Nightmare Fuel / Lycoris Recoil

The surface of Tokyo might seem peaceful and serene, but the work of a Lycoris is downright terrifying at times.

Beware of unmarked spoilers!

Series-wide

• For the premise as a whole, each Lycoris is a Tyke Bomb orphan girl picked up by DA and trained to be a professional assassin, all while dressing up like a Japanese schoolgirl. One can only imagine the kind of mental issues some of these girls must have.
• Every terrorist crime in Tokyo is covered up by DA, which likely includes censoring or perhaps even killing witnesses. And this has been going on for over 10 years!
• The fact that the Lycoris are necessary in the first place, with seemingly daily attempts at committing acts of terror against civilians making you wonder about the state of Japan or the world at large to have such a serious terrorist problem.

Anime

• Episode 1:
  • Takina shows a near-complete disregard for Erika's safety when she grabs a PKM machinegun and hoses down the arms dealers who took her hostage. Thankfully, Erika emerges unscathed, but Takina's recklessness could have easily resulted in tragedy.
  • Kusunoki's remarks on how Takina spoiled the arms deal raid imply she was willing to let Erika die in order to capture the dealers alive. If it weren't for Takina taking the initiative when Radiata got hacked, Erika was as good as dead.
  • When visiting the Yakuza boss, Takina nearly pulls out her pistol when she thinks Chisato gave him narcotics (which turned out just to be coffee beans). Thankfully, Chisato quickly prevents her from doing anything rash, but it shows just how trigger-happy a Lycoris can be.
  • Saori's kidnapping is frightening enough already, but the fact that Takina used her as bait makes it even worse. And it's all because she took a photo that accidentally caught the arms deal.
    • The way the stalkers find Saori using her social media credentials is also a disturbing parallel to real life kidnapping incidents.
• Episode 2:
  • Robota is rather disturbing in that he's clearly a Psychopathic Manchild in his teenage years, yet is still competent enough to hack a moving vehicle and try to drive it into the ocean.
  • A more lowkey example, but Chisato threatening to let one of Robota's hitmen bleed out is fairly intimidating.
  • Watching Walnut get mowed down by Robota's hitmen is brutal, given all the blood that comes out of the hacker's costume. Fortunately, the costume was concealing a bulletproof uniform that Mizuki was wearing, letting her fool Robota into thinking Walnut was dead.
  • Upon seeing that Kurumi was hiding in the suitcase, one realizes that she almost died due to Takina using it as a shield. If those AKM-S's had penetrated the suitcase, Kurumi would've been killed instantly.
• Episode 3:
  • Fuki and Sakura bullying Takina over how she can never come back to DA is bad enough, but Kusunoki, their boss, not only encourages it, but participates in it to a degree.
  • Hearing all of the other Lycoris girls badmouthing Takina mirrors a lot of real-life bullying in some ways, with the girls thinking Takina is a psychopathic teammate-killer.
  • Erika is given no emotional support over being taken hostage in Episode 1, and is left to blame herself for Takina's dismissal. It's very unsettling to learn that most Lycoris agents have such a Lack of Empathy.
• Episode 4:
  • Majima's attempt to massacre train passengers could have had utterly horrific results. Mercifully, no civilians were on the train cars.
  • Majima also was Crazy-Prepared enough to put explosive charges into the bags of all his subordinates. He detonates them after the Lycoris agents ambush him, taking several of them out. While the viewer doesn't see the full results of the explosions, they know most (if not all) of those girls are dead, with some likely being crushed by falling debris.^note If you listen carefully to the Lycoris' last moments, specifically the last two in the English dub, they actually let out their screams rather than grunting like in the Japanese dub before they're heavily implied to be crushed and/or caught in the blast.
• Episode 5:
  • Chisato revealing that she has an artificial heart carries some disturbing implications. What could have happened to her that would require her to replace her own heart?
  • The fact that Abe and his fellow detective are forced to flee the crime scene from the prior episode shows that not even the police are safe from DA's cover-ups.
  • The whole premise of the episode is disturbing once you reach the end. Someone at the Alan Institute wants to force Chisato into a situation where she has to kill someone, so they hired Silent Jin to kill a random drug addict who was more-or-less already dead, abducting and disguising him as an elderly businessman and puppeteering him in ways that make Chisato connect to "Mr. Matsushita". The question on the viewer's mind is: Why would someone want Chisato to kill so badly that they'd go to such lengthy measures?^note The culprit is later revealed to be Shinji.
  • The end of the episode shows Majima is now actively hunting Lycoris agents. His first victim? He hits her with a car and then has his men gun her down. He's effectively targeting and murdering children, albeit ones trained to be assassins.
• Episode 6:
  • Majima's fight with Chisato is fairly nightmarish, starting with him hitting her with his car (although she appears to avoid the worst of it). Then, when she tries to escape, he realizes she's using rubber rounds and thus cannot kill him. Even though he takes a round to the head, he continues to fight by spitting his own blood into Chisato's eyes. It's not just a small amount, but virtually a whole pint of it. Oh, and he absolutely beats the shit out of her with his bare fists, before attempting to execute her. If anyone had any doubts that Majima is Ax-Crazy, those doubts should be blown out of the water by now.
    • The amount of punishment that Majima takes throughout the episode, including having a Panzerfaust-3 rocket explode in his face, is scary in a "how is he still alive?!" sense.
  • Chisato makes a reference to something called LilyBell, which appear to be the male equivalent of Lycorises and, in Chisato's words, are "scary". This makes one worry about what these "LilyBell" are intended for, especially since Chisato has no idea.
• Episode 7:
  • Majima reveals that he was the one responsible for the Skytree incident, and that a young Chisato was the one who took out all his men back then. The fact that Chisato, who couldn't even have been older than seven at the time, was capable of such a feat is disturbing. And, as Majima puts it, he was powerless to stop her.
  • Majima and his men massacre an entire police station in order to send a message to DA. DA covers it up as a yakuza attack, meaning they have several innocent men arrested for a crime they did not commit. Furthermore, Majima writes out "I CHALLENGE YOU, LYCORIS!" in the police station in red. It's all too likely he used blood to do it.
    • The Stinger at the end of the episode reveals that Majima also planted a USB stick made by Robota in the police station that will allow him to breach DA's systems. Who knows what kind of damage Robota will be able to do?
    • The massacre at the police station is also the first show of how unprepared the Tokyo police are due to Lycoris agents intercepting all violent crimes. Since they had no experience dealing with hostile scenarios, Majima and his men were able to massacre the officers with ease.
  • The way that Yoshimatsu tells Takina that he has "high hopes" for her is disturbing because it follows him telling her that Chisato does not belong at LycoReco. It makes one worried that he may use Takina in his attempts to bring out Chisato's talent for killing.
• Episode 8:
  • Majima breaks into Chisato's safe room and has a chat with her. While their conduct is amicable, the way he was able to casually catch her off guard is frightening, and shows just how careless Chisato is if he was able to break into her safe room so easily.
    • This is followed up by Majima easily thwarting Takina's attempt to shoot him at melee range, and then escaping as though it were an everyday occurrence. This is scary because of how casually Majima does it.
  • We see the Skytree incident at last. Majima uses his Super-Hearing to allow his men to put up a fight against multiple Lycoris agents. But then Chisato comes in, running around with superhuman speed as she utterly decimates Majima and his remaining men. Majima is forced to detonate the explosives they had been carrying around, presumably killing everyone but him and Chisato. And Chisato was only seven years old!
  • Majima's chat with Chisato has him telling her that the Alan Institute sponsored both of them for their talents at killing. It makes one wonder why they would do such a thing.
  • The end of the episode has Yoshimatsu's assistant, Himegama, knock Chisato out by administering a sedative during a physical check-up. She then brings her to an operating room where she starts tampering with Chisato's artificial heart. The very end of it has Takina rushing to help her partner, but who knows what kind of damage Himegama could do before she arrives? The fact that we never see Kitamura during any of this makes this even more disturbing, with the implication that she too was drugged the same way before Himegawa dealt with Chisato as she never finds out until after the tampering happens.
• Episode 9:
  • Due to Himegama short-circuiting Chisato's artificial heart, the device will fail within two months, and Dr. Kitamura cannot fix it. However, when Shinji first gave Chisato the heart, he told Mika that it wasn't likely to keep her alive past 18 years old.
  • A flashback shows a child Chisato taking on over 10 Lycoris agents in a mock battle and absolutely demolishing them. You wonder what could ever stop this girl. Then you see her fall to the ground with a young Fuki screaming for help and Mika explaining to Shinji that Chisato has a congenital heart disease that she will die from unless something is done.
  • During his flashback, Mika tells Yoshimatsu that Lycoris agents are only operational until they are 18 years old. What happens to them then? The implication is a scary thought.
  • During The Stinger, Majima captures Yoshimatsu and Himegama. One can only guess what the terrorist has in mind for the Alan Institute official.
• Episode 10:
  • A bit more low-key, but Shinji admits to Majima that he is aware that he is the reason that Chisato took on a no-kill mantra, and he's trying to get her to break it to correct his past mistake. Moreover, he's willing to die for the Alan Institute if it means accomplishing its mission. It's disturbing to hear how fanatical he is to the Alan Institute's mission that he'd completely disregard his surrogate daughter's happiness, as well as his own life.
    • During his chat with Shinji, Majima tells him that after he's done dealing with DA, the Alan Institute is next on his list.
  • Majima's ultimate plan is absolutely horrific in its brilliance. He has scattered the thousands of firearms he gathered all over Tokyo and encourages civilians into taking them, knowing that the police and Lycoris agents will kill them for being in possession of them, and that less savory citizens will take advantage of having access to free weapons. This is all so he can expose the existence of DA and reveal the lie they have been perpetrating for the past 10 years. He's appealing to humanity's darkest impulses and penchant for violence and it's working like a charm, as one civilian picks up a hidden pistol and is almost immediately shot dead by a police officer without proper provocation.
    • On that note is the police officer. Due to the Lycoris agents intercepting all violent crimes in Tokyo, the police have no experience in dealing with potentially hostile scenarios. The officer shooting a civilian just for being curious about a gun and accidentally pointing it in the officer's direction shows the deadly consequences of said inexperience. It's short, brutal, and disturbingly similar to real life situations where an inexperienced officer handles a hostile scenario the wrong way, with tragic results.
  • Robota sends a message to Chisato telling her that if she arrives at the Enkuboku tower, they will kill Shinji. This occurs just when Kusunoki orders her to intervene with Majima's plan, putting Chisato in a no-win scenario, especially since the terrorists are setting up a bomb in the tower. Worse, Robota is watching her with no less than four drones simultaneously.
• Episode 11:
  • When Kurumi learns that Shinji obtained a new artificial heart for Chisato, the footage shows he obtained it a year prior. This implies that he had plans to blackmail Chisato long before he had Himegama sabotage her heart.
  • Majima reveals to the public the existence of the Lycoris agents by luring them into Enkuboku tower and broadcasting the carnage they cause to all of Tokyo. This is immediately followed by an armed civilian shooting a Lycoris, who shoots him dead as she falls. Majima then reveals that 3,000 people a year go missing in Tokyo and implies that a lot of them are due to the Lycoris agents murdering them, whether they were criminals or witnesses.
    • Majima then sets off a series of explosives disguised as Roomba cleaning drones on the Lycoris agents in Enkuboku tower, including Fuki, Sakura, and Erika. Several agents are killed or severely wounded, and the surviving agents in the tower are in a firefight with Majima's men. The viewer then realizes that if Takina hadn't gone AWOL when she did, she would've been taken out like the others were.
  • Chisato has fought her way through Majima's henchmen and finds Shinji. Majima appears, activating the blinds on the Skytree and turning out the lights, leaving the area pitch black. Chisato can't see, nullifying her predictive dodging, but Majima's Super-Hearing means he has no such handicap. We then watch a scene where Majima beats the crap out of Chisato, with her almost helpless against him. Even when she briefly manages to grab his gun, he turns it back around on her by exploiting her Thou Shalt Not Kill mantra. Then, just when all seems lost, Takina arrives... and Majima STILL comes out ahead despite taking three kicks to the head from Takina and two rubber bullets to the chest from Chisato, with both Lycoris agents disarmed of their weapons and backpacks.
• Episode 12:
  • Back at DA, the LilyBell agents arrive with their leader arresting Kusunoki and her staff, telling her that he will have every single Lycoris agent in Enkuboku tower executed in order to restore peace in Tokyo. These girls were manipulated into an impossible situation by Majima and are going to be shot dead for something completely beyond their control.
    • This also reveals the purpose of the LilyBell agents: they are meant to hunt down and kill Lycoris agents if they either go rogue or threaten The Masquerade of peace in Tokyo. Plus it suggests the possibility of a hierarchal system in which another team takes out LilyBell agents if they happen to step out of line and so forth.
  • Just when you think Takina can get the new artificial heart from Shinji, he reveals that he has already had it transplanted into his own chest. In order to get it, he has to die, and much to Chisato's horror, he's fully willing to let her kill him.
  • When Chisato shows she's unwilling to kill Shinji for the heart, Takina tries to kill him, only for Chisato to throw off her aim. Takina then threatens to rip the heart out of Shinji's chest.
  • The above is followed up by Himegama attacking Takina and knocking her through a broken window, leaving her dangling from a girder. Chisato tries to rescue her, but even though she pins Himegama, Shinji starts shooting at Takina, forcing Chisato to shoot him with a live round. Her scream afterwards is just heartbreaking, even though Shinji survives.
  • When Shinji and Himegama are escaping, Takina says "The heart is getting away!", implying that she doesn't even see Shinji as a person anymore.
  • There's something just utterly terrifying and twisted about the control Shinji has over Chisato. While he can't force Chisato to kill him, her every interaction with him over those five or so minutes of combat demonstrate the utterly broken doll Shinji describes Chisato as; she doesn't resist when he tells her to give him her gun, she doesn't stop him from unloading the rubber bullets and replacing the gun with live ammo, and she only regains any will to fight back when he puts the gun back in Chisato's hand and forces her to put the gun to his head. He's spent years literally grooming Chisato to become a killer, and is so convinced in his philosophy about enforcing someone's natural talents that he's utterly convinced himself that Chisato will only find true happiness as a harbinger of death. Worse, despite how terrible he is to her, Chisato is unwilling to let Shinji die, even if it would be at the hands of her best friend (thus obviating her personal 'no killing' principles) - she briefly fights Takina as the latter is doing everything in her power to save Chisato's life because of the screwed-up, abusive relationship she has with Shinji.
  • Fuki, Sakura and Erika are beaten down by three of Majima's thugs, with one of them grabbing Fuki by the neck so hard you can almost hear her neck starting to crack. She stabs him in the arm with a combat knife and he doesn't even flinch, and nearly stabs her with her own knife! Good thing Chisato and Takina show up in the nick of time.
  • Though Kurumi's efforts manage to stabilize the chaos in Tokyo, the viewer knows the damage has already been done, especially with civilians and Lycoris agents being fatalities of Majima's manipulations. No matter what the hacker does, there's going to be long-lasting repercussions from all this.
    • And then there's the fact that how easily they were swayed by this, despite how much evidence exists. The civilians are so used to their peaceful lives, that they can't help but be in denial at any thought of it being shattered.
  • At the end of the episode, Majima escapes from his bonds and strands Chisato in the Enkuboku Tower with him alone, while Takina is screaming for Chisato as she and the other Lycoris agents are forced to ride an elevator down with no way to stop it.
• Episode 13:
  • Fuki, when ordered to retreat from Enkuboku Tower, wants to go back for Chisato. This is scary because Sakura has been grievously wounded by Majima and Fuki is willing to let her die because it's part of the job and how she apparently values Chisato's life more than Sakura's. Fortunately, Takina talks her out of it by going after Chisato in her stead, letting Fuki evacuate Sakura.
  • Mika confronts Shinji and Himegama and delivers the latter a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, including firing several non-lethal slug rounds into her gut with a KSG shotgun, because she sabotaged Chisato's heart. Do not piss Mika off!
  • Throughout the fight with Majima, Chisato is desperately trying to get his smartphone because she thinks it's tied to a bomb in Enkuboku Tower, even allowing him to shoot her in the shoulder. She would've died if Takina hadn't shown up in the nick of time, especially after she pulled Majima over the ledge and onto a cracking glass dome.
    • When the phone falls out of her reach, it even looks like Chisato is giving up before Takina arrives.
  • Even after falling from Enkuboku Tower, Majima survives and is still causing trouble in Tokyo. One shudders to think of what kind of damage he could cause in the future. Additionally, over half of the firearms he scattered across Tokyo are still unaccounted for, waiting for someone to pick them up and cause some havoc.

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