Assault Lily: Bouquet Episode 12

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.

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