Winter 2025 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’m pretty sure this goddamn snow-stuffed winter has inflicted me with a recent head cold, so please appreciate my suffering as I tirelessly work to supply you good people with more of my meandering opinions. This week saw me reaching the end of Black Myth: Wukong, which I frankly feel a little ashamed about even finishing; the game is a fundamentally misguided and altogether miserable experience, and I only really finished it because I still feel some regret about dropping Lies of P. I know the only way a bad game can actually get one over on you is by tempting you to play it longer than you’re having fun, but I nonetheless still possess a touch of senseless “gamer pride,” which compelled me to beat the endlessly aggravating, fundamentally anti-player experience that was Wukong. Fortunately, my week was otherwise furnished with a generous scattering of film features, so let us turn our minds to brighter topics as we burn down the Week in Review!

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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You – Episode 11

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are in for some absolute nonsense, and that’s even by the already-nonsensical standards of 100 Girlfriends’ usual fare. Having infiltrated Hakari’s house in order to rescue her from her tyrannical mother, Rentaro was eventually brought face-to-face with the tyrant herself, the imperious Hahari Hanazono. Then, after being thoroughly moved by her tale of love and loss, Rentaro tearily gazed into Hahari’s eyes – and realized that yes, she too is one of his destined soulmates.

So, both one of his fellow high schoolers and that girl’s own mother are going to end up in the Rentaro family, apparently. Well, we knew we were in for absurdity right from the start, and I suppose it’s only a small step from founding the Rentaro Family to that clan consuming other families entirely, enveloping both mothers and daughters in Rentaro’s boundless love. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure how this story was going to top the preposterousness of Kusuri’s whole deal, but they immediately found a way. God bless them, they found a way.

Anyway, enough marveling at how gloriously stupid this turn of fate is. Let’s admire the fallout!

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Agent Aika – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a new production, as we explore the first episode of late-90s OVA Agent Aika. The show falls in a venerable tradition of fanservice-laden action-adventure projects that flourished following the widespread adoption of home VHS players, which allowed artists to bypass the strict standards of TV broadcasting, and create explicitly adult-aimed entertainment for the broadening anime market. Agent Aika director Katsuhiko Nishijima was basically a legend of this era, having directed the similarly horny Megami Paradise and Najica Blitz Tactics, alongside the monumental Project A-ko (from which I suspect Agent Aika derives its name).

Nishijima wrote, boarded, and directed this first episode, so we’ll clearly be seeing about as unfiltered an example of his aesthetic philosophy as possible. He is here complemented by frequent collaborator Noriyasu Yamauchi, who would work as character designer and animation director on a number of Nishijima projects, and still occasionally lends his AD talents to modern productions like Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon (dear lord modern titling conventions are obnoxious). They are both essential figures of an oft-overlooked era in anime history, so I’m eager to get better acquainted, and Agent Aika’s tale of post-apocalyptic ruin exploration sounds like a lovely place to start. Let’s get to it!

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Galaxy Express 999 – Episode 7

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to the somber yet fanciful Galaxy Express 999, a parade of cosmic wonders imbued with a keen understanding of humanity’s self-defeating nature. Tetsuro journeys across the galaxy in pursuit of a dream that seems to invite only ruin; stop by stop, he chronicles the wreckage of others who hoped to find meaning at the end of the line, their regrets as boundless as the stars in the sky.

Tetsuro’s last excursion neatly summed up the duality of Galaxy Express, as Tetsuro found himself marveling at the strange gravity and endless volumes of the Comet Library, only to nearly become imprisoned by overwhelming medical debt. These exceedingly timely trials point to the universality of Galaxy Express’s concerns; so long as we labor under capitalism and see technology as an escape from the drudgery of our daily labors, we will continue to dream false dreams, with even our ambitions confined within the cage of what the profit motive allows. No matter how beautiful the scenery looks at a distance, drawing closer will reveal those sacrificed for the ambitions of our jailors, the endless ranks of the damned on Mars, on Pluto, or praying to “at least take my child” from the clouds of the Comet Library. No matter how far we journey, the cruelty of this world built on exploitation remains. Can Tetsuro truly hope to travel beyond the greed of mankind? Let us find out together.

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Winter 2025 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am celebrating my birthday in style, by formatting reviews, writing up this here blurb, and maybe doing some laundry later. Hell yeah, no breaks on this party train. As far as general week-in-review business is concerned, I have spent the last week getting progressively more angry at Black Myth Wukong, which appears to have been designed by thirty independent developers who were barred from any mutual conversation. As a result, none of the game’s control mechanics, enemies, or environments successfully mesh with each other, which when combined with the game’s frequent outright glitches makes for… well, it’s not Hollow Knight, I’ll tell you that much. I’ll have to let you know next week if this journey to the west ends with me crushing the disk and chewing up its shards, but for now, let’s break down some films!

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Witch Hat Atelier and the Perils of Ambition

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The cover of Witch Hat Atelier’s seventh volume sees Coco journeying forth with lantern in hand, charting the unknown while looking nervously over her shoulder. She has been integrated into this world so quickly it’s almost dizzying, and her magical future looks bright, but it is natural at times to feel out of sorts or floundering when you’re on a journey of discovery. Coco’s earnest desire to expand her understanding is perhaps the single greatest quality a would-be artist or craftsman can possess; for after all, the essence of the seeker is not mastery, but curiosity. Granted, endless curiosity can gradually foment endless ambition, and when your urge to know more outstrips your understanding of what you have already gained, tragedy can easily result.

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero (Washio Sumi Chapter) – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I announce with great trepidation that we are returning to Yuki Yuna is a Hero’s Washio Sumi Chapter, after three straight episodes that have been a delightful mix of group bonding and tactically grounded Vertex takedowns. If this were any other show, I’d at this point expect this is the tone we should assume going forward, and simply enjoy the charming vignettes shared by Togo, Gin, and Nogi. But this is goddamn Yuki Yuna, and what’s more, we know precisely the fate awaiting these girls down the line.

As such, Washio Sumi has instead been an exercise in ruthless dramatic irony, inviting us to learn and care about these heroes with full knowledge their journey will end in disaster. This unique perspective has played naturally into the sense of doomed cyclical inevitability represented by the Divine Tree system; it’s as if we’re watching Madoka Magica play out from Homura’s shoulder, certain this path will end in disaster, hoping against reason that catastrophe might be avoided. The original Yuki Yuna played like a senseless tragedy; this plays like a premeditated crime, a long con perpetrated against the most passionate and self-sacrificing among us. If Yuki Yuna is hoping to raise our hackles against the systemic abuse of the young facilitated by jingoism and organized religion, it is certainly succeeding. Good luck out there, girls!

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Big Windup! – Episode 15

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Big Windup! in the heat of the action, as our boys attempt to defeat last year’s summer tournament winners in the very first round. As we enter the bottom of the first inning, Nishiura have already proven themselves a sharper team than their opponents expected; Izumi scored a clean base hit to start the team strong, and a sequence of sacrifice plays almost earned them an early run. Sadly, cleanup hitter Tajima was struck cleanly out, leaving our team without an advantage as they face their opponents’ first at-bat.

In pure state-of-play terms, that’s basically everything the last episode covered. But in terms of underlying strategy, the episode proved a feast of subtle back-and-forth, as our batters and the opposing battery felt each other out, probing for weaknesses while attempting to conceal their own. Asa Higuchi’s manga is closely attuned to both the mechanical and psychological conflicts concealed within baseball’s drama, and Tsutomu Mizushima is the perfect choice for articulating such conflicts in motion, having demonstrated through works like Girls und Panzer his mastery of visually conveying tactical drama. Seeing Nishiura in action is like watching a kite we’ve loving crafted first take flight, and I’m eager to see how high they can soar. Let’s get back to the action!

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Winter 2025 – Week 6 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. We’re now roughly halfway through the winter season, and I’m happy to report that I’ve actually been catching up on BanG Dream! Ave Mujica, having screened and written up its first four episodes over the last week or so. It’s certainly more of a fantastical melodrama than MyGO, but still exceedingly entertaining in its own way, pitting girls who need even more emotional guidance than Tomori or Soyo against bandmates who give even fewer shits than Anon or Raana. The results are as disastrous as you might expect, leaving me with a disorienting psychological crime scene to sort through. I’ve also of course made time for a scattering of variable film screenings, ranging from recent blockbusters to delightful mid-century adventures. Let’s break ‘em down!

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Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 14

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d take a stroll down to Maho-dou and check in on the ojamajos, who are surely getting up to some preposterous trouble even as we speak. I mean, the last episode saw Doremi considering marriage to a philandering cowboy entirely so she could consume his herd of cows, an engagement that was only thwarted by her learning they were actually dairy cows. Our girls are not exactly the paragons of selflessness and maturity you might expect from magically empowered guardians – they’re just messy, frequently misguided kids, for whom magic is just as often a source of calamity as a solution to it.

Of course, that’s precisely what makes Ojamajo Doremi so compelling. Its characters are multifaceted and self-defeating in ways that don’t just make for great comedy (and excellent faces), but which also demonstrate the actual, unvarnished process of growing up and attempting to find your place in the world. They clash and dream with relatable pettiness and ambition, making their ultimate attempts to make right and help others an example all can aspire to. It is the messy characters who hang closest to our hearts, for there is nothing more human than messing up, and nothing more admirable than seeking kindness in spite of our foibles, than picking ourselves up and trying again. Let’s see how these girls mess up next!

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