Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
If it seems like Spy x Family never really left, that’s because for all intents and purposes, it basically didn’t. In practice, this episode marks the start of a second season, but on paper, what the series is doing here is a once-rare but increasingly-common split cour. Two batches of episodes considered to be part of the same “season” even though they air months apart. Confusing! But if it lets the animators rest their weary bones even a little, we should probably be accommodating.
In any case, from a plot and style point of view it definitely doesn’t feel like things have changed. Spy x Family’s second cour opens with dual plots about adopting a cute dog for Anya and preventing not-Willy Brandt from being assassinated by bomb dogs. Naturally, these two things collide into each other when Anya gets lost at a pet adoption event.
Yes.
It’s easy to forget, since the series leans pretty heavily on the “comedy” end of the “action comedy” spectrum, but there is some genuinely harrowing stuff that happens in Spy x Family. The terrorist plot is played pretty straight throughout this episode. Keith, the terrorists’ leader, is a no-nonsense right-wing extremist, and when Anya stumbles into his group’s hideout, he’s the only one who’s completely unhesitant in trying to kill her.
But Anya is nothing if not lucky (and, you know, telepathic). One of the other assets being kept by the terrorists is a living mountain of fur in dog form.
He doesn’t have a name yet, but he doesn’t need one to make a strong first impression here. He has precognitive abilities, and makes his debut in this episode by yanking a child away from a sign that was about to fall, immediately establishing him as a “good guy” dog. (Although, really, with how Spy x Family generally is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other dogs introduced in this episode eventually turn face also. We shall see.)
Here, our canine friend heroically slinkies Anya down some stairs.
We also learn of the sinister Project Apple, from whence all these telepathic dogs (and apparently a fair amount of other weird science-enhanced animals) come from. It’s not a stretch to assume that this might have some link to Anya’s own powers.
Regardless, the episode ends mid-showdown, with Yor rescuing her daughter from the terrorists, and things setting up excitingly for next week. It’s good to have the series back, foot foot planted firmly on the gas, dead-set on sparking a sense of adventure in your heart once again. And really, for now, that’s all it needs to do.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.
Magic Planet Anime posts will be extremely irregular for the foreseeable future. See this post for details.
Since we last spoke about Lycoris Recoil, the series has undergone a radical shift in scale and focus. We saw the opening moves of this maneuver back in episode 7, but by now the show has mostly disregarded any direct “nitty gritty” political engagement. There are two things LycoReco cares about right now: mapping out the long arc of Chisato’s short life, and broad, philosophical questions of destiny and free will. Even though the show’s actual setting and characters have not changed much, we’re still a very long way from the montage of high schoolers capping people from the premiere.
We’ve known for a while that Chisato has an artificial heart, some future-tech thing that doesn’t actually beat, and which is essentially irreplaceable. So it wasn’t that surprising when, a few weeks ago, a minor villain posing as a nurse injected our protagonist with some knock-out serum or another and performed some impromptu surgery. The result was hardware lockout; no one can tinker with Chisato’s heart anymore, and that includes recharging it.
She has two months left to live.
Chisato’s life has the ring of true tragedy. Raised as a child soldier but addled with an incurable heart disease, she was singled out by the mysterious Shinji Yoshimatsu as a “genius” of killing, the primary skill of all Lycorii, and given her artificial heart with the understanding that she would use this gift to become an even deadlier assassin. Even with this in mind, we learn, it was doubtful she’d live past 18. Of course, for the purposes of being a deadly teenage supercop, that’s perfectly fine; Lycorii are discharged at 18 anyway.
The entire universe of Lycoris Recoil is aligned against Chisato; the “nurse” who’s pulled the plug on her heart is one of Yoshimatsu’s people, an obvious attempt to gain leverage on her to get her to return to her alleged true calling as an assassin, her former superior at the DA is not much better, giving her back a camera she’d confiscated some time ago to try to nudge her back into DA service. And of course, there’s her heart problems themselves, a natural ailment that the artificial heart has provided only a temporary reprieve from.
Chisato rarely shows any direct concern over any of this, and frankly she’s remarkably unflappable in the face of her imminent demise, but that’s precisely part of what makes her character arc so effective. Fearing death, at least a little bit, is normal. Staring unblinking into its face as you know it’s creeping ever closer, that’s another thing entirely. The ability to do that only comes from having spent the better part of your life in a seriously bad place. Even with all she very obviously cares for—Takina, the cafe’, Mika, etc.—she seems to have accepted this as inevitable from day one. It’s heartbreaking.
Yet, when, in episode 10 (the most recent), she finds out who exactly is responsible for all of that hardship, she holds no ill will toward him at all. She’s not really even mad at Mika for keeping this secret from her this entire time! Instead, she reiterates that she sees the two of them as her fathers, and when, in the episode’s final minutes, we learn that Shinji’s being held hostage by Majima and Robota, she doesn’t hesitate to spend a day of her rapidly-shrinking lifespan trying to rescue him. (The actual hostage rescue itself being territory for next week, we must assume.)
Chisato is, at the end of the day, an incredibly strong character. Not just strong in the usual anime sense, and not just strong as in “well-written,” but possessing of a vast moral strength, too. It’s hard to know whether to take her insistence that she hear all of the terrible things Shinji’s said about her in person as an incredible capacity for forgiveness, a denial that she’s been lied to at all, or both. But all signs point to her being very much aware of her own mortality, her ability to do all of this in spite of that awareness is both admirable and more than a little terrifying. Hers is a blitheness that hides a deep pain, something we really don’t get to actually see for ourselves directly.
While this is very much Chisato’s show, it’d be a mistake to not mention that the rest of Lycoris Recoil‘s cast has continued to be great, too. Mika’s deep and very much justified regret over his role in concealing the truth from Chisato rounds out his character in an excellent way.
Takina, in the meantime, has had to deal with the impending loss of her best friend (or “best friend.” I leave that distinction up to you, shippers), perhaps the first person she’s ever truly connected to, while also, in a twist of dramatic irony, being given exactly what she initially wanted; a trip back to the DA. She and Chisato are apart for episode 10, which while sad, does give her a few moments to truly shine on her own, and her single-minded focus on trying to somehow help Chisato is very grounded and relatable, despite the fantastical stakes. (This could also be said of Mika, actually. I am sure there is at least one father watching this show who absolutely cried his eyes out this past episode.)
The only real weak spot is Majima, who’s taken the main villain role in this last arc of the show. As a cartoonish caricature of an anarchist in a world built on some already-iffy foundational principles, he is probably the only genuine weak link in Lycoris Recoil‘s character roster and embodies most of the show’s remaining shortcomings. Still, he’s at least entertaining at this point, with his utterly ludicrous plot of “hide a thousand guns all over Tokyo and let carnage ensue naturally from there” being, all at once, a decent piece of commentary, comically stupid on its face, and weirdly lazy, as far as big endgame villain schemes go. But at this point, that’s expected of LycoReco, a show that is built on contradictions top to bottom.
The plot itself has taken an all-action movie tropes twist—again—as we ride into the final few weeks. A dying Chisato prepares to rescue Shinji while Takina and the other DA Lycorii try to deal with Majima running circles around them. Much is up in the air, and it’s impossible to exactly call where it all will land.
For any flaws it could be said to have, there is absolutely no denying that, as Lycoris Recoil nears its end, it remains an absolutely fascinating show, forever pulling in all directions and only recently settling into a groove that seems to truly suit it. (No one would call the show’s early episodes bad, I don’t think, but things have definitely improved.) The last bullets are in the chamber; gun cocked, but not fired.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.
Magic Planet Anime posts will be extremely irregular for the foreseeable future. See this post for details.
Call of The Night is a show about living outside of social norms. It has been basically since day 1. Modern vampire stories lend themselves particularly well to this sort of thing, and that might be why the glove fits Call of The Night so well. But whatever the reason, it’s difficult to read the show’s tale of complex nocturnal relationships as being about anything else.
For Ko, vampirism has always represented an ideal exit strategy from the expectations of diurnal society. Vampires do not have to go to school, and since they (presumably, here as in most fiction) live very long lives, there is no need to truly manage one’s time wisely. After all, there can’t be any future problems looming over your head if “the future” never really comes.
In its past few episodes, Call of The Night has raised the obvious counterpoint to this idea; what about the vampires’ own social norms?
Recent episodes have established that as Ko is to humanity, Nazuna is to vampiredom. Nazuna is, in her own way, a social outcast as well. She’s apparently never turned another person, she’s unwilling to seduce people in order to do that, and in general she simply doesn’t seem to get along with the other vampires we’re introduced to very well. In fact, one could easily argue that Nazuna is more of an outcast than Ko is; at least Ko’s classmates seem to like him. The other vampires only just tolerate Nazuna, and that’s after learning about her and Ko’s unique situation. Before that point, one of those vampires, Kikyo Seri (Haruka Tomatsu), actually tries to kill her—and Ko, for knowing too much about vampires—marking the first genuine threat in the entire story.
Things work themselves out, sort of, but we also learn that Ko only has a year to become a vampire before being turned becomes impossible. “Failing to qualify,” as one of the other vampires puts it. What was once a choice has now been turned into a requirement, and worse, one with a time limit. The other vampires do not explicitly tell Ko that they’ll kill him if he can’t manage to turn in that time, but all evidence points to this, since then he’d be a human who knows too much about them with no way of turning into one himself. Once again, Ko finds himself up against a societal wall; expectations imposed, with consequences if they’re not met. (Rather severe ones, I must say.)
This, understandably, makes Ko anxious. Since now he feels like he needs to fall in love with Nazuna rather than just wanting to. He even tries taking her on a date, at Seri’s suggestion, but it pretty quickly falls to pieces.
Ladies, has your man ever left you feeling like this?
Things are only salvaged when Nazuna lifts him into the night once again; trying to fit anyone else’s ideas of what their relationship should be inevitably fails. It’s only on their own terms do Nazuna and Ko truly work together, not just as a couple but even just as friends.
All this said then, the question asks itself; is becoming a vampire really all it’s cracked up to be? Nazuna certainly doesn’t think so, and there is some implication that Seri may not, either. But there’s also a lingering hint that Ko may not have to face this looming problem alone.
In the most recent episode, 8, we’re also introduced to Mahiru (Kenshou Ono). Mahiru is a jovial, all-around friendly sort of guy. Ko really seems to like him, arguably to the point of a crush, and he makes a good first impression.
(I think every middle and high school has at least one guy like this. In my high school it was a stoner dude who was extremely tall. His name was Mitch, and I hope he’s doing well nowadays.) We find out, though, that Mahiru has also been seeing someone after dark, with the broad implication that he, too, may be in love with a vampire.
It seems like that for all Ko has used nighttime as an escape, his problems are not content to stay out of the shadows. As always, I am intrigued to see where the series goes from here, as it enters its final stretch.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
The Cover Issue: A lionizing figure leads a revolution, it would seem. I really, really want these guys to show up in the main story now. There is nothing on Earth funnier to me, in this moment, than a lion leading a pirate crew.
In today’s chapter, the battle for the hull and soul of the restaurant ship continues, but not without an interesting new wriggle. Yesterday it seemed like Gin might be betraying Don Krieg outright. Today’s chapter makes it clear that’s not true, he just feels honor-bound to kill Sanji himself. A peculiar buccaneer’s honor, if ever I’ve seen it.
Another important thing happens; Don Krieg reestablishes his bad guy bonafides. How? By tricking Luffy into almost wrecking the rest of the ship. He makes a huge show of firing a “poison gas cannonball” (yes) at the rubber pirate, but surprise, he actually filled the cannonball with shrapnel.
No, sorry, with shuriken. My mistake.
There’s also a fun small detail here, where Krieg tells his men off for letting the fact that Luffy called them “wimps” get under their skin. He says that being bothered by it only proves Luffy’s point. Not ten pages later, he absolutely seethes over the fact that Luffy won’t acknowledge Krieg as proper King of the Pirates material. Some pirates are just always telling on themselves. Things don’t get immediately resolved here, and we can assume that the battle for the oceangoing restaurant will continue well into the next chapter.
See you then, pirates. But before I do, here’s an intriguing bit of cultural flotsam included at the end of this chapter.
The very first One Piece popularity poll, so far as I can tell. I’m a little sad that Nami ranked behind Red-Hair Shanks, who hasn’t shown up since the prologue, but eh, young boys, am I right?
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
The Cover Issue: You know who can beat both an acrobat and a lion tamer in combat? An actual lion.
I like chapters like this that are defined by a couple of solid “WTF” moments. Selfishly, that’s partly because they’re easy to write about, but also I just think it’s fun when a chapter is wholly built around one or two big punches like this.
The fight on board the restaurant’s secondary battle deck continues as the chapter opens. Sanji makes a very brave and spirited showing that he isn’t about to let anyone just walk all over the deck of his beloved ship, not with himself still in debt to Zeff for saving him.
Just one problem; Luffy is also still on board, and he has other ideas.
I do so love Luffy’s habit of just calling all of his moves Gum-Gum Whatever.
Yeah he shatters the battle deck into splinters. Because um….to be honest I’m not totally sure what Luffy’s plan is here? Something about sinking the ship so that Krieg’s men won’t get their prize? He does have some good points about Sanji’s recklessness, though.
In any case, it doesn’t actually matter, because Luffy’s little plan is interrupted by the other big “who did what now?” of this chapter.
Normally I’m not super keen on “this character we’ve introduced as a villain is secretly a decent person” as a development, but I make exceptions for characters who are based as fuck.
And the chapter basically ends there! With Gin betraying his boss and with Krieg saying this.
Tomorrow: The battle for the restaurant rages on.
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
Before I say anything else, I do want to be clear that yes, “Dreams Come Rued” is this episode’s title. That’s not a typo; it’s “rued” as in the past tense of that word you only ever see in the phrase “rue the day.”
In any case, I think I have maybe not done the best job of conveying how goddamn weird this show is. RWBY: Ice Queendom is an anime that, by now, has taken place mostly within a dream world by volume. And inarguably, one of its strengths is that that world does in fact run on a convincing facsimile of dream logic. Things change on a whim according to the dreamer’s mood and, indeed, changing the dream itself is part of Team RWBY’s plan as they once again venture into the depths of Weiss’ mind, with Team JNPR’s Jaune in tow.
We open with The Funky Four + 1 More here trying a different tack; they defend one of the ice trains that continuously attempts to enter the city from the recurring White Fang attacks. In doing so, they allow one of the trains to enter the fortresslike Winter City for the first time, perhaps, ever. Weiss, notably, has to actually give the order to open the city’s gates and hesitates until the very last moment to do so, a pretty straightforward metaphor for how much difficulty she has in letting other people into her life. She actually visibly is panicking a bit as she has to make the call. Indicative of authoritarian people freaking out when they no longer have pet issues to fearmonger over or just reflective of the fact that Weiss is, like, super tightly-wound? We at Magic Planet Anime ask, is there no reason it cannot be both?
Regardless, the results are pretty magnificent. The city literally transforms around the train as it enters, and despite Weiss’ protestations that the city “will not change” and how she has to make Blake “understand” this, for a while it looks like things might resolve themselves peacefully. Team RWBY hide out of the way while Jaune enters one of the “Silly Prisons.” That’d be the literal cages where the dreamscape versions of Team JNPR are kept, as we first saw several episodes back. Unfortunately—and, call me crazy, I’m getting the impression that whoever wrote this episode is not super fond of Jaune—Jaune ends up unleashing a horde of tiny, chibi Weisses—Miniweissen, we’ll say—who promptly start babbling one-liners like this.
Now he does get ahold of one of those relics—this one yellow—too, but this turns out to be a pretty big fuckup. Frankly, the entire thing has to truly be seen to be believed; it’s nuts. If Ice Queendom was just uncut weirdness like this all the time, it’d probably be my favorite thing airing this season.
Ruby of course interprets the Miniweissen being free to run about as a good thing. And it does initially seem like it might be, because they disable the menacing robot guards from attacking by…infecting them with childishness?
But then they start making a mess of the city, and it rapidly becomes clear that whatever the solution might be to Weiss’ horrible combination of a self-loathing complex, deeply-ingrained bigoted attitudes, and a generally authoritarian attitude towards not just others but herself as well, it was not letting these things out. Before too long, they combine into larger forms—Magnaweissen?—and start levelling buildings and such.
And then, of course, Weiss calls toward the heavens….
“By the power of Studio Shaft, THIS WILL LOOK BETTER ON BLU-RAYYYYYYYYYYY!”
….and promptly unleashes her giant bronze spider mecha. What, you don’t remember that from the original show? (Honestly, I shouldn’t say things like that given that I haven’t seen it. Maybe it is in the original series.)
If I seem to have a lack of things to say here, I think it’s more because this is a transitional episode than anything else. Team RWBY have tried a different approach and it’s gone awry, and we end on a pretty intense cliffhanger as Weiss summons the aforementioned spider mecha. I have no idea where this is going, but I’m excited to find out.
Yeah, okay, maybe she’s a bad person, but the style though. Sheesh.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
Well folks, I hope you like reading my opinions on Girls with Guns anime, because we have a full double-writeup this week.
Episode 6 is a weird one, although in the greater context of Lycoris Recoil it’s actually fairly typical, dealing as it does with a mix of action and wacky hijinks. Takina moves in with Chisato as an extra defense against the recent rash of Lycoris killings (we saw one of those in episode 5), mostly to comedic effect, despite the deadly serious situation, and there’s a running gag throughout the episode about Chisato’s preternatural skill at rock-paper-scissors, as well as plenty more gay subtext for those who are watching the series just for that.
But you wouldn’t assume such silliness from how the episode opens; it begins with the DA in crisis. The targeted killings have thrown the agency into disarray, and there’s not much indication that the commander really knows what to do. That’s actually all we see of her in this episode, but it sets the tone for that part of the episode pretty well.
Let’s briefly talk about Majima (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka). Majima is the weird terrorist who’s been behind these Lycoris killings. We learn in this episode that he’s probably working for Mr. Alan (whether he knows that is an open question at this point), and that he has a pretty short fuse, threatening his cohort, the hacker Roboto, if he can’t get him what he wants soon enough. What does he want? To smash the DA. To be honest, if that motive were welded to a more developed character, you could very easily make the case that Majima is actually the good guy. But Majima is not much more than a cartoonish killer with a grudge at this point, and frankly, he’s not a terribly interesting antagonist. (At least not in this episode, but we’ll get to that.) His being the bad guy is easy to chalk up to the show’s rather simple political principles. He is a functional counterforce for Chisato, though, which is enough for this episode specifically. He becomes interested in our hero when Roboto inadvertently shows him some footage of her roughing up some would-be assailants, and from then on it’s mostly ravings about “balance.” Although there is one interesting reveal snuck in here; that Chisato is, or at least Majima thinks she is, an “Alan Lycoris.” It really doesn’t seem like our protagonist is actually working for Alan, so what that means, beyond Alan’s brief allusion to her being a “genius of killing” back in episode 4, is fairly up in the air.
The actual section of the episode where Majima and Chisato fight is strongly done, and LycoReco makes a much-needed comeback on the production front after the visually iffy episode 5, here. The fact that Majima’s favored method of attacking Lycorii starts with “run them over with a Lambo” is still deeply silly, but it at least looks suitably dramatic and menacing this time around. Most notably with this shot, where it does actually look like Chisato might be seriously injured or worse. (She is, of course, fine. No one can stop an anime high school girl with a firearm.)
Things do get dicey enough though that Takina has to intervene, although not before we get a pretty great “hero and villain fistfight while surrounded by chanting goons” scene. I’ve always loved that particular trope, it’s an easy way to inject some grit into a story. (And the between frames of a full-on slugfest are inevitably hilarious.)
There are some other interesting bits in here. For one, we get yet another piece of the puzzle as to the question of what exactly happened back in episode 1. Today we learn that the person who hacked the Radiata system—and thus, indirectly lead to Majima’s people getting their hands on the names and faces of the Lycorii he’s been hunting down—was in fact Walnut, AKA our very own Kurumi. This is basically treated like a serious but ultimately goofy mistake on her part by most of the cast, which is as odd as it sounds. The only resulting consequence being her offering Takina a tearful apology and promising to help them see the case through to the end. I feel like I’m beating a dead horse whenever I bring this up, but this show’s oddly undercooked ideological framework really just lends a weird air to developments like this, and a few other “gags” throughout the episode. It’s the show’s most serious writing-side weakness, but admittedly, Kurumi committing a serious crime being treated as an Uh-Oh Whoopsie is actually kind of funny.
This is also the presumable inspiration for episode 6’s midcards, which I will not otherwise get a chance to include here, and which really remind me of that “girl being homoerotically bullied” meme that used to go around tumblr.
Do you think someone on the staff just made this as fanart, originally? I do wonder.
We close with Takina finally beating Chisato at roshambo, with her residence at Chisato’s place on the line, although not before the latter gets her hopes up.
….And, elsewhere, with Majima swearing vengeance against this “interesting” Lycoris he’s met, thrilled that he’s found someone who can “strike a balance with him.”
Which brings us to episode 7.
Episode 7 is not only much stronger than the comparatively weak 5 and 6, it’s probably the best episode of Lycoris Recoil so far, despite forgoing one of the series’ usual strengths. (That is to say; there aren’t really any cool extended action scenes in it.)
Part of this is down to a simple shift in focus; I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I’m a bit down on Lycoris Recoil‘s worldbuilding and the assumptions that it uses as foundations. That’s still true, but this episode foregrounds a more interesting and more directly interpersonal series of conflicts that makes that a fair bit less relevant. You can think of this as the show “zooming in”, if you’d like.
Our plots here are twofold; one follows Majima and manages to make him a fair shake more interesting than he’s been since his introduction, and the other follows Chisato, who, via an unintentionally sneaked look at a phone, manages to learn more about herself and the operation that saved her life than she probably wanted to.
Majima’s plot is the more straightforward of the two, so we’ll knock that out first; he spends much of this episode running around on Roboto’s orders. All to advance some grandiose plan he has to encounter Chisato again, who he has quickly developed a dangerous obsession with. We also learn, somewhat surprisingly, that Majima was present at the much-discussed Radio Tower Incident, and in fact claims credit for “breaking” the tower in the first place. What this might mean is still unclear, but he did meet a certain deadly, familiar-looking Lycoris back then, which immediately adds a layer of the engagingly personal to his fixation on Chisato.
On the other hand, maybe this is just The Flatwoods Monster wearing a schoolgirl uniform.
His half of the episode ends with him and his band of thugs shooting up a police station, and attaching a bugged USB stick from Roboto to one of their computers. (Which is presumably somehow connected to the Radiata, to be honest this is the episode’s only plot point that I’m still a little unclear on.)
Chisato, meanwhile, happens to glance at her boss Mika’s phone one day at the cafe’. One can see why the message would catch her interest.
As much as what follows is about Chisato, it’s also about Mika. I haven’t really talked a lot about Mika in these columns, but he’s actually probably my favorite member of the adult cast. For one thing, cast diversity has badly backslid in anime over the past 20 years, so it is just nice to have a Black character who is a normal part of the narrative instead of some weird stereotype. But more than that, he’s an interesting mentor figure in his own right, past episodes have alluded to a checked past with the DA, gesturing toward the notion that Mika is not entirely the kindly man he seems.
This episode does not pull any kind of secret villain reveal, but it does confirm that, yeah, the guy used to work in the truly unpleasant part of the already-unpleasant secret government agency. Namely, because one of his buddies was Shinji Yoshimatsu. The mysterious head of the Alan Institute who I’ve accidentally previously only been referring to by his pseudonyms, I think. Anyway! That is the guy that he meets up with at Bar Forbidden, the amusingly named members-only lounge mentioned in the text message.
Initially, some of the cast (especially Takina) think that it’s possible that he might be meeting up with the commander, assuming it’s a strictly business affair. They find out the actual truth of things once they infiltrate Forbidden in, I’ll say, a very Chisato way.
Where in the world is Chisato Sandiego?
As they find out, Yoshimatsu and Mika go way back. On the one hand, we get pretty explicit confirmation that they used to be more than just friends. (Quoth Chisato, who sounds like she’s speaking from experience; “love comes in many forms.”) And Yoshimatsu attempts to psych-out Mika in an elevator on his way out. Both by acting all domineering and then by pulling back and explaining the reasons for his actions.
He, as we already more or less knew, was the one who funded her operation after the Radio Tower Incident, and did so because of Chisato’s natural talents. Those talents go unnamed here, but it doesn’t take a genius to infer that he’s referring to her skill as an assassin. Skill she hasn’t really put to use since returning to work as a Lycoris and switching only to non-lethal arms.
Here again we do kind of run smack into LycoReco’s fundamental writing issues. Lycoris Recoil seems to think switching to non-lethal ammo is a much bigger deal than it actually is. Yes, it’s great that the child soldier isn’t wantonly killing people (anymore), but she’s still a child soldier. An unsolved problem remains.
Or does it?
The series has not been shy about portraying Yoshimatsu as a villain. This is the first episode we get that really humanizes him at all, and what we learn is hardly flattering. Chisato confronts Mika and Yoshimatsu, although unfailingly politely. She learns about why she was saved, and even though she does not show it in any way but the most subtle, it’s very clear that this bothers her on a deep level. And I imagine that with Majima setting plans in motion to cause full-on disasters to attract the attention of his favorite Lycoris, her commitment to the bare minimum baseline even of just not killing will be tested in the episodes to come.
While that is not the comprehensive breakdown of the toxic structures that put all this in place that many were hoping for from Lycoris, it is meaningful. In the episode’s closing moments, she hangs up her Alan Institute pendant inside her closet, implicitly locking that part of her identity away. She is clearly bothered by what she’s been told here, even if it’s not in her nature to make that obvious. Hopefully, the next time we see the pendant, she throws it out for good. (And Mika, certainly, feels like he’s failed Chisato in some way by letting her find out about this. I really do think the two have an endearing surrogate father / daughter sort of thing going on, and you really feel for him here.)
Making things worse is that Yoshimatsu tosses this comment toward Takina, possibly hinting at a future wedge between the two. (Even if not, Yoshimatsu is clearly trying to make one.)
The episode ends on a brilliant little match cut; Chisato hanging up her pendant with Majima idly dangling his in the air as he plots his next move. This is the most alive Lycoris Recoil has felt for a few weeks, and whatever happens next, it’s sure to be explosive.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
The Cover Issue: A context-free but pleasant scene of Sanji and Luffy wrangling some buffaloes. One of whom is smoking!
This is quite an information-dense issue, but we can basically break down what happens into three main parts.
One: Gin threatens to kill Zeff, offering to spare his life if and only if Sanji and the rest of the cooks get off the ship ASAP. Sanji refuses, cryptically stating that he’s already taken so much from Zeff that he can’t allow him to lose anything else.
(In general, this is a rather intense chapter, and the art is more dynamic and impressive than normal, which is saying something, because One Piece already looks pretty good most of the time.)
Two: Uh-oh, Pearl is not actually dead. He kicks the shit out of Sanji, threatening his life by clapping the cook’s head between two of his shields. He also lights the ship on fire again (or maybe it just never went out from last issue), threatening the lives of everyone on board, including his own. Again.
Three: Sanji’s being knocked out is used as a transitional into a flashback, where we meet him at the young age of just 9, when he was an apprentice aboard a ship called the Orbit. He learns—and for the first time, we learn—about the legend of the ocean “All Blue”, a place where all the world’s oceans meet. It’s of keen interest to the other cooks aboard the Orbit, since anywhere where all the seas meet would have all of the world’s fish in it as well—at least, that’s their logic—and thus be a veritable seafood buffet. Of course, they don’t really believe in the thing, unlike Sanji, who very much does.
But that’s interrupted by the Orbit’s peaceful voyage being disrupted by a pirate raid, led by a very familiar captain.
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
The Cover Issue: We catch up with some of Buggy’s other crew here, who are apparently under the impression that he’s dead. I love the little funeral portrait they’ve made out of the ship’s timber, that’s a cute touch.
Here’s a fact to ponder; fire is actually super dangerous at sea. It was even moreso during the era of wooden ships. It would spread quickly, and it was difficult to get under control partly because there just isn’t really anywhere else to go, so it’s hard to manage on top of that.
This fact is relevant in today’s One Piece. Can you guess why?
Honestly, I got nothin’. This is a manga where we’ve already seen a guy destroy an entire ship with a single sword stroke, and somehow this is the first thing that just leaves me totally speechless. It just feels really random? Like sure, he can somehow make fire with his shield and he does it just as a reflex because he has jungle PTSD. It’s not even a bad development really, it’s just perplexing.
Out-of-nowhere-ness aside, his outburst does result in the predictable.
Although not for long. Pearl is actually defeated in this chapter, too, in a pretty solid battle mostly between him and Sanji but also featuring an assist from Luffy, who deflects one of Krieg’s huge spike ball things as a crucial moment when Krieg decides that Pearl’s causing more trouble than he’s worth. (Also in here; Zeff deflecting some of Pearl’s fireballs with nothing but the wind force generated by his kicks. Have I said “because manga is the only valid form of art” enough times in this column for it to count as a catchphrase yet?)
In any case, Krieg doesn’t seem to have the highest opinion of his second-in-command.
But there is at least one pirate who can pull his weight in Krieg’s crew.
Random question; do you remember Gin?
Tomorrow: Chef Zeff at gunpoint!
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.
Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!
The Cover Issue: In today’s Chapter cover (not the volume cover! Those are outside the scope of this, uh, sub-column?) Buggy and his lady-friend confirm their mutual hatred of Luffy and have dinner and wine while they’re at it. “PIRATE ALLIANCE”, the chapter text helpfully tells us.
The image of Buggy just going absolutely beast mode on an entire fish is going to haunt me for a long time.
So this chapter is mainly about two things. One; holy shit, Sanji is really good at kicking. (The unspoken implication being of course that Sanji studied under Zeff not just as a cook but as a fighter as well.) He also gets off a pretty great samurai vibes line about how knives are the soul of a chef.
Two; we meet a person named Pearl. (Also in the background of much of this issue, Luffy and Krieg are fighting elsewhere. Keep that in mind, it’s important.)
When I saw this chapter was called “Pearl”, I did indeed assume it’d introduce a character named that. But in my experience, Pearl is usually a girl’s name (think Steven Universe, Splatoon 2, I think that whale from Spongebob, etc.), and given one of the things One Piece is—ahem—known for, I sort of assumed Don Krieg would turn out to have a femme fatale pirate woman in his ranks.
Well, Pearl does work for Krieg, but he is….not that.
Yes, this is Don Krieg’s second-in-command, a walking dartboard made out of garbage can lids with a ponder-worthy orb for a hat. He is obsessed with his own handsomeness and also with not getting hurt in combat; he brags that he’s never lost “even one drop” of his own blood while fighting. He brags that he wouldn’t even get hurt if he were shot with a cannonball; you know how it goes.
Unfortunately, he’s also great at tempting fate, and you can probably guess that I wouldn’t be mentioning this if it weren’t relevant. Yes, as Luffy and Krieg are fighting on the next deck over, Krieg accidentally hurls Luffy in Pearl’s general direction, and this happens.
The reactions that follow are, shall we say, interesting, and imply some crazy shit is about to go down. That’s for tomorrow’s chapter, of course, because that’s where today’s ends.
One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!
Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
The Magic Planet 