The Final Battle

Assault Lily: Bouquet episode 12 was a mixed bag for me as far as final episodes go. It felt rushed — as if there was originally meant to be 13 episodes. This led to a few issues which I’ll go over later on. But at the same time, I still think it did a good job at being an emotional conclusion to the story.

The final battle against the huge felt a bit out of place right at the start of the episode. I know the setup for this battle was in the previous episode, but I think I would have liked to have some setup here as well. As the final fight, it would have made sense for it to somehow tie back into previous plot points of the series, but it didn’t.

It was effectively just a random fight at the end that involved all of the Lilies. It didn’t really have anything to do with Misuzu, Yuri, or the secret of the Lilies and HUGE themselves. What I mean by this is that it didn’t really have any significance other than that this particular HUGE was very strong.

With all of that said, I actually found this fight to be the most emotional part of the episode, and maybe even the series as a whole. It might sound odd for a battle like this to be what I find most emotional, and not the actual ending. But allow me to explain (poorly).

Naruto is my favorite anime series (I know, surprising that it isn’t Monogatari). When I rewatch Naruto or even just the Naruto OPs, I get this feeling of excitement in my chest. That’s the same feeling I got from this episode of Assault Lily. I don’t know why it made me feel that way, but it did. And for that, I have to commend it.

Destroying the Nest

Another thing I felt was awkward about this episode was the destruction of the HUGE nest at the bottom of the ocean. This is supposed to be the source of all the HUGE’s power (in the local area). And yet, all it took to defeat was Riri (and Yuyu) stabbing it with an infected charm after slowly floating down to it.

I understand that the nest was in a weakened state after the final HUGE was defeated, but this whole part of the episode felt anti-climactic. It was basically just the clean up after the battle. Like when soldiers would walk around and finish off anyone dying in the dirt after a battle had completed.

And again, I felt that this could have tied back into previous points of the series, but it didn’t. We did get to see Yuri again after the nest was destroyed, but that was just Yuri’s ghost visiting Riri in a dream.

Something else that didn’t really make all that much sense to me is that Riri alone was tasked with destroying the nest. Sure, she had to be the one to do it due to her Rare Skill. But it was odd for her specifically to be given this mission and not the Hitotsuyanagi legion as a whole.

It might have made more sense for Riri and Yuri to defeat the final HUGE on their own, and then have the whole legion perform the Neunwelt Tactic to take out the nest. That would have built the excitement throughout the episode rather than putting all the action in the first half and leaving the clean up for the second.

Unanswered Questions

By far, my biggest complaint regarding this episode is that it didn’t really attempt to answer any of my questions that had built up over the course of the series. And since it doesn’t appear that there will be a second season, I guess I’ll never get any answers (because I’m not going to check out the source material).

What was the connection between Lilies and HUGE? Was it simply that they both use magie? It was heavily implied that there was a more sinister connection between them, but that was just never revealed. What about when it was said that Lilies and HUGE are the same? What did that mean?

How about the whole mystery revolving around Misuzu? What did she mean when she said that “this is the fate of all Lilies” before dying in battle? Was she really just stating that being a Lily is a dangerous profession? Or did she know something we don’t? And her infecting of the HUGE was kind of glossed over at the end.

We also never really got confirmation of Misuzu’s or Riri’s Rare Skills. Last week, it was implied that they both had a Rare Skill called Laplace. But this week, it seems that was backtracked and they both had Charisma. However, the Charisma skill was never really important. It was just a generic Deus ex machina.

I guess we’re also just not supposed to think too much about how the government was manufacturing artificial Lilies. I don’t feel like that plot point was really resolved. But maybe Yuri’s death was supposed to be the end of that? Her death didn’t exactly solve anything though or explain what the government planned to do with those Lilies.

And lastly, though I’m probably forgetting some things, we never got much explanation of Yuri herself. A lot of things were implied, such as how she could seemingly use every Rare Skill. But it would have been nice to get some sort of confirmation regarding her abilities and how she was connected to Riri.

Conclusion

What do you think of the final episode of Assault Lily: Bouquet? Is there anything that you would have liked to see included in this episode? Or do you think it was a good ending to the series as-is? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the series as a whole is available here.

What Does it Mean to be a Lily?

Let’s start off this review by tying something that was shown for a second or two in this episode back to an episode earlier in the series. What second-long scene am I talking about? The one in which we see the headmaster of Yurigaoka Academy when he’s younger witnessing a HUGE launch similar to the one that happens in the present.

Why is this scene important? Honestly, I don’t know yet. But, it does tie into a seemingly offhand comment from an earlier episode (I forget which one). I didn’t bring this up at the time, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since it was said.

When the headmaster is on the phone with some government officials, one of them refers to him as a first-generation Lily.

Maybe this was a mistranslation. But I don’t think that’s the case. I think the headmaster really does have something to do with the origin of the Lilies. And that origin may have been what we saw in that short flashback.

Obviously, the headmaster is a man, and all the Lilies we’ve seen in the series are young girls. So it stands to reason that the headmaster isn’t really a Lily in the same sense as these girls. Instead, perhaps he’s referred to as a first-generation Lily because he was one of the first people able to manipulate magie.

And if this is the case, perhaps this past HUGE launch that we were shown in this episode is when he gained that ability. We see that this new HUGE is able to disable the use of magie. So maybe in the past, a HUGE caused the headmaster to awaken his use of magie.

Rare Skills: Charisma and Laplace

Two Rare Skills were at the center of this episode: Charisma and Laplace. Before I get into explaining the two, I want to say that I no longer think Riri has the Rare Skill Charisma. I now think her Rare Skill is Laplace. But why do I think that’s the case? Well, there are two main reasons.

First, it was always assumed that her Rare Skill was Charisma despite it never actually being confirmed. So now that there’s a “better” version of Charisma we know about, it makes sense for that to be the Rare Skill Riri actually has.

Second, when the new HUGE disabled everyone’s use of magie, Riri was the only one able to continue using it. This hints at her rare skill not being Charisma (and therefore being Laplace instead) because it was stated that even the other Lilies with Charisma were unable to manipulate magie.

But what’s the actual difference between Charisma and Laplace? Charisma is a Rare Skill that allows a Lily to manipulate others and draw them to her. Basically, it’s the power of friendship. Laplace, on the other hand, allows a Lily to manipulate the magie of anything and control them at will.

Misuzu having Laplace as her Rare Skill seems to be the case. She was able to manipulate the magie of Yuyu’s old CHARM, she was able to manipulate the magie of the HUGE by using Yuyu’s old CHARM, and she was even able to manipulate Yuyu — though to what end she did this hasn’t yet been explained.

Riri having Laplace also makes sense for the story. How are the HUGE going to be defeated once and for all? Probably by having their magie overwritten by Riri. And how is the current HUGE threat going to be stopped? Probably by combining Rare Skills and having Riri share her Laplace (and therefore her ability to keep manipulating magie) with the Hitotsuyanagi Legion.

Remember how in the previous episode we saw Fumi sharing her Hawk’s Eye with everyone? The same thing could happen with Riri’s Rare Skill now. It appears that while the Lilies can’t use their CHARMs, they’re still able to use their Rare Skills and therefore can combine them. I’m basing this assumption on Yuyu’s eyes turning red, which indicates that her Lunatic Trancer was active even when her CHARM wasn’t.

Who is Misuzu?

I had a lot of questions regarding who Misuzu really is after watching this episode. First, there was the implication that she could have been using her Rare Skill on everyone in the academy. Since everyone has fond memories of her, maybe that was due to her using her Charisma (or Laplace) on them.

Then there was the claim that Misuzu had purposefully implanted Yuyu’s old weapon in a HUGE and sent it back to the nest where it infected the rest of the HUGE. It was implied that she did this in order to make the HUGE less aggressive, as their aggression increased after the CHARM was removed.

That makes Misuzu sound like a hero, but what if she wasn’t? We don’t really know what her plans were with controlling the HUGE. Perhaps they were only less active because they were planning for the attack that’s currently occurring.

You might think that there’s no way Misuzu could be an antagonist, but I’m not so sure. We did see a seemingly suppressed memory Yuyu had in which Misuzu talks about struggling to hold back her urge to harm Yuyu right before she uses her Rare Skill on her. We can assume this Rare Skill usage is what caused this memory to be suppressed.

It seems to me that Misuzu was much different than everyone remembers. There have been hints of this throughout the series, such as when she tells Yuyu that all Lilies are fated to die fighting HUGE. I think that Misuzu had some sort of hatred towards Lilies and was using her Laplace to manipulate how everyone saw her.

And, what if Yuyu’s hallucinations weren’t hallucinations? If Misuzu really can manipulate people’s minds, could she not have faked her own death? Originally Yuyu only saw her when she was alone, but now she’s seen Misuzu multiple times around Riri and even around Moyu.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Misuzu has actually been alive all this time and has been using her Rare Skill to mask her presence.

Conclusion

What do you think of Assault Lily: Bouquet episode 11? Do you think that the headmaster can use magie? What do you think of the possibility that Riri’s Rare Skill is actually Laplace and not Charisma? And do you think Misuzu is still alive and has been manipulating everyone? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the final episode is available here.

Riri’s Clover

At the start of Assault Lily: Bouquet episode 10, I thought I was going to have to write off the episode as effectively filler. However, there were some interesting concepts brought up in the episode that made it all worthwhile. Riri’s clover-shaped hair accessory was not one of these interesting concepts.

Aside from its use as a way to introduce the combining of Rare Skills, which I’ll discuss in the next section, the search for Riri’s clover made little sense. Yuri was killed in action and Riri was placed in solitary confinement for a week as punishment for helping Yuri escape from the government. So how do you cheer Riri up upon her release?

That’s right; you present her with the destroyed hair accessory that she lost in the battle that claimed her friend’s life.

I guess it’s a nice gesture to find and return the hair accessory that Riri always wore to her. But at the same time that gesture kind of misses the mark. I don’t think Riri was really all that concerned about her hair accessory at that time. She’s probably more concerned with her dead friend and the government that turned its back on them.

Also, the hair accessory was completely destroyed and would most likely just serve as a reminder of what happened to Yuri. Maybe that’s something Riri would want to keep, but I’m not so sure. It’s not as if the hair accessory belonged to Yuri — in which case I could understand the sentiment.

I will say that I think Kaede had the best idea out of everyone. Yes, she went along with the search for Riri’s accessory. But once she found that it was destroyed, she made the right choice by making a new one. Riri event says as much.

Combining Rare Skills

The combination of Rare Skill was definitely the best part of the episode. I don’t think that the combinations we saw were all that great, but they did a good job of showing off the potential that these combinations have. And as we saw, combining more than two Rare Skills isn’t much of an issue.

I’m not exactly sure how combining most of the Rare Skills would work, but there are definitely a few that are perfectly suited for combination. Specifically, Phase Transcendence, which both Miliam and Araya have, and Testament, which Shenlin has.

In the episode, we saw Shenlin use her Testament on Fumi’s Hawk’s Eye to increase its power. Then, Miliam used her Phase Transcendence to pump Fumi full of magie to further boost her power and extend the time that the skill could be active for. But what if Testament and Phase Transcendence were used on someone with an offensive Rare Skill?

Most of the Hitotsuyanagi Legion members have perception-based Rare Skills – Fumi, Tazusa, Kaede, and Yujia. Then the two I’ve already mentioned have boosting Rare Skills. There are then two others, Yuyu and Thi Mai with self-boosting Rare Skills. And finally, Riri, with a charisma Rare Skill.

So how else could they make use of the ability to combine Rare Skills? Well, I think boosting Yuyu with both Shenlin and Miliam would be the best option. If they can supercharge Yuyu’s Lunatic Trancer, I think that she’d be able to defeat even one of the strongest HUGE.

After all, if Fumi’s Hawk’s Eye Rare Skill was powered up enough to see the entire planet from outer space, I think Yuyu’s Lunatic Trancer would definitely pack a punch. The only downside is that they’d probably have to evacuate a very large radius around the battle.

Yuri and Misuzu

I said it last week, but I’ll say it again here: I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Yuri. Will she come back just as she was before? Probably not. But I think she has to play a bigger role in the series than she’s had up to this point. I’m still convinced that she’s going to either control a HUGE or CHARM or just exist as ethereal magie.

Part of the reason I still think that this is going to be the case is the difference in how Yuri’s and Misuzu’s deaths have been portrayed. Misuzu is constantly seen by Yuyu, who seems to understand that she’s not really there. And yet, she talks to and interacts with her anyway.

So far, we haven’t seen anything similar happen with Riri and Yuri. You may just chalk that up to differences between Riri and Yuyu and how they view the deaths of their friends. However, I think the lack of Yuri appearing in this episode was deliberately done because we’ll be seeing her again soon.

Shifting back over to Misuzu, I do like how she was used at the end of the episode. I believe this was the first time that Yuyu saw her (that we’ve seen) while she wasn’t alone. Even when Yuyu and Riri visited her grave together in an earlier episode she didn’t make an appearance as she did this time.

I think what this was meant to show is how Yuyu is developing without Misuzu now that she has Riri. Before, Yuyu depended on her hallucinations of Misuzu to make sense of her feelings. But now, she has someone else she can confide in and rely on: Riri.

The fact that Yuyu acknowledged that the Misuzu she sees before her is nothing more than a “ghost” is proof enough in my eyes. If she still needed that hallucination to help her cope, she wouldn’t say such a thing.

Conclusion

What do you think of Assault Lily: Bouquet episode 10? Was the search for Riri’s hair accessory worthwhile? What Rare Skills would you combine? And is this the last we’re going to see of Misuzu’s “ghost?” Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Cosmos

Assault Lily: Bouquet episode 9 was a pretty good episode. It had world-building, lore, a bit of action, character development, drama, and even a twist or two. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but I’d say that it did everything well and was a pleasant surprise.

One of the big reveals of the episode is that Yuri is actually a HUGE — kind of. As we knew, she’s a manufactured Lily that’s derived from HUGE DNA. However, this episode gave us a few more details, including her “official” classification as a HUGE, not a Lily.

I feel like this was mentioned previously, but HUGE are made up of the DNA of all living things. Maybe it wasn’t mentioned, or maybe I just skipped over that detail. But I now feel like it’s pretty important because it somewhat severs the connection between HUGE and Lilies.

If the HUGE have the DNA of all life, then they can’t be exactly the same as Lilies unless Lilies also have the DNA of all life. And furthermore, it’s now been specifically stated that Yuri was made by extracting the human DNA from the HUGE. If she’s made using human DNA, doesn’t that make her human?

So then, what’s the connection between Lilies and HUGE? Well, there’s still the magie connection. Lilies and HUGE are the only two beings we know of that are able to use magie. HUGE are powered by magie and Lilies are able to make use of the magie within their bodies.

I’ve theorized before that Lilies become HUGE, but perhaps that understanding is flawed. Maybe the Lily-like behavior we’ve seen some HUGE exhibit is due to them absorbing and using the magie of Lilies. Perhaps that’s how that one HUGE knew about the Neunwelt Tactic.

Dehumanized Lilies

In this episode, as I’ve already covered, it was determined that Yuri is indeed a human (genetically). However, one thing that I found interesting about this whole discussion with the government officials was their stance on Lilies as a whole.

I’m pretty sure I mentioned this in an earlier review, but the government views Lilies as weapons, not as people. That’s been confirmed by them stating that Lilies aren’t humans. But, this is a pretty odd stance to take. I could understand it if all Lilies were manufactured, but they aren’t.

Every Lily that we know of aside from Yuri was born to human parents just like any other human. The only difference is that they eventually developed the ability to manipulate magie. Calling them inhuman is like if you were to call anyone over six feet tall inhuman. They’re still a human, just one who grew taller than six feet.

There are also some mixed feelings regarding Lilies displayed in this episode. On one side we have the government officials who seem to be adamant that Lilies aren’t human. On the other, you have the headmaster of the academy who (probably) thinks they are — or at least thinks it doesn’t matter.

And then, we have Kaede’s father who’s somewhere in between. As his daughter is a Lily, he undoubtedly views them as human. And this is confirmed by his plan to replace the current Lilies with manufactured Lilies so that these girls don’t have to be forced to fight.

However, what puts him in the middle ground is that he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that the manufactured Lilies are human as well. To him, being human has to do with the nature of your birth, not your DNA.

The End of Yuri

I guess I should discuss the end of the episode and what happened to Yuri now. So first, it was revealed that Yuri’s able to use the Rare Skills of both Thi Mai and Miliam. Rare Skills aren’t specific to individuals, so it is possible for another Lily to have them — though we can assume it’s extra rare to have two Rare Skills.

However, what seems to be implied here instead is that Yuri’s true Rare Skill is one that allows her to copy the Rare Skills of others. And if we assume that to be the case, who’s to say that Thi Mai’s and Miliam’s Rare Skills were the only ones Yuri copied?

Sure, those are the two we were explicitly shown. But there’s another Rare Skill that’s always present: Riri’s. Riri’s alleged Rare Skill is basically just a charisma boost that draws people to her. That sounds an awful lot like what happened with Yuri. Lilies from all over, not just those in her legion, decided to back her over the government.

Of course, you might be thinking that none of this matters now because Yuri is dead. I’m not so sure about that being the case. Well, I do think she “died” in that explosion. But, I also think we’ll see her come back in another form. Perhaps we’ll come across a friendly HUGE being controlled by her magie.

It really doesn’t make sense to kill off Yuri for good at this point in the story. We were just getting some answers about her and she just revealed an interesting Rare Skill with no context. She’s obviously going to come back so that we can make sense of all that.

Or, maybe she’ll come back in the form of magie that gets fused into Riri’s CHARM. I don’t know the specifics of how it’s going to happen, but I’m certain that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Yuri — even if it is the last we see of her physical body.

Conclusion

What do you think about Assault Lily: Bouquet episode 9? Do you think Yuri should be classified as a Lily? Should Lilies be classified as humans? And how do you think Yuri will be reintroduced to the series, if at all? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.