This Week in Anime

Does Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer Overcome Its Animation Shortcomings?

Steve
And how apt of you to bring this to me, known enjoyer of both Satan and spunky anime girls with ties to oversized mallets.

So this is actually a manga that's been on my reading list for a while, both due to its sterling reputation among my friends and the planet-sized affection I hold for Planet With, the modern anime classic also written by Satoshi Mizukami. Life, however, gets in the way, and when I heard there'd be an anime adaption, I figured I could just hold out until then. What's the worst that could happen?

Live Lizard Reaction

Yeah, leaving jokes at the door for a moment, this project's jank was foreseeable practically from the moment it was announced, and it's a symptom of the much larger endemic problems of industry bloat and an overextended workforce. Sure, it's cool that we're getting so many adaptations now, but these are coming at a cost, both behind the scenes and smattered throughout the scenes.

If Shirobako taught me anything, it's that equines are tough to handle even in the best of times. But that said, I don't think either of us want to spend the whole column kicking the proverbial horse, or horse knight, while it's down. We have to do so a little, of course—that's why we're here on TWIA in the first place—but it's also worth nothing that Biscuit Hammer did somehow dodge being the most disastrous production this season. And for that, I'll thank Uncle from Another World for its ignoble sacrifice.

On the upside, though, the anime is a font of funky little lizard pictures.

Yeah, you can tell he's unlikable from the outset by design. It ties into his later character growth, and that's all well and good. But he does skew a bit too hard in the "geez, dude..." direction with all the nihilism. And skirt flipping.

Oh, well knowing that now, I'd agree that was an adjustment in the right direction. Gives the audience more space to focus on the truly important parts of her character.

The premiere just lurches forward until Yuuhi and Samidare finally join forces, and then I started to get an inkling of the magic I had felt from Planet With. I'm hardly a Mizukami scholar, but from what I've seen so far, he seems to excel at taking and setting up familiar story beats and archetypes, and then knowing how to twist them around in just the right way. Like making our appointed planet-saving heroes vie for the exact opposite.

If a woman with Sami's smile had said any of this to me when I was Yuuhi's age, there's a 100% chance I would've done the exact same thing.

And seriously, taking into account the acute threat of apocalypse looming large over the entire planet—an increasingly unabstracted feeling that I think subsumes our demographic more and more—there's something downright cathartic in the idea of taking the reins in your own hands and ending the planet on your own terms. We all have to find ways to wrestle power out of despair, and identifying with a tiny anime girl with a powerful punch is a perfectly valid one.

Unsurprisingly, having an emotionally and physically abusive grandfather will in fact fuck you right up. And even amid the janky presentation, the anime does manage to do a decent job capturing the creepiness of the chains of abuse weighing down Yuuhi's heart.

And I like that the story doesn't make his quest for resolution easy for Yuuhi, who finds his sick grandfather a changed, penitent man. Where is all your pain and anger supposed to go when your abuser begs for forgiveness? How are you supposed to heal? There are no simple answers for any of that. And it's really heavy stuff to tackle for uhh your very first major character arc in a long-running manga.

There's an undeniable clumsiness to this part, no doubt exacerbated by the adaptation's weaknesses. But the big heart-on-sleeve emotions and the acceptance of their messiness—those are qualities I always look for in storytelling.

And he's going to have to change a lot if he doesn't want to get smashed by cryptids who love to obey traffic signals.


I liked when I could tell which episode I was on by how many eyes the monster of the week had.

At the same time, though, you can also feel Mizukami playing with structure and expectations like I mentioned earlier. Like he skips over the six-eyed golem, which ends up being relevant later. And you anticipate the monsters just getting bigger and more ocular until all of a sudden he makes a dude in pajamas crawl out of one.

The mulleted dog lover actually makes a pretty sound introduction. He's an eccentric mentor who Shu begrudges but eventually warms up to. And then of course he dies. That's standard shonen stuff. But then yeah, the floodgates open and we experience everything from horse men to snake girls to birdo-to-birdo communication.

Hangetsu, naturally, took those pearls of wisdom from the adults who helped raise him.

That tension from trying to define—let alone achieve—"adulthood" is another good pet theme I really enjoy in anime. And it's especially good here, since part of Sami's whole deal is she can't imagine a future for herself as an adult, because she'll be dead by then.

No worries, I'm sure through Hangetsu's heroic sacrifice, Sami and Yuuhi will have plenty of time and space to really ponder the implications of their own mortality and oh no Hangetsu's brother is here and he's very loud and has shark teeth.

The most important thing here is that, because everyone in Biscuit Hammer has their animal familiar perched on or around them at all times, the show is about to look a lot funnier.

Sure, some of that is inevitable, but I also mean that Mizukami is very good at bringing the humor out of naturally absurd situations. Like I love the horse parking.

That's so based of him. This too.

Like you said earlier, the real strength here is in how Biscuit Hammer introduces all these characters in short succession, but somehow makes them each stand apart from each other, form their designs to their personalities. There are series that have enough trouble making a single guy stand out, Biscuit Hammer has a frim grasp on how to wield even its broadest archetypes with precision.

I can definitely sense some camaraderie with fellow writing genius Mari Okada and her consistent rib-jabbing extolling of clichés.


"80s romcom bastard" is also just a very good insult.

Typical weeb.

Though I must defend her taste in characters. She has the Eye, for sure.

I told you he was based.

But sadly, for everything that's based, there is its equal and opposite: cringe.

He has an uncannily disarming presence that feels right at home with the rest of Biscuit Hammer's oddball take on stopping the apocalypse. Though he does also indulge in some more typical villain blowhard behavior. We all have our vices, I suppose.

This is why you can always trust cat people.

Biscuit Hammer will just toss out a saga about a 500-year-old mountain sage on a whim, weeks after he's already kicked the bucket. And it gives him a cool hat.

And I guess that is one of the downsides of Mizukami's breakneck kitchen sink approach. I do wish some of these characters had more room to breathe and stretch out beyond their archetypical duties. I also wish we got more floating swordfish content.

Now that you mention it, I wouldn't be surprised! Maybe he also picked up Mizukami's weirdness with leafy vegetables.

I can only empathize with how longtime Biscuit Hammer fans must feel. I've had some anticipated adaptations whiff stuff for sure, but there's no getting around how all-around lackluster this one is. There's still plenty of greatness baked into the series that shines through—that's why I can say I had a genuinely good time watching it for this column. But if you have the manga available to you, even sight unseen, I can't imagine not recommending it over this anime.

Plus, I mean, Kenjiro Tsuda voices a talking lizard. Maybe that's the only selling point any anime ever needs.