The Apothecary Diaries – Episode 6

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to get back to the intimate intrigues of the rear palace, as we join Maomao and her fast-proliferating entourage for a fresh episode of The Apothecary Diaries. Having somewhat accidentally ingratiated herself with two of the emperor’s top concubines, Maomao has recently been tasked with a new responsibility: joining the lady Gyokuyou at an approaching garden party, wherein all four of the highest-ranking concubines will vie for the treasured title of empress.

This is all a source of consternation and complaint to Maomao, of course. From the start, she has mostly just resented the fortune and fame her talents have brought her, preferring to quietly wait out her terms of servitude as a low-level washwoman. But though she frequently laments her increased responsibilities, she is in truth incapable of lurking in the shadows – from her curiosity to her empathy to her industriousness to her sense of righteousness, too much of Maomao seems born for the spotlight to forever avoid its gaze. Our last episode offered a clear visual metaphor for her ascension into palatial prominence, as she wiped away the false freckles that embodied her desire for anonymity, and in turn received a pledge from Jinshi that he would protect her on this strange battlefield. Exposure is inherently dangerous for women, as the cruel assumptions underpinning this royal culture constantly attest. Can Maomao maintain her defiant identity now that she’s risen to the main stage? Let’s find out!

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Rock is a Lady’s Modesty – Episode 13

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking in with Lilisa and the gang for one final episode of Rock is a Lady’s Modesty, as our quartet face off against the repulsive tourists of Bacchus. With their total focus on external validation and blatant disregard for the sanctity of rock, they have stirred Lilisa into a defensive fury, giving her the perfect outlet for her frustrations regarding her increasingly tenuous surface life. This is not what rock is all about!

But what is rock all about? Over the past twelve episodes, this production has offered a variety of answers to that question, none of them fully encompassing the mixture of social rebellion and personal validation our leads seek on the stage. For Otoha, rock is a haven of self-satisfaction in a life spent pleasing others; for Lilisa, music connects her to her absent father, and lets her express the unsociable feelings she keeps locked behind a polite smile. Rock can mean whatever any isolated teen needs it to mean, and while this story has occasionally gestured towards the medium’s inherent political associations, it has mostly proven a celebration of these particular characters, fondly articulating the increasing mutual trust of our leads. That’s fine by me; in a world as oppressive as Lilisa’s, even just holding onto your soul is a form of protest, a blow struck against the insincere smiles and cutthroat calculations of high society. So let’s raise our middle fingers high one last time, as our girls bury these jokers once and for all!

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Fall 2026 – Week 1 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. After the overstuffed summer anime season, it seems like we’re in for a quiet one this fall, with seemingly just the return of Apothecary Diaries to look forward to. That suits me just fine though, as I’ve still gotta catch up on a fair number of outstanding seasonal productions, as well as sneak in whatever films I can before year’s end. Regardless, it’s already certain my “new to me” segment of the year in review is going to be absolutely stacked – between the pile of OVAs I’ve screened and highlights like Future Boy Conan, Dirty Pair, and Galaxy Express 999, this has been an exceedingly fruitful year for delving the depths of anime history. I’m still figuring out what legacy project I’ll tackle next, but for now, let’s run down the week in films!

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Dear Brother – Episode 18

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today the bells are tolling in foreboding harmony with the shrill calls of sparrows beyond the glass, which can only mean it’s time for a return to Seiren Academy, and all the terrible turmoil that entails. There’s a time for subtlety and a time for restraint, but sometimes all you want is the glorious dramatic and aesthetic maximalism of a sordid tale like the delightful Dear Brother.

Our last episode saw Nanako in fine form, rallying alongside her allies in the wake of Kaoru’s ill-fated return to the basketball court. In spite of Kaoru’s injury, that event ultimately served as a rallying cry for the anti-Sorority faction, with Mariko affirming her love for Kaoru while Saint-Juste regained the confidence to return to school, and even laugh off Miya-sama’s attempts at controlling her. That in turn led to Nanako’s own rejection of Miya-sama’s demands, as she proudly mailed off the letter Miya-sama demanded she destroy. The more tightly Miya-sama grips, the more determined her victims become to escape her – and having suffered so many recent defeats, I imagine she’s cooking up some dramatic acts of retaliation. Let’s see how the chips fall as we return to the battlefield of love and youth!

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 21

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to the field of the First Class Mage Exam, as Frieren and her compatriots do battle with the distinguished Denken and his ruthless accomplice. Having “successfully” reduced their alleged scavenger hunt to its true nature as a grand melee, they compete to either claim their opponent’s prize or destroy them outright; either way, only a full team with Stille in hand can pass this trial.

In characteristic Frieren fashion, the battle so far has revolved less around “who is the most powerful” than “what are you willing to sacrifice for glory.” For Frieren and Denken, the prestige of a First Class Mage certificate is not a boon worth bloodying their hands for, a sentiment shared by the reluctant mercenary Wirbel. It is not a difficult thing to gain wealth or plaudits for enacting harm – but when the praise subsides, when it is just you alone with your choices, does the bargain still feel worth the price? On a long enough time span, there is little more important than acting in such a way that you can stand unashamed, proud of the changes you have wrought on the world. Let’s see how Frieren retains her pride as we return to the field!

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Shoushimin Series – Episode 13

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we return to the tangled mysteries of Shoushimin Series, as Jogoro and Osani continue their wandering journeys toward normalcy. Having spent a season realizing they were each enabling the other’s alleged worst tendencies, the pair have split and found new partners, with Osanai dating newspaper club member Urino while Jogoro pursues the charming Nakamura. And yet their underlying passions still endure, exemplified through both the awkward distances of their new bonds and their embroilment in the town’s latest mystery, a serial arson case that is only rising in intensity with each new incident.

It was a bold play by Honobu Yonezawa to take their stable paradigm and shatter it, but the results are already proving this franchise can survive and even thrive with its leads no longer in close contact. Frankly, their lack of physical proximity has only underlined the strength of their bond; Jogoro is constantly framing Nakamura in terms of how she differs from Osanai, while Osanai seems to be performing some kind of Vertigo-style personality resculpting of her boyfriend Urino. It’s a messy, emotionally fraught situation, and those are precisely the sort of situations that let richly realized character dramas like this thrive. With both their personal bonds and the town at large in a state of violent flux, let’s see how this case continues to develop!

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Summer 2026 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been continuing my journey through the outstanding summer productions, following up A Witch in Mongolia with a run through Science Saru’s The Ghost in the Shell. Having only previously viewed Mamoru Oshii’s take on the material, it was a bit of a surprise to see how breezy and energetic the source material could be. Watching this version made me feel all the more validated for having munched through Shirow’s classic era OVAs this year, which actually provided a much stronger comparison point than Oshii’s ponderous, melancholy interpretation – it seems like Shirow is fundamentally a pulp action-comedy writer at heart, and I think this new adaptation works much better in that light than as an era-bound and sorta reactionary political text. Of course, all that scifi action was supplemented by a healthy selection of feature films, so let’s dive into the Week in Review!

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Apocalypse Hotel – Episode 6

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling the urge for some high-class hospitality, and thus decided it’s high time to head down to the Gingarou Hotel. Though humanity may take to the stars or perish from this earth, attentive service and comfortable accommodations will never go out of style. Such is the creed of Yachiyo and her companions, the faithful inheritors of their creators’ will, who are now pleased to offer their own signature blend of expertly aged whisky!

So it goes in the wake of last episode’s adventures in distillation, which actually covered a great deal more than the process of cultivating fine liquors. Whisky turned out to be a flexible metaphor for any journey through life, as we lose some things, gain others, and are ultimately refined into a subtle and complex blend of our endless influences. So long as we retain some long-term goal, we are inherently expressing hope for the future, a motivation to keep us from languishing in the dregs of the past. It was a poignant and expertly crafted episode, and I’m eager to see what follows as we return to Apocalypse Hotel!

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The Mighty Nein – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling a hankering for the kind of adventure only adaptations of tabletop live-play series can provide, and am thus exceedingly fortunate to be facing a fresh episode of The Mighty Nein, Amazon’s lush reimagining of Critical Role’s second extended campaign. The show has so far proven a marvelous take on its source material, polishing and rearranging and generally doing everything it can to transform a campaign marked by frequent narrative digressions into a coherent, propulsive drama. It feels like we’re receiving the best of both worlds here; The Mighty Nein at the table was a group of charming individual characters with no narrative binding them together, but the team’s thoughtful revisions are so far providing their heroes an actual journey worth undertaking.

Our last episode saw the team actually strike out on their first collective adventure, with decidedly mixed results. However, while they failed to actually save the young Tohya, that failure itself served as a powerful binding agent, helping our unlikely companions discover a variety of parallels across their histories and philosophies. Failure is a crucial tool in tabletop games; victory is gratifying, but it rarely necessitates self-reflection, while failure forces players and their characters to confront the ways they are still works in progress, and consider the methods by which they might grow as both individuals and a collective. And with a volstrucker currently charging right at them, it seems like our players might soon get even more opportunities to sample the benefits of harsh, embarrassing failure. Let’s get to it!

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Journal With Witch – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m guessing we’re in for another brutal emotional pummeling, as we return to the painfully well-observed drama of Journal With Witch. The show has so far offered up a pair of poignant, intimate character studies, observing an unlikely duo who seem united less by their tangential genetic bond than their fellow pilgrimage through a great, forbidding emotional desert. For Asa, this desert represents the grief she still cannot name, a feeling too immense to look at directly, yet which nonetheless marks her as apart from the carefree high schoolers and confident adults surrounding her. For Makio, this desert is her personal fortress, the barricade of sand and stone that has shielded her from the unhappy truths of an isolated adulthood.

Back when Makio first suggested Asa start a journal, it seemed like that might have just been the idle, unconsidered advice of someone out of their depth in offering true consolation. But now, it seems more likely that Makio was sharing her own survival strategy – to transmute to the page that which is intolerable to the mind, and thereby exorcise her demons through the alchemy of fiction. We all develop our own coping strategies for handling life’s disappointments, but Asa’s presence is forcing Makio to reexamine the routines of her life, and ask once again if she is happy settling for what is simply comfortable. Let’s see how our desert wanderers continue to shape each other as we return to Journal With Witch!

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