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EP. REVIEW: Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer


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dmanatunga



Joined: 12 Jan 2015
Posts: 51
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:26 pm Reply with quote
In a better universe, Bones would be handling this, and it would lead to a string of Mizukami adaptations from Spirit Circle to Sengoku Youko.
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sakurahitagi



Joined: 12 Jan 2014
Posts: 70
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:35 pm Reply with quote
dmanatunga wrote:
In a better universe, Bones would be handling this, and it would lead to a string of Mizukami adaptations from Spirit Circle to Sengoku Youko.


That would have been amazing. This is too good of a story to have such poor animation quality.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 10946
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:39 pm Reply with quote
It definitely feels like a show where the cast and the writing are holding it up more than the production values, which is a shame.

I'm not even sure what was the point of adapting a finished manga and delivering it like this.
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VerQuality



Joined: 01 Oct 2016
Posts: 136
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 7:39 pm Reply with quote
I'm still kind of dumbfounded about how this looks. Planet with wasn't the prettiest anime, but it managed to work with Mizukami's odd style and make it work. I was hoping that this series would have been a step up, but instead it seems to be only going down.

Sadly, it seems to be set on joining the ranks of manga I love that got an abysmal anime adaption, alongside Medaka Box (pretty sure I was reading both at about the same time, too). Now I just need a power-point adaption of Liar Game and the trifecta will be complete.
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njprogfan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Posts: 1155
Location: A River Named Toms
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 8:17 pm Reply with quote
I've never read the manga but only heard good things about it, so I went into this anime with some expectations. Man, I can't get past how crappy it looks. Normally if the animation is sub-par I'd look past it and go with how good the story is. This is straining that scenario. I really don't give a damn about the two of them, especially our over-powered female. If they can give me some background into her I'd go beyond the three episode try-out, I need something to latch onto because our male protagonist is as exciting as oatmeal. Suffice it to say, if the main characters are not doing it for me, a huge hammer hanging in the sky is not enough, and that's saying something because, well....it's a huge effin' hammer....
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JohnHawk



Joined: 22 Apr 2015
Posts: 83
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 8:27 pm Reply with quote
I feel like there's an important aspect of ep 1 this review didn't touch at all and that's the baffling large amount of minor rewrites. There's almost no scenes that are exactly like they are in the manga, whether its changing lines or reactions or adding entire scenes (such as falling down on the bike) while cutting others, it really makes you feel like the script writer... doesn't particularly like a lot of aspects of the day to day in the manga. Now like I said, these are all minor. Individually none of the changes are important or big or matter that much. But the sheer amount of them coalesces to a lot of characters feeling somewhat different from their exact manga counter parts.

It's all just very strange cause I've never seen an adaptation treated this way before, usually its pretty faithful, or faithful but adding fluff and filler, or just going pure anime only. But not just a stream of constant... edits like this.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2530
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 10:09 pm Reply with quote
JohnHawk wrote:
I feel like there's an important aspect of ep 1 this review didn't touch at all and that's the baffling large amount of minor rewrites. There's almost no scenes that are exactly like they are in the manga, whether its changing lines or reactions or adding entire scenes (such as falling down on the bike) while cutting others, it really makes you feel like the script writer... doesn't particularly like a lot of aspects of the day to day in the manga. Now like I said, these are all minor. Individually none of the changes are important or big or matter that much. But the sheer amount of them coalesces to a lot of characters feeling somewhat different from their exact manga counter parts.

It's all just very strange cause I've never seen an adaptation treated this way before, usually its pretty faithful, or faithful but adding fluff and filler, or just going pure anime only. But not just a stream of constant... edits like this.


By the "screen writer", do you mean original creator Satoshi Mizukami? Because he is one of the two people credited with "Series Composition" for this anime, much like Kazuhiro Fujita was for both Ushio & Tora and Karakuri Circus. Much like those two shows, this anime will have to truncate & alter some parts of the original manga to accommodate the "adapt the entire series in a certain amount of episodes" concept it's going for, so Mizukami himself is helping with approving those changes.

Not saying that you necessarily have to like them, but it is important to know that Mizukami is doing these changes himself, to some extent.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 10946
PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:30 pm Reply with quote
Lord Geo wrote:
JohnHawk wrote:
I feel like there's an important aspect of ep 1 this review didn't touch at all and that's the baffling large amount of minor rewrites. There's almost no scenes that are exactly like they are in the manga, whether its changing lines or reactions or adding entire scenes (such as falling down on the bike) while cutting others, it really makes you feel like the script writer... doesn't particularly like a lot of aspects of the day to day in the manga. Now like I said, these are all minor. Individually none of the changes are important or big or matter that much. But the sheer amount of them coalesces to a lot of characters feeling somewhat different from their exact manga counter parts.

It's all just very strange cause I've never seen an adaptation treated this way before, usually its pretty faithful, or faithful but adding fluff and filler, or just going pure anime only. But not just a stream of constant... edits like this.


By the "screen writer", do you mean original creator Satoshi Mizukami? Because he is one of the two people credited with "Series Composition" for this anime, much like Kazuhiro Fujita was for both Ushio & Tora and Karakuri Circus. Much like those two shows, this anime will have to truncate & alter some parts of the original manga to accommodate the "adapt the entire series in a certain amount of episodes" concept it's going for, so Mizukami himself is helping with approving those changes.

Not saying that you necessarily have to like them, but it is important to know that Mizukami is doing these changes himself, to some extent.

I'm kind of curious how many episodes this is going to get because they still haven't confirmed a full cour count yet (as far as I'm aware).
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 14 Dec 2012
Posts: 1380
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2022 12:03 am Reply with quote
JohnHawk wrote:
I feel like there's an important aspect of ep 1 this review didn't touch at all and that's the baffling large amount of minor rewrites. There's almost no scenes that are exactly like they are in the manga, whether its changing lines or reactions or adding entire scenes (such as falling down on the bike) while cutting others, it really makes you feel like the script writer... doesn't particularly like a lot of aspects of the day to day in the manga. Now like I said, these are all minor. Individually none of the changes are important or big or matter that much. But the sheer amount of them coalesces to a lot of characters feeling somewhat different from their exact manga counter parts.

It's all just very strange cause I've never seen an adaptation treated this way before, usually its pretty faithful, or faithful but adding fluff and filler, or just going pure anime only. But not just a stream of constant... edits like this.


Generally for these episode reviews, I try to write towards the perspective of somebody coming in without reading the source material. While sometimes I'll mention a change if it seems drastic or important, but I typically try to avoid turning these into checklists about differences.

That said, I agree there's been a lot of changes, but I suspect that's largely Mizukami making necessary changes to fit the episode count (ex:spoiler[ removing the lady who spots Yuuhi using his powers and starts crushing on him who ultimately never contributes to the larger story]) or changing stuff that hasn't aged particularly well in the 17 years since he first wrote it (ex: spoiler[all the panty shots and Yuuhi's self-aware pervert shtick.]).

If there are larger changes that I think fundamentally alter the overall story, characters, or themes, I'll be sure to mention them. But especially with how long this first entry wound up, I didn't think it prudent to spend more words mentioning it up front.

MFrontier wrote:

I'm kind of curious how many episodes this is going to get because they still haven't confirmed a full cour count yet (as far as I'm aware).


There hasn't been any official confirmation, but people have speculated from the number and price of the Blu-ray sets that have been listed online that it'll be 2-cour.
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ShinuZERO



Joined: 18 Jul 2013
Posts: 53
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2022 3:08 am Reply with quote
MFrontier wrote:
It definitely feels like a show where the cast and the writing are holding it up more than the production values, which is a shame.

I'm not even sure what was the point of adapting a finished manga and delivering it like this.


Same case as the Berserk 2016 anime was for me. That thing was held up almost entirely by the ost, voices, and writing
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TheSleepyMonkey



Joined: 11 Jul 2022
Posts: 887
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2022 5:20 pm Reply with quote
VerQuality wrote:
I'm still kind of dumbfounded about how this looks. Planet with wasn't the prettiest anime, but it managed to work with Mizukami's odd style and make it work. I was hoping that this series would have been a step up, but instead it seems to be only going down.

Sadly, it seems to be set on joining the ranks of manga I love that got an abysmal anime adaption, alongside Medaka Box (pretty sure I was reading both at about the same time, too). Now I just need a power-point adaption of Liar Game and the trifecta will be complete.


What about Medaka Box' anime was "abysmal"? I read the manga myself and don't see what you mean at all.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 10946
PostPosted: Sat Jul 23, 2022 9:21 am Reply with quote
It is pretty rough knowing your father was murdered by his own partner, your mother basically abandoned you, and in his emotional grief your grandfather took it out on you so you could never properly process your own grief. No wonder Yuuhi is fine with destroying the world.

But at least there are still people Yuuhi loves and cares about. His grandpa may have realized his mistake too late for it to matter to Yuuhi, but Yuuhi still remembers when he was a kind and loving grandfather and knows that Koishi cares about him, so he can't just let his grandfather die.

Wow, surprising amount of relationship progress by episode 3, with Yuuhi basically admitting he's in love with Samidare and even getting a kiss (albeit it's all a dream).

Hangetsu seems like an interesting guy. Self-proclaimed Hero of Justice...flips a high school girls' skirt...and he can hold his own against Samidare. I wonder if he's testing her and Yuuhi out to see if they're ready for the fight ahead.

I kind of wonder why they're removing the panty shots. Like, this is an anime. It's not like the content isn't mature enough already unless they don't want to be mistaken for a "trashy" fanservice anime or something. But even the author is disappointed by it.
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Thatguy3331



Joined: 18 Feb 2012
Posts: 1790
PostPosted: Sat Jul 23, 2022 6:50 pm Reply with quote
MFrontier wrote:


I kind of wonder why they're removing the panty shots. Like, this is an anime. It's not like the content isn't mature enough already unless they don't want to be mistaken for a "trashy" fanservice anime or something. But even the author is disappointed by it.


Simple. It's been years and Mizukami probably feels differently about things like that now than when he originally wrote it. (Granted in planet with there was a gag where there was cameo figurine of Sami where it did have a panty shot, so it's possible it's for some other reason.)

Whatever the case it's not a change I miss or lose sleep over... to bad it's in a show that's barely worth watching if you've already read it.
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 14 Dec 2012
Posts: 1380
PostPosted: Sat Jul 23, 2022 7:03 pm Reply with quote
Thatguy3331 wrote:


Simple. It's been years and Mizukami probably feels differently about things like that now than when he originally wrote it. (Granted in planet with there was a gag where there was cameo figurine of Sami where it did have a panty shot, so it's possible it's for some other reason.)

Whatever the case it's not a change I miss or lose sleep over... to bad it's in a show that's barely worth watching if you've already read it.


The way I recall it, the gag was Sensei looking up the figure's skirt, but they never actually showed what was under there to the audience, so it was both a gag on Biscuit Hammer's old gimmick and spoiler[a later gag from this series about one of the characters looking under a figure's skirt].
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 10946
PostPosted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 12:01 pm Reply with quote
It's interesting that ostensibly the knights are supposed to work together to stop the Biscuit Hammer but the main characters have an ulterior agenda of destroying the world afterwards which would put it in conflict with their supposed allies.

Shinonome seems like a genuinely cool dude though. You have to admire a man who proudly reads Shojo manga, watches magical girl anime, and immediately flirts with the female leads' big sister. I like him and Hisame together.

I'm guessing Shinonome's little brother will be plot relevant.

No matter how committed Samidare is to destroying the Earth, I feel like even she'd draw the line at using her own sister as a hostage. Which I guess goes to show Yuuhi isn't thinking straight.

So the Asahina parents are an author and doctor respectively, though the dad leaving Hisame with the job of raising Sami on her own didn't really endear her to her dad, especially when he's barely around. At least she doesn't hate him.

I think that's the first time I've seen a character whose never drunk before end up less tipsy than the adults he's drinking with.
Thatguy3331 wrote:
Simple. It's been years and Mizukami probably feels differently about things like that now than when he originally wrote it. (Granted in planet with there was a gag where there was cameo figurine of Sami where it did have a panty shot, so it's possible it's for some other reason.)

Whatever the case it's not a change I miss or lose sleep over... to bad it's in a show that's barely worth watching if you've already read it.

I just noticed on twitter he expressed disappointment about it...
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