Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling altogether on top of my various professional responsibilities, and thus feel I’ve earned some sunny urban shenanigans. That’s right, it’s time for another episode of CITY The Animation, as Nagumo and her eccentric neighbors do their best to navigate adolescence, adulthood, and that awkward bridge in between. Our journeys may be wandering and our destinations uncertain, but as that irrepressible OP says, I’m sure we’ll all meet again eventually, laughing and smiling just like this.

Our last episode certainly offered plenty of reason for laughter, united under the thematic banner of “experiencing an idyllic summer vacation.” For our older trio, this involved a carefree trip to the beach ending in tsunami-strength meteorological devastation – for Tatewaku Makabe, it meant roaming the globe in pursuit of his beloved Izumi, encountering a variety of dubiously canonical hazards along the way. And all of this served as a sort of meta anti-climax, terminating in the absurd punchline that our local baseball team had not just competed in, but actually won the vaunted summer Koshien. But I suppose the feeling of missing out on a perfect youthful summer is in its own way the essence of youth, and I’m sure CITY will offer more similarly slanted wisdom in the episodes ahead. Let’s see what else this production has to teach us as we return to the streets!

Episode 11

We open with a presumed Nagumo interviewing Niikura about her morning routine, seemingly once again seeking a viral video. While much of this show evokes a tangible nostalgia for that era of early-20s listlessness, this one’s a clear point of divergence relative to my own young adulthood – the idea of “I’ll become famous by going viral” rocketed from zero to total cultural saturation just after I got off the youth zeitgeist bus. I mean, look at this website – you’re reading my thoughts on a friggin’ blog, a medium that hasn’t been relevant for over a decade

Very amused that Niikura’s photo board is just a bunch of pictures of broccoli. Still going for that award-winning photo, apparently

Oh my god, this is actually Niikura filming herself. Girl, this project is getting pretty sad

I will admit, her fake sleeping noises for this next “candid” video are quite adorable

“Somebody needs to do traffic control on this cuteness”

And of course, Nagumo walks in on all this nonsense in progress. Well, it serves Niikura right for that absurd Gonsu-gonsu getup she fitted Nagumo with

A reprise of the classic Nichijou embarrassment flight, here bolstered by Nagumo’s preposterous physicality. There’s a strong dollop of absurdist escalation in Nagumo’s flight leading her to flip onto the roof and storm off atop the neighboring buildings

We then check in with Wako, who is utterly starstruck visiting the apartment of Mr. Bummer’s creator Onikama-sensei

I wonder how much of himself Arawi put into this contrast of mangaka – the young comic upstart eager to meet her influences, versus the jaded professional who only sees upcoming mangaka as threatening rivals. I would assume that pressure feels all the more intense in a subfield like absurdist gag manga, which naturally rely more on genuine bolts of inspiration than the steady execution of craft fundamentals – though that feeling of “that’s it, I’ve run out of ideas, nothing else I do will be any good” is pretty universal

A delightful flourish of smears as she geeks out over every element of the apartment

He is of course in the depths of depression, having learned he’ll be facing the imposing Daisuke Naganohara in a comic competition

“The last line from Mr. Bummer Days of Youth arc!” Yep, his inspiration just comes from “that was me. This is my life”

I like how these sequences with the comic creators often seem to lean on more traditional forms of comic exaggeration, like something you’d see out of Tensai Bakabon or Tezuka’s work

Also getting strong comedic mileage out of the implications regarding this replacement mangaka’s wildly salacious story. Exploiting the general tendency of any repeated word losing its meaning to make “bonjour” the horniest statement imaginable

Yui Ishikawa is doing a great job of imitating the editor’s intonations. She often plays stoic characters, so it’s fun hearing her let loose

And of course, the sequence escalates to the greatest possible extreme, with Wako playing both parts of the conversation without interruption. An absurd flex by both Ishikawa and the animators executing their distinctive body language

“This summer will soon become that summer.” A melancholy summation of this show’s general preoccupation with fleeting summer memories. It seems like only a blink separates experiencing treasured summer moments from reminiscing on them from a distance

Ooh, wonderful choreography with a higher drawing count to convey Nagumo’s frantic pursuit of our bunny-cat-thing

IT TALKS

He is greeted by a giant salamander known as “The Scholar.” Sure, this is all fine

And oh my god, he’s voiced by Akira Ishida, one of the smoothest voices in anime. What is going on

Apparently his name is Mimineko, and he is indeed a new species

They then greet a globe-trotting Ibis, who informs them this city is the safest place in the world. This feels like one of the community theater productions

A stunning overhead movement-into-depth shot covers the Ibis’ flight across the city. Once again, the relatively simplified geometric shapes and flat block colors of this production’s backgrounds make it much easier for the show to engage in ambitious moving cuts

The next arrival is of course the tsuchinoko, who assures them that the bounties on their heads are just because Tanabe wants to say hello. Feared for her hospitality, award-granting, and friendly greetings

Unsurprisingly, the next arrivals are indeed the entire animal theater troupe

We then jump to the “Surprising Shogi Tournament.” Effective use of sound design here, putting the announcers through a filter that actually makes it seem like they’re being recorded on a tinny, somewhat muffled microphone. That plus the generally staid layouts create an assumption of reserved normalcy that will presumably be upended by the tournament plays

And yep, our second move adds wheat gluten to the board, which our announcers take in stoic stride

His opponent responds with a tiny toy car, which is countered by a giant pawn that takes up four friggin’ spaces. Basically the same comedic space as the quiz challenge from a few episodes ago: set up a conventional contest and immediately subvert it with Calvinball-style absurdist execution, while maintaining the same sense of self-seriousness the original setup would warrant. The trick here is the escalation of absurd details; there’s a fine art to making a payoff like that quiz show’s “three rolly bugs” land as simultaneously unexpected yet somehow perfectly appropriate

The master effectively leads his opponent into facilitating a perfectly placed fried pawn play. The commentators also do important work here, essentially laundering the absurdity as perfectly normal, and thereby facilitating further stretches of nonsense

“He changed it to a bendy piece.” You also have to switch up the styles of absurdity, like in this and the preceding, clearly illegal “I’m just gonna have my piece chill” move

“The car ate the wheat gluten and became wheel gluten.” A sensible escalation

Excellent transition from that exceedingly even-toned sequence to Nagumo getting her face repeatedly smacked by Mimineko

“I just have to add ‘Mambo No. 5’ as the background music and it’s done.” What a reference, Niikura. Don’t be teaching the zoomers about our millennial mambos

They elect to break into a more fertile realm of viral videos: folks eating hot sauce and profoundly regretting it

I feel like Arawi just decided “Mambo No. 5” is a very funny phrase to repeat, which I can’t deny

Oh my god, Nagumo’s terribly embarrassing dance. These two can often reach the absurd, joyful self-expression of the middle school pair, except every such event inevitably ends in devastating waves of shame

We then check in with the regretful barber, lugging a fresh sack of treasures to his local fence

Nice distorted color effects for his contact’s Appraiser Eyes

Honestly, the final video they create is pretty good. Maybe Mambo No. 5 really does make everything better

And Done

Hell yes girls, go for that viral glory! What a delightful conclusion to an altogether ridiculous episode, one with no binding theme or larger purpose than “let’s revel in some unique new extremes of absurdity.” That whole shogi match was basically a perfect comedic escalation, and the sequence in the sewers a full-on barrage of ridiculous answers to questions no one was possibly asking. And yeah, everything with Niikura and Nagumo was delightful – those two have proven an extraordinarily charming pair with just enough grounding to add some sympathy to their misadventures, and their forays into digital media have offered countless new ways for them to embarrass themselves. I am eagerly awaiting Nagumo’s next upload.

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