Lycoris Recoil

Lycoris Recoil (リコリス・リコイル) is an original Japanese anime television series created by Spider Lily and Asaura. It was produced by A-1 Pictures and aired from July to September 2022. Set in Tokyo, Lycoris Recoil follows two young orphaned teenage girls named Chisato Nishikigi and Takina Inoue, who were recruited in the Direct Attack organization to carry out assassinations under the "Lycoris" program while they work at a local café and perform various tasks such as childcare, shopping, and teaching classes.

A manga adaptation by Yasunori Bizen began serialization in Media Factory's manga magazine Monthly Comic Flapper in September 2022. A spin-off light novel, titled Lycoris Recoil: Ordinary Days, written by Asaura and illustrated by Imigimuru, was published under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Bunko in September 2022 as well. A stage play adaptation of the series was performed in January 2023. An original net animation, titled Lycoris Recoil: Friends are thieves of time, was released from April to May 2025.

Plot

Takina Inoue is a member of a government-sponsored all-female task force of assassins and spies made up of young orphaned girls known as "Lycoris", an undercover group named after the flower who eliminate criminals and terrorists in Tokyo while disguised as high school students to maintain peace in Japan, with roots in a fictional pre-Meiji group named "Higanbana".

However, during an operation to intercept a large exchange of firearms, Takina starts firing indiscriminately at the enemies in order to save a colleague who was taken hostage, jeopardizing the safety of other Lycoris in the process. As a result, the agency dismisses her for disobeying orders. She is then transferred to work with another Lycoris agent, the bubbly and pacifistic Chisato Nishikigi, who is known for her involvement in the destruction of the old radio tower, in a branch of the agency which operates undercover as a café called "LycoReco". Intending to be reinstated back to the agency, Takina cooperates with Chisato in managing the café, while the peace that is being protected by Lycoris is being challenged by terrorists led by the deranged Majima.

Characters

Development and production

When Asaura's former editor-in-charge had a meeting about Saekano with Shin-ichirō Kashiwada, a producer from A-1 Pictures, he spoke positively about the offbeat nature of Asaura's works. He then introduced Asaura to Kashiwada. Later, Asaura received an invitation to a new anime project. Kashiwada had read Asaura's Death Need Round, which is a "girls with guns" work before he invited Asaura to the project. Asaura, therefore, decided to include guns in the new story. He created the main characters and the worldview, with some deliverables including the synopsis and a few short novels.[14] Asaura's initial pitch was rejected as too violent and dark to be broadcast on television, and the project went through some revisions before Adachi joined the project as director.[15] Adachi introduced the idea of the DA organization and the Lycoris taskforce in order to connect Asaura's previously established narrative elements, and the work ultimately took on a lighter dramatic tone, with Adachi saying that his goal as series director was to make the viewers laugh every five minutes.[15]

In an interview with Febri in August 2022, Adachi noted the influence of

Other media

Cultural impact and reception

External links