In light of yesterday’s news about a new Lycoris Recoil anime on the way, today seems like the perfect time to review the light-novel spin-off, Lycoris Recoil Ordinary days (リコリス・リコイル Ordinary days).

Just to set the scene. I enjoyed the anime. And I also noted that it had plot holes so huge you could push a destroyed radio tower through them. ^_^ It hardly mattered whether the plot held together as we were in it for the moe girls shooting guns while engaging in what passes for witty repartee in a moe action anime. Because of all this, LycoReco was the runaway season hit and despite the fact that much of the Yuri was in our imagination, it was a huge hit with Yuri fans.  When the spin-off novel was announced, it sold 100K copies in pre-orders and passed a quarter of a million copies in print by November of last year. Of course I had to at least give it a try. ^_^

The title is a pretty solid clue as to what the book is like. An introduction to each short provides the ribbon story, with mostly adult men coming to the cafe and having their lives transformed by good coffee, delicious food and cute girls, in that order. This is followed by a short stand-alone story that range from typical DA shenanigans against armed opponents to an in-depth exploration of Takina’s terrible cooking.  And detailed discussions of the coffee, traditional Japanese sweets and guns. Pretty much exactly what you might expect. It’s a slice-of-life story mostly, so is slow going. Early chapters include an attempt by Chisato to set Takina up on a date with one of the cafe’s regulars. It was a bit of a slog for me, as it it will surprise no one that I didn’t care about Doi-san or his shoes. ^_^;

I also did not expect there to be any Yuri. It was my interpretation of this series that the Yuri was seeded to string viewers with a Yuri interest along, as Bee Train did in the 00s. If you want to see it, it’s there, kind of Yuri. If you want to call it something else, that’s fine. I was wrong. ^_^ Imagine my surprise when a zombie story ended up including Takina literally awakening to her interest in the idea of being alone with Chisato, forever. So there we go, Yuri fans, at least Takina kind-of-sort-of has a clue now.

The final story was the most problematic. More problematic than setting adult men on dates with a young teen girl? Yes, actually. It was problematic in the sense that the bulk of the story forces us to watch a middle-school girl being bullied and tortured, and gives us only the promise of future retribution. I deeply dislike this kind of story, so I finally gave up and skipped to the end. It was an unsatisfying way to end what was otherwise a harmless, sometime dull, deeply fannish look at a world that has plenty of room to play in. 

Ratings:

Art – 6 Moe heads floating in a panel with largely the same one expression. Chisato smiling, everyone else looking at her.
Story – I would have said 7, but the final story really tanked it.
Characters – Same ones you know from the anime. Mika’s an 8
Yuri – 6, BL – 6 Now that we know Mika’s gay, we do have to mention it. It’s in the contract
Service – No, until that final chapter

Overall – 6

These scenarios were created by Asaura, the writer for the LycoReco anime. My guess is, therefore, that all or some of these stories will be in the new season.  “Takina’s cooking,” “Lycoris of the Dead” and an introduction which focused on coffee and the order in which one should eat one’s traditional Japanese sweets were fun to read. These would make good episodes of an anime. ^_^