The Legend of Vox Machina S3 – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to the adventures of Vox Machina, as they attempt to flee the bowels of hell with a big nasty devil hot on their trail. Well, technically not the bowels of hell, since they’re actually pretty high in its layers – more like the esophagus of hell, I suppose? Regardless, in true devil’s bargain fashion, last episode’s daring feats of gambling by Pike were only enough to get them safely beyond Zerxus’ doors. For the rest of their journey, they’re now free game for Zerxus’ minions, who have been instructed that only Pike needs to return intact.

Meanwhile, my own party is making their escape from an equally oppressive pocket realm, as they charge forward towards the final battle against Strahd. Our DM has mercifully acknowledged our general frustration with Curse of Strahd’s limited venues for player expression and one-note tone, and thus we recently barreled through the last pre-climax hurdles at warp speed, gathering weapons, liberating allies, and hatching anti-Strahd schemes all in the course of one mammoth session. One of the most important skills you can develop as a DM is flexibility, and the understanding that you are collectively creating a living text – by fast-forwarding through material we clearly weren’t passionate about, they were able to create a version of Curse of Strahd that was actually paced such as to keep our interest.

As of now, we’re currently mid-battle with Strahd, with my peace cleric Tilly attempting to keep his attention off my friends by calling him things like Strahdy-wahdy and Strahdikins. Meanwhile, our noble bard Tulip keeps me alive, swashbuckling rogue Oberyn skewers him with the Sun Sword, and Uncle Fester-reminiscent wizard Dr. Bob does god knows what with his impressive magical faculties. I can vividly see the freeze frame of our ongoing battle in my head, and can’t wait to get back to the fight – but for now, we’ve got some hells to escape and a dragon to slay. Onward!

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Winter 2025 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week saw me finishing up Persona 3 Reload, after first attempting and failing to finish the original game back in 2008 or so. I had a fine enough time with it on the whole, though in retrospect, it probably wasn’t a great idea to play this directly after Metaphor: Refantazio. Metaphor demonstrates Atlus’ powers at their current peak, polishing and innovating on Persona’s framework in both a mechanical and narrative sense; in contrast, 3 feels dated compared to its successors, its core loop less embellished with variations, its narrative wandering and poorly structured. Nonetheless, there’s a core appeal to Persona’s make friends->build Pokemon->make more friends->build stronger Pokemon loop that remains one of the most addictive compulsions in game design, and I did appreciate 3’s clarity of thematic focus, even if it was kinda lacking in the human element that made 4 and 5 so special. Also, movies! We ran down a pile of movies this week, so let’s get to those!

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Mezzo Forte – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out another unique artifact of anime history, from a creator with a truly singular career track: Mezzo Forte, the two-episode turn-of-millennium OVA directed by Yasuomi Umetsu.

Umetsu has jumped between production studios frequently throughout his career, serving as animator and character designer for a variety of productions before making his directorial debut with the exceptional “Presence” segment of Robot Carnival. That sequence is Umetsu at his best, demonstrating his distinctive, detailed style of character art alongside his exuberant, almost gaudy approach to color design. Since then, Umetsu has proven himself an exploitation cinema auteur, with his on-hands approach to every aspect of production marking works like Kite and Wizard Barristers as indelibly his. There is a solemnity and playfulness in Umetsu’s work, but these instincts share space with prominent threads of indulgent erotica and chaotic action; it is little surprise that Tarantino loves his work, and even less of one that Tarantino has not been able to win him a cultural reassessment on the scale of Battle Royale.

All of this is to say that Umetsu embodies the distinctive strangeness of anime as a medium, a man wholly dedicated to his grindhouse vision, and whose talent in design, direction, action staging, and animation are so undeniable that his works carry his obsessions into the spotlight. Whether they flatter my genre wheelhouse or not, I am always eager to expand my understanding of anime’s true originals, and Umetsu emphatically qualifies. Let’s see what awaits us in Mezzo Forte!

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Big Windup! – Episode 16

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We report to you now from the first round of the summer tournament, where the top-seeded team and last year’s winners Tosei are facing off against the largely unknown Nishiura, whose roster appears to consist of largely freshmen players. Predictions weren’t calling for much of a competition today, but you know what, I gotta hand it to these Nishiura newcomers – whether it’s Tosei’s star pitcher Takase showing some nerves or whatever you’d call it, the freshmen are really putting up a fight.

We’re now at the top of the second inning, with Nishiura once again mounting a strong offensive in the face of Takase’s pitching. That said, the real story of this game might well be Nishiura pitcher Mihashi Ren, who knocked Nishiura out of the first inning in six pitches flat. Could that simply be beginner’s luck, or are we witnessing the first prelude of a new dynasty? Regardless, it’s turning into an all-out slugfest as both teams grapple for first blood. Let’s get back to it!

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero (Washio Sumi Chapter) – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are returning to a scene of great and senseless tragedy, as we check in on Togo and Nogi in the wake of their partner Gin’s heroic sacrifice. With both of her allies incapacitated and a squadron of vertices approaching the divine tree, Gin did what she’s always done: take the burden entirely on herself, fighting and dying so that the people she loves could be safe. That same selfless instinct that made her such a caring older sister and fixture around town was here ruthlessly exploited, manipulated so that she might become fuel for beings beyond our comprehension.

That’s pretty much how it goes in Yuki Yuna is a Hero. The series has consistently emphasized how personal kindness and a sense of communal responsibility are exploited by our overseers, perverted into jingoistic nationalism and an utter denial of the self. True heroism always reveals itself on the personal or local level, in the actions of Yuna’s hero club, or in the concern Gin extends towards her neighbors and loved ones. But when such generosity of spirit is directed towards god or country, it is instantly corrupted, framed instead as emotional weakness ripe for exploitation. Whether it’s a government, religion, or the eldritch conflation of both that is the divine tree, loyalty to such distant icons is where our inherent goodness goes to die – and today, an extraordinarily decent person was killed just so, in service to a deity that has no conception of morality whatsoever. Let us see how our survivors are faring, as they struggle in service of the centralized, amoral beast at the heart of the modern world.

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Winter 2025 – Week 12 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With several of my house’s long-term streaming projects concluded, this week has seen us buried in kaiju features, as we storm through Godzilla’s sprawling cinematic canon. It’s been delightful seeing both the concept of a Godzilla film and the context of such films within Japan’s rapidly evolving society shift over the years, as the big guy transitions from an object of terror or warning of violent consequence to a beloved defender of earth and friend to the children. We’re basically watching a cinematic monster of the week series constructed across half a century, finding new things to appreciate in both the broad shifts and incremental adjustments of this titanic franchise. Let’s start with the big guy’s second appearance then, as we burn down this Week in Review!

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Galaxy Express 999 – Episode 8

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to hop back aboard the Galaxy Express 999, whose recent cliffhanger has left Tetsuro kidnapped by the mysterious Ryuz. Curiouser still, it appears that Maetel possesses some knowledge of this woman; Ryuz explicitly stated that Maetel was “beyond her grasp,” and though Maetel attempted to dissuade her, she ultimately put up little resistance to Ryuz’s kidnapping of our poor boy.

What all of this means is still a mystery, largely owing to our fragmentary understanding of Maetel herself. It’s clear she is connected with the Galaxy Express’ parent organization, most likely an heir of its manager or creator, and that she is herding Tetsuro towards some ominous secondary objective. The fact that Ryuz couldn’t claim her could point to her political importance, her secretly metal body, or something else entirely; regardless, I am perhaps most intrigued to further explore Ryuz’s time-distorting powers, which offer an interesting counterpoint to the story’s prior thoughts on time. We have mostly focused on the loneliness of eternal life within a metal shell, but the brevity of a human life offers its own sort of terror, particularly given the absurd scale of space travel. So is it more tragic to embrace such a brief flicker of existence, or to be the one left to mourn the passage of those who do? Let’s find out!

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 9

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d like to return to the ramblings of Frieren and her companions, as we arrive at the presumed conclusion of our party’s battle with Aura the Guillotine and her duplicitous envoys. This arc has frankly not been Frieren at its best; dubious thematic implications aside, enemies that are simply “born evil” do not result in interesting drama. There is no motivation to tease into there, no grappling with the infinitely complex range of conflicts that can pit multifaceted characters into mortal combat without a clear sense of right and wrong. And what’s more, such enemies do a discredit to the heroes they face, forcing them into the frustrating moral binary of “either I execute these creatures mercilessly or I am simply a naive fool, hoping for a redemption that is beyond their fundamental nature.”

It’s a rough storytelling choice, one entirely lacking in the nuance that has characterized Frieren’s exploration of nostalgia and finding purpose in life. My only consolation is that, in spite of the author directing her demons to explicitly state “we are evil and there’s nothing else to it,” their general actions have clearly demonstrated they actually do have personalities, individual values and passions that define them. Truly “driven by pure malice and nothing else” characters are actually kind of hard to write, being so far from the genuine experience of any human being who has ever lived. Thus Frieren’s insistence that they be exterminated feels frequently undercut by the text, either intentionally or accidentally implying it is not that her world runs according to ‘70s DnD logic, but that she herself has embraced a conveniently simplistic perspective that doesn’t actually account for the world’s complexities. That’s of a piece with Frieren’s overarching personality, and it is the main hope I cling to as we return to the field. Let’s get to it!

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Hugtto! Precure – Episode 48

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we stand on the precipice of eternity, as Hana fights to overcome George’s machinations and restore hope for the future. Having been aided in this battle by not just her Pretty Cure companions, but also the former employees of Criasu Corp, her struggle has embodied the promise of personal reinvention, that an unhappy past not define our future, and that people of all ages are capable of shedding their fetters and seeking what is truly most important. Pupple and her companions, Gelos and her beloved butlers, Traum, Risutol, Bishin – though all once believed their best days were fading memories, all were lead by Hana to see that there is still so much beauty in the world, and so much left to look forward to.

And now, there is only George. A man who appears to have taken all of humanity’s suffering on his back, and who sees the only way to maintain happiness as preserving it in amber, sealing our happy moments in stasis as in a picture, or the paintings he loves so much. George has at times represented the paternalistic misogyny facing women in society, the anonymous cruelty of placing your corporate underlings in brutal competition, or the simpering smile promising escape from destitution through wage slavery. Here at the end, those faces merge into one cold promise, a seemingly compassionate assurance that nothing will ever be better than it is now, so you might as well make the good times last. Through struggle and self-doubt, Hana has refused to give up hope for the future, and I don’t think she’s stopping now. Let’s fight for a brighter tomorrow!

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Winter 2025 – Week 11 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today my apartment is undergoing some impromptu spring cleaning owing to last week’s house fire, the second house fire we’ve suffered in roughly eighteen months. Fortunately the damage wasn’t nearly so severe this time, and our landlord is paying for the service, so hey: free apartment cleaning! You gotta take the victories where you can find them in this world of apparently perpetual house fires, and for me those victories tend to come in the form of unexpected new media treasures, films or series that totally catch me by surprise. Let’s pan for gold once more as we break down the Week in Review!

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