Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Lycoris Recoil
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Thesarum
Posts: 411 |
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There might always be no particular plan. The Alan Institute is a cult, and he appears to be a true believer. His "plan" might not extend any further than the messed up ideology of "delivering talent to the world" regardless of the nature or impact of the talents. He's got some disagreement with the DA, but that might not go any deeper than wanting to prevent their interference, as he seems to regard the withholding or disruption of a talent to be a heresy. He appears not to particularly care what Majima gets up to so long as he backs Chisato into a corner. Or that might all be a convenient front and he does genuinely have some sort of joined-up evil plan.
Mika knows what Shinji wants, I think he knows that Shinji was behind the bodyguard setup. Does he also know/suspect he's also behind Majima? And not just that but explicitly requested he target Chisato? It's not clear at this point how much of this he's explained to Chisato, or what she understood of Shinji's motivations from her interaction with him at the bar. It's more than nothing, because she's leaving the medallion in the locker. Other thoughts: This series is such fashion show. Our lead pair own the rock-chick look in the intermission art, and Takina's bar-date suit was also a strong look for her. Kabedon! The suspect drawings of Majima up behind the bar, like kids drawings on the fridge. Radiata seems pretty stupid, no? Fooled by what amounts to photoshopped video footage? Surely the great DA AI only dispatches assassins to crimes with intel corroborated by multiple sources? I mean otherwise... Takina can't quite keep her tsundere mask straight when Chisato returns to the cafe. The words don't quite match the massive grin. Not that she bothers with the mask that much these days. Just how does one balance a phone like that? The man is obsessed. |
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1363 |
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Looking forward to an art book that collects the eye-catches.
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1363 |
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Episode 8
Delightful training montage as Takina whips the café into financial shape. The toilet flushing underscoring Takina's special sundae just demonstrates that this series has a taste for broad-humor. The whole bit with Majima seemed off to me. Chisato can be bizarrely chill at times, but both his revelation about the Alan Institute and the surprisingly wide range of its awardees, and his mere presence in her safe-house all seem like it should have a bigger effect on her. The flashback to the radio tower incident was interesting all around --- from Majima's abilities to the fact that Chisato was already using paprika bullets. spoiler[Do you think the Alan Institute gave Majima artificial eyes at the same time they replaced Chisato's heart?] |
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Thesarum
Posts: 411 |
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Well, we answered some of my questions from last time.
Mika certainly knows now that Majima is Alan sponsored, both in the broader sense and most likely in the specific sense of his current activities. But he looks like he's explained precisely nothing to Chisato and Takina. Something it seems he's soon going to have cause to regret. Chisato still can't bring herself to see the truth of her relationship with Shinji and the Alan Institute. I think part of her knows, but she's avoiding facing it. It still looks to me like Shinji has no specific evil master plan. He's just a fanatic who believes he's doing god's work in "delivering talent to the world", whether the talented like it or not. I'm not sure why he was involved in the arms deal at the start, but everything since had been about Chisato. We got less of the super-fluid animation this week I think, but it mostly pulled it off. It played it for laughs with the whole "Takina takes on the cafes finances" bit. I can live with that if we're saving up our frame budget for what comes next. It was funny and cute. And what does come next? I'm gonna assume they're not just removing the heart, Shinji has looked like he's been trying to kill Chisato, but I'm not convinced he has. (And of course, she almost certainly has plot armour). So either down-rating it so she's not as good at avoiding bullets and can't afford to be non-lethal any more? Or perhaps the opposite, and they're trying to trigger some sort of rampage mode. The DA's operational security remains terrible. Presumably due to other Alan moles in the organisation. |
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Akcoll99
Posts: 231 |
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Probably the best overall episode yet, with a heck of a cliffhanger. My favorite part was Majima's red-eyed demon version of Chisato in his retelling of the tower incident.
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michizure
Posts: 177 |
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The revelation (during this week's vignette) that Majima's "talent" is auditory-based, combined with the emphasis on Chisato's replacement heart and her visually-based ability to track and dodge bullets, is giving me serious and unpleasant flashbacks to The Detective is Already Dead. Specifically: spoiler[Komori the Ear, Yui the Eye, and Hell/Alicia/Siesta/Nagisa's Heart]. Chisato and Siesta also have more than a little in common, both personality and character design.
Tell me this just a coincidence, a sort of convergent evolution of chuunibyou, or is there some relation between the production staffs that I'm not picking up? Now, we just need the twin revelations that SPES is behind the Alan Institute and that they enhance "talents" using alien biotech... |
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egozi14
Posts: 100 |
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I don’t thinks they’re going to spoiler[take Chisato’s heart like some people (or even wiki) hinted,
Heart surgery is not something you can do it in 5 mins with some random tools, and since her heart is a machine anyway if they want to retrieve it and kill her they don’t need to be that carful about it once they put her to sleep cause they can just grabs it out with force and that will be the end of it, Not to mentioned that it not seems like they wants to kill her or else it will defeat the purpose of blondy actions so far. I suspects they’re going to program her heart to stop working after few hours instead and leave a memo for her that if she won’t kill someone till then, she will be dead. Ofc there’s always the chance that Takina will jump in before anything of the sort will happened, but who knows~] |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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I was kind of surprised to learn that this cafe actually has to support itself financially, and isn't solely a front for Lycoris-ing. Their connection to DA remains kind of vague. Guess they get inadequate funding because they're the halfway-suspended misfits of the organization.
I also seriously could not understand what the issue was with the parfait until they spelled it out. Literally Takina. There was a weird sense of ominousness through the wacky shenanigans this episode, as it was clear that eventually spoiler[something bad would happen to Chisato, and Takina would potentially blame herself because it sort of resulted from her nagging Chisato to go to her physical exam.] Intentional tone-clashing really is a big part of this show's brand. |
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zrdb
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I don't like to read or write long winded diatribes but as everybody else says this is one of the coolest-if not the coolest-series this season.
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michizure
Posts: 177 |
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So, Episode 9. Say it with me, now: spoiler[The Lycoris is Already (almost) Dead]. At least Lycoris Recoil tells a coherent story. That Other Anime always struggled to have its cool flashbacks, plot twists, and revelations actually make sense, without having to retcon everything. |
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Electric Wooloo
Posts: 311 |
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"Maybe there's new meaning for it because it's broken?" - Chisato talking about the Radio Tower in Ep 1
Looks like Takina is going to learn the meaning behind that now that Chisato is "broken." Or at least she's realizing the meaning Chisato has for her not necessarily changing. My questions about Chisato's "promise" are answered now, turns out a 6 year old is liable to misunderstand things, eh? Now I'm curious what assistance Majima got that made him an Alan recipient. Was it just the guns from episode 1? Or was it further back? I don't remember seeing an owl medallion during his flashback last episode. |
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michizure
Posts: 177 |
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Wasn't it his eyes? In the flashback, he wears a bandage around his eyes the entire time and navigates by sound. The real question, as Mr. Farris so adroitly points out, should be, "What are we, the audience, meant to understand from Majima having been given eyes? How is that relevant to his mission?" |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18210 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Christopher provides an excellent analysis of the thematic elements at work in episode 9, so I'll only bring up a few other observations:
• If there was any doubt that Shinji and Mika had that kind of relationship, the hotel scene probably dispelled it • What the Alan Institute is dabbling in sounds more and more like the Black Technology of Full Metal Panic! • That there's no way to fix/replace Chisato's heart is the episode's one contrivance. Even if the heart is over-tech, Shinji still got it from somewhere. • Hard to fathom what Shinji's motive must be for ordering this done. He doesn't seem intent on killing her immediately, and if he's trying to back her into a corner to force her to act, then he doesn't understand her personality at all. |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1363 |
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This episode puts all the other episodes in a new light. Chisato goes from charming air-head to charming Zen master, and all those little moments go from charm points to timeless wisdom.
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18210 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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A couple of other points I thought of:
• If Chisato's artificial heart has a time limit, what's preventing her from getting a more traditional transplant? It's not like there haven't been a couple of other cases in the past few seasons where a chipper, light-haired girl paired with a serious-minded dark-haired girl has benefited from a heart transplant. • This is, I believe, the first episode which mentioned that Lycoris are only active until "18 at beast." Why? The series seems well-structured enough that there has to be a reason, and any meta explanation about how the whole point is featuring teen girls seems inadequate when titles like Strike Witches and Gunbuster 2 can pull it off. |
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