Rikorisu rikoiru

The premise of Lycoris Recoil is pretty much the typical anime idiosyncrasy: Tokyo is kept crime free by a secret agency of teenage assassin girls which are referred to as 'Lycoris'. What sounds like one of those shows with a generic plot wrapped around scantily clad characters is actually the opposite.

Lycoris Recoil tells a reasonably clever story surrounding the Lycoris agents Takina and Chisato. Takina is the quintessential no-nonsense professional that has been raised from early childhood to be the perfect agent. Chisato is her cheerful antithesis, treating life lightly. Yet neither character is as generic as they sound. Chisato especially is as joyful and wholesome as few fictional characters manage to be, reminding me a bit of Kitagawa from the romantic comedy 'My Dress-Up Darling'. This is greatly helped along by the fantastic (Japanese) voice acting of Chika Anzai who received well-deserved awards for her performance.

Besides the wonderful main character, Lycoris Recoil's greatest assets are the clean yet vibrant style of animation, the furious action, the perfect balance between lighthearted slice-of-life moments and a grim plot of secrecy and terrorism, and the charming and heartfelt interactions between the main and support characters.

For me personally, the show was a perfect fit. Kickass girls with commendable morals and a cheerful personality are always welcome, much more so than the violent psychopaths that usually fill the 'girls with guns' genre. I also quite enjoyed that there was pretty much zero fanservice. The violence might still be a bit much for a true childfriendly rating, though.

I'd be greatly enthused if Lycoris Recoil were renewed for a second season. According to Wikipedia, a second animation project has been confirmed; I can only hope that we'll get to see Chisato and Takina again!

This is another anime that, at the start of the season, I never expected to be this great, which is why I was greatly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. This is an action-filled, heartwarming, and emotional thrill ride. I loved the action in this anime, gunfights, hand to hand combats, the whole deal. Look, it was very unrealistic, but I can't deny how cool it was. I loved the 2 main characters and the main villain. They were very likeable, and all the banter between them was really entertaining. The friendship between the main 2 characters was very sweet. And the story, while not perfectly told, but still was really good with a few surprises along the way. The sound design was great too.

This is one of those shows and they do it well.

Convoluted plot? Superhuman abilities that defy belief? A lore reason to wear schoolgirl outfits? Convenient resolutions without convincing explanations? Doesn't matter. None of it matters. There could have been aliens that worship a flan god beneath a mountain made of mochi and it wouldn't have mattered. This is among the group that sits at the zenith of cute girls doing cute things and all other concerns take a back seat to that. Chisato is far too likeable as a main character for a measly nothing such as plausibility to get in the way, and her relationship with Takina is so endearing it makes you want to squeeze a stress ball. Everything else just adds flavor to that.

It's also well put together. This show really could have been about anything. The fact that we got government trained adolescent female assassins that fight terrorists/criminals while running a popular dessert shop on the side pretty much says it all. Compared to this, a tragedy, romcom, horror, or anything else is easy by comparison.

Lycoris Recoil does a decent job of finding a middle ground between slice of life and action. The main characters are likeable and very interesting, almost every character plays a real role in the story. It wouldn't be a show about stopping crime without a villain! This anime's villain is what helps make it a successful and suspenseful story.

Now the overall concept of cute girls with guns working behind the scenes to stop crime isn't unique to this anime but Lycoris Recoil does it the best out of any show I've seen. Without any spoilers I will say however the final two episode's are lackluster and disappointing. For a anime I actually enjoy this definitely hurts the shows rating in my honest opinion. 7/10.

This series is set in a future where there is no crime in Tokyo... at least not officially. In reality a group of school-girl assassins, called Lycoris, tackle criminal threats. One such operative is Takina Inoue; after an incident where she was considered to have endangered others. After this she is recruited by Chisato Nishikigi, an elite agent working out of a café. Chisato has the ability to dodge bullets but refuses to kill anybody. This sees then facing various threats; including terrorist Majima and a hacker known as 'Robota' due to the headgear he wears.

I thought this was fun series. There is plenty of action as well as some humour and likeable protagonists. The story progresses well after setting up the characters. The action is fairly dynamic and there is a good sense of danger even if the antagonists fall into pantomime villain territory at times. Away from the action there is some slice of life showing the girls off duty; this provides some more character depth. The character designs are good, as is the animation. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of the girls-with guns subgenre.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.