CITY the Animation – Episode 8

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to take another stroll downtown, and see what new fever dreams are cooking among the preposterous inhabitants of CITY the Animation. The show has recently been hard at work demonstrating that continuity need not imply coherency, as Mr. Makabe’s adventures with dining out have risen to new heights of lunacy, and Niikura has proven herself some kind of midnight food demon (no doubt at the insistence of her six or seven shoulder devils).

So basically business as usual for these wacky characters, alongside those steady apportionings of genuine mutual support and comfort that provide such a winning foundation for their variable antics. Life is a funny thing, full of moments of glory or sorrow that seem almost willfully disorienting in their senseless distribution. Through its various vignettes, CITY captures the absurdity of life with humor and compassion, providing an exaggerated yet still recognizable portrait of the unexpected trials and triumphs of the everyday. We’re all in this nonsense together, so let’s do our best to make our collective journey a pleasant one!

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Birdie Wing – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re embarking on a fresh new journey, as we explore the action-packed world of high-stakes golf drama. That’s right, it’s time for motherfucking Birdie Wing, which I know by reputation as a proud entry in anime’s distinguished “sports are basically DBZ battles” subgenre. Having greatly enjoyed such delightful genre forebearers as Scorching Ping Pong Girls and Sk8 the Infinity, I am eager to see how this production elevates what is generally agreed to be a sedate, largely retiree-aimed sporting passion.

Apparently our heroine’s origin story is “competes in unlicensed golf challenges to earn money for underprivileged youths,” which is a statement of such simultaneous absurdity and confidence that I’m already hooked. Our director Takayuki Inagaki is a seasoned veteran, having done key work on productions ranging from Desert Punk to School Rumble to Chio’s School Road, meaning he definitely has the comedy chops for this sort of thing. Meanwhile, screenwriter/series composer Yōsuke Kuroda seems even more appropriate for the project, having proven both his sports and melodrama cred through works like Big Windup!, BASTARD!!, and Gundam Build Fighters. All signs point towards an exceptionally executed slice of birdie-seeking absurdity, so let’s get right to the action of Birdie Wing!

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Spring 2026 – Week 10 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been a productive week on my end, as I’ve been keeping up my jogging routine, hacking away at the new book, and sampling a variety of new productions courtesy of you generous readers. My only scribing struggle at the moment seems to be balancing my own fiction with a return to writing DnD quests for my friends; I’d sorta been using DnD as a springboard back to traditional fiction, so I’m both out of practice and somewhat loathe to divide my already-limited writing time. That said, “my friends are clamoring to play through more of my adventures” is an extremely good problem to have, and in the meantime, I’m quite enjoying the ongoing theatrics of my housemate-DMed new campaign. And of course, the movie screenings have maintained their place of pride within my weekly endeavors, so let’s quit with the rambling and get to some films!

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Kamiina Botan – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a fresh new production, as we screen the first episode of the currently ongoing Kamiina Botan, or in full adapted parlance “Botan Kamiina Fully Blossoms When Drunk.” The show follows a university student who is apparently introduced to the joys of drunken revelry when she moves to a new dorm, and befriends her alcohol enthusiast dorm leader Ibuki Tonami.

That’s not really much to go off! By premise and tags alone, it seems like we’re in for either college-oriented iyashikei or yuri romcom, with both director Takashi Sakuma and composer Yōko Yonaiyama possessing sturdy but relatively unexceptional credentials. Things get a bit more intriguing when we run down to the animation department, which appears stuffed with strong new-gen animators who’ve lent their talents to all sorts of acclaimed productions. That all seems like a fine combo to me, so let’s see what’s in store for us with Kamiina Botan!

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Hero Chapter – Episode 6

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are returning to the field for one more challenge against God, as the brave champions of Yuki Yuna is a Hero face the potential destruction of their entire world. After three hundred years of stewardship, the Divine Tree is nearing the end of its life, and requires (surprise surprise) the sacrifice of a maiden “bride” to restore itself. Of course, even this wouldn’t result in the continuation of their current world – it would result in humanity joining the “land of the gods,” which sounds a whole lot like some instrumentality-adjacent death of human consciousness.

But really, have we come to expect any better from the Divine Tree or its intermediaries? As Nogi bitterly put it, truly embracing this cause demands a surrender of all human sentiment, of the small acts of charity and precious personal connections that define all that is good, all that is worth saving. This reorientation towards a denial of human consciousness is really nothing new for this faith; all along, the Divine Tree has sought to transform the brightest lights of humanity into fuel for its own perpetuation, seeing this as the highest calling to which humans might aspire. Thus stasis is maintained through the surrender of humanity itself, a variable which has no value in the Divine Tree’s cosmology, and which is accordingly drained from those who most fully embrace its divine purpose. But to live without humanity is to be an animated corpse, a semblance of consciousness with no greater conscience. It is the mission of the best of us to reject such a cynical ethos, and magical girls are the best of us made manifest, the living prayer that “if anyone says there’s no reason to hope, I’ll prove them wrong every single time.” Let’s get to proving!

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The Apothecary Diaries – Episode 3

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m thinking we could all do with some thorny palatial intrigue, meaning it’s likely time for a fresh episode of The Apothecary Diaries. The show has proven an absolute delight so far, in large part due to its preposterously charming heroine. Combining a keen intellect and curious mind with a variety of more grumpy, gremlin-reminiscent qualities, Maomao fits into a proud tradition of reluctant detectives, running from modern favorites like Oreki Houtarou all the way back to the indifferent, self-medicating Sherlock Holmes.

With Maomao as our guide, life at the palace has proven a treacherous and fragile balance, a continuous negotiation of loyalties spiced with the threat of venomous betrayal. It’s becoming oddly understandable how Maomao might find comfort in poisons; poisons might harm, but they rarely lie, generally revealing themselves through odor and texture and a certain stiffening of the limbs. In contrast, the nobles of the court are born liars, and that bastard Jinshi the least trustworthy of them all. Let’s see how Maomao navigates this nest of vipers as we return to the palace!

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Spring 2026 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’ve finally hit June, which in pretty classic Me fashion is naturally a call for a wave of “oh god, summer’s started, that means summer is on its way to being over” anxiety. My extremely bad brain aside, it’s actually been a fun week on the home front – we snuck in two D&D sessions taking us halfway through an ongoing tournament, got started on the admittedly inferior but still-pretty-fun Dirty Pair Flash, and began a replay of Final Fantasy VIII, which I hadn’t touched since high school. Alright, technically it’s just my housemate who’s made actual progress – I just spent three hours playing Triple Triad in the opening area, precisely like god intended. I’ll perhaps venture further than Balamb Garden in the week ahead, but for now, let’s run down the week in films!

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Witch Hat Atelier and the Tyranny of Justice

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A shadow hangs over Witch Hat Atelier’s tenth volume. After a set of chapters largely preoccupied with emphasizing both the personal and political dangers of magic, wherein the Knights Moralis consistently demonstrated their cruciality for any kind of working magical society, its tenth cover is dominated by the mysterious Irinia, the Brimhat determined to manipulate both Coco and Tartah into serving her radical ends. Our young mages have been conscripted into a war beyond their understanding, as the promise of magic’s useful potential batters against the threat of its violent misuse.

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Rock is a Lady’s Modesty – Episode 10

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Hello folks, and welcome the fuck back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Rock is a Lady’s Modesty in the wake of our group’s first full band performance, wherein they rocked the faces off Bitter Ganache at an unsuspecting local club. Though the performance started out rocky for both Tina and Lilisa, Otoha’s support was able to drive both of them to glory, as she first threw a lifeline to Tina, and then aggravated Lilisa into her triumphantly selfish true form.

Their performance proved one of the show’s most compelling visual spectacles so far, drawing on the charged imagery of imprisonment, flowers, and leather-bound combat to illustrate our leads rising above their anxieties, and demonstrating their urge for both undiluted self-expression and earnest personal connection through their sound. Their band is not a happy family; they are a vicious nest of rivals, all intent on outshining each other while glorifying their own sound. Also, Tina is there.

Considering my misgivings regarding this show’s characterization of musical rebellion, I suppose it’s no surprise that Tina’s arrival has been a great relief to me. Tina’s lack of technical expertise forces the other band members to play at her pace, to moderate, to share; her inability to keep up demands solidarity from the others, and I was delighted to see Otoha taking the lead in doing so. Now let’s rub this win in Bitter Ganache’s stupid faces!

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Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 12

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re winding towards the conclusion of Monogatari’s Monster Season, as our elite team of investigators work to hunt down the life-draining killer stalking their town. With four exsanguinated basketball players in the hospital, a similarly drained Deathtopia at Mayoi’s shrine, and one body still unaccounted for, the race is on to crack this case before Kagenui arrives and just punches everything to pieces.

While our killer remains elusive, the journey so far has offered plenty of thematically resonant touchstones to sift through, presenting echoes of both Acerola and Araragi’s passage into vampirism. Acerola believed becoming a vampire was the only way she could take account for the lives she stole, pledging that each life taken would be as precious to her as her own flesh was to the gourmet Deathtopia. But in meeting and transforming Araragi, she actually fulfilled her previous wish: to discover someone she could truly save, and thereby redeem her own existence. Each found a vessel for their self-sacrificing instincts in the other, and with the validity of their existence affirmed, they were each able to grow beyond those instincts, and discover the ordinary, fundamental truth that if you keep living, good things will eventually happen.

“Happiness isn’t a race,” Araragi once said, and the wandering passage of himself and Shinobu speak to the truth of those words. Though the journey has been arduous, this arc’s glance back towards their origins demonstrates just how far they’ve come, all the great strides towards happiness they have taken. Whatever mysteries remain, the emotional growth of Araragi and Shinobu has never been more certain. Now let’s get to work!

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