The following contains spoilers for Lycoris Recoil Episode 13, "Recoil of Lycoris," now streaming on Crunchyroll.

Lycoris Recoil is an anime about a clandestine organization of assassins, so it makes sense that secrets and lies would be a big part of its final episode. The story follows Chisato Nishikigi and Takina Inoue, who use their skills to help people with various requests from behind the counter of Café LycoReco. Chisato especially has made a vow to be a savior instead of a killer. Shinji Yoshimatsu, the man who saved her life with an artificial heart, has gone to extreme lengths to get her to break that vow.

In Episode 11, the terrorist Majima revealed the existence of Lycoris to the Japanese public via television broadcast, but LycoReco's hacker Kurumi used her computer skills to play it off as a fictional dramatization in Episode 12. In Episode 13, Chisato's handler and guardian Mika killed Yoshimatsu to save Chisato's life, but let her believe he could still be alive. What these lies have in common is that the people telling them believed they were in the recipients' best interests -- and the possibility that they are more skeptical than they let on.

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Lycoris Recoil's Finale Contains a Web of Complicated Lies

Chisato and Majima take a break from fighting in Lycoris Recoil.

Kurumi's cover-up had always seemed too easy. Firstly, it would be bizarre for the government to choose such dark subject matter for one of the new radio tower's attractions. Also, there must surely be physical evidence of the shootings resulting from the guns Majima distributed, as well as witnesses who encountered Lycoris agents trying to stop them. Episode 13 acknowledged this, showing a tweet from someone suspicious of the display as Majima talked to Chisato about "showing a reality that won't get blurred out."

Chisato ultimately caused Majima to fall from the old radio tower. Their final showdown may have been climactic enough for Chisato to apparently break her killing rule, but it would still seem unlikely given how she had resisted killing Yoshimatsu. This is why, when it was revealed that Majima had somehow survived the fall, it seemed equally plausible that Chisato somehow knew he would. However, many Lycoris Recoil fans were more interested in if Chisato herself would survive the series.

After deliberately sabotaging her artificial heart, Yoshimatsu told Chisato he had a replacement implanted into himself to force her to break her no-killing rule. Chisato refused, but still awoke in the hospital the following day with a new heart. She fled to Okinawa, but Takina tracked her down and told her the heart had been in Yoshimatsu’s briefcase all along. What Takina didn't know was that this was also a lie -- Mika had killed Yoshimatsu for the heart.

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Lycoris Recoil's Finale Suggests Lies Can Be Preferable to the Truth

A tearful Mika aims his gun in Lycoris Recoil.

Mika shot Yoshimatsu in tears, perhaps not only because he was killing the man he loved, but because he knew it was exactly what Mika's adopted daughter Chisato wanted to avoid. Chisato's refusal to allow Takina to shoot Yoshimatsu for the heart shows that, for Chisato, letting people kill for her is just as bad as killing them herself. This is why Mika pretended the heart was in the briefcase, because Chisato knowingly allowing him to kill Yoshimatsu would still have been a betrayal of her code -- maybe even to the extent that she would refuse the transplant.

Given that both these deceptions led to a sunny Hawaii ending for the protagonists, is Lycoris Recoil's central thesis that some secrets should stay hidden, and that a comforting lie can be more valuable than the disturbing truth? Kurumi's smokescreen protected Lycoris agents from being attacked on the street, and undermined Majima's attempts to sew chaos throughout the city. Mika's deception preserved the creed that was so important to Chisato, allowing her to live in peace with her LycoReco family. However, these secrets are depicted with more nuance, as if the blissful closing minutes belie the potential fallout of the characters' decisions.

Majima's actions were not justifiable, but perhaps he was right that the public should know about the government agency independently judging and executing would-be criminals. In one scene, Lycoris agents Fuki Harukawa and Sakura Otome encountered a poster for a movie called "Tokyo Lycoris Crisis," featuring likenesses of themselves as blockbuster action heroes. The scene was funny, but also a reminder that Direct Attack had apparently emerged from the story without interrogating their own brutal tactics, forced to evolve only in the most superficial ways. Kurumi's hack gave people an excuse not to think about the ethics of crime and punishment, and many may have chosen to believe the unlikely broadcast because it came as a relief.

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A poster for the fictional movie "Tokyo Lycoris Crisis" in Lycoris Recoil.

Perhaps the same could be said for Chisato, as the quick-thinking agent might deduce that hiding the heart in his briefcase was inconsistent with Yoshimatsu's motivations. The idea of Chisato forcing herself to believe a lie seems oddly more tragic than having to confront the shortcomings of her non-violent methods. After all, Mika killing Yoshimatsu didn't mean he learned nothing from Chisato's approach: he used non-lethal ammunition to incapacitate Yoshimatsu's right-hand woman Himegama.

Mika revealed another secret in the finale -- that he didn't really need to walk with a cane. Kurumi encountered him in the café's basement and agreed to keep it a secret, adding, "You're the scariest of the bunch." It's easy to think the perceptive hacker may also have been implicitly agreeing to keep Mika's other secret. The fact that both characters shared this moment of acknowledgment symbolically reinforced how similar both deceptions were -- and the risks they shared.

Lycoris Recoil is available to stream on Crunchyroll.