CITY the Animation – Episode 10

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am looking out over an altogether gloomy late-spring day, and debating whether my plans for an afternoon jog can contend with the currently rain-soaked neighborhood. As such, I’m feeling a hankering for community connection that can only be sated one way: with a fresh episode of CITY the Animation, where the sun is always shining and the streets are always bustling with all manner of nonsense activities.

Our last episode proved to be another standout in this altogether remarkable season, dedicating itself wholly to the community’s downtown-spanning race, and culminating in a preposterous extended cut that carried us from the last place contenders all the way through Matsuri and Eri’s dramatic victory. It also took some time to advance our key personal narratives, exploring both the middle schoolers’ feelings about their approaching separation, as well as Niikura’s shifting feelings regarding her onetime idol Nagumo. It’s that last thread that I’m most interested in seeing pursued further; it seems like Niikura is assigning Nagumo a significance that Nagumo herself can’t really maintain, and I’m curious to see how Niikura ultimately contends with the fact that Nagumo is clearly as lost in adulthood as she is. Regardless, I’m sure all sorts of unexpected pleasures await, so let’s get right back to the CITY!

Continue reading →

Birdie Wing – Episode 3

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to get down to the course for a fresh episode of Birdie Wing, as we continue our journey through the high-octane world of semi-legal street golf. Approaching the staid, frankly lethargic pastime of white-collar retirees with the energy of Girls und Panzer or JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Birdie Wing has so far offered a riveting introduction to its fanciful golf-based society, as our heroine Eve crosses clubs with all manner of adversaries in order to save her equivalent of a youth community center.

Whether it’s the aforementioned GuP or Scorching Ping Pong Girls or Umamusume or whatever, shows within this absurd sports subgenre generally require a balance of two things: Fanciful Flourishes and Firm Fundamentals. After Birdie Wing’s first episode demonstrated its knack for absurd one-off embellishments, its second emphasized its equal commitment to grounded mechanical drama, presenting a faceoff of Eve and new rival Aoi that showed off their distinct approaches to the bunkerfield. With that balance struck, we’re now roaring into the narrative destination of nearly all such stories: the venerable tournament arc, wherein strokes will be tested and blood will be shed upon the well-watered, close-shorn fairway. Let’s see how the battle’s proceeding as we return to Birdie Wing!

Continue reading →

Kamiina Botan – Episode 3

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking in on Kamiina and her liquor-loving dormmates, as we lounge our way through a fresh episode of Botan Kamiina Fully Blossoms When Drunk. When last we left off, the gang had just returned from a trip to Nagatoro, an excursion that let this production luxuriate in what it does best: offering scene-snippets and montages of young adults enjoying their freedom, and luxuriating in the incidental beauty of the world that these artists so capably bring to life.

For all that, I’m still feeling fairly ambivalent about this production so far. While I quite enjoy the focused outings like that Nagatoro trip, the show’s focus on liquor has so far failed to really add anything to the proceedings in either an aesthetic or dramatic sense. Watching other people get drunk simply isn’t particularly interesting, and beyond that, the show hasn’t really textured its characters enough to make their relationships dramatically compelling. Admittedly, part of this disconnect is simply that I’m less a fan of pure slice-of-life anime than most, but the ones I’ve enjoyed tend to have a little more immediate appeal, be it the intriguing worlds of Flying Witch and Girls’ Last Tour, or the engaging focus activities of Laid-Back Camp and K-On! Nonetheless, the show is so lovingly realized that it remains an easy watch regardless, so let’s see if our third episode finally seizes my attention!

Continue reading →

Summer 2026 – Week 10 in Review

Posted on by
1

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the summer anime season nearly finished and my journey through Galaxy Express 999 at last complete, I’m eager to catch up on what appears to have been the strongest anime season in years. At a glance, I absolutely need to check out A Witch in Mongolia, Goodbye Lara, The Ghost in the Shell, and Sparks of Tomorrow, as well as find time for outstanding films like Cosmic Princess Kaguya, The Ribbon Hero, and The Last Blossom. Between all those, Witch Hat Atelier, and Journal With Witch, this is proving to be a pretty ludicrous year in prestige productions, and a generally heartening sign for the medium’s strength and diversity. I’ll be sure to check back in as I munch through the season’s highlights, but for now, let’s run down the week in films!

Continue reading →

HeartCatch Precure! – Episode 2

Posted on by
2

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am absolutely delighted to be returning to HeartCatch Precure!, as we storm through the fallout of Tsubomi’s transformation into Cure Blossom. Having more or less failed in her initial attempts to shrug off her shy, introverted personality, she nonetheless found herself forcibly befriended by the lamprey-like Erika, who clung to her all through her first day in Kibougahana. Yet in spite of her misgivings about this new relationship, she was swift to jump to Erika’s defense upon the appearance of the devious Sasorina, prompting her sudden debut as Cure Blossom.

All that description really can’t do much to convey the actual experience of watching this remarkable production. With direction by Toei’s reliable Tatsuya Nagamine and character designs by the legendary Yoshiko Umakoshi, HeartCatch’s debut was a visual feast, echoing both the cartoonish flexibility of Doremi and the operatic drama of Casshern Sins. Beyond Umakoshi’s character designs, the show’s overall visual philosophy embraces an evocative, angular looseness that makes sequences like its opening battle into dynamic visual theater, as beautiful as they are exciting. Combine that with the clear visual comedic and dramatic potential of our initial Precure pair, and you end up with a premiere that dazzles on every metric, offering much and promising even more. Let’s see how the battle unfolds as we return to HeartCatch Precure!

Continue reading →

The Apothecary Diaries – Episode 5

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling a craving for some prickly palatial intrigue, a hunger that can clearly only be sated by Maomao and her rambling Apothecary Diaries. This production has so far proven a crunchy mixture of personal and mystery drama, grounding its various inexplicable illnesses in the pragmatic realities of political capital and gender within the rear palace. And all the while, Maomao’s own status has risen precipitously, to the point where two of the emperor’s top courtesans now consider her a trusted confidant.

Our last episode was a particular stunner, benefitting from the tremendous talents of young gun director/AD China and Moaang. In their hands, a production generally reliant on its layouts over its limited animation was able to pull off some gorgeous feats of character acting, realizing the subtlety of Maomao’s professional poise and the tenderness of a mother’s love with equal acuity. We’re probably not in for another standout like that, but I’m excited nonetheless to see how Maomao continues to navigate this treacherous theater. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Rock is a Lady’s Modesty – Episode 12

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Continue reading →

Summer 2026 – Week 9 in Review

Posted on by
2

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!

Continue reading →

Yuri is My Job! – Volume 8

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 14

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Continue reading →