Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episode 17

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Rather than referring to some psychoanalytical concept or opaque descriptor of the drama to come, Neon Genesis Evangelion’s seventeenth episode is named, quite simply, “Fourth Child.” It is a name that refers to NERV’s conceptually vague yet tonally specific designations for the Eva pilots – Rei is the first child, Asuka the second, and Shinji the third, implying a fourth pilot has finally been secured. Like the use of “angel” as the designation for humanity’s enemies, explicitly referring to the pilots as children carries a certain implication; it frames their battles as something like a meeting of innocents, the curious yet inherently destructive angels reaching out towards the untested, unmolded fruit of humanity. As the previous episode revealed, it is unclear if these angels even mean direct harm to their opponents, or if they simply lack a vector for expressing their intent. If true, they are little different from Shinji himself, who has so much difficulty finding a common language even with his fellow human beings.

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Tsurune S2 – Episode 6

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to stop by the kyudo range, and see how the boys of Tsurune are coming along. After an embarrassing performance at their recent competition, our team has been forced to reassess not just their approach to kyudo, but also their self-image and personal ambitions more generally. Of course, this is nothing new for Tsurune; kyudo has long served as a metaphor for the bumpy adolescent process of finding your young adult self, whether that involves rising above the past like Minato, or reaffirming what you’ve always valued like Nanao and Kaito.

Those two spent the last episode battling it out in search of a new normal, having grown beyond the childhood roles each served in the other’s life. What they found was perhaps not surprising; as it turns out, their friendship was built on more than just offering each other protection, as their years together had sculpted each of them into an essential part of the other’s life. You can’t follow a simple equation to deduce the value of a personal bond – time spent together will inherently change us, and any bond we’ve cultivated will possess inherent, lasting meaning. As such, the question of who was “following” the other ultimately proved irrelevant; they’ve always valued each other’s presence, and having their hobbies be dictated by each other’s interests proved not a sign of deference or codependence, but of how much each was enriched by the other.

So yeah, Nanao and Kaito seem to have figured their shit out, meaning I’m guessing it’s time for Kyouhei and Minato to grasp towards a new relationship with kyudo of their own. Let’s get to it!

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BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! – Episode 12

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And so the perilous journey of MyGO’s musicians continues. Having weathered CRYCHIC’s calamitous breakup, Tomori, Taki, and Soyo have reunited in a group defined by genuine emotional sincerity, with even Soyo admitting to the desire for community that has long guided her awkward, earnest compatriots. And they’ve gained new companions along the way, friends who may lack the paralyzing magnetism of Sakiko or Ophelia-tier melancholy of Mutsumi, but who nonetheless contribute crucial dosages of stability and chill to their anxious collective.

Anon in particular has proven herself a crucial binding agent, in spite of both Soyo and Taki’s initial indifference to her presence. In a story brimming with rich characters haunted by the scars of the past, Anon’s “I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me” ego and simultaneous sensitivity to the feelings of others made her an unexpectedly ideal mediator, her brash pursuit of self-centered ends almost immediately giving way to genuine concern for her would-be bandmates. The duality of Anon reflects the thoughtfulness of MyGO’s characterization more generally; none of these characters are a stable set of behaviors and desires, they are forever suspended between their best and worst instincts, their past hopes and present ambitions. Let’s see how they weather their second performance, as we return to the outstanding BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!!

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Winter 2024 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am floating on air, as the second session of our third formal DnD campaign ended up sprawling into a seven-hour extravaganza of dynamic roleplaying and haunted house exploration. After two campaigns where the drama was almost entirely provoked by external narrative elements, my group has finally reached the point of in-character confidence for us to spend an hour or so figuring out if our rogue is constantly lying to us, and another hour building up my poor goblin Tilly’s confidence enough to serve as an effective cleric. As you all know, I believe engaging character writing is the heart of emotionally resonant storytelling, and so at last achieving the improv confidence necessary to truly have the party members lead the action has been a thrilling revelation. We’re bickering, revealing our histories, setting up long-term character growth arcs – it’s all that crunchy stuff that I love so much in fiction, here executed on the fly as we beat on ghosts and vampires. Anyway, that was the highlight of my week, but we also ran through some films as well! Let’s run ‘em down!

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A Pale Mirror: Maborosi

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Hirokazu Kore-eda makes somber, majestic films about quietly unhappy people, people whose lives didn’t amount to everything they might have hoped, but who still hold a candle for tomorrow. You can chart a direct line from his work back to the gorgeous films of Yasujiro Ozu; like Ozu, Kore-eda understands that the substance of our lives is captured not in the grand acts of defiance or reinvention, but in the countless, frequently indistinct moments between, as well as the spaces in which we spend these moments. I imagine they find a sort of redemption in venerating these segues and stillnesses; for the lonely and longing and perpetually noncommittal, the beauty both these directors find in our everyday interactions is a profound comfort.

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero – Episode 9

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to Yuki Yuna is a Hero, after an episode that saw the other shoe plummeting to earth and leaving a devastating crater in its wake. As it turns out, the Taisha knew all along that our young heroes would be forced to fight again, that they would acquire lasting, debilitating injuries from this hero labor, and that they would eventually be reduced to utter dependency, as one after another of their limbs or senses were sacrificed as offerings to the Divine Tree. There are no old soldiers in this system; only used-up figures of worship, deified for sacrifices they never knew they were making.

As horrible as this is for our girls on the ground, it’s nonetheless a fascinating thematic turn, tethering Yuki Yuna’s magical girl and martial elements together through their common thread: how both young women and old soldiers are misused by society, ostensibly venerated but often materially denied and despised. Like so many other eager young patriots, these girls’ innocent love of their home has been turned against them, exploited for the sake of a system that consumes lives and produces martyrs, all to ensure the next wave of victims is properly motivated. It’s a rich and deliciously cynical turn, and I’m eager to see how our team responds to these shocking reveals. Let’s get to it!

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re setting off on a new journey, or more precisely beyond a journey’s end, as we check out the first episode of the recent and much-loved Frieren. There was a great deal of buzz surrounding Frieren prior to its release, and it’s not hard to see why; in this era of modern otaku being constantly flung into Dragon Quest-reminiscent worlds, an honest-to-god committed fantasy drama is an inherent and very welcome change of pace. And beyond that, Frieren’s novel twist on genre convention provides an additional pull: the allure of a more somber, reflective story, one primarily concerned with finding value and beauty in life after the great adventures are over.

That’s a hook that holds a great deal of appeal to me! It feels adjacent to my beloved “apocalyptic travelog” subgenre (think Girls’ Last Tour or Kemurikusa), stories where the chance for transformative, world-shifting change has already passed, wherein the great challenge lies in coming to a happier understanding of our place in a land at peace. It’s so appealing that I actually wrote a long-form variation of it back in high school, though no, I am not showing you my high school fiction. Anyway, Frieren is also directed by Bocchi the Rock’s fast-rising Keiichirō Saitō, and from what I’ve told, the production is a lush spectacle from start to finish. That’s a fine stack of reasons to be optimistic, so let’s see what we’ve got in the first episode of Frieren!

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Winter 2024 – Week 12 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am riding high on the success of our new campaign’s first session, wherein I took on the guise of Tilly The Goblin With Anxiety, and became fast… well, acquaintances at least with my party of a swashbuckler, mad scientist, and Dandelion From The Witcher. Having already completed two campaigns with this group, our confidence in executing in-character drama has never been higher; compared to actually serving as dungeon master, simply staying in character during the session feels totally effortless, and I’m thus looking forward to more directly party-driven drama in the sessions to come. And alongside that, I have of course continued with our regularly scheduled film and anime screenings, munching through some light One Piece adventures while also completing Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. I’m frankly not quite sure where to go at this point in our Gundam journey; I suppose Gundam Unicorn would be the next natural step? Anyway, I’ll figure that out myself, while you all enjoy my latest week in films!

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Chainsaw Man and the Country Mouse

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Late in Chainsaw Man’s fifth volume, Denji and Aki are each presented with a brief parable, the story of the country and the city mouse. “The country mouse gets to live in safety,” they are told, “but doesn’t get to eat delicious food like they have in the city.” On the other hand, “the town mouse gets to eat delicious food, but runs a higher risk of getting killed by humans or cats.” It’s a dichotomy so simple it could apply to almost anything: risk versus reward, stasis versus progress, or the more obviously applicable choice between living in Makima’s devil-haunted world versus running with all your might. Of course, in order to fear the city enough to desire the country, you first require something to lose.

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Blue Reflection Ray – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re embarking on a brand new adventure, as we check out the first episode of the recent magical girl drama Blue Reflection Ray. The show is apparently a spin-off of the 2017 RPG Blue Reflection, which I recall a fair number of my friends enjoyed back on release, as well as a precursor to the franchise’s second game, Blue Reflection: Second Light. Aside from that, I confess I know next to nothing about either the games or show’s actual content; my general impression is “magical girls and intimate drama in a modern urban setting,” but that’s about all I’ve got.

As for the show’s production team, director Risako Yoshida has risen through the key animation grind to arrive at consistent directorial positions within the last five years or so, meaning we’ll hopefully be appreciating their animator’s eye for staging drama. Meanwhile, this is actually series composer Akiko Waba’s first full composition, having previously written scattered episodic scripts for a variety of productions (not too many notables, though A Lull in the Sea was probably effective training for this sort of story). Though it technically possesses the “source material” of the first game, as an anime-original narrative, I’m hoping the series will embrace the unique opportunities of shows that aren’t beholden to source expectations. Anime-originals are preposterously over-represented among the best anime for a variety of reasons most people are too polite to go into, so with any luck that’ll hold true for Blue Reflection Ray. With this admittedly limited context to go on, let’s check out the first episode!

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