Growing up, I never really knew how to differentiate between tea and the beverage I usually had. I'd keep on calling it tea even after being corrected multiple times that it was not that but a beverage drink. Like my mum would say, I'll hear it with one ear and it'll come out from the other ear like I was never talked to;)
Honestly, I don't know why I said that. It just occured to me how long I mistook tea for something else. I especially remembered this event in my life when I came across the character, Chisato Nishikig, her love for tea and her cafe— LycoReco, which acted as both a safe house and a cover.
I hope some of us have heard and seen this anime, Lycoris Recoil. It always had it recommended to be, for the longest time that I could remember. And now, I finally decided to see it. I contemplated at first because I'm not entirely a fan of animes with female male characters, not that I'm being misogynistic, I'm just being whorish. Yeah, that's the word I think.
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Lycoris Recoil is set in a version of Tokyo where everything feels peaceful and clean—but that peace is secretly maintained by a government program that uses teenage girls as undercover assassins. They’re called Lycoris, and they’re trained from a young age to eliminate threats before the public ever hears about them. Most people don’t even know the Lycoris exist.
The story follows two of these girls—Chisato Nishikigi and Takina Inoue.
Chisato is the face you remember: bright, always smiling, polite, and full of life. She’s known for drinking tea a lot, especially at the café she works in, which is also a front for her operations. She’s not just any agent though, she’s one of the best. She can dodge bullets almost effortlessly, and she’s considered a living legend within the organization. But she refuses to kill. Even though she was trained to be a weapon, she believes in protecting life instead of taking it. This makes her really stand out in a world where death is often treated as the fastest solution.
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Takina, on the other hand, starts out as her opposite. She’s serious, highly skilled, and completely focused on getting back into the main branch of DA after being punished for disobeying orders to save a teammate. At first, she doesn’t get Chisato at all. To her, Chisato seems too soft, too easygoing, and too idealistic for their line of work. But over time, Takina sees that Chisato’s way isn’t weakness, it’s strength. Real strength.
Now, the deeper plot kicks in when Chisato’s past comes back to haunt her. She’s alive because someone gave her an artificial heart. That man, Yoshimatsu, saw her as a perfect killer and gave her a second chance at life so she could become his ideal weapon. But she went the opposite way. She became peaceful. Kind. That pissed him off. So he sets a chain of events in motion to either force her back into being a killer… or let her die.
At the same time, a man named Majima emerges. He’s a terrorist, yes, but not the kind who just wants to watch the world burn. He believes that people deserve to know the truth: that Lycoris exist, that the government has been secretly controlling everything. He sees himself as someone trying to expose a rotten system. And when he and Chisato cross paths, it’s explosive because in a weird way, they’re two sides of the same coin.
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The story builds up with some intense emotional moments, Takina slowly opening up and learning to care deeply about Chisato, Mika (the café manager) hiding painful truths to protect her, and Chisato racing against time as her heart begins to fail.
By the end, Chisato’s time is almost up. The fake heart she depends on is failing, and her enemies know it. She faces Majima in a final showdown, not to kill him, but to stop him without taking a life. She wins. Barely. But she’s ready to die after that.
It was really beautiful. Now,I understand the positive comments and overwhelming recommendations. If you've got spare time on your hands, I'd suggest you watch this. It's good and not too long, about two seasons if my memory's right.
Thanks for reading;)