English Dub Review: Assault Lily Bouquet “Camellia: You’re Flame in My Heart”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Yurigaoka Academy is holding a school-wide competition that’s like a sports festival, but for Lilies. That means there’s going to be plenty of physical activity, team competitions, and violence. But Riri is a little worried about Yuri participating, since she still only just bonded with her charm. But that might not be the worst of her worries, because there’s a bunch of weird guys in the woods nearby trying to spy on the new Lily… because she may not be a real Lily after all.

Our Take:

Assault Lily Bouquet takes a bit of a detour in this week’s episode. A lot of slice of life shows set at a high school have sport festival episodes, and Camellia: You’re Flame in My Heart is no different — well, except for the fact that this is a sports festival with competitions and challenges that could prove potentially deadly to those involved.

Most of the episode is taken up with little scenes between the members of the squad as they welcome Yuri into the group and prepare to battle it out during the festival day. There are events for individuals, classes, and legions, so there’s plenty of competitive spirit to be found between the girls at Yurigaoka on the big day of the event. The festival itself is fine for the most part. I was expecting to follow a schedule more closely, and that there would be a clear path to winning the competition, but instead we get more little montages and flashes of what’s going on, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

It makes the time spent on Yuri’s big moment stand out. Riri has been sheltering her new friend all day long, which is really cute to watch and makes sense since she literally hasn’t taken a single class yet or spent any time in training. However, people believe she was once a Lily and she does form a bond with her Magie ring and make a pact with her charm very quickly. When the time comes for her battle, Riri is dismayed to see that someone registered her in place of Miss Moyu, but has enough faith in her to watch the match… which turns out to be great! There’s a ton of flashy fighting animation as the small Lily bests a big robot, and it was definitely the highlight of the episode visually.

On a deeper level, the highlight has to be the ending reveal that Yuri isn’t actually human. No, based on DNA testing, there’s something a little off about her. Her genes are too perfect, leading Miss Moyu and the head of the academy to believe she’s a person born in a test tube, an experiment gone wrong. And the thing that formed her was cells from Huge, apparently, which is a big deal. Not only does this change our perception of her, but it means she can’t legally be protected at the academy since she’s not human.

This week’s episode may have been a little bit of a distraction from the real events going on behind the scenes, but it was a fun distraction. And next week’s episode is sure to be a doozy that will bring us full swing into the final showdown between the Lilies and their real enemies — which may not be the Huge after all.