Lycoris Recoil

Episode 11

So rather than engaging with any of the suddenly-armed populace they might be able to nonlethally handle, Chisato and Mika actually make it to the old radio tower with seemingly little interference. In fact, apart from escorting her, we don't get to actually see Mika in action, who is sent home by Chisato before she heads in to face Majima alone. It's mildly disappointing, since I was kind of excited to see teacher and student fight side-by-side before the end, but then the segment we do get of Chisato solo storming the proverbial castle winds up so satisfyingly structured that I don't mind as much. It's especially so predicated on Chisato being in there by herself (until the very end) that I understand the showrunners' decision to go that route, even if prefacing it with the pair heading out together as they did at the end of the previous episode comes off like them wanting to have their presentational cake and eat it too.

That's all in the second part of the episode, however, and while Mika and Chisato are en route to the tower, we spend the first part of this week's run-time with everyone else. It feels very knowing of the show's narrative priority that Takina keeps trying to bail on the D.A. operation to get back to her GF's side—they know that's what we want to see—but there are some necessary circles left to close with this side of the plot before we can get there, and the show mostly makes it work. There's a part of me that looks mildly askance at how easily D.A. let themselves get played by Majima's setup, especially after they already got some idea of what his plan was and how it worked last week. But the show has generally been effective at making the organization seem a little too bluntly self-confident in being able to brute-force their way to success for their own good, so that backfiring on them in a way that all but ensures their dissolution before the finale tracks well enough.

That's always been the part that Lycoris Recoil was least interested in anyway. Majima's explaining to the public exactly what kind of society they live in, and exposure of the Lycoris's role in it, has less to do with critiquing the hypothetical ethics of such an institution, and more to do with putting together the most outlandish fireworks display they can set off in the background for the end here. It's why even though it's ostensibly foundational to this whole final plot, there's relatively little focus on the street-level happenings of the engineered crisis, honing in only on a singular narrative moment where an equally-frightened Lycoris and civilian gun each other down. It ties back to the washed oppositional roles outlined last episode, as both these victims were ultimately just tools of larger powers, D.A. and Majima, using them to enact and enforce their ideal worldviews. On a broader level, all those pieces are just components for LycoReco's storytellers to create a layered crisis for the characters to navigate for insightful, interesting purposes.

So while I'm ambivalent about D.A. itself, Takina's resolutions with her fellow Lycoris before she leaves for good thus land as intended. It's one more in LycoReco's strong history of reflective storytelling, as Takina finally sees a direct reconciliation with Erika, the comrade she chose to save at the beginning of all this. And her resolution with Fuki is effectively the opposite of how Takina parted with Chisato a couple episodes ago: this time, she's going back to Chisato knowing that doing so will completely nullify her chances of working in D.A. ever again (for as much time as the organization itself has left now). Accessories as these other Lycoris always were to the development of our main characters, they do their job well at supplementing Takina's satisfyingly complex arc here. And with Fuki as a focal point especially, it shows how far all of the Lycoris have come within this odd matrix of interactions, indicating that the girls may well have really grown up by this point.

These cycles of action and drama may understandably mean little time for the sillier antics that were once LycoReco's trademark, smack in the middle of the climax as we are. But they do find some space for it, happily keeping Kurumi and Mizuki around to crash at airports and dox the location of a potential extra artificial heart Chisato may be able to use. This is a simple little segment, but one I loved so much I had to take time to mention it here. The whole sequence of Kurumi anxiously retrieving her suitcase from the bag check to then rail-grind down an escalator on it called back to the lovingly-storyboarded setpiece gags that were so integral to LycoReco's early vibe. Kurumi and Mizuki also seem to have finally firmly settled into the kind of adversarially-appreciative banter the series was so trying to push for them, and I'm grateful for it here at the end, where they're basically carrying that more cutesy side of the show.

Which brings us back to Chisato at the radio tower. The contrast between the previous headier, deadlier events of this episode and Chisato's chipper nonlethal rampage against all of Majima's goons is obviously a calculated highlight. Even the music is sure to switch to an upbeat track while we watch her hop around this unconventional terrain, making light of the lasting monument to what should be seen as a formative, dramatic experience from her past. And making it to that anticipated boss battle with Majima makes clear that Lycoris Recoil still has several more layers to reveal even as it closes in on the end. Majima turning out to have super-hearing powers is a mildly odd turn, but it's hardly the wildest ability in this show, so I'll allow it. And there's an interesting point to it, such an ability being far less specifically suited to facilitating murder as a career as motivated by the Alan Institute than Chisato's bullet-dodging reflexes, but still one Majima chose to take in that direction anyway. Though I also think it's just super-funny that a guy whose special ability is listening loves to hear himself talk so much.

Either way, it lends itself to an incredible first round between Chisato and Majima. Their competing abilities are showcased brilliantly, just a close-cut collection of split-second counters. And the induced darkness facilitating the battle makes for a very neat, unique effect of the setting, even as it's also an obvious setup for Takina to let the light in upon her dramatic entrance at the very end. But that kind of crowd-pleasing is LycoReco's known bread and butter at this point, teasing us with Takina's cellphone call signal before that cheer-inducing crash-in. It's an advantage a show has when it's won its audience over so effectively as it arrives at this point. We don't mind the surface-level scraping of the gun-distribution terrorism plot or the nonsensicality of how Kurumi's time-travel bone-structure camera hacking located that extra heart for the girls to go after—we're just glad they're together again and kicking Majima in the face by the time the ending theme kicks in this week.

Rating:

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.