Rock is a Lady’s Modesty – Episode 12

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Hello folks, and welcome the fuck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to Lilisa and her as-yet-unnamed rock quartet (no, they’re not going with Shiraya’s stupid name), as they work to balance their high society obligations and passion for rock music, the latter providing an excellent outlet for all the frustrations of the former. When last we left off, Lilisa had just met with six-years-removed Noble Maiden Yayoi Takayanagi, who offered her some troubling words of wisdom regarding her own pursuit of the title.

Though Lilisa initially assumed Yayoi was a kindred spirit, given her flouting of obligation and love of music, she soon learned that the world of the elites was even more cruel and unfair than she’d expected. It was not merit that earned Yayoi her title; it was her generous endowment to the academy, the same method by which those of the upper class have acquired their scholastic credentials for centuries. For every commoner who “pulls themselves up by their bootstraps,” there are a thousand members of the landed gentry who simply bought their way into continued adulation; high society is an exclusive club, and you are not invited.

Beyond Yayoi’s blunt acknowledgment that wealth, power, and social standing are all the same thing, she further demonstrated the sort of person who thrives in this system, casting aside Lilisa’s truest passion with a conspiratorial “keep that nonsense to yourself.” To worship at the altar of capital demands an absolute denial of the empathy-driven self; one must become a creature without human sentiment, and that necessarily demands abandoning such pursuits as “expressing your feelings through rock music.” Yayoi has “won” in the way Lilisa thought she desired, but her victory has left a hollow shell where a person once was, one of the countless husks that comprise our global elite.

This was all obviously a terrible shock for Lilisa, but it certainly improved my impression of the show’s ambitions. Too often it’s felt like this story has been constructing a simplistic, binary contrast of “stultifying collectivism versus selfish individualism,” a philosophy that felt more reactionary than humanist, more childish than liberatory. This last episode went a long way towards realigning rock with genuine social rebellion, and I can only hope that continues as Lilisa reconsiders her ambitions. Now let’s quit with all this stuffy thematic analysis, and get to the fuckin’ show!

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Summer 2026 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We have sadly reached the end of the summer months, which in New England terms means I’m now in for two months of damp leaves followed by six months of merciless winter chill. Still, I’m determined to keep my heroic, eminently praise-worthy jogging routine going, so I’m currently in the process of mustering up the energy to A: find a local gym, B: acquire membership to said gym, and C: actually make use of aforementioned membership. I generally stall out somewhere between steps A and B, but I’m feeling good about this year, and will at the very least keep jogging outside so long as the frosts permit.

In other news, I’m now three quarters of the way through Galaxy Express 999, and have also munched through the majority of the recent Critical Role-associated superhero game Dispatch. Aside from sometimes falling into that unfortunate “Mom’s not home, we can say swears” tone common to too-online narratives, the game’s proven a charming found family story, stapled to a mechanical system that calls to mind Yakuza’s cabaret minigames. I frankly would have picked up the game much earlier if it was pitched with the cabaret stuff; hearing some familiar voices is nice, but man, that minigame is a top-notch time waster. And of course, there were also film screenings aplenty, so let’s get on with the Week in Review!

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Yuri is My Job! – Volume 8

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After seven volumes of inexpertly dancing around each other’s true feelings, Yuri is My Job!’s seventh volume concluded on a simple, devastating truth: that Hime could not reciprocate Mitsuki’s desires, and the mismatch of their ambitions made it impossible for her to continue working at Cafe Liebe. Having rekindled their childhood friendship in spite of their profoundly differing impressions of that history, it seemed like they were on a course towards genuinely understanding each other, and perhaps forging an even stronger bond. But as this insightful manga is always willing to admit, mutual understanding does not necessarily imply reconciliation; in fact, it is sometimes our most fundamental truths that drive a wedge between us.

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Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 14

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are concluding our journey through Monogatari’s Monster Season, as Araragi and company close the book on their town’s latest vampiric intrusion. Having at last learned of Deathtopia’s arrival in her own words, they’ve discovered that while Suicide-Master did commence this chain of mummifications, it was actually her first victim Sowa Kiseki who committed the rest, working out her frustrations regarding the girls’ basketball team via a series of violent reprisals.

In an arc littered with echoes of Kizumonogatari, Kiseki represents an alternative path Araragi could have taken, if his resentment towards others had outweighed his hatred of himself. Or perhaps Araragi simply got lucky, in that unlike Deathtopia’s “food poisoning,” Acerola’s survival of Araragi’s vampirization set him on the road towards Meme Oshino and a positive application of his new powers.

We cannot isolate every turning point in our life, nor guarantee we will undergo that precise, “correct” degree of transformation through our experience – as Deathtopia put it, neither so familiar we seem static, nor so different we’re unrecognizable. But we can acknowledge that everyone is bound by those same anxieties, whether allegedly ageless vampires or uncertain college freshmen. Thus after an arc spent reassessing Araragi and Shinobu’s bond, we find ourselves happily where we began: still licking each other’s wounds, still unified in mutual trust, and still ready to face whatever the future may bring as a fast-talking, quick-slicing pair of vampiric badasses. Now let’s hunt down our killer!

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Dear Brother – Episode 17

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m in the mood for some meticulously sculpted melodrama, and thus feel there’s nothing for it but to take the train on down to Seiren Academy, bathing ourselves in the crimson light off the bay as we contemplate whatever future terrors await. That’s right, it’s time for some goddamn Dear Brother, where any clock stroke might foretell the desolation or doom of our haunted high school classmates.

Our last episode offered a harrowing countdown to disaster, with the leadup to Kaoru’s return to the court offering a mix of poignantly articulated personal hopes and ominous visual framing. All those shadows and birds and wailing train signals made for a paralyzing first half, so much so that Kaoru’s eventual accident on the court came almost as a relief. And ultimately, the fallout of that moment actually served as a comforting affirmation of how far our heroes have come, with both Shinobu and Saint-Juste proving the strength of their bonds with Kaoru. Even as the violence escalates, it feels like Miya-sama’s grip on Seiren is slipping, while the rebels she’s attempted to undercut only prove their enduring resilience. It seems Nanako is far from alone in her rejection of the Sorority, and I’m eager to see how she marshals her allies as we return to the battlefield of adolescence!

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Summer 2026 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the site still boasting drafts of every single currently outstanding reader project, I’ve been hacking away at the novel for much of this past week, burning through a major back-half sequence and successfully extracting myself from the narrative hole I’d created. I’ve also been munching through Galaxy Express 999 episodes at a feverish pace, and thoroughly enjoying Matsumoto’s diverse, fantastical planetary concepts. There’s obviously some repetition of themes and structures (Tetsuro’s had his pass stolen at least twenty times by now), but it’s nonetheless hard to imagine coming up with such distinct worlds and stories on a weekly basis. I also conquered Baby Steps’ imposing Manbreaker, a preposterous mountain-climbing challenge that absolutely solidified the game as a personal favorite, possessing one of the most mechanically rewarding control schemes I’ve ever interacted with. I’ll have to figure out what to do with myself now that The Mountain is behind me, but for now, let’s break down the week in films!

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 20

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to the frost-tipped forests of the northern lands, as Frieren and her new allies continue their first-class mage trials. In attempting to capture a supersonic Stille, a sparrow-like bird highly attuned to the presence of magic, Frieren used the creature’s own sensitivity against it. By directing her allies to “contaminate” all sources of water with magic, she ensured the birds would come to drink at the final remaining pool, thus making them easy to capture with even the shortest of ranged spells.

Unfortunately, though pretty characteristically for Frieren, it doesn’t seem she put much thought into the second-order effects of this gambit. Thus we find ourselves with the first-class prospects poised on the verge of conflict, hoping to steal one of the already-captured Stilles now that Frieren has poisoned the well. Though these challenges were initially framed as staid tests of formal aptitude, it seems that Frieren has grasped their true nature; such trials only ever lead to violence, particularly when a number of their entrants actively wish it so. As both the warriors and politicians of this contest well understand, one cannot rise ever upward without stepping upon the dreams of others. With their fangs now bared, let’s see how these mages fare!

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Shoushimin Series – Episode 12

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are returning to the enigmatic wanderings of Shoushimin Series, as Jogoro and Osanai continue in their renewed commitment to becoming ordinary. Having severed their connection in the wake of Osanai’s outrageous self-kidnapping gambit, they have each found new partners who seem to earnestly appreciate them, and who crucially do not enable their respective antisocial tendencies.

In fact, the two of them have seemingly become so ordinary that they’re no longer the protagonists of their own series. Season two has opened with a graceful flipping of perspective, centering on Osanai’s new boyfriend Urino and his efforts to uncover an alleged serial arson case around town. Through this reversal, Shoushimin Series is elegantly demonstrating the strength of Honobu Yonezawa’s character writing; though Jogoro and Osanai are certainly compelling characters, it’s just as interesting to explore this world from a new shoulder, with the appearances by our old leads lent all the more impact by their newfound rarity. And in director Mamoru Kanbe’s hands, it is already equally apparent what this new formulation is lacking – that spark of restless, relentless inquiry, the powerful unity of intellectual intent that was heretofore represented through the production’s consistent location-jumping visual flourishes. Richly articulated characters navigating a world whose physical and psychological contours have been realized through a distinct visual vocabulary – that’s essentially the core recipe for cinematic psychological drama, and it’s been extremely gratifying seeing season one’s visual language put to such novel and dramatic purposes. Let’s get back to the investigation!

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Apocalypse Hotel – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d head downtown and check out the Gingarou Hotel, which I hear has recently expanded its clientele base and diversified its catering options. With the addition of Ponko and her chaotic companions, Apocalypse Hotel has bloomed into a delightful found family drama, expanding beyond the gags and melancholy of its opening act through the strength of Ponko and Yachiyo’s relationship.

Our last episode was a clear standout, as the pair were forced to square off with a gargantuan space worm in order to protect the earth’s fragile ecosystem. With lots of dynamic storyboarding and flourishes of animation, the episode was likely the most visually ambitious so far, while also furthering Yachiyo and Ponko’s collective interrogation of what it means to be human. Yachiyo’s directives are essentially the end result of thousands of years of attempted coexistence, the guard rails placed atop a presumed understanding of what we owe to each other – now, with Ponko at her side, the two are steadily filling in that underlying sense of collective responsibility. Let’s see how their journey fares as we return to the Gingarou!

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Summer 2026 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been keeping busy with all my various obsessions, munching through a pile of Galaxy Express episodes while also plugging away at that dang novel. I think I’m nearly out of the hole I dug myself some thirty-odd pages ago, but also feeling increasing trepidation at just how heavily I’ll have to rewrite this beast now that I know more about its final destination. “Just write whatever comes to mind, you can edit later” was undeniably good advice eighteen months ago, back when I was just trying to shake off the rust and write anything unrelated to art criticism, but at this point I can only gaze with envy and resentment back towards those first pages, which will now surely have to be tossed in order to ensure a dramatically and tonally cohesive whole. That inevitability of editing is also making me feel all the more impressed by mangaka who publish their work on a weekly basis, and thus must live forever with whatever choices they made however many years ago. Anyway, the movie screenings have continued as per usual, so let’s run down the Week in Review!

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