Lycoris Recoil Manga Captures the Nuances of the Series

Lycoris Recoil and its concept of teenage girls acting as assassins isn’t exactly new to manga and anime, as we’ve seen the idea in series like Gungirl and tist. While it may not be as immediate, dark, dramatic or heartbreaking as its contemporaries, it feels like something special due to the combination of drama, humor and insight into people’s abilities and motives. Although we have already had many opportunities to see a lot from the anime adaptation, yen press Picking up the manga allows us to appreciate its nuances even more.

Editor’s Note: There will be some mild spoilers for the first volume of Lycoris Recoil manga below.

In the case of Lycoris RecoilWe are introduced to some Direct Attack Lycoris agents in the middle of an incredibly dangerous situation. A group of them is in a confrontation with a criminal organization that captured one of the members. We see a lone Lycoris called to help and calm. Before that happens, communications are cut and Takina Inoue uses her gun to kill all the enemy agents. Erika is saved, but the group is dead, her fellow agents are angry with her, and she is assigned to work alongside another lone agent named Chisato Nishikigi at the LycoReco cafe.

The first part of what it does Lycoris Recoil What works so well, from the beginning, are the contrasting personalities. Both Chisato and Takina, as members of the Lycoris division, are orphans trained as agents and assassins. Their age is designed to hide the fact that they are people capable of handling and defusing the most drastic and dangerous situations. Takina takes her job incredibly seriously, but we quickly see that she acted to protect her ally and friend even if she broke the rules. Chisato is known as a prodigy and someone Takina should learn from, but she seems more like a normal young woman, extremely pleasant and cheerful. Their scope involves not only working at the cafe (their front) but also working to help the community in addition to government-mandated missions.

But the biggest contrast is their methods. Chisato believes that all lives matter. Even those of the threats it addresses. So once Takina, and by extension the reader, sees her in action for the first time, her rumored status becomes much more believable. Even in the opening volume, we get opportunities to see how the mind works here and there’s more to it. In doing so, we even get the idea that Takina might begin to become intrigued by her and her methods.

Because this is an adaptation of the manga Lycoris Recoilwe can better appreciate the subtleties of these types of moments. When we first see Chisato in action on her first mission with Takina, the art captures her incredible dodging methods. We can see more clearly the things they do in the photo that caught the attention of a criminal group. It makes it easier for us to notice and grasp what these agents do. In fact, I think it also helped make it clearer what kind of person Yoshimatsu was in his first appearance.

It’s great to see Spider Lily’s story told in another format. Retelling stories gives us the opportunity to focus and appreciate things we may have missed before. The manga adaptation of Lycoris Recoil It seems like it could be an opportunity to better appreciate the characterizations, as well as understand what these agents grasp and how talented they are.

The first volume of Lycoris Recoil The manga will be available in English through Yen Press on October 29, 2024, and the second volume will be published. debut on February 18, 2025. The anime is streaming on Crunchyroll. Yen Press will publish the Lycoris Throwback: Ordinary Days light novel on January 21, 2025.