Assault Lily: Bouquet – 12 (Fin) – Wrapped Up in You

Whatever Yuyu’s tortured emotional state prior to retrieving her late Schutzengel’s CHARM from Moyu’s lab, it’s all cleared up by the time she joins Riri in the battle against the mega-Huge. She uses Lunatic Trancer in a focused, controlled way, beating back the Huge’s sword-like appendages and helping Riri buy time for the other Lilies.

Riri crosses swords with Yuyu, and her Charisma skill seemingly binds with Misuzu’s within the Dainsleif to neutralize not only Yuyu’s Lunatic Tracer, but the damping field keeping everyone from using Magie. That allows the rest of the Hitotsuyanagi Legion to execute the Neunwelt Tactic. Not only do Yuyu and Riri’s seven legion-mates pass the Magie sphere amongst themselves, but pass it to each and every Lily in the Yurigaoka student body

Riri and Yuyu gladly accept that sphere and add their own Magie to it, resulting in a coup-de-grace that bisects the Huge and utterly destroys it. There are no Lily casualties, and there’s an unintended result to the collateral damage from the Huge explosion: the baths are now al fresco. The Lilies’ post-battle bath is also the first in which Yuyu joins Riri, much to the chagrin of Kaede.

But there’s one more battle to be fought: the ultra-class Huge lurking in the currently dormant nest. Moyu and the director determine that Riri and her highly advanced Charisma ability is the only one who can destroy the boss, but allow her to make the choice. Obviously, Riri accepts the mission, and Yuyu will accompany and protect her. The two are airdropped via V-22 Osprey into what looks like a hurricane’s eye, their descent slowed by a charming parasol.

I figured there’d be a little more mind wrestling among Yuyu, Misuzu, and Riri, but in a surprising twist we neither see nor hear Misuzu this week, and Yuyu is simply fine now, thanks to Riri. They descend down to the ocean floor and together they thrust Misuzu’s Dainsleif into the Huge.

This injects it with “bug” code courtesy of Moyu, and the Huge is obliterated without a fight. Riri pulls on Yuyu’s tie, which generates a spherical floatation device. Riri briefly loses consciousness and meets Yuri in a dream, who says a proper goodbye and promises she’ll get her and Yuyu home safe.

Riri wakes up to find she and Yuyu are inside the bubble in their skivvies. They wash up on the shore, and Kaede bursts the bubble and is mortified by the “lascivious” scene. Their Legion, along with Alfhiem and many other Lilies welcome the conquering heroines home. A photo of the scantily clad couple makes it in the paper, along with the news that Moyu and Gropi finally became Schutzengel and Schild—which is staged like a wedding.

Then everyone gathers under the old tree for a well-deserved nap. This finale wasn’t all that concerned with delving back into Yuyu’s complex relationship with Misuzu or the larger ramifications of synthetic Lilies or even the role of Lilies in a post-Huge era. Instead, it gave us one last slick battle, a final boss fight that’s more of a formality, and a return to the carefree life of leisure and fellowship the Lilies enjoyed when not dealing with crises. It’s a perfectly serviceable ending.

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 11 – A Drop of Morning Dew

Apprently, there is no separating Yuyu from Misuzu. Wracked by grief and guilt in the third and sixth episodes, Yuyu went on rampages and Riri was able to calm her, probably by using her Rare Skill Charisma. But that seems to have only been a temporary fix, as some lingering version of Misuzu continues to haunt and influence her.

As Riri’s Legion decides to throw a “ramune party” for Riri, Moyu reports the findings of her research, which suggest that not only did Misuzu possess the Rare Skill Charisma (like Riri), but that Charisma has influenced the Huge and caused them to evolve.

Moyu, an old friend of Yuyu’s, isn’t able to get much of anything useful out of Yuyu, as the Misuzu in her head seemingly tightens her hold on her, making her less useful and responsive. Moyu knows something is wrong, but unless Yuyu says something, she cant help.

Instead, Yuyu keeps returning to her past with Misuzu, who comes off like a young Anakin Skywalker, slowly being consumed by the fear and anger her powers are creating, and thus talking about things she wouldn’t say to anyone else. Young Yuyu is so glad to be loved, she doesn’t seem to realize Misuzu is serious about wanting to be killed if she “goes too far”.

When Riri tries to bring Yuyu back into the here or now, she’s unsuccessful; Yuyu’s simmering pain and the influence of the Misuzu in her head are too overwhelming to bother with Riri or parties. Misuzu wonders if it’s Yuyu with the Charisma. Just then, three bright lines streak up into the sky from the Huge Nest.

Those three objects eventually land, creating craters and forcing the evacuation of the academy. The three objects become active and combine their Magie into a single object. Even the Acting Chairman seems unsure if they’re going to be able to get out of this one. All of the Lilies discover their CHARMs have no Magie; the objects created some kind of dampening field. Only Riri’s CHARM works, and she heads off to find Yuyu.

Yuyu, who has all but Gone Bye-Bye, reliving a disturbing memory of Misuzu comparing her to a drop of morning dew. Misuzu is fighting with every fiber of her being not to destroy Yuyu like she did that beautiful but ephemeral drop…to hold back “wicked feelings.” Very Dark Side-y. It’s confirmed when the developing Huge flashes the same Rune Misuzu flashes when she uses Charisma to silence Yuyu in the flashback.

It’s clear Misuzu controls Yuyu still, as Yuyu tries to enter Lunatic Tracer mode to attack the developing Huge. When Riri arrives to try to take her out of harm’s way, Yuyu accuses her of trying to control her like Misuzu did. Riri, noting Yuyu’s CHARM has no Magie, she smacks it out of her hands, ruining it in the process.

Riri assures Yuyu that the Misuzu she’s seeing and interacting with isn’t the “real” Misuzu…but how can she know that? She then heads off, again, on her own…again. How did that work out for Yuri, again? The rest of the Legion may be all but powerless, but they’re still united in their desire to help Riri…somehow.

As for Riri, she comes face to face with the biggest, meanest, most advanced Huge yet; a Huge whose evolution has seemingly been sped along to near-perfection by Misuzu. Back in the dorm, Yuyu calms herself enough to remember there’s a CHARM she can use: the Dainsleif in the research lab. Sure enough, its Magie is still active. But will Yuyu use it to help Riri fight the Huge, or will she simply fight Riri?

Assault Lily gets super dark this week, building on a lot of bandied-about ideas about the similarities between the Lilies and their Nemeses the Huge. But I can’t help but feel like we’re treading on worn ground with Yuyu and Misuzu. I like all the dark new revelations that surfaced this week, but Yuyu’s previous struggles lend these events an air of repetitiveness.

The Yuri arc, on which considerable time was spent, doesn’t seem to offer much to all of this, or at least the show isn’t making a potential connection clear, other than possibly Misuzu chose to be a Huge while Yuri chose to be a Lily. I almost wish the Yuri story had been excised in favor of more development of Yuyu and others.

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 10 – Four-Leaf Clover

The big question going into this week was “What Now?” Would Riri and her Legion try to find a way to bring Yuri back, or would she accept and process her loss? This is answered pretty quickly: Yuri is gone, and she’s not coming back. As a formality, Riri is serving a week in solitary confinement.

Even her Schutzengel Yuyu can only visit her for ten minutes. It’s clear Riri’s building a hard shell in which to put all of her regret and sadness, and Yuyu wants to do something about it. So she asks the rest of the Legion to help her look for her missing four-leaf clover hairpin, which she lost in the battle.

They all think of ways their perception-based rare skills can be combined and experiment over the next six days, but without success. They mostly end up exhausting themselves and requiring long soothing baths to recover, but no one wants to give up.

During one of those bath sessions, other Lilies learn what Riri’s Legion is up to, and they want to help contribute if they can. Meanwhile, Kaede seems busy using the crafts workshop to create a new four-leaf clover for Riri.

On the seventh and final day before Riri is released, Yuyu and her Legion are shocked to find virtually the entire school has come out to the beach so they can all combine their magie into one massive ultra-precise search net.

It works: the location of the pin is determined, and Kaede rides on Thi Mai’s back and they race out to the open water to recover the pin…at the cost of getting very cold and wet and needing to sit by a fire afterwards.

When Riri emerges from her cell, she’s surprised to find not just her Legion members, but all of the other Lilies who helped out and were concerned about her. Kaede presents the four-leaf clover she made, and Riri recognizes it as a fake, as hers always had a crack in one leaf.

Kaede owns up to having found the genuine article early in their weeklong search, but it was so badly damaged she feared presenting it to Riri would do the opposite of cheer her up, so she spent long nights crafting a new one from scratch.

Kaede is contrite for duping everyone, but Riri gives her a big hug, thankful for her and everyone else’s efforts on her behalf. Then, despite being happy, tears start to fall, and before long she’s bawling her eyes out. Yuyu is glad she’s letting it all out; its a catharsis Riri’s imprisonment had unnaturally delayed.

Now that she’s free, Riri can finally visit Yuri’s grave and pay her respects, and the subject of Yuyu’s Schutzengel Kawazoe Misuzu comes up, with regard to how Yuyu managed to get over her death. Yuyu says it simply takes time and the acceptance that the past can’t be changed. Then the “ghost” of Misuzu appears and speaks to Yuyu (Riri can’t see her).

This is an odd coincidence, because a CHARM has been recovered from inside a Huge five months ago, and Moyu determines that its owner was…Kawazoe Misuzu. Is the ghost just in Yuyu’s head, or is it a product of Mizusu’s CHARM somehow “influencing” the Huge?

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 09 – Nobody Is Perfect

Matters isolate quickly this week, as Chairman Takamatsu concedes that according to GEHENA and Grand Guignol, Yuri is a Huge, not a human or a Lily, and thus not under the academy’s protection. The StuCo brass goes to Riri just as she’s about to trim Yuri’s bangs, but thankfully Yuyu backs them up, giving them cover to escape.

Whatever she was to GEHENA and Grand Guignol, Yuri is clearly something else entirely now, thanks to Riri and the Legion. Yuri has also demonstrated free will, and it’s her wish to stay with everyone. Still, the government doesn’t see it that way, and orders all available Lilies to capture Yuri and arrest Riri.

Yuyu insists to Takamatsu that Yuri couldn’t possibly by a dangerous entity. The Legion sans Yuyu and Kaede makes a collective effort to support Riri and Yuri, and Yuyu soon joins them to declare that as vice commander she is going against the government’s orders. They’ll pursue Riri and Yuri and be the first to find them, and when they do, they’ll protect them from anyone who tries to take Yuri.

Kaede, whom it was hinted at could be a Guignol mole, ends up not betraying Riri and the Legion. Quite the contrary, her call to her father is to tell him she won’t soon (if ever) forgive him for getting in bed with GEHENA and causing this mess, before joining Yuyu and the others. Meanwhile Riri and Yuri find refuge in an abandoned, Huge-ravaged town.

It isn’t just Riri’s Legion who question the justifications of the government’s pursuit of Yuri. All over the search radius, groups of Lilies from Yurigaoka and other academies are all wondering the same thing: “Is Yuri a person or a Huge?” Their answer determines how they should proceed, and whether they should disobey orders. In the case of three Yurigaoka rank-in-files, the answer is obvious and unanimous: Yuri is a person.

But the government won’t take their word, nor Riri’s, nor even Chairman Takamatsu’s at face value. Their belief must be proven, and that’s what brings us to a surprisingly excellent mini-“courtroom drama” as Takamatsu is grilled before arrogant government representatives. As always, Takamatsu’s position is that the young girls who must bear the burden of combat should be afforded as much free will as possible, and Yuri is no different.

That assertion is proven beyond doubt by the absolutely clutch and badass Moshima “Weekly” Moyu, who just finished science-ing the FUCK out of this issue, and has come to the conclusion that Yuri is not a Huge; she’s Human. 99.9% human. Why not 100? Because no one is 100% human, or we’d all be exactly the same and evolution would never occur.

With the matter of what Yuri is settled, the question becomes a matter of jurisdiction and precedent. Moyu demonstrates how prepared she was for this presentation by citing a treaty their nation’s government ratified last year affording “genetically human” individuals like Yuri the same human rights as naturally born ones.

Takamatsu completes the absolute ruination of the pencil pushers by concluding that the order to arrest Riri and capture Yuri were baseless and illegitimate, and thus should be rescinded. As for Riri and Yuri, as Lilies, their punishment is his responsibility.

Riri and Yuri have some tough conversations about where Yuri belongs and what will happen if things don’t go their way, but thankfully all of that is moot when Yuyu and the rest of the Legion arrives in force, and Yuyu declares the crisis resolved. Yuri has been proven to be human, and thus is now safe. The episode could have ended here…All’s well that ends well…Let’s all celebrate over ice cream!

Well, hold on…not so fast.

Their reunion is interrupted by the emergence of the biggest, baddest, most destructive mega-Huge yet encountered, an Evangelion Angel by any other name that is not only able to control Magie, but draws a continuously replenishing supply from its nest. It demonstrates its power by focusing nine energy fields into one and condensing it into a particle beam that utterly destroys everything in its path.

The Lilies amass on the beach, and the moment Yuri understands the situation, she’s off, on her own, at blinding speed over the water, while effortlessly using a combination of Thi Mai and Gropi’s Rare Skills.

One by one she takes out the nine fields while dodging the Huge’s counterattacks, in another sequence lush with awesome sakuga. When Yuri delivers the coup-de-grace, the resulting explosion is massive and, she smiles a sad but determined smile…as it seems to consume her.

As the remains of the Huge burn offshore, Yuri’s ruined CHARM washes ashore, and Riri takes hold of it as she grieves for her sister who sacrificed herself to save everyone who fought to save her. She bitterly remarks how the day started so innocently—with her giving Yuri he first haircut. How that same day end like this?

This is without doubt the finest bloom yet in Assault Lily’s bouquet. It upended the status quo, raised the stakes to the rafters, and put all the pieces together. It employed its reliably-strong eye candy not as a crutch but to back up some truly superb character work, badass scientific research, and some smart, electric conference room sparring.

As for whether Yuri is really dead, that’s something I’m not yet ready to concede with a certainty. It depends on several factors. Will Assault Lily get a second season? After all those lengthy introductions and lighter, quieter early episodes, I truly hope so…I’ve finally memorized everyone in Riri’s Legion!

Second cour or no, it isn’t even about Assault Lily’s “courage” or “guts” to keep an apparently killed key character dead. If it can come up with a good reason to bring her back, I’m all for it. Like she was for Riri and everyone else, Yuri was taken away far too soon.

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 08 – Field Day at the Garden

Yuri is assigned her ring and CHARM, making her an official Yurigaoka Lily in addition to being the new talk-of-the-academy. The Student Council is weary of arming her, but as far as the (Acting) Chairman is concerned, until new information comes to light, Yuri is as entitled to defend herself as any Lily.

While lounging on their bunks, Shizu reveals that she’s already thinking about the war that could follow the defeat of the Huge: a return of humans fighting each other. Now that humanity has found Magie, what will they (or to be more precise, its shadier elements) do with it?

Shizu ultimately apologizes to Lily for being so somber, especially on the eve of Yurigaoka’s athletic festival. But as Yuri senses with her nose, all the Lilies are carrying a measure of sadness due to their roles as sole defenders of mankind. Athletics aside, there’s also a mood-lightening cosplay division for which the Legion decides Yujia is best suited.

The sports day is an opportunity for outside onlookers to infiltrate academy grounds and observe their defenders; the Chairman calls them “voyeurs” but orders the StuCo only to “take care of them” if they overstep their established bounds. Like the Lilies of the academy, all outsiders’ eyes seem to be fixed on Yuri, so what better way to keep her safe than keep her in the spotlight?

Yuri (re-)learns defeat in her first game to an elite first-year. Rokkaku Shiori shows off her dual-CHARM-wielding skills, while second and first years demonstrate new CHARM mods from the Arsenal Division. Gropi ends up beating her rival Tanaka Ichi in the target-blasting game by using her Phase Transcendence.

This has the side-effect of draining all Gropi’s Magie for the day, so someone else must fight Moyu’s special “Huge-roid”, which she makes clear she designed to defeat Gropi. Instead, it’s Yuri who faces off, and shows off the same stance as her big sis and unofficial Schutzengel, Riri.

Riri is as worried as a flustered mother hen about dropping Yuri into a veritable lion’s den, but her own Schutzengel Yuyu tells her to calm down and watch, as she once watched her. All the Lilies cheer her on and yell advice her way, and in a gorgeously-choreographed and animated sequence, Yuri defeats the Huge-roid with both ease, grace, and style.

It ends up being Riri crying tears of pride and relief and Yuri comforting her, while Tazusa swoons at the cosplay division-winning Yujia’s cat pose. All in all it’s a successful festival; no real Huge interrupted, and Yuri was kept safe while Moyu was able to gather quite a bit of new data about her.

Moyu makes her report to the Chairman, and sure enough, Yuri is an odd one; average human woman at first glance, but all too normal, as in lacking any of the usual slight abnormalities all humans possess. This jibes with a report the Chairman received from both Grand Guignol and the research institute G.E.H.E.N.A. of a joint “test subject” lost at sea.

The two organizations claim Yuri was born from Huge stem cells—a Synthetic Lily. This is not only super illegal but super immoral, but the groups came clean about it anyway because they are demanding she be returned. The Chairman notes that his purview is limited to educating and protecting humans, so if Yuri isn’t human, the law says he must turn her over.

That brings us to Kaede, the daughter of the Chairman of Grand Guignol, calling her father in the middle of the night. Has she been a Guignol plant, and all of her fawning over Riri been an act? Or is she turning traitor now only because her father’s prized test subject has mistakenly fallen into Yurigaoka’s custody?

For now, I’m inclined to believe the latter is the case. Even if Kaede wasn’t always a spy for her father, she clearly takes deep pride in being her father’s daughter, and her loyalty to him may simply trump her loyalty to anyone else, even Riri and her Legion. If that’s the case, Yuri could be in grave danger.

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 07 – A Brand New Sister

When a mysterious unmanned vessel is shipwrecked by an apparent Huge attack, who should be first on the scene but Yuyu and Riri’s legion, while on a routine beach patrol. They discover the remains of a Huge, while Riri finds a strange pod and inadvertently sends a tiny shock of energy through it with her CHARM.

Before she knows it, a beautiful girl with lilac hair has emerged from the pod, and immediately embraces Riri. She is brought to the infirmary and made everyone’s immediate object of intense curiosity. That’s right: it’s time for Assault Lily’s “Mysterious Amnesiac” episode.

Not surprisingly, the girl, identified as a Lily, “imprints” on Riri, whether due to the fact she made first contact, due to Riri’s natural charm, or both. She also has the precise “Skiller Value” as Riri, which can’t be a coincidence. In a fraught conference call with a concerned Security Committee brass, Yurigaoka’s Acting Chairman asserts the academy’s autonomy in matters of Lilies.

Due to the girl’s attachment to her, Riri is compelled to step back from her usual studies and Legion responsibilities to become her full-time caretaker. Yuyu and her comrades are understanding, supportive, and admiring of Riri’s compassion…but Yuyu’s restless leg betrays a tinge of jealousy—something Kaede knows all too well and is amused to see in the “lone wolf” Yuyu.

With Riri by her side, the girl not only learns to talk (again…?) but stand, walk, and eventually run, making great progress in a short period of time. When Riri finally reunites with Yuyu, her new “ward” is in tow, making a Yuyu sandwich. All their other comrades crowd together to get a look at the adorable new face. As for her name, she seems to like Yuri, the couple name Fumi gave to Yuyu and Riri, but also apropos in this case as it’s almost as if Yuri is the “fruit of their love.”

They can welcome Yuri (registered under Riri’s surname of Hitotsuyanagi for now) as the newest member of their Legion because the Acting Chairman Takamatsu agreed to make her a full-fledged Lily, complete with uniform and academy admission. StuCo president Izue Shinobu wonders if that’s rash, but the concern from the brass means “people are snooping in the shadows” over Yuri, and Takamatsu wants to draw them out.

The mysteries that surround Yuri herself are also, well, legion: Did she lose her memory, or is she a newly-awakened Lily? How much did Riri’s initial interaction with the pod influence how she’d awaken? Are Riri and Yuri now inextricably connected? Was Yuri some kind of experiment in mass-produced Lilies? Will Riri, Yuyu, and the academy be able to protect her from whomever seeks her out? Hopefully we’ll get insight into these matters next week as Yuri settles into her new life.