Lycoris Recoil

Lycoris Recoil is and anime that is prioritizing action and characters over a story and while there is nothing wrong with this approach, it still requires at least a bearable story which won't distract us with its flaws.

Let's start with what this series does best which is characters, main cast is good. Colourful personalities and good interactions are the biggest strength of this anime. Antagonists while having flaws which I will discuss later, are made to challenge the ideas and motivations of our protagonist. We also see some growth in the side characters which was satisfying.

High quality of production makes this show even nicer ... to watch. Animation is pretty soundtrack was ok and scenes of action had good choreography. Unfortunately while speaking about action it is important to mention about plot armour which is big in this anime. As we are dealing with shootouts the aim in them depends on what story is demanding. If someone has to escape or live then its a series of misses, even if skilled shooters are involved. We need to get rid of cannon fodder? Then every shot lands. This is a massive problem for me. Not only it is obvious what the authors are doing, pulling me out of the fight, but it also sucks all of the stakes out of the fight.

Now to the main complaint, the story. Whole plot is depending on antagonists with stupid/generic motivations and on the most brain dead mob in the history of anime. The things that happen in the last episodes made me suffer a headache. We also need to deal with a hole lot of plot convenience in this show. At one point main characters literally forgot about the main antagonist. Even worse Lycoris Recoil has a strong pro censorship message. With how stupid the masses are and how quickly they descend into chaos in face of truth you start to think that it's better to keep those sheep in the dark. The fact that show presents undercover secret organization so simplistically is hurtful.

To sum it up Lycoris Recoil presents you with great characters and nice, mindless action. Whether you will enjoy it or not depends greatly on how much bad plot can bother you. If like me you get bothered by
bad plot, don't watch it, otherwise feel free to try it out.

Pros:
- top-tier art style and animation. most definitely the best animation of the entire season. theres not a single second where the animation went wrong, and you can truly see how serious and hardworking the staff are. in fact this is the single biggest drawer for most fans.
- yuri girls with visible characteristics, especially the portrait of chisato's characteristics is masterpiece. she is like fujiwara chika who easily impress most watchers with their strongly unique personalities. fans are here for this.

Cons:
- storyline is really just meh. it is a mixture of new innovations and cliche, but it is so far not really an interesting ... story. fans are mostly just here to watch yuri reactions, which leads to the second point,
- feels like forced yuri reactions. the character development of chisato is indeed wonderful, but not the case for takina. her character development feels rushed, lack of progress, and lack of details. Just one hug from chisato is enough to change takina's cool cold-blooded personality? A real person's personality shouldnt be altered that easily. The "sakana" moment wouldve been much funnier and more natural if chisato did it, but instead takina did it, which just doesnt feel natural. Takina can indeed grow into a much more open person who would do the "sakana" thing, but it shouldve taken much more time and interactions for her to transform from a cool badass to a funny girl. It is a bit too fast.

I am always desperate for good anime gunfighting content and my desperation has brought me to Lycoris Recoil

The action itself is kindof mid so far. It very much leans on the fantastical "gun-fu" side of things with bullets being dodged at close range and impossible marksmanship, and not in a way that feels like it really has stakes. To the series' credit, there is some acknowledgement of how unexpected the gun-kata shit is, and there have been a couple sequences so far where our main girl Chisato applies some tactics and tradecraft that actually make her credible as the most dangerous person in ... the setting. I will always enjoy sequences where experienced characters detect traps and nimbly navigate. But it's unclear if those are going to be thin on the ground as things go on, the trend has been downwards across these first three episodes.

The story thus far has been not been particularly interesting. This really does not come across as a story which actually takes it's own mechanics or the violence the characters experience seriously. The characters much more conform to moe tropes than to the world around them and what they supposedly do everyday for a living.

The wrapping for the action is decent. The show goes for a highly post-processed "store brand Makoto Shinkai" or "discount Pixiv" aesthetic which is pleasant if unremarkable, and the character design is generally cute and easy on the eyes. There is just enough character animation and visual flair going on in most dialogue scenes to keep me awake in my seat.

Thanks to this the moment to moment non-action experience of the show can be described as tolerable. The voice performances from many of the seiyuu, especially Chisato -very compelling as the mysterious genki girl- are excellent and can drive any scene they are in. The archetypal characters with their barely plausible motivations and their barely plausible body types don't grate in any way even if I have seen it all before. Perhaps being set partially in a cafe disguises the blatant (perhaps not blatant enough) coffee undertones.

If you come to this series for the light distraction that it is, tea and teacakes, you won't go home disappointed. Don't come in making comparisons to works that take their characters and action more seriously, like a certain counter-terrorism series set in Italy. But by that same token, I can't really hold that comparison against Lycoris Recoil. There are definitely worse things I have watched in the pursuit of anything that's Girls with Guns.

In a loud bustling Tokyo where people live very close together. The people cannot hear loud unsuppressed gunfire 10 feet outside their house, by orphan teenagers carrying guns that fire plastic rounds to not kill people, when trained to murder and end the lives of those who are a threat.
You see where I am going?
This show has no real premise besides- "Hey look at that wifu material girl holding a gun, Americans love women holding guns, lets make this into a bland shooter anime where there are not any murders of terrorists and creeps because murder is too harsh for an adult audience!"

This ... show is not dark enough to be like Black Lagoon, nor twisted enough to be like Hellsing or evil organization focused like Jormungand. Its characters are very bland and only make the show a pain to watch, mostly they are just annoying, Mika is the only cool side character and the main cast is boring.

If it actually tried to make a good show it would be actually violent scenes with real weapons that harm characters with more deep meaning behind what the characters do. This has too many plot-holes that will lead to blind spots.

5/10 Kinda Mid

If you like my review don't be shy to say it was helpful!

A-1 does a typically good job with the animation, character design, and sound on Lycoris Recoil. So far, unfortunately, it ends just about there. I hope to see the show improve as the season continues, and will adjust my review if it does, but at the moment it's not seeming very likely that it climbs all the way to... actually being good.

The biggest problem comes down to characters, or more particularly their interactions. For a show with plenty of little conversational moments, it's striking how consistently it misses the mark on achieving any semblance of legitimate human interaction, even taking the element of cartoon exaggeration ... into consideration. Scene after scene rings unfortunately hollow, bizarre mannequins reproducing their ascribed personalities in obviously false notes. The story and thematic work in the first three episodes doesn't fare much better, considering how foundational character work is to it and how sloppily it deploys its setup of cutesified secret police.

The thread being unwound from the inciting incident could go somewhere interesting, but again, it's hard for me to place too much faith in the idea that it will right now. It's going to become crucial for the story's development to either grapple legitimately with the heavier elements that are currently incorporated awfully or, if that proves impossible, to at least ease out of that direction. Ultimately any shift would be better than the current approach, which does not even give enough weight to things that need it for tonal dissonance to be raised as a complaint, but simply feels weightless and illegitimate across the board.

To toss in another positive note as a cap off, there's some solid action choreography in the second episode, if you can overlook the bullet dodging implemented and animated in a way that doesn't quite work. I wish I could throw in more miscellaneous positives, but the most I can muster in most categories is neutrality.

Disclaimer
I have only watched the first 3 episodes.

Imagine Michelle Rodríguez, the actress, as 16 year old girl in a 12 year old body. Then add 12 more like her and you have Lycoris Recoil.
Superhuman tough teenage agents that bring justice in near future Japan.

Most interesting aspects are the supporting characters of the Café and the sub plot of the DA office, maybe a conspiracy in which a underground organization tries to overturn the DA office and thus the justice system, fingers crossed.

The Animation and Character design is typical modern age Anime style, nothing that stands out but it isn't bad. It's fine.

Girls with guns. It is an OKAY anime, not wow, but fine.

[ ANIMATION ]

Top notch. Fight scenes are beautiful. Enough said.

[ STORY ]

Linear.

... [ CHARACTERS ]

The characters are very one dimensional. Predictable even.

The two main characters are contrast in belief and personality. Do they complement each other? More or less, but then again, it is very linear.

The side characters are very cliche. One drunkard, a boss with a "highly valued past", a super duper smart hacker, a "mysterious mastermind who is related to the MC"

[ CONCLUSION ]

If you enjoy daily lives of girls then go ahead and give this a try. You'd enjoy it as it gives you candy treats of animation goodness. BUT the story is kind of bland as of now, hopefully the story takes off in the upcoming episodes

The series that unexpectedly stole the show last season. Chances are you're planning to watch it for either: The waifus, the action or the animation or maybe you're one of those people with great music taste that decided to watch it because of the banger intro and outro. Is the show actually worth watching beyond those that I just mentioned?

Probably not. I feel that the characters, action and animation are the strongest aspects of the series, if you only care about these three aspects then you will probably enjoy the show. However, I find that there is not much substance to its story and is ... more akin to a Slice of Life show than an Action anime. In fact, the Slice of Life scenes is an aspect of the show I like over the action scenes of it.

I discourage those who plan to watch the show and expect a great story or an interesting plot, as you will find none of those. Though if you enjoy Slice of Life series or if you approach the show with the expectation that it is a Slice of Life show instead of an Action packed one then you may end up enjoying the series as a whole.

From the perspective of statistics, it gains its greatest increases in score for its first few episodes, 7.80+0.12+0.14+0.10. Then, there are no great increase or decrease in scores anymore before its last episode finished (most anime get a drastic increase after the airing of the last EP). That's certainly true, the first few EPs are good, but we all know what are those marks given to. If these are what people looking for and giving award for, then say less.

A starting score of 7.80 is a bit overrated, but still in my acceptable range. However, the plots and characters building& development get weaker and ... poorer in the later episodes, which deserves a remarkable deduction of score. However, such deduction is not reflected. That's why I think it's overrated- when its disadvantages are neither recognised, admitted nor reflected.

Personally, this anime is fine. Some plots give me quite a lot of fun. However, it's only at the medium level, so I definitely won't rate it as if it's a masterpiece over 8. It should be somewhere around 7.50-7.80 for the highest. I gave it a 6 because "Things need to be balanced- Majima".

First, let me ask, what's the key focus of this anime?
"Slice of life and Comedy", "Action", "Plot", "Settings", "Background low-key Yuri (Yuri bait)"?
Actually, all of these are the focus, but they are not close to the level of extraordinary. They are just mediocre.

Start from "Setting": a near future setting.
Good thing: There are things flashing out in the anime setting such as the talented children, and the organisation who are helping them. However, they didn't elaborate more about this organisation, that's quite a pity.

Bad thing: The DA organisation, JK killer, and the ability of dodging bullets, all these settings are just... neither surprising nor interesting. Except the machine heart, there is nothing else about the near future setting.
TBH, there are tons of near future setting SF works with better settings that people could play around with. If they choose to play with near future settings, try to work harder plz.

Well, then quite a few people would say:" idc about the setting, I'm here for the 'Yuri + Slice of life + CGDCT'."
Good thing: There are quite a few slice of life plots being quite good as I remember about the cake selling plots and running the SNS account of their caffe. All these stuffs are fine.

Bad thing: However, the plot of slice of life are quite limited, because it needs to give way to the main plots. There is a poor balance out there. As a result, it satisfies neither people looking for Slice of life, nor people looking for good plot.

I've watched Yuri for years. Personally, I find a strong feeling of Yuri fan service when watching Lycoris, which makes the Yuri scenes very... unnatural? I used to be fine and loving these Yuri fan service, but not anymore these days. These things do depend on your personal favour, so no judgement on fan service.

Since the focus of Lycoris is clearly not "Romance GL", I'm not comparing it with those heavy romance GL works, that would be unfair to it. However, just comparing with other "Yuri+Slice of life+CGDCT" animations, the level of comedy and slice of life is lower than average, probably again because they need to make a balance between the main plots and slice of life. The contents of Yuri (Bait) is also very limited.

The "Action" is fine. The "Plot" is fine, as long as it's not completely broken. However, it's the part being judge by people the most. It's quite annoying to see that every time in the later episodes Chisato has to fight against Majima with the help of Takina. It's obvious that they want to show their close partner or friend ship, but 1v2 to win is bad for expression, and again this part of plot is very unnatural. "Sorry I have to go to help Chisato even though I may not get back to DA". It just feels weird and bland, probably because the development and change of Takina wasn't really shown adequately.

If they give up the "Slice of life" and turn it into a tragedy ending and a dark depressed atmosphere, and focus more on the development of Takina and make her more like the MC, the plot would be perfect.

Anyway, this anime is fine but mediocre with flaws. It's neither extraordinary nor a masterpiece, but it's popular.
Haha... quite a few anime these years are like this I guess. Sometimes we gotta review ourselves and what we like. Demon slayer, I loved it, I finished the whole manga, but I know as a whole (manga) it's clearly overrated, and as expected, people do realise this and the scores are getting reduced by few decimals now, and I agree with the criticisms.

Lycoris Recoil is an entertaining, yet flawed fusion of the Girls-with-Guns and Slice-of-Life genres. The characters are generally likeable and interesting. Viewers will want to spend more time with them, swayed by their invigorating personalities. Yet, the cast is one-dimensional and most characters fail to diverge from common stereotypes and clichés. It's not all too bad though, unless you seek a philosophically-engaging portrayal of the human condition, in which case, you should look elsewhere. As a whole, the characters don't develop too significantly, but some characters much develop more than others, leaving a gulf between them in the way of development.

The action scenes are ... extremely fun and well-animated. Past the dazzling gunfights, one gets the impression that the show isn't really about counter-terrorism. It appears to use the 'Girls-with-Guns' genre to counteract the stagnating tendencies of the 'Slice-of-Life' genre, almost bolting one genre onto the other. In the end, the anime becomes a composite of two contrasting (potentially three) genres, at a boost to shallow entertainment value. This also makes the experience extremely jarring at times, as our lead characters leapfrog from being deeply affected by their duties as 'Lycoris' to suddenly switching on 'LycoReco' mode. The 'true' focus is the relationship between Chisato and Takina. Potential viewers should consider this the absolute selling point of Lycoris Recoil.

The animation quality is high and the art is wonderful, as you'd expect from A1-Pictures. The soundtrack isn't too bad either, despite being a little forgettable. If you value production value highly, you will not be disappointed.

Lycoris Recoil has several tendencies/characteristics that'll drive away more detail-oriented, rigorous viewers. A notable issue is the blatant, recurring use of 'Plot Armor'. Strangely, for a show that introduces high-stake story arcs and indulges in the knife-edge world of counter-terrorism, one gets the impression that the main cast is invulnerable. This may be due to the series writer's change in plot direction, having opted for an 'optimistic' outlook, over the original 'darker' tone, which is great news for invested viewers, and bad news for viewers seeking a more poignant experience. Plot conveniences are also plentiful, and many characters are stuck by 'Stormtrooper Syndrome' when the story calls for it. Once again, this will annoy and disillusion demanding viewers.

Despite all of this, I've elected to score this anime a 6, and it comes down to the same reason why I've chosen the 'Mixed Feelings' option. This is a show that strongly depends on what you value as a viewer and how much cognitive labour you dedicate while watching. The less you think about the specifics, the more enjoyable this show becomes. If you've read through this, and still feel unsure about whether to watch Lycoris Recoil, it's probably worth trying. But, in the end, Lycoris Recoil is ideal for viewers who are seeking a simple, light-hearted but high-octane viewing experience. Viewers seeking a 'deeper' experience will likely walk away disappointed.

Hmm, Lycoris Recoil, an original, the potential seemed huge. And yes, it was a great anime one could say, till probably episode 5. Girls with guns is an idea which would ofcourse, sell a lot. But by the end of it, it became so unrealistic that it became hard to cope.

Well yes, anime isn't supposed to be realistic, I do get it, but there is a difference between fantasy and 'omg the main cute gal has to stay alive even if the plot is to be fucked over'. The government-controlled media plot was actually genius, and the show seemed to be going good, but ... then the last episodes started to air.

Plot loopholes? Cute girls with guns!
Zero backstory? Cute girls with guns!
how to sell an anime 101? Cute girls with guns!!!

I feel like I'm a 6 year old again, watching those shows where no matter how fucked up the protag was, they'd always win. This show is as idiotic as they could make it, since the entire point was, yes you guessed it, cute girls with guns.

Other things to talk about, the animation is excellent, no doubt it's one of the best animation quality I've seen. The music and episode pacing are really good, as in they do good to hide the absolute mess of a plot the show has.

In all honesty, it's not bad per say, but it's not that great either. Entire show is ridiculously predictable after episode 5, and the parts you can't predict, are so bad one has to cringe (unless ofcourse, you love cute girls with guns.) It's definitely worth a watch, but don't expect something much from here, the entire anime feels like wasted potential because the studio was afraid to kill off the 'cute girls with guns' for plot development.

Overall opinion - Cute girls with guns! (but really the plot was quite close to reality and they used bogus stuff to cover it up and fuck it up)
(No physics was hurt in the making of this show)

When Lycoris Recoil was first announced, I’d admit, I was excited. I believe that it wouldn’t hurt anime creators to create more proper gun-oriented combat series like Black Lagoon and Jormungand, firearms can be just as cool as swords, y’know? And although Lycoris Recoil did deliver in some aspects, other aspects sort of dragged it down.

In this anime, we’re introduce to this seemingly perfect world where crime rates are very low due to a secret government program that uses orphans as child soldiers in order to prevent such crimes from happening in the first place. And in this anime, we’re introduced with our protagonist, Takina ... Inoue, who was forced to transfer due to her actions after her last mission. In her new base, she’s introduced to her partner, Chisato Nishikigi, who is a rather eccentric girl with secrets of her own. And together, they take on odd jobs, ranging from delivering food for the mafia to teaching Japanese at a local school. Now this anime’s story if you can even call it one is quite frankly, confusing. There’s almost no sense of direction at all, it switches from episodic to plot oriented in a blink of an eye. I know there are cases of animes where seemingly episodic episodes actually all ties up together, but this anime didn’t take its time to properly tie all those points together to this giant plot scheme that’s happening. Granted you can only do so much with 13 episodes but if that was the case, the story should’ve just gotten right to the main point instead of showing some pointless side mission that has nothing to do with the plot at all. And on the topic of the main story itself, without going in depth about it to prevent any potential spoilers, is just, nonsensical. The story is all over the place especially towards the latter half of the anime and it seems like to me the creator’s attempt to present multiple plot points at once failed terribly. Asides from the messy story structure, the themes presented in this anime were also all over the place. Perhaps I’m looking too deep into this and the creator was just likely presenting a fun popcorn entertainment but if the was the creator’s intention to present something dark and mature, at best, it’s just surface level shit and at worst, the theme isn’t even presented at all and is just there and as a side thought.

The characters in this anime is a mixed bag for me. Although our main stars shares some amazing character chemistry with each other, without going too in depth, they were either confusing to understand, like Chisato, or just forgettable like some of the side characters, such as Kurumi. With Chisato, not only are her actions and ideals somewhat illogical, it also just doesn’t make sense as she contradicts herself occasionally throughout the story. Without spoiling the story, her actions, especially later on in the story will definitely make you think “wait, what.” And as for the side characters who aren’t as developed as Chisato and Takina, they’re alright, nothing to really write home about although some of the characters like Robota was annoying to watch.

As for the art, I believe this is easily the best aspect of the anime. The character designs were definitely memorable especially with the main cast, and I also liked how detailed some of the guns were drawn. And asides from the nice well drawn details found in this anime, the animation is really smooth and to whoever was in charge of directing the series, they knew what they were doing as some of the scenes actually managed to build up genuine suspense so good job.

As for the music and sound, I can’t really say the same about the art as it was just there as mere background noise. It’s not a bad thing nor a good thing either, I just feel neutral about it.

Overall, I felt like the story was what really dragged Lycoris Recoil down as a series, and it’s kind of shame because had the story been as good as the art, this anime would’ve been another nice addition to an otherwise almost niche market in the anime industry, which is gun-oriented combat without any fantasy and magic involved. But for what it was worth, I had fun with it, so if you’re just looking for something to unwind at the end of the day, this is for you. But for those who’s looking for something with more value in it, I suggest looking somewhere else.

Chisato is the reason behind "Lycoris Recoil" getting high score, the anime heavily focus on Chisato and that's a bit risky because if the watcher dislikes Chisato then it's game over.

it feels like they made the anime with this condition "people need to develop sort of feelings toward our main character Chisato in order to continue watching" because the anime itself isn't worth watching as it lacks in the aspects of story and it's kind of disappointing series.

so how the heck this anime scored +8? well...i must say that Chisato the heroine is kawaii sugoi kakkoii (Cute Awesome and Cool), she's a Waifu Material ... for the whole otaku(males & females) on planet earth, so maybe everyone will Enjoy this Anime because of Chisato potentials.

Is Lycoris Recoil a good show?
No.
The better question is, will you enjoy watching Lycoris Recoil?
The answer to that is probably yes.
A common trend I've noticed in quite a few bad anime or anime that become bad later on like Attack on Titan is that the protagonists aren't very likable or good people. Lycoris Recoil is somewhat guilty of falling into this trap, not really with the main cast but with DA itself. DA is basically an Orwellian group that covers up all sorts of crime and terrorist attacks in the name of brainwashing the sheeple into thinking that Japan is a safe haven where ... nothing bad happens. DA isn't necessarily shown as being good for doing this, but they also aren't condemned. There's a lot of unfortunate implications from this fact. The main villain so to speak, isn't really any worse morally than DA. He's definitely morally a worse person than Takina and Chisato, but that's about it.
Most of the characters are pretty good. I do enjoy them quite a lot. Except Kusonoki, she just reminds me of one of those teachers you'd have at school who would give you a B on a paper you worked on for a week because it "didn't feel like an A." Chisato wanting to save lives and not take them plus her character development in the second half was really good. Majima is a great villain and honestly a more likable character than the leaders of DA. Mika is such a great father figure character, and even though the backstory with Shinji was kinda gay, I have to admit it was a very interesting plot twist. Takina isn't a super interesting character in the beginning but she definitely gets better as the series progresses. The other girls in Lyco aren't really good or bad, they're kind of antagonistic in the beginning but then after getting shown up by Chisato they kind of just fall in line.
The animation is really good, and I like the character designs a lot. A-1 Pictures really did a great job with it. There's so many action shows with lackluster animation, so having an action show with very fluid animation earns Lyco some credit.
The comedy is really funny. The villain screw-ups and the comedy with Chisato always got a good laugh out of me. This show is really good at balancing emotional, serious, and funny moments.
The action varies a lot in quality. Some scenes are pretty cool and others are pretty cringe. Some people thought the whole thing with Chisato dodging bullets was stupid, but honestly I don't really understand the complaints. Sure it's a bit unrealistic, but that's the beauty of anime. Things aren't realistic. I don't really think Chisato dodging bullets should make or break the show for anyone.

As for what's wrong with the show, I've already discussed the worst part by far, which is DA's malicious control over Japan. The ending of the main conflict is also incredibly stupid and anti-climatic, moreso than Chisato dodging bullets. Bystanders would never buy the claim that the government gave, it goes against human nature. Also the plotholes and characters not noticing things that should have been obvious really bugs me. Pretty much any time Majima is on screen all logic is thrown out the window. Which is a shame because he's a great character, but it somewhat ruins most moments with him.
I also think some of the "mean spirited" moments are kind of cringe. A-1 Pictures has a very obnoxious trend of having an antagonistic character who's mean to the poor wittle defenseless protagonist for no reason just to make you empathize with the protagonist without having to give proper character development. It's really overused and just kind of annoying.
There's also a lot of things especially towards the end with Shinji that just never get explained, I get that the show was just trying to wrap up quickly but not enough was explained for me to entirely understand what was going on with him.

If you do choose to watch this show, you can probably expect to enjoy it, but it's definitely not a "good" show in the way that One Punch Man or Steins;Gate are.

The animation is excellent, but the whole experience is bogged down by the narrative's attempt to tackle the themes in a serious, straight-faced manner, while also having the action that those themes are founded on render it mostly weightless.

The slice of life elements were enjoyable, but whenever it started diving deeper into the plot, I found myself bored and wanting to move on. The biggest issue I have is that it feels like there are no real stakes, that no one important is ever really at risk while bullets are flying everywhere. The futuristic elements and the near supernatural marksman and athletic abilities of ... the main character don't help either, as there are many scenes where you have all these "professionals" emptying clip after clip at each other, but the only ones actually hitting their mark are the main characters. Again, the show can't decide if it wants to tell a serious story with implications and ramifications for everything that these characters are doing, or if it just wants to be a feel-good action SOL with cute characters and a side dish of "values and morals". I feel like I could have given it a shining review if it had chosen not to take itself seriously with the overall plot and just focused on it being about cute gun girls who are changing their lives. All the politics and "lessons" fall flat when it ends up feeling like a total fantasy power trip at the end of the day. You're expected to just accept every half-baked concept thrown at you about the Lycoris Organization, the abilities of characters and all sorts of other stuff that should have been meticulously planned and executed for the sake of the story being exciting and cool(which for the most part, it's not).

I appreciate some of the messages being conveyed here, but again, all the weight this show is supposed to carry disappears somewhere between its attempts at being fun, light and breezy, while also having a more serious plot/message for the audience. I do however like that it's a gun girl show without excessive amounts of dark themes and gratuitous content. Yeah I'm complaining about the show having an identity crisis and wonky tone, but at least it's not something indulging in the blackpill side of what gun girls can be(like Kite).

What a show. I rarely ever got this excited waiting for the next episode week after week. But be aware. The promise of the show might fool you.

It's about guns and girls. About a secret organisation, who fights terrorism with special trained girls called Lycoris. But you will soon enough see, that the focus of this series lies elsewhere.

That beeing said, this show is about the main female leads, it's about Chisato and Takina. There is no doubt in probably everyone's eyes, that those two carried the entire show. Chisato alone would've probably been enough to make many people enjoy the show. Her positivity ... and carelessness, the way she talks and thinks but also her backstory and her resulting motivations, it just feels so perfect. Takina builds a great counterpart with her more realistic and cold view on the world. As the anime moves on, we'll experience Chisato's cheerfulness leading to Takina loosen up a little. Henceforth we get to see a lot of cute and comedic interactions between them and it made the whole show so insanely pleasurable to watch.
But we shouldn't forget about the rest of the cast. We have the great "comedy-couple" of Kurumi and Mizuki, Mika as an awesome father-figure, an honestly really well written antagonist, although it might not look like it at first.
The characters paired with the enjoyment, that came with them was certainly the best part of the show. Here I should also recommend you guys to watch this show subbed. The seiyuus did their job so incredibly well. Again, it's Chisato and Takina who stand out the most. Their performance was simply stunning.

The animation is super solid, with some nice fighting choreographies and nice colourwork.

Soundtrack was honestly not something I will remember. The ED is pretty good and BGM is going smoothly with the show but nothing outstanding here.

Finally, we have to talk about the story:
It's fine but you cannot overlook somewhat of a wasted potential. I mean, the concept of the show was so great.
A secret government orginazation uses orphaned girls to fight terrorism, while trying to keep the people of Japan unaware of it.
We then have Chisato, the strongest Lycoris of all, but with an intresting trait of valuing everyone's life (because of things happened in her past) and therefore not killing.
We finally have an antagonist with some understandable intentions and some well thought off ways to reach his goal.
But the execution and especially how things ended left me feeling a bit underwhelmed. I don't wanna spoil anything here but ultimately you can see the creators valuing the characters over the story, which I dind't mind that much, however, it could be a turn off for some people, who are in for a great and well thought-out plot.
In addition to this, our main characters are getting supported by quite a bit of plot armor in various situations, such as gun fights or through convenient events or object placements, occasionally saving their lives. It is clear to see, how certain events were merely created to push the story in the right direction without caring much about, how reasonable it ultimately is. Again, I didn't really mind. However, I can see how stuff like this effects someone's personal enjoyment.

At the end, it's for you to decide to give it a try or not. If you like awesome characters having a great time, with lots of comedy and some nice action choreographies, then you most certainly should give it a watch.
If you prioritice a heavily action-focused show with great and well thought-out and executed plot, you better stay away from this one, because it simply won't satisfy you.

Lycoris Recoil while having a very nice production is severely lacking in terms of pace and plot.
They could've been done with this story in 11 episodes tops by increasing overall pace. It's too slow.
Novelty of MC wears off rather fast and there really is no growth or change within her up until the very end, she is sadly static.
Support cast while interesting don't have that much going on for them besides the main story line. Have they any goals for themselves, anything else to do besides been in the background? No, they only live for the plot even in the end where you might hope ... author finally found the courage to "let them go".
I honestly have no issue with the concept of a highly trained gifted hitman not killing anyone, we had such concept before with Trigun and it was proven to work well when you fit this in an interesting story.

Here, all the antagonist characters were rather plain and their motivation was questionable at best and primitive to be honest.
When you try to focus on a sort of relationship between MC and the antagonist you should put more effort into it, which they don't.

Did author engage in a children exploitation by the government topic deeply? Not really. It's all business as usual.
And they had it right there, they only needed to push it just a little.

Overall this show has decent action scenes which become somewhat bland by the end, some nice comedic moments and a what could've been a cool concept (again because of Trigun) but ends up been a Meh show.

And it's sad.

I started watching this anime at the beginning of the season and didn't find it very interesting. At the end, given its high score and various online talk, I gave it another shot. However, I was right the first time.

Setting in which young girls work dangerous jobs for the goverment or other is not new. Anime like Gunslinger Girls or Black Bullet have done it before. Characters are stockpile ones, basically. One has short blonde hair, the other long black. One is cheerful, other is reserved. There is no personality there, and all the growth you see in anime is as you can expect from ... the last sentence. Art and animation are good, soundtrack was okay, but nothing that stuck with me.

Anime progression was interesting though. After the first couple of episode which introduce the setting, middle part becomes a slice-of-life type with characters working in a caffee and doing odd jobs for the HQ. It was actually pretty enjoyable. Near the end though, they had to raise the stakes and had these repeated mediocre anime shoot-outs that are barely watchable.

Recommending only if action anime are your thing.

The first 8 episodes, taken as a whole, is great: and I mean GREAT. Those episodes together were probably the most I've enjoyed from animes this year, and that's a pretty high bar to hit: given other great titles like Spy X Family and Ya Boy Kongming that 2022 has graced us. And that's in large part thanks to the great character design and dynamics between its two heroines, Chisato and Takina. Hell, I would recommend watching this anime just for those 8 episodes.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and I just wish that's at episode 13 rather than episode 9. To ... be sure, I was still very optimistic at episode 9, even though that episode already felt a little bit rushed. 4 episodes seemed more than enough to resolve the main conflict, not least because all the characters already have established motives at that point. I was pretty sure this show could avoid the common pitfall of other original animes that rushed their endings.

And on that ground, Lycoris Recoil actually did... kinda well. What is interestingly problematic, however, is that the show never seemed to have figured out what it's trying to do. To be fair, the tension between being a serious battle/social critique anime and a yuri/"cute girls do cute stuff" anime was also what made the first 8 episodes so good: if not for that tension, the dynamic between Chisato and Takina would not have been so charming. I was amazed by how they managed to maintain the playfulness of a slice-of-life yuri anime all while developing serious plot about social issues underneath. If this was simply a battle anime or only a yuri anime, I probably would not have enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.

Yet that tension is also what ultimately tore the last 5 episodes apart. Instead of trying to maintain that delicate balance, the anime chose to somewhat "abandon" the yuri part and focus on the serious side. As a result, the villain Majima seemed to have taken Takina's place as a protagonist. Now, don't get me wrong, as far as characters go Majima's design isn't half bad, but unfortunately this serious side simply isn't what Lycoris Recoil is best at. It feels like a half-baked version of Psycho-Pass, with Majima being a dollar store Makishima.

By focusing on the rivalry between Chisato and Majima, the last 2 episodes especially feels like an invalidation of all the lovingly-portrayed relationship between Chisato and Takina in the first 9. If they never officially confirmed the feelings between those 2 as romantic, there is at least a sense of mutual trust and care in those early episodes. In the last few episodes, however, it almost feels like Takina is chasing a lost cause: Chisato was just causing troubles everywhere, while Takina goes after her to save her ass every time. The theme of the anime have shifted from Chisato and Takina overcoming difficulties together as they grow stronger in their relationship to the clashing ideology between Chisato and Majima. In the very last segment, Chisato's behaviour almost felt like she did not care about Takina at all, content to reach her ending on her own without saying anything to Takina. That might be unintended, and could definitely be interpreted differently, but it does come off as showing that the bond between the two main characters was not as strong as presented in the first part, and perhaps unequal or even unrequited. And the ending itself is very random and confusing... like what? Are they trying to recapture a miniature version of the playfulness that made the first part of the show successful? If so, it was definitely not the best way to do it and only served to further highlight the disconnectedness between the two sides of the show.

Again, it's just unfortunate that they chose to invalidate, whether intentionally or not, the stronger part of the show and give spotlight to its weaker side for its ending. Still, it's a quite enjoyable watch especially for the first 8 episodes, if you can overlook the awkwardness of its serious side.

Upbeat dystopian Japan setting. Cute Girls Doing Killer Things.

It is amazing in a morbid way how you can depict such inhumane things this way. Somehow it feels that no one in this anime have any shred of compassion(well, except for two). People who use underage girls to kill everyone who is being payed for. Girls who have no remorse in taking lives and watch their comrades impending death and do nothing. Whole society shown to have no concern for people being killed off in plain sight without even chance for trial.

For protagonist role we have "deviant" who still have some kind of compassion for comrades ... and "psycho" who thinks that killing anyone is not okay and she have remorse for taking life.

After couple episodes when you get used to the setting, there is not much of interest is left. Watching internal politics of Killer Organization, observe life of girls or watch them do some random missions. In second half of the season, overarching plot, that tied to the past of "psycho" girl, picks up and we have a conclusion at the end. With one of lamest cop out imaginable.

It is kinda amazing how stupid it looks when you consider how characters provoke people with power or money in this setting. Without any plan to kill them off before they can do same thing with you for overstepping bounds and endangering their position. As the mass murder is normalized here, it looks like a wonder that this country/government works at all. By all means that story should be a horrifying bloodfest when you consider that capturing someone and torturing information out of them should be theoretically a lesser evil than taking life.

Story which gaslight normal human interactions and helps in normalizing worst of human qualities. When normal is portrayed as being conformist to cannibalistic habits, and to be a decent human being is something out of the ordinary, dangerous and straight up a characteristic of a terrorist.

Despicable story about despicable people controlled by despicable people. This work is great anti-Japan propaganda.