Lycoris Recoil

It seems like the Alan Institute only recognizes "genius," and they don't assign morality to it. Chisato being a prodigy at killing human beings is a talent as worthy of nurturing as, say, a genius child pianist or something.

For Chisato specifically, they were probably like "okay, this young orphan girl is a prodigy at killing, let's put her in with the people who train young orphan girls to kill". That, or more likely, the Alan Institute only got involved after the Radio Tower incident. They saved Chisato's life in order to further nurture her talent.

Wasn't the Insitute also involved with that arms deal in the first episode (the same one where DA was hacked, allowing Erika to get caught by the dealers that led to Takina stealing the PKM and killing the dealers)?

Yup. Which seems to be connected to their current plan to run Chisato and Majima into each other.

Though is making Chisato kill people because she's a "genius" at it their only plan?

I mean, the arms deal in episode 1 wasn't the first time they did this as Walnut/Kurumi dug up. If they simply want one child they took in to not let her talent for killing go to waste, what's the end their trying to achieve with that? World domination?

I doubt five episodes (if assuming we're not getting a season 2) is enough to divulge the Institute's real goals.

Getting Chisato to kill is the goal. The Alan Institute assigns each child a mission, and they’re willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure those missions get done. As far as we can tell, it’s For Science!.

Episode 8 Preview::

From what little can be seen so far for the mission Chisato and Takina will be doing, I can imagine that Takina worrying about Chisato might be that the latter now knows that the former is desperately trying to prove that she isn't shaken by everything Shinji told her in the previous episode.

Episode 8: Turns out the cafe's finances are slowly dipping into red, and it's up to Takina to right the ship. The poop parfait was funnier than it had any right to be.

The first half is kind of a decoy since we do get some plot progression in the second one. We see more of what happened in the Radio Tower, where Majima's talent is revealed to be super hearing. Apparently he's just good at balancing things too. Chibisato was as cute as she was merciless.

So yeah when we talked about Alan Institute turning off Chisato's heart we were probably thinking of, like, a remote controller. Definitely not four jumper cables pinned to the chest. I don't think Chisato is dying here, so I wonder why her chest is getting zapped. Logically it the shock would either turn or restart her heart, but since it's a weird sci fi cyborg heart, maybe the shock somehow reverts her back to her Chibisato killing machine mode? Or maybe it doesn't kill her but it limits her movements somehow.

Having seen this week's episode, I'm just hoping Takina won't be stonewalled into being let inside DA headquarters.

On a lighter note, would the first half where the Lyco Reco crew struggling to stay financially afloat be a Brick Joke as this was something Chisato speculated in the previous episode after she glanced at Mika's phone (which kickstarted her attempt to infiltrate Bar Forbidden)?

Also just learned that the character designer for this show is the mangaka for Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!, and now I see Chisato as peppier silver-blonde Usami.

Yeah, I'm really not sure what's going to happen here. Also, I guess it makes sense that the group that manages to infiltrate a government agency and then tamper with or possibly kill their top agent is a dark-money group with no oversight and inscrutable, fanatic motives.

Edit: I'm also glad they've established that Chisato has a self-defeating hero worship for Yoshimatsu, because otherwise her whole "there's no way Yoshi would help someone like Majima. Oh, but this Chekhov's Gun he gave me was very considerate" thing would come off a bit silly.

Edited by RedSavant on Aug 21st 2022 at 1:04:41 AM

Yeah, I do like that it's reinforced that Chisato has a huge blindspot when it comes to the Alan Institute. Which makes sense because they did save her life.

I saw some posts on the subreddit saying that they read the scene in front of the cafe as Chisato realizing that Majima was right about the Alan Institute and what they expected of her; I don't think that's quite true just yet, though we'll have to see. I feel like it'll take at least another episode or two before those scales fall from her eyes.

That said, character designer Imigimuru tweeted that "episode 9 is... pretty nuts...", so I feel like things are going to Happen A Lot next week.

(I'm also not quite sure, given that the further-away shots in that scene compromise a bit on the quality, but does it look like the gun Chisato says she got from Yoshi is that saw-muzzled one she uses all the time?)

As far as I can tell, yep it's the same gun. Would be funny if the institute gave her the non-lethal gun so that Majima would survive, and Chisato interprets it as a sign that she isn't supposed to be killing.

Edited by fillerdude on Aug 21st 2022 at 5:38:39 AM

I think people have figured out that the nonlethal rounds appear to be standardized, since even Takina shoots some at some point. I don't think the gun is specialized and there's no way Yoshi would give her a nonlethal weapon anyway.

Weren't the nonlethal rounds Takina shot from Chisato? She even mentions they feel weird to use because they mess up her aim.

Yeah, but they appear to work in any gun (chambered for their size), is my point. They're not uniquely made to go with Chisato's unique gun.

Oh, I getcha. I entertained the possibility that the Institute gave her the nonlethal rounds because she used them during the Tower incident.

So, hmm, here's something a bit worrying. In the scene where Majima shows up at Chisato's house and they bond a bit over Die Hard, Chisato says her favorite character is Powell, the cop. From Wikipedia:

So the character with trauma around taking lives has a favorite character who conquers his trauma around taking lives by killing to protect his partner... well, I'm sure that won't be relevant whatsoever, nope.

Edited by RedSavant on Aug 22nd 2022 at 4:08:20 AM

Well this was a breather episode until it wasn't.

Really hoping they stick the landing with the last third of the cour, because for me aside from a little dip in episode 2 it's been excellent episode after episode.

Yeah, I have high hopes. I'm expecting that we'll get a big confrontation on the Enkuuboku (which means "Sky Tree", but since they already destroyed the Not Skytree, they can't use that name), since everyone keeps talking about how it'll be the new big symbol for peace.

New PV and key visual/poster for the last third of the anime. Includes spoilery shots from the episodes so far, naturally, as well as some text cut-ins.

Text reads: "The plan kicks into motion"; "The secret of her heart"; "Chisato's choice"; "The story approaches its end—"; "Together to the last."

I am excite-worried.

Kurumi is looking very smug in that poster.

My simping for Majima grows even further...

PV for Episode 9:

More on Chisato's past will be offered for this episode.

This is why I hate catching up to things while they're airing. Now I need to wait...

Oh, speaking of Chisato's gun: she's already using it in the flashback scene, I went and checked. So, if she was given the gun by Yoshimatsu along with the pendant, and he only had any contact with her after she was targeted, then whatever was the deal with her heart would presumably have to predate that whole incident? It seems like the rule is supposed to be that you only meet once (even if that was bent with the whole café thing and she didn't recognise then)—which, then, would seem to imply that the whole heart replacement happened BEFORE the tower incident? Just guessing at timeline, though.

Of course, option B is that she WAS caught by the explosion or something and stepping in to save her was specifically a favour to Mika so long as he kept his promise? Well, looks like we might find out.

I'd think A, though, just because why would you want to thank a guy for giving you a gun and a pendant then disappearing for ten years?

Edit: Double-checked, and yeah, Chisato was thanking him in episode 7 for the heart? So, it would seem that's BEFORE becoming a Lycoris and before the whole tower incident?

Edited by RainehDaze on Aug 26th 2022 at 3:31:35 PM