Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer

Episodes 11-12

You know, I kind of admire Biscuit Hammer's willingness to completely throw traditional structure out the window. After episode 10's (theoretically) climactic fight, you'd think this would be the time to ramp up for a big confrontation with Animus to close out the first cour. Instead, we shift gears completely and, for about 20 minutes you could practically forget this was a shonen battle series at all as we delve into the sticky mess of thorns that makes up the Asahina family.

Not that I'm complaining – character has been carrying this show all season, so any respite from the cardboard cutout battle for the planet is a welcome one, especially when it means digging into the awkward, estranged relationship Sami has with her whole family. We've already touched on her less-than-present dad, so now it's time to confront the other half of the troubled parental equation, Samidare's mommy-dare. Or rather it's time for everyone except Sami to confront it, as in classic teenager fashion she decides the best way to deal with complicated emotions is to hit the bricks and hide out at her not-boyfriend's apartment instead. It's a pretty relatable move, honestly, and Biscuit Hammer avoids turning that avoidance into frustration for the audience by shifting perspective to Hisame, getting into her head (literally, at one point) to unpack the conflicting fears and guilt she has about her little sister.

As Biscuit Hammer is wont to do, we end up moving through a lot of complicated emotions a bit too quickly, but as always I appreciate the earnest attempt at making all these characters feel complex and considered. Hisame admits that, until they started living together, she didn't really have a relationship with her sister, and that fact has been eating away at her even as they've grown closer. Sami, meanwhile, feels like it's her fault that their family scattered to the wind like it has, and would rather escape into the fantasy of a battle for the apocalypse instead of dealing with any of it. After all, no point in confronting your fear that your mom and sister secretly resent you when the world's going to end in a couple months, right? It all feels natural to what we already knew about these characters, and it makes Sami and Hisame's eventual confrontation feel like a genuine breakthrough. The resolution with Mama-hina is a little too clean for my tastes, but it makes sense as a single starting point for a longer and less dramatic healing process that will have to wait until the world isn't on the brink of destruction. Plus, there's so many great little lines and moments in the episode that I can't complain too much.

I also like the role Yuuhi ends up playing in all of this. A lot of similar stories would probably have our male lead make a big speech or solve the problem himself, but instead our gloomy protagonist just plays support, and it's a role that suits him surprisingly well. When he sees Hisame hesitating to confront Sami, he calls back to what Hangetsu said way back when. When Sami is about to run away again, his big moment is just finding the determination to chase after her and offer a hand to hold. This isn't a problem he can or should solve, but he can be there to offer the reassurance his partner needs, and that realization gives him the courage to approach his own familial problems again. It's altogether a touching little arc for Yuuhi after he's been stuck in the background for a bit, and even marks our first use of the pillows...11 episodes in. Not sure I'd have made that call, but “I Know You” kicks ass so I'll just enjoy hearing it again.

In all though, episode 11 delivers all the stuff that's kept me engaged with this show through the ups and downs. It's still scuffed a bit, but when this show keeps its heart on its sleeve and its stakes on the ground, it's worth it.

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And thus the pendulum swings back to the opposite end of its arc and takes us back to Battle Manga Land, though at least this time we spend more effort mining humor out of it than we do actually fighting. The sudden emergence of Anima is a bit strange, considering just two episode ago we found out Sami was the one in the driver's seat of their soul-roommate dynamic, but Anima herself manages to be amusing enough to make up for her weirdly arbitrary appearance.

You'd think the Good Twin would be the more gracious and benevolent of the two wizards, but Anima has apparently reached a level of godhood that just lets her go Gremlin Mode 24/7, and has long abandoned such human restrictions as “social skills” and “not abducting people to her inter-dimensional coliseum without warning.” Functionally her role is just to show that we've reached a new level of danger in the war with Animus, and to give one of our heroes a power up, so I'm grateful Mizukami found a way to make her funny while performing those tasks. An innocent Goddess of goodness is fine, but having an off-kilter weirdo doling out godlike powers is a lot more flavorful. Her presence also spurs everyone to start experimenting with their powers, and it's pretty funny to see Yuuhi totally out of his element with all these weirdos who insist you have to come up with a cool name for your attacks – they won't be as powerful otherwise! Our boy's made some strong strides as a person, but he's probably never going to feel comfortable inhabiting the skin of a shonen hero, and god bless him for it.

Unfortunately there is still a fight in this episode – two in fact! And they both suck ass in ways that are genuinely embarrassing to witness. It's a good thing we're getting a recap episode next week, because the already visible seams of this production started to fray and unravel any time anything in this episode actually had to move. There's a shot of Yuuhi frantically riding his bike that would be mortifying on its own, but they have to use it twice because I guess there just wasn't time to do a second shot. There's multiple static frames where characters stop looking like humans and begin to melt into abstract gestalts of polygrams that more resemble hieroglyphs than anime characters. The critical fight that takes up the back half of the episode is so slapdash I would honestly believe it's a parody of shonen anime before I'd think it was an earnest production. It is baaaaaaaaaad in a way that drags down anything endearing or meaningful about the surrounding drama, and that's not even getting into the terrible fire effect they use for Tarou's power.

So once again we have a pair of episodes that show us the vast expanse of quality this adaptation has to offer. I really wish I could say things will look up from here, but all signs point to the story becoming more and more reliant on its action the deliver important moments, and that doesn't portend much good as we move into the second half.

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Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.