Assault Lily: Bouquet

Assault Lilly was a great ride from beginning to end, and was in my opinion, one of the sleeper hits of the season. Based on the dolls of the same name, Assault Lilly brought to characters from the toy line in the setting of a magical girls school to train girls to fight monsters. Basic premise, but really fun execution in my opinion. As a fan of Mahou Shoujo and general CGDCT, I thought Assault Lilly was another good addition to the genre. While the plot is not outstanding, it was well written enough for me to grow to love the girls, empathise with them whenthey went through adversity and care about their development. I’m a simple man to please, so cute girls/waifus plus action, drama and yuri undertones are more than enough to satisfy me. If you’re looking for a really fleshed out story and world, you won’t find that in Assault Lilly. It’s very obvious that it was made to promote the toy line. That’s ok in my opinion, not everything has to be Homer or Socrates to be enjoyable. For what it is, Assault Lilly is great. My only real gripe about the series is the CGI. SHAFT do their usual job with the art, direction and everything else, but CGI was pretty subpar in this show in my opinion. I don’t think it’s a distraction, but it was definitely really noticeable in action sequences. Other than that, SHAFT did a great job as usual. With enjoyable characters, cute moments, action and enough thighs to satisfy the horniest of us, Assault Lilly was a thoroughly memorable experience and I will certainly miss it. Assault Lilly gets 10 thighs out of 10.

“In the midst of death, life persists. In the midst of untruth, truth persists. In the midst of darkness, light persists.” - Mahatma Gandhi (At a pre-production introduction meeting in Shaft's HQ) Bushiroad: Greetings, we're here to promote our newest toy line of figurines made by Azone International, it's called: Assault Lily and Custom Lily. Combine girlish youthful heroes termed "Lilies", with their powers of "Rare Skill: Magie" charging anti-weapons called "CHARM (Counter Huge ARMs)" and fighting against monstrous monsters called "Huge". In addition, we also have a mobile game coming up soon and really stretched of resources, is there any way that you can help us make thisadvertisement grow? Series Director Shouji Saeki: We can help think and pen down a fictional story based on your synopsis alone. Oh, and by the way, you have come to the correct studio to discuss this project! WHY? We embrace our signature "magical girls gone heavily dark" scenario (popularized by Madoka Magica), the ever-so-popular THICC thigh angle shots (for some sweet-ass thirsty fanservice) and strong Yuri/death-bait undertones. And while at it, let's create a "sanctuary" for them (Yurigaoka "Garden" Academy training school) to enjoy some CGDCT elements of fun and protect one another, because it's the power of lesbian love! ALL HAIL YURI (self-insert for jokes xD) With that, Assault Lily: Bouquet is established, and that's all you're required to know watching this show. exact to the T. Just great, and who cares about the off-throwing terms of Schutzengel, Schild, Charismas and Rare Skills anyways... “Though lovers be lost, love shall not.” - Dylan Thomas If the story plot doesn't hook you, then the characters will, starting from the first-year MCs of a new-gen Lilies Legion: - Riri Hitotsuyanagi, the energetic and motivational pink-haired protagonist leader, and writhe with a "saviour complex" after being saved by another girl: - Yuyu Shirai, the dark-haired idolized sophomore of the Academy, and simultaneously a broken-hearted wreck of a lone wolf deuteragonist (due to her past). Easy complications molded her to take up the tutelage of Riri, establishing a contract between both of them in the form of Schutzengel and Schild (think of it like a parent-child relationship). - Kaede J. (Johan) Nouvel, a French girl whose family is the forefront manufacturer of the CHARM weapons. She's always envious of all the developing Yuri relationships and attempts to be the butt of all jokes. Of all the girls in the team, I genuinely love her "intimidating" character personality a lot, no joke about that! - Fumi Futagawa, the obsessed otaku of the Academy, if you have a question about Lilies, she's the go-to girl to watch out for. - Tazusa Andou, the alienating character when it comes to trust conflicts and the experimentation of her abilities as a "Boosted Lily", creating the harsh and taxing people-growth. - Mai Thi Yoshimura, a Vietnamese easy-going girl with a vibrant personality. Just don't troll her with tenacious trainings. - Kuo Shenlin, a Taiwanese girl who is kind to others and looks out for people, mainly her friend: - Wang Yujia, a Chinese girl whom is an introvert and needs reliance on people on the emotional front. - Miriam Hildegard von Gropius (just call her Gropi), a German girl whose genius status is unrivalled, but the same can be said for her extreme game addiction, much less a troublemaker. - Finally, the temporary member Yuri (I won't reveal how her name came about), made from a mix of both human and Huge DNA, though showing exemplary abilities of an Artificial Lily (while she lasted). Overall, not to worry if you forget who they are, because their names pop up ALL THE TIME to get you "invested" into their generic quirky character dynamics that make up the Hitotsuyanagi Team. Plus the other characters (of which I'll not mention because of the sheer number of them all), it paints both a fun and grim dramatic picture of relations that both explains and answers the only question: "Who and what are you fighting for?" It isn't a clear-cut case of just fighting against monsters, that's the very obvious-but-cliché part, and you can fill in the blanks of close speculation to accurate depiction of how all of this'll unfold. “The bitterest tears shed over graves, are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe And since it's Shaft, in the 10 years (from the time of this review) ever since Madoka Magica came out, it has been the only studio to start the "magical girls gone heavily dark" craze structure right, and then seemingly just gave up its strong foothold altogether with the spin-off Magia Record. Since then and in-between, many others have tried to replicate the structure (see Yuuki Yuuna, Mahou Shoujo Raising Project, Granbelm among few others) to differentiating results of success. Assault Lily: Bouquet is no different, and the visual (both art and animation) style is almost symmetrical of the dark fantasy genre on both its setting and character designs, yet asymmetrical when it comes to everything else. This makes me wonder if the director's future work (of Luminous Witches) will have a direct copy-and-paste feature. “Analysis of death is not for the sake of becoming fearful, but to appreciate this precious lifetime.” - Dalai Lama The sound design and music though is really good, and sadly the only area where I can praise in a sea of "obligatory" originality. I already know that RAISE A SUILEN has a monstrous fanbase in Japan (because of their BanG Dream!! foundations), and barring the Cardfight!! Vanguard theme songs, this is the all-female group's 1st ever theme song to hit mainstream anime, and NGL, it's a banger song to start the show alright. The Hitotsuyanagi Legion team of VAs coming back for the ED and it's a visual showcase of death flags here and there (along with some sweet Yuri, DUH). “In life, we weep at the thought of death. In death, perhaps we weep at the thought of life.” - Marilyn Monroe As a whole, Assault Lily: Bouquet does only one thing right: add a number onto the onslaught of dark magical fantasy genre-based shows. Even if coupled with some decent action, this is still pretty tame by Madoka Magica standards, and the willingness of Shouji Saeki to even try is an admiration in itself, but I wouldn't push past against it. A mediocre-to-fine show if I can call it best, in an otherwise great effort of advertisement to potential fans that'll fap at anything Yuri-related. Ending this review on a positive note: “I joyfully await the exit – and I hope never to return.” - Frida Kahlo

I'd be honest, I didn't have any expectations when I started watching this. For me it was another side series done by Shaft. The show delivered what it promised from the first few episodes (i.e. thighs). The story isn't anything mind blowing, but I didn't expect it to have it in the first place. But the way it's presented will sure make you curious, and raise some questions, and make you think. If you don't want to think much, you'll still find it enjoyable. The art and animation is great, and Shaft has made a good use of 3DCG. I love the opening song, thecharacters are funny and you'll remember their personalities and faces, not necessarily their names. There are so many characters and you'll see people complain about it, but you don't have to focus on them. They are not the main focus of the story but still if you're interested about them, you'll find something about them on the internet and the upcoming game. The show has its fun movement, sad moments and you'll see the main characters developed a lot by the end of the first season. The show is Yuri, Action, Thighs, Bath Scenes. No nudity or anything inappropriate though. There's handholding if you consider that lewd. Those are the selling points of the show. If you hate such type of material, honestly you're not going to like it. But still if you watch it and then complain about a not so original and average story, it's your fault. Watch it for great visuals, Shaft, and everything else I mentioned above. The show is nowhere near the other great works by Shaft, but the world it’s set in has potential. If I have to compare it with something, I’ll compare it Symphogear series. So if you like that, you’ll probably like this more.

This show blew my expectations out of the water. It isn't the best anime I've ever seen, but it's a heck of a lot better than the ratings make it seem! I'll start with the bad. Out of the many characters, only a select few get any kind of development or deep characterization at all. This goes for most shows, however. There is some serious yuri-bait, and while you wish some of the people get together, it's an anime that isn't solely centered around a single relationship so you know it's not going to happen. Some of the story elements are more than a little confusing,especially towards the end, but any casual viewer should be able to get the gist of most of it. The last thing is that there are definitely some cliche moments, but what else can you really expect from a yuri-bait, sword-gun fighting, monster killing, drama, comedy, action anime? I know I just said a few things I didn't appreciate as much, but those things are FAR outweighed by the good in my opinion. First, the visuals are actually pretty good, I'd say a little above average. The soundtrack is downright awesome, and the op and ed are both really great! The story, while really just an excuse to get some cute girls wielding sword-guns fighting monsters, really lends itself to the characters and interactions it sets up. This show is still mostly just fun, but there are some actually really touching or moving moments. In one scene, I actually felt some tears welling, which was not anything I expected from this anime. ALSO, THESE CHARACTERS DEVELOP!!! And while it's really only the main 2 that have development, the development works really well with the story. Speaking of the story, the first bit is more lighthearted, and it gets slightly more drama heavy towards the second half. That brought down my rating a little, but then the show absolutely killed it towards the end, and even the drama and emotional scenes made the show better! The ending was good too, even if it was a little confusing. And while you can't really tell 100% of the time what is going on during the action scenes, it's just so damn awesome you can't really bring yourself to care about that little stuff. Overall, this was just a hell of a good time. I'm sure all the reviews with low ratings have good reasons for it, but in my opinion this show more than delivers on what it set out to do.