its talents than by taking itself on a little victory lap? After the heady character developments of last week, spurred as they were by an initial misunderstanding that Cafe LycoReco might be closing, this episode reveals that the cafe really is in some danger, clearing the way for Takina to take center stage and save it the only way it could be in this series: via an adorable montage of goofy antics!

Takina's always been the most self-serious of the LycoReco girls; it's kind of her whole buddy-cop bit contrasting with Chisato's sillier attitude. So taking this opportunity to turn Takina into, effectively, a money-conscious dad policing the budget usage of the cafe household makes for some pretty funny deadpan comedy alongside all the other, more traditionally funny antics we watch her work through with the others. The whole first half of this episode is loaded down with fun little instances of business management, mostly in service of showing off the kinds of cute aside antics the animators have become so adept at portraying, alongside the voice actors' ingratiating performances. So you get stuff like Chisato's casual bullet-dodging preceding some spontaneous martial-arts allusions while Takina stoically negotiates payment for a bomb-diffusal, before wheeling over to watch the girls pass out Halloween treats or perform animal-based linguistics exercises. If you've come along this far with Lycoris Recoil you're almost certainly down for this degree of cutesy-poo (with emphasis on the 'poo', courtesy of Takina's unfortunately-shaped parfait), and it's nice to be regularly reminded of how many different things the show is so good at.

The trick behind those treats is that, even before this episode shifts into more serious content in its second half, there's still plenty going on behind these ostensibly silly antics. Her conversation with Chisato towards this one's end makes clear that it's now been quite a while since she came to Cafe LycoReco, and far from her previous laser focus on just getting back to the D.A., she's reached a point where she really cares about this place. Or more precisely, the cafe is important to Chisato, and it's Chisato that is important to Takina, further signifying how far the latter has come in their initially-reluctant partnership. It's not just a clear indicator of character development either, since the whole exercise works to reveal how much Takina has a mind for budgeting and business management completely apart from her assassination abilities prized by the D.A. This ties in with what emerges as a major theme of this episode, and the series overall: putting personal talents to use for those you care about, instead of simply honing the skills that are most in demand by those controlling you.

Because it turns out Mr. Yoshi is still scheming to get Chisato and her abilities back under his thumb. Between him and Majima in this episode, a lot is discussed regarding the Alan Institute's prioritization of killing skills in those it takes in. Chisato, bless her artificial heart, still doesn't seem too aware of what kind of organization the Institute really is, but is simply dedicated to using her abilities to specifically make people happy, whether it requires gunplay or not. It's an approach that runs alongside Takina's efforts in the other part of the episode, as well as the show overall. Lycoris Recoil clearly has the chops to make a straightforward, 'serious' action series, but it also chooses to deploy its talents for cutesy character work and adorable antics because that's the way those behind the series want to make their audience happy.

Not that the series isn't above demonstrating how effectively it can deploy those more straightforward turns, or even interweave them with the sillier bits. Like I said, duality. Majima's meeting with Chisato is a great example of this, abruptly arriving just as we're done with the cute management montage. But for Chisato, being held at gunpoint hardly means she's in danger, something we, she, and the show all know, leading to the situation devolving into the enemies bantering about Die HardGuy Hard over coffee. It's earnestly fitting that an episode that was so cool and easygoing up to this point would maintain those same chill vibes for a major confrontation and backstory revelations like we get here. We still don't have the full context of what Majima was doing at the radio tower before a young Chisato showed up to thwart him, but seeing it happen feels a little more illuminating, regardless. And it's enhanced further by the revelation that for all the preceding hype of Chisato's actions at the tower disaster, and Majima's fixation on the event, for her it was basically another day at the office that she doesn't really remember anything particular about. Stuff like that action-movie setpiece is simply less important to her than making people smile by helping them out.

This attitude of Lycoris Recoil overall is apparent in how it builds up to this episode's big dramatic cliffhanger, with Chisato initially inadvertently dodging the machinations of Institute operative Himegama by simply putting off her doctor checkup. The show's duality manifests again in Chisato's fear of needles being a jokey revelation in one scene before turning out to be the instrument of her subdual the very next. The series even flips the script on its own usual structure: since this episode is itself mostly silly, instead of an established joke coming back by the end of it, Himegama's presence is used as a set of serious bookends, closing things out on a cliffhanger that pointedly clashes with the show's dedication to fading in its upbeat ending credits song. Contrast. It's an episode that makes clear just how far Lycoris Recoil has already come, while still remaining true to its preferred strengths, delivering on the duality of antics involving poop-shaped parfaits and weird robot sidekicks alongside casual conversations about anti-terrorism operations.

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Lycoris Recoil is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is a freewheeling Fresno-based freelancer with a love for anime and a shelf full of too many Transformers. He can be found spending way too much time on his Twitter, and irregularly updating his blog.