John Wick, But Make it Anime

[Music] don't you worry folks he is absolutely fine those puffs of red weren't blood at all but merely the rubber bullets that she shot him with disintegrating on impact with his skin and bones right after plowing through a steel car door which yeah that sure is uh huh wow okay cool why not it's anime you think that's dumb you should see how anime does golf now what would be real dumb is if youtube demonetized this video for violence in spite of that fact hence why i'm choosing to explain it now right at the start because clearly i was not diligent enough in my adherence to the community guidelines when i merely pixelated the entire screen whilst talking about certain kinds of scenes in my recent hottest trash video so since i obviously had no choice but too cold open on a cool gunshot montage just now i just want to be extra thorough and make sure that any youtube employees who might be watching are aware that no cartoon characters were harmed or [ __ ] in the making of this delicious nutritious content ah so there were also rubber bullets in the machine gun sure totally are the youtube employees gone yet look the chorus recoil is not an anime that you watch because you want to think about stuff that's not to say it won't give you stuff to think about it's actually quite sharply written with well-defined dynamic characters a well-built nuanced world of espionage and intrigue and the twisty turny plot that twists around a few very interesting and well explored core themes but at the end of the day all of that is always gonna come second to [Music] the basic idea behind this show is as old as reese's cups take two things that are extremely fun and marketable and combine them into one thing that is hopefully even more extremely fun and marketable but that's easier said than done you can't just slather any old chocolate bar in any old peanut butter and call it a day you need to find chocolate and peanut butter that taste good together and shape the chocolate to hold the peanut butter find a way to combine the disparate ingredients into a single seamless whole and when the narrative ingredients you're working with are as disparate as and you have really got your work cut out for you so if utterly defying the laws of physics and basic common sense to create armor-piercing non-lethals is what it takes to let a girl as impossibly sweet and wholesome as chisato nishikigi mow down anime goons like keanu 10 minutes after re-downloading pet finder without fundamentally compromising her pure-hearted moe blob ability i say so be it not that i feel particularly brave for saying it i imagine that after all the footage you've just been drooling at pretty much everyone watching this video agrees with that sentiment even those of you who aren't by nature anime or moe fans hell even hideo kojima openly loves li chorus recoil and he's a military hardware buff who famously points and laughs at otaku not to mention he only watched it by accident while trying to stream the 2021 paul thomas anderson film licorice pizza licorice recoil is just one of those anime that you can't look away from once it has your attention its qualities simply speak for themselves as confidently and succinctly as a pistol's rapport so if nobody watching this actually needs me to tell them what makes this anime good why am i even here simple to explain what will make this show an all-time great licoris recoil kicks ass takes names also takes cutesy breaks for snacks and video games and wholesome genuinely original for once underwear jokes and makes every second of it look impossibly easy but beneath its cute carefree smile lies a cautious and calculating creative mind every apparently effortless step it takes as it dances around the potentially fatal contradictions of its cutesy killer premise is plotted and executed with pinpoint precision to keep you right where it wants you on the exact edge of your seat that said as cool as all the stuff i've shown you has been so far and as much as i would love to keep talking about guns and explosions those of you who clicked on this video to find out what the hiffle this anime even is would probably like to know what it's actually you know about i mean besides [Music] [Music] so here we go right after this ad all right girls time for your next mission oh boy i love shooting terrorists me too but today i need you to kill a bloke over an occupa nice and quiet no witnesses but boss i don't oh no chi sato and normally i'd never ask this but that son of a [ __ ] snatched up the last pre-order for the vampire hunter d elite exclusive statue from figurama collectors now the only way to get one is by killing him and stealing his identity uh toy you're seriously asking chisata hold up takina i'll do it this is more than just a toy tequina figurama collectors make some of the most beautiful and sought-after anime collectibles in the entire world their limited run pre-orders always sell out in less than 24 hours some in less than one that's right and this is one of their most special pieces yet the first figure of its calibre depicting one of anime's most iconic and influential heroes with a design approved by none other than yoshitaka amino himself his signature is on each base it comes with two two die-cast metal long swords plus swappable arm and face pieces to customize his pose that does sound like a collectible worth killing for now you get it oh how i wish we could go back to september 3rd 2022 at 11 pm jst and use the promo code mbvhdfc to get 25. off while we order this figurine properly but this really doesn't seem like the kind of anime with time travel in it so we're just gonna have to do a murder it's the only way a sad fate for our heroes indeed but it's not too late for you if you want the d sign up to get notified at the link below today in the near-ish future or possibly alternate present tokyo maintains its image as one of the cleanest and safest cities in the world but only thanks to the tireless clandestine efforts of a secret order of orphaned schoolgirl assassins known as leecorus who work round the clock at the behest of d.a direct attack to root out and ruthlessly eliminate terrorists weapon smugglers hackers murderers malcontents and anyone else who might threaten the precarious piece of the city in japan at large taking a inoue is a rookiely chorus agent whose dead-eye aim and decisive ruthless efficiency mark her for a promising future with this agency that is until her career track is unceremoniously derailed by a series of improbably unfortunate coincidences and one objectively correct split-second combat decision with undeniably bad optics after a routine raid on a weapon smuggling ring goes awry and one of her squad mates is captured things already look pretty dire for takina but when some unexpected and technically unprecedented interference on da's secure radio network cuts her squad off from command their inexperienced field commander proves incapable of picking up the slack and so with her allies paralyzed knowing that hesitation is death on the battlefield taking a cuts through the crowd of criminals with a barrage of machine gun bullets trusting in her own anime protag aim to spare her captured squad mate and it even works the girl is completely unharmed even amid all that carnage talking as quick thinking undeniably saved her life looking back from the midway point of the series it's remarkable how effectively and efficiently this scene establishes the defining features of taking his fighting style a near impossible feat of marksmanship executed with practiced perfection despite being a spur of the moment thing using whatever weapon happens to be handy but of course that's not at all the impression this scene is meant to give a first-time viewer at the start when we in the audience don't really know enough about how takina thinks and what she's capable of to understand that she absolutely meant to do that she comes off like an extremely lucky psychopath lashing out the second she's let off the leash with zero regard for any of her comrade safety an impression that taking his own stone-faced detached and professional persona does very little to dissuade so of course that's how her embarrassed squad leader is gonna see it and emphasizing that reading of the events also happens to be a good way to cover her own underperforming ass so takina gets the boot from the entire organization for insubordination and reckless behavior lucky for her though d.a isn't the only licoris game in town liko rico is a low-key affiliate branch whose work at present is performed by one prodigious problem child all by herself so takina is sent over there to provide backup and while she's not happy with the situation at all she reasons that if she can distinguish herself as a big fish in this new small pond then she'll be able to earn back her place at hq in short order but that proves easier said than done because the other fish in that pond just happens to be the biggest fish there is chisato nishikigi shisato as you've already seen is this universe's john wick the apex predator of the underworld a genius savant in the art of violence whose cat-like reflexes eagle eyes and honey badger courage mark her out as an animal born to do one thing and one thing only bring a smile to the face of everyone lucky enough to cross her path just like keanu unless they're unlucky enough to cross her in which case [Music] also just like keanu or at least like the guy he plays on tv well except of course for the fact that most everyone who gets on chisato's bad side lives to tell about it on account of how she doesn't really have a bad side just the one impossibly good one which just so happens to also be impossibly good at dodging bullets a talent which allows her to stroll right up to hostiles on the battlefield and disarm them using nothing but her charming smile plus also some point-blank rubber bullets to their limbs chest and face in fact she has to get that close just to use the non-lethal bullets in the first place they're that wildly inaccurate which goes a long way towards saving the show from feeling like she's just cheesing her way through everything using the mgs track gun that wouldn't do it all as the show needs to put pressure on her to impress upon us in every last action scene that shisato is the most badass human being to ever walk this earth no matter the odds no matter what kind of hardware or manpower is stacked up against her she will overcome with sheer force of skill and she'll do it without staining her own pure cinnamon roll soul with any more needless bloodshed so she's really an action heroine in two traditions well actually the animators reference a lot of different action movies with her technically speaking it might be more accurate to call this anime hot fuzz but there are still two clear main traditions that of john wick performing beautifully brutal dances of bullets and blood to the delight of our fight-or-flight instincts but also that of vash the stampede a gifted gunslinger who employs her immense skill for killing exclusively in the defense of life even when doing so puts her own life at great risk which if you think about it is just about the only way to meaningfully raise the bar for john wick's styled action heroes above where the man himself has presently set it i mean keanu's basically walking on the skill ceiling for his respective action hero playstyle and anime always has to go bigger than hollywood or what's the point right so it just makes sense to go above that ceiling by attempting a pacifist run in a game that really wasn't built for it it's either that or escalate the spectacle to the point of parody a tactic that has worked for goku's in the past and is currently working for john wicks in manga form via the shonen jump hit sakamoto days which combined with this anime success will likely inspire a whole new wave of shooty shooty blam blam action anime once it finally gets adapted then a couple years after that some american director will make a name for themselves by figuring out how to recreate all the coolest shots and stunts from liquoris recoil sakamoto days and all the anime that copied them kickstarting a new trend in hollywood action which anime will then once again emulate and escalate in turn such is the cycle and so has it ever been since blade runner begat ghost in the shell begat the matrix and you know it's not just limited to action movies christopher nolan and darren aronofsky both built their careers by basically straight up stealing scenes and one entire movie from satoshi cone which in nolan's case is kind of forgivable because he was just using cohn's inimitable visual imagination as the jumping off point for some extremely challenging feats of real-world cinematographic engineering kind of like how the wachowskis invented bullet time to make real life feel more like anime but uh as for you darren let's just say it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to hang a camera over a bathtub you [ __ ] hack sorry i've had that one pent up in me for a while and i could go on but we've got more important things to talk about today namely her also her if licorice recoil was nothing but an excuse for its creators to animate their opoc waifus in tribute to their favorite hollywood action scenes kind of like the japanese equivalent of rooster teeth's rubia i'd still probably watch the [ __ ] out of it honestly but luckily there is so much more to chisato and takina than just their top grade waifu designs both as individuals and as an odd buddy cop couple many look at the maui anime market and assume that all you need to succeed in the space is some cute girls stapled to a novel gimmick and certainly a talented enough artist can convince the waifu sims to choke down pretty much anything but contrary to what the reductive english name for the genre might have you believe no matter how cute your girls and the things they do are they will be forgotten within a single season if that's all you have to offer there are probably entire artificial islands in tokyo bay built on the character good remains of anime that failed to learn the lessons of chaon a series whose memory and merchandise endures a decade on because it was able to make its audience really connect with its characters not just look at them and go wow so cute but listen to them and understand why so cute takina and chisato are extremely motivated and dynamic characters who certainly fit into appealing and marketable archetypes kuderei and genki girl respectively but like the best examples of those archetypes their personalities feel like natural extensions of the lives they've lived not a series of boxes on a marketing checklist they're both orphans raised from a young age to kill by a shady covert paramilitary organization which is obviously gonna [ __ ] a kid up somewhat and they each responded to that trauma in very different ways takina chose to submit to the system and excel within it to the best of her ability pursuing acknowledgement and achievement in an environment where love isn't really an option shisato meanwhile having reached the top of the schoolgirl assassin food chain and found no solace there chooses to rebel against her apparent destiny as a born genius murderer by fighting non-lethally taking on community outreach work over combat jobs and trying to live as a normal and happy teenager as often as possible when she's not you know shooting terrorists and stuff living for herself instead of for her work and while initially these diametrically opposed perspectives lead takina to look down on her new partner well it's impossible to deny chisato's skills from the jump and it only takes a few missions together plus one triumphant team-up against takena's old squad leader who also happens to be chisato's old partner for takina to start seeing the value in that positive outlook a perspective shift that's emphasized through the action as takina starts shooting to [ __ ] rather than kill through her character design as chisato helps her develop more of a fashion sense and through the comedy as her cool detached outward persona gradually melts and she starts showing increasingly genuine warm reactions to her co-workers antics there's a real cozy found family vibe around the whole liko rico cafe with mika serving as the worldly but kind-hearted father figure mizuki is the helpful put upon older sister and eventually super genius hacker kurumi taking on the bratty little sister position in a confusing and violent world the cafe feels like our heroine's one true place of refuge aside from in each other's arms i mean shizato definitely copped a feel there and i'm sure the show has no plans to use either of those feelings against us actually if i might delve into uh fan theory territory for a moment here given shisato's cheerful dare i say puppy-like disposition and the way that she's helped to bring the otherwise cold and ruthless killer takina out of her shell well they probably wouldn't kill off such a fun cool and marketable character in the first season of a series with this much sequel potential and it would kind of go against a lot of the themes of pacifism that they've been establishing over the whole season but if they did as a catalyst for sending talking on a john wick style rampage of her own that'd be neat i think or at least a very memorable ending and it's not like there isn't precedent for it i mean the whole point of episode six's rock paper scissors b-plot is that shisato's lightning-fast seemingly magic reflexes are surmountable by an ordinary human with the right strategy while the episode's a-plot without spoiling things also suggests that she's far from invincible and that her pacifistic approach to combat leaves her vulnerable in some ways so it could happen probably won't probably all of that is just foreshadowing a combat situation where chisado's in real bad danger but then maybe some enemy whose life she spared earlier decides to return the favor thus proving she was ultimately right to believe in people or maybe taking us steps up and does something something like that but on the off chance she does get fridged i want the i called it points honestly though i don't really know where the show's gonna go from here at all outside of a vague certainty that it's definitely gonna be stupid awesome and if you watched my birdie wing video last season you'll know how ecstatic i am to be saying that two seasons in a row though in this show's case i do think it's worth taking a second to explain that stupid awesome isn't necessarily the same thing as stupid a stupid anime is one that ignores all non-comedic logic and mostly disregards narrative consistency in favor of doing whatever the heck it feels like whenever the heck it feels like doing it to be stupid awesome is also to disregard logic and narrative consistency but only in very specific contexts such as when an action scene or set piece would be totally way more awesomer that way but outside of those scenarios a stupid awesome show has no obligation to continue being stupid this isn't to say one approach is better than the other for certain genres of anime being stupid all the time is the highest ideal an artist can aspire to but thrillers likely chorus recoil quickly lose their edge if they can't maintain a consistent tone and sense of tension and thriller tension in particular is born from the feeling that the protagonist is only seeing a tiny piece of a much larger big picture that there's always at least one angle we're not seeing that could blindside us at any moment and that's an impression that you can't really create without a lot of planning and foreshadowing you know smart anime [ __ ] a key component of john wick's inimitable and irresistible vibe is the complex chaotic underworld that surrounds its hero a web of independently powerful individuals and organizations all playing games with each other and the world at large in pursuit of their own agendas the chorus recoils world is similarly labyrinthine conspiracies brew behind philanthropic fronts hackers terrorists and assassins plot from the shadows and the only organization keeping the peace besides the japanese police who don't know [ __ ] does so by endangering children and constantly lying to the public which come to think of it so to the police but that's another thing and even ignoring that da's mission is often compromised by messy internal politics and the individual ambitions of its agents thrillers thrive in these sorts of dark dangerous uncertain environments where any choice you make can have horrific and far-reaching unintended consequences if you're not careful unless you're john wick that is john wick is the consequences and much of the joy in the films that bear his name comes from watching him stand tall amid that sea of chaos with each wave of violence that comes at him no matter how mighty it seems breaking against him as he presses ever forward toward whatever son of a [ __ ] was stupid enough to interrupt his retirement chisato has much the same effect on her world but with the key distinction that she actually has something to lose something to protect and something to smile about sometimes which is very unwick-like of her she's a defender not an avenger the immovable object to wick's unstoppable force at the end of the day she still ends up upending many carefully laid plans and challenging the violent status quo of the underworld but she does so in order to preserve the status quo of the show's moe slice of civilian life side which is a rather clever approach to facilitating this sort of brutal consequence heavy action in an episodic format as opposed to a movie where those consequences can immediately play out to me the most remarkable thing about this anime isn't just how well it manages to make both of the genres it's attempting work but how well it gets them to work together it would be so easy for the transition from light-hearted comedy to heavy action and back again to feel jarring for the jokes and cutesy moments to detract from the tension for the action to be little more than the thing the cute girls do instead of playing music or whatever but leecorus recoil's creators bento writer asaura and director shingo adachi clearly understand what makes each genre tick on a much deeper level than that and they've used that knowledge to rearrange all that narrative clockwork into something new and beautiful that still completely works every piece still serving a purpose even if it's a different one we connect with these characters through the comedy so we care more and the tension is higher whenever they're put in danger and on the flip side the jokes and low stakes b plots provide a different angle on the main story's more serious core themes and concepts and even help us better understand some of the psychology behind the action the end result is an effortlessly enjoyable action comedy that demands zero thought on the part of its audience but rewards any offered handsomely the sort of show that assuming it sticks the landing i expect otaku will be returning to and discovering new things to love about for many years to come hell if it sticks the landing hard enough it could well be an anime of the year contender and i say that knowing full well how much chainsaw shaped heat the competition is about to be packing licorice recoil is real real good you guys and i've done my best to avoid revealing too many of the twists and turns it has lion and wait for you so if you haven't already paused the video to go watch it thanks for sticking with me to the end but you're free to go do that now i highly encourage it even just don't forget to head over to figurama collectors and sign up to get notified when pre-orders go live first so you don't miss out on that d that i know you're craving oh and if you feel like listening to me some more instead hbo max has recently been doing the most evil [ __ ] i've ever seen any streaming platform do and i just dropped a rant about that over on basement life i'm jeff though international man of anime signing out from my uh underground lair you

Channel: Mother's Basement

Views: 592,616

Keywords: Mother's Basement, Anime, Anime Analysis, lycoris recoil, chisato nishikigi, takina inoue, john wick, chisato badass moments, hideo kojima, cool anime, action anime, best anime fights, john waifu, john wick anime, keanu, hideo kojima lycoris recoil, lycoris recoil john wick, lycoris recoil op, lycoreco, anime shootout, hollywood anime, figurama collectors, k-on, birdie wing

Id: lx8l-KHnvkQ

Length: 29min 2sec (1742 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 24 2022