Assault Lily: Bouquet Episode 2

Assault Lily: Bouquet Episode 2

*Yuri Intensifies*

I expected a bit of yuri from this series. It’s a magical girl anime, so there’s always a hint of yuri involved. But more importantly, there are some serious yuri vibes given off by the ED. However, I wasn’t prepared for the sheer amount of yuri present in this episode.

Look, I get it. Riri’s cute and she has hips for days. But I didn’t expect this many girls to be trying to get in her pants so soon. First Shizo helps her get dressed in the morning, then Araya corners her in the bathroom, and then Kaede is drooling all over her in the bath.

I’m (obviously) not against this inclusion of yuri. But I feel like it’s mostly just going to be fan service bait, which is disappointing.

Araya and Riri from the anime series Assault Lily: Bouquet
Araya and Riri

Now, I say that the yuri is going to be mostly fan service because there does appear to be a yuri aspect that’s central to the story. As I’ll discuss in more detail in the next section, the whole schutzengel and schild relationship is inherently yuri — at least from what we’ve seen.

Some of the yuri encounters Riri had, specifically with Araya and Kaede, seem to stem from them wanting this sort of relationship with her. But, the only pair we’ve seen so far who does have this relationship is also a sign.

Soraha and Kusumi are in a schutzengel/schild relationship, and one thing that’s abundantly clear is that their relationship goes beyond friendship or that of a mentor and apprentice. And if this is the true nature of the schutzengel/schild relationship, we’ll be seeing a lot more yuri as the series progresses.

Schutzengel and Schild

The schutzengel/schild relationship is a fairly interesting concept that Assault Lily: Bouquet has. Typically, magical girl anime focus on a group of girls (usually around five), who work together to defeat enemies of some kind and protect the general population.

But with this relationship in place, it appears that Lillies work in teams of two, not more. This may have a few effects on the future of the series, such as many of the characters never playing a major role. I mentioned last week that we were introduced to way too many characters, and from what I counted, this week introduced seven more.

If the focus of this series is on pairs of girls, though, it’s pretty clear that most of these characters are going to remain in the background. Riri and Yuyu are the main characters, some others like Kaede and Fumi are supporting characters, and everyone else is a background character.

Riri Hitotsuyanagi from the anime series Assault Lily: Bouquet
Riri Hitotsuyanagi

Another major effect this two-Lily team reveal has is that it seems to corroborate my theory from episode 1 about Yuyu’s “roommate” and former partner being deceased.

If Lillies work in teams of two, and Yuyu was working with that other girl two years ago when Riri first encountered her, then we can assume they were schutzengel and schild. This means that there was no third member of their group to have been the one who’s grave we see in the ED.

Additionally, this is why Yuyu doesn’t want to be in a schutzengel/schild relationship with anyone. She lost her former partner and she doesn’t want to go through that again — a classic dark magical girl trope.

And to tie it all together, again we see that the only time Yuyu encounters this girl is when she’s alone in her room. But despite this, the girl knows about all the interactions she had throughout the day which she wasn’t present for. She’s a figment of Yuyu’s imagination.

Magie

The final topic I want to discuss from this episode is the magic system, referred to as Magie. I always like when magic systems are explained in series because those explanations can lay the foundation and limits for what are and aren’t possible.

In most magical girl anime, the magic system isn’t explained very well. At most you’ll usually get a basic understanding of the magic each girl can use, and that’s about it — no real rules are laid out. In those series, we have to rely on what we see, and that’s not always definitive.

Assault Lily: Bouquet didn’t explain everything about Magie, but it did lay the foundation for us so we at least understand the basics. And since this is a magical girl series, I’m not expecting or asking for anything beyond that.

Magie spells engraved into a cracked CHARM blade from the anime series Assault Lily: Bouquet
Magie spells engraved into a cracked CHARM blade

Some key points we learned about Magie are that magical girls create them from within their bodies, magical girls utilize CHARM weapons engraved with spells to control Magie, and Huge are also powered by Magie.

Madoka Magica spoilers incoming.

Originally, I was thinking that the fact that Huge are powered by Magie and magical girls produce Magie was hinting towards a dark connection. And, they still might be connected in some fashion. But, I don’t think it’s going to be revealed that Huge are actually powered by deceased magical girls or anything.

Sure, in Madoka Magica, magical girls are fated to become the witches they fight to destroy. But keep in mind that in that world, magical girls are unknown to the general population. That isn’t the case here as we can infer by there being CHARM weapon manufacturing companies like the one owned by Kaede’s father.

The rest of the world would probably figure out that Lillies are becoming or fueling Huge if that were the case. So, I think their connection is more like: Lillies and Huge need each other to exist; you can’t have Huge without Lillies, and you can’t have Lillies without Huge.

Conclusion

What do you think of Assault Lily: Bouquet episode 2? Did you believe my theory about Yuyu’s roommate after watching episode 1? And if not, has this second episode changed your mind? Also, how do you think Lillies and Huge are connected, if at all? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

2 Replies to “Assault Lily: Bouquet Episode 2”

  1. I felt like things in the episode were a bit sudden or rushed- why did Yuyu agree to be Riri’s schutzengel all of a sudden, without any reason? Hopefully it gets explained later on. A bit too fanservice-y for my taste, but overall it’s a really interesting anime. And yeah, I agree with Yuyu’s roommate being her deceased teammate. Given how close schutzengel and schilds are, it would make sense that they would share a room (each room has two occupants too) but since Yuyu accepted to be Riri’s schutzengel that means she doesn’t have a current one. looking forward to how this turns out

    1. The pacing of this series does go by pretty quickly. But I think a large part of that has to do with the source of the series: Toys. This anime is basically just a 12-episode (I’m assuming it’s only going to be one cour) advertisement for the line of toys. They want to get a lot of action and fan service material within this time, and the build-up for the plot and characters seems to be taking a back seat.

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