Big Windup! – Episode 24

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am pleased as punch to announce we are returning to the mound for a fresh episode of Big Windup!, as our Nishiura boys attempt to pull one over on the top-seeded Tosei players. This game has ended up consuming Big Windup!’s entire second cour, and I for one couldn’t be happier; by honing in on the individual plays and counterplays of these two variably talented lineups, the production has brought the exceedingly complex strategic drama of baseball to life, going far beyond the battery-versus-batter standard to explore how every player, every gambit, and every twist of fate might influence the game’s eventual outcome.

Rather than focus on either player psychology, mechanical ability, or tactical ingenuity, Big Windup! has taken the sensible choice of emphasizing all three, resulting in a thrilling yet consistently parsable, mechanically grounded road to the bottom of the ninth. And now, with a one-run lead courtesy of our boy Tajima, it all comes down to Mihashi to at last shut Tosei down. Let’s take it home, Nishiura!

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Summer 2026 – Week 6 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve been keeping myself busy this week, screening plenty of movies while also marching through legacy anime (Galaxy Express 999), OVA artifacts (Cyber City Oedo 808), and videogames (Mina the Hollower plus Elden Ring). All that has been balanced alongside some determined hacking at my increasingly sizable novel, which I’m beginning to realize cannot possibly resolve itself in a tidy three hundred pages. For all my efforts to impose a strict outline on the narrative, the unfortunate fact is that sometimes shit just happens while you’re writing, and suddenly what you imagined as a “brief digression” is now an entire leg of the journey. Thus I find myself feverishly writing my characters out of self-inflicted narrative pitfalls, with the finish line seemingly retreating further into the distance every time I glance towards it. I couldn’t be happier, really, and I’m looking forward to sharing some more concrete reflections once I have something more concrete to reflect upon. In the meantime, let’s run down the week in films!

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Umamusume: Pretty Derby S2 – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re taking a trip down to the race track, as we return to the equestrian escapades of Tokai Teio and her fellow horse girls. That’s right, it’s time for more Umamusume: Pretty Derby, and I have a feeling that this will be a particularly rough installment for our would-be champion. Having conquered the latest challenge in her pursuit of her idol Symboli Rudolf, she currently appears on top of the world – but given the ominous focus on her ankle that concluded our first episode, it’s clear she’s barreling towards a disastrous injury.

As for my own thoughts on all these urgent proceedings, I must say I’m still waiting to be hooked. I’ve enjoyed a fair number of comedy sports dramas, but so far remain unconvinced by Umamusume in terms of either its comedy or drama. I assume part of that comes down to the first episode’s busyness in terms of establishing all its players; the premiere’s endless procession of intricately designed horse girls felt like a perpetual reminder this is based on a gacha game, which is one of the surest ways to pull me out of a narrative. It’s also hard to believe in this world even on its own terms; our characters’ lives and aspirations feel so abstracted from human experience that I can’t really relate to Teio’s trials, and the show feels unconcerned with offering enough Girls und Panzer-style incidental pleasures to entertain if I’m not compelled by the character drama.

All that said, overstuffed first episodes are a common and entirely forgivable issue, and I imagine this season’s true strength will only be revealed once Teio’s wax wings start to melt. I’m not counting out these horse girls charming me yet, so let’s get back to the action and see what Teio gets up to next!

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Trigun Stampede – Episode 11

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re racing towards a second extinction event, as the huddled humans of No Man’s Land await the judgment of either Million Knives or the very planet itself. Having fled our own home in arc ships after destroying its ecosystem, we sought refuge among the stars – but our reliance on the life-giving Plants sparked the ire of the young Knives, and we were thus struck down from heaven, and forced to survive among the wastes of a planet where safety is a fantasy and solidarity a lie.

But while Knives sees in us only brutality and greed, his brother Vash believes we possess something worth saving. A higher calling, a compassion hidden under rust, or perhaps simply the same right to exist as any other creature that suffers and strives, desperate to propagate its own tiny spark. Thus we arrive at a collision of near-gods, as the inheritor of our suffering faces the adjudicator of our sins, lost in the bowels of a city whose extravagance defies the planet itself.

Y’all ready for some Trigun?

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CITY The Animation – Episode 9

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s a beautiful day today, as the last holdouts of the winter frost melt in the warm spring sun, and birds trill and respond across the budding bows of my neighborhood. I’ll likely be treating myself to a walk through the park later on, but for now, I’m eager to dig into the next best thing: a fresh episode of CITY The Animation, wherein all the manifold pleasures of urban living are celebrated with delirious enthusiasm.

Our last episode reveled in the interconnected vitality of all its players’ various adventures, highlighting the charming relationship between Tatewaku and the middle school duo, as well as the community-uniting power of our playwright’s admittedly confusing performances. But that’s the thing about giving back to the community; the precise nature of your contribution is far less important than simply getting out there, connecting with your neighbors and sharing your passions. CITY embodies a view of local society that feels desperately needed in our increasingly atomized world – between that noble ethos, its absurd aesthetic execution, and its regularly hysterical payoffs, it’s proven itself a much-needed comfort in these past months. Now let’s see what those fools are up to today!

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Summer 2026 – Week 5 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been keeping active in spite of this summer’s absolutely brutal humidity, heroically jogging through the pain before collapsing into an air-conditioned puddle. I’ve also been keeping busy on the anime screening front by finishing off the first season of Witch Hat Atelier, which proved, well, likely as good as it could be. The unfortunate issue with Witch Hat Atelier is that it is so well-suited to its original medium that any adaptation will almost necessarily be a lesser version, and though this production team is obviously excellent, there’s basically no way to effectively translate the original manga’s deftness of paneling, or to perfectly balance its drama versus its humor. Still, it’s certainly a strong show in its own right, and will undoubtedly find a place within my annual wrap-up. I’ll likely be tackling one of this ongoing season’s many apparent delicacies next, but in the meantime, let’s burn down the week in review!

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Birdie Wing – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’ve got a hankering for some high-octane sports nonsense, and thus feel it’s about time to get back to the course with Birdie Wing. The show’s first episode introduced us to underground golf ace Eve, who employs her devastating “Blue Bullet” drive to raise money for her family of orphans. After handily defeating two professional contenders, Eve ultimately met her match in the form of Aoi, an apparent legacy golfer whose diminutive stature belies her ability to smack balls really, really hard.

Eve’s preposterous concept aside, that blunt summary does little to evoke the delightful silliness of Birdie Wing in action. Eve has so far fired off golf balls between train cars and straight through trees, faced off with masked golf jesters, and even shot a pensive music video detailing her rough life on the fringes of Golftopia. The production is hitting that precise golden ratio of absurdity of concept versus commitment to mechanical drama, and I only imagine things will be getting even more charmingly preposterous as Eve is drawn further into the cutthroat underworld of high-stakes golfing. Let’s see how her bout with Aoi continues as we return to the course!

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Thunderbolt Fantasy S3 – Episode 9

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m happy to announce we’re diving back into Thunderbolt Fantasy, as a half-dozen nested schemes stand ready to collapse into open violence. While Shang prepares to return from the demon realm to the Void Junction, each member of the Divine Swarm’s alliance stands with daggers bared, ready to either charge their collective foe or simply kill each other.

And of course, much of the credit for this fraught state of affairs goes to our friendly neighborhood wizard, the Enigmatic Gale. Having somehow insinuated his way into the company of villains, Lin has swiftly planted an entire sowing season’s worth of doubt-seeds, manipulating the understandable apprehensions underlining this alliance of cultists, witches, demons, madmen, and well-meaning yet severely misguided soldiers. Their mutual enmity towards the sword-sealing, fun-spoiling Shang has kept them tenuously aligned so far, but with Xing Hai’s scheme on the verge of fruition, it’s clear either Jun Po or Lou Zhen is about to crack. Let’s see what allies become enemies and enemies become allies as we return to Thunderbolt Fantasy!

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Kamiina Botan – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling a need for some solid stress-relieving shenanigans, and thus feel it’s a perfect time to check back in on Kamiina Botan. Having at this point settled into the peculiarities of dorm life, Kamiina has already forged friendships with her RA Ibuki and post-grad senpai Gujo, drawing together the standoffish inhabitants of her cozy home. Of course, this is Botan Kamiina Fully Blossoms When Drunk, so that process has necessarily involved a fair amount of whiskey, red wine, and sake, alongside some decidedly unsubtle advances from our dear Kamiina.

Director Takashi Sukuma’s team have so far done an excellent job of bringing Kamiina’s world to life, offering inviting watercolor backdrops and plenty of dynamic character acting. The show has thus been a pleasant watch on the whole, though I’m still hungry for a bit more of a hook, be it through the show’s interrogation of different liquors or perhaps the progression of its central relationships. Drinking as a concept just doesn’t offer as much of an aesthetic payoff as music or dance or exploring the countryside; nonetheless, given the show’s generally exceptional execution, I imagine it’s still got plenty of visual pleasures in store. Let’s not waste any more time then, and get straight to lounging!

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Summer 2026 – Week 4 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Summer’s passing us by with alarming speed, but I’m doing my best to make the most of it, having recently discovered some excellent new jogging routes around my neighborhood. It’s been a bitter pill to swallow that diet and exercise are indeed the truest routes to physical and mental health, but I’m at least working to complement such disappointingly mature revelations with plenty of cartoons and videogames. As far as that goes, I recently screened the excellent Gunsmith Cats OVA series, and have also been bashing my head against Mina the Hollower for a couple of weeks now. The game is clearly made with love, but it often feels like the developers take their love of “old-school design sensibilities” to a self-defeating extreme; I like many hard games, but I have no patience for obtuse design as a shortcut to difficulty, and I feel like Mina too often strays over that line. And of course, there have been plenty of our regular movie screenings, so let’s get started on the week in review!

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