Lycoris Recoil
13 episode original series
Genre: CGDCT except it has combat and more or less a bit of a spy fiction-ish? "Cute Combat Girls Doing Cute Things" aka CCGDCT? Iunno
Dub: There is English dub but Subs all the way (but I heard the dub is okay-ish)
Review:
Lycoris Recoil is kind of like... I don't know. If you know or have watched Gunslinger Girls then it has that similar vibe. It's an original work about Japan who after some terrorism stuff that wrecked one of their tower in the past (The Skytree Tower), has decided to set up this network of what is essentially highschool-aged secret police to keep Japan peaceful and remove any "threat" that would ruin such peace. Of course the whole thing isn't really about them and instead focused on two of these hitwomans, a notable trainee by the name of Takina Inoue whose serious, cold and has this whole "finish the job first, life second" mindset who after botching her task with the agency that employed her, finds herself being assigned (exiled, in a lack of better terms) with Chisato Nishikigi, who is basically the ace of the entire agency but is also a perky, cheerful pile of fun who, despite being tasked to eliminate threats lethally, decided to basically to go play Pacifist route and pissed everyone in that agency or tolerate her enough to not let her go because her skills is that invaluable. There are plenty of interesting cast, ranging from your atypical jerk rival to your stock small-sized super-hacker, up until characters like Chisato's handler who is like, a not-stereotypically played black foreign man and the antagonist being a terrorist that is like, demanding "THE BALANCE" while casually totting PKM machine gun while wearing gaudy hawaii shirt + leather coat and have a joker green hairdo.
The series plot itself basically 75% Chisato trying to get Takina to lighten-up and it's what makes the series quite interesting to many people (and so the shippers), because their relationship being a complete split-opposite that of course, as the series progressed, has basically becoming so close that they could be inseparable. The other 25% is reserved on actual hard plot about a terrorist trying to concoct a plan that was already set on the first episode, along with other heavy plot related to Chisato's past and the matter on how the whole "Japan Secret Police clearing Threats" worked behind the scene.
It's quite interesting as a theme, being essentially trying to combine Slice of Life with Spy-Fiction (or gunplay focused action animu), but I kind of wished that it stayed fully as SOL and keep the combat and heavy plot aspect at the minimum. While it is still enjoyable to its own, I kinda felt it would work better if they just like, putting a plot about these two balancing the life of being friendly to each other/one learning from the other while also dealing with all sort of threat to the country instead of focusing on a single plot villain.
Without going into too much spoilers, though, the plot at the end is just a bit... average-ish. I can understand the plot terrorist motivation against the system but at the same time, the one involving Chisato's past is just a bit... reaching. I understand that they want to explain the whole reason why she went pacifist to begin with, but the whole entire plot of what is essentially them tried to make her use live round and not being pacifist is just, whack. Interesting, but whack. I do have this assumption that the whole Chisato's past bit is just something on the side while the terrorist whole plot is the main attraction, but it meshes together as if both was planned at the same time. Still though, the plot in the end does lead to a rather open closure, which would make for an easy 2nd season if there's a need for it.
All in all, it's enjoyable. But for those who wishes for it to have more slice of life element like me, it's probably best to just enjoy the fans drawing the two doing cute things instead. Nevertheless, it has really great combat scene involving gun-play, especially with Chisato's "ace ability" (aka dodging bullets in real time) makes her nickname as "Animu John Wick" well deserved (especially because her being pacifist/using non-lethal rounds and thus she had to compensate with inaccurate non-lethal bullets and all). It's also a original series so you can easily jump into it without any prior knowledge, and Chisato's act is just so damn fun to watch, especially when having Takina acting as the straight-man before she too ended up start loosing herself and becoming just as open to Chisato... to some degree of success.
I give it an 8/10 as a whole, but for me personally it's 7,5/10 because of my desire of the series having more SOL element, along with some few nitpicks on my part regarding the world background and lore of it. It might be cheery and cutesy, but it's still an action series, so you might have to keep that in mind if you want to recommend it to other weebs (assuming they hadn't watch it, considering the popularity recently). The Yuri-bait is quite clear though, even if there's nothing that is pretty unsubtle. I still see the main duo as close friends, but who knows if the series decided to make the two an item or whatever.
Similar Shows: The closest thing would be Gunslinger Girls, but you can put any anime about contrasting personality-based duos and it could work. Probably.
