Author Archives: Bobduh

Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 3

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Monogatari’s rambling Off Season, as Nadeko does her best to hunt down her unruly past selves. Having embraced Yotsugi’s dubious suggestion of enlisting her own former identities to jumpstart her manga production, she is now in the unenviable position having to wrangle four rebellious Nadekos, each of them representing some version of herself she had hoped to leave behind her.

This is an unfortunate situation for certain, but as far as Monogatari goes, it’s not exactly an unusual one. Here, apparitions are not monsters to be defeated in glorious combat, but aspects of the self that prompt anxiety or self-loathing, emotions and personas that we’d rather deny or forget. You cannot defeat such phantoms by ignoring them – you must embrace the truth within them, accept that they are in some way a part of you, and thereby move past them, equipped with a fuller and more forgiving understanding of your own identity. Just as Hanekawa embraced her “sisters” and Araragi saved Ougi, Nadeko must accept the truth that personal reinvention is a slow, aspirational process, and that there is still something to love and learn from in her wayward past selves. And to start that process, we’re going to have to go right back to the beginning, to the meek Nadeko we first met and the school that was her nemesis!

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The Legend of Vox Machina S3 – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into the rambling adventures of Vox Machina, wherein our heroes have currently divided their forces between fighting a dragon and infiltrating hell itself. Not normally a time when I’d recommend splitting the party, but given their impressive history of dragon-slaying, I’d imagine… what’s this? They’ve fought this dragon twice already, and it kicked their asses even as a full party? Yeah, they’re fucked.

Fortunately, seeing how a group of players and their DM can collaborate in getting themselves un-fucked from some seemingly unwinnable scenario is one of DnD’s greatest pleasures. Readers of traditional fiction will generally look poorly upon entirely foreshadowing-free deus ex machina, but it’s not hard to weave some complicating variable into your prior narrative such that a group’s fortunes can change from desperate to triumphant at a moment’s notice. In contrast, DnD prioritizes player agency above all, which means a solution that doesn’t emerge from skillful application of their player abilities is always going to be less satisfying than a victory that feels “mechanically earned.”

This issue only becomes all the more prominent as a campaign rises in scale over time, presenting ever-more intractable opposition for its brave heroes. The easiest solution to this riddle comes in the form of providing your enemy an Achilles’ Heel, or, in game parlance, a giant glowing weak point. An enemy’s strength can be utterly overwhelming so long as its weakness is also apparent – that way, there’s no need to limit your conception of an enemy’s power relative to your party’s available strength. And depending on the style of your campaign, these weaknesses can range from something as tangible as the Vestiges to simple overconfidence, so long as you provide the players opportunities to exploit that confidence. Given we’re pitting Vox Machina’s craftiest members against the Chroma Conclave’s dimmest dragon, I imagine some trickery will be involved in the task ahead, and I’m eager to see how Mercer realizes this chapter’s oversized threats without outright killing the party. Let’s get to it!

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Sol Bianca: The Legacy – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re stepping back into Sol Bianca: The Legacy, a six-episode OVA from the tail end of the twentieth century, and the sequel to a never-concluded predecessor from the early ‘90s. Anime’s direct-to-video era is littered with such artifacts, series that were cut short either by disappointing sales or staff exodus, leaving only fragmentary segments of ambitious, beautifully realized fantasy in their wake. Works were smaller in scale yet greater in implication; in an era largely given over to franchise replication, a landscape dominated by such lingering absences feels strangely alluring.

Anyway, context aside, Sol Bianca’s first episode introduced us to the titular ship and its crew of apparent bounty hunters, on the hunt for a pistol scavenged from the ruins of Earth. Along the way, they ran afoul of the ambiguous Terra Force, and ultimately picked up a young girl named Mayo with a mysterious past, who claims her parents await on the long-lost ruins of Earth itself. Thus the stage is set for a grand pilgrimage, one overtly framed in the context of Abraham’s journey to Canaan. Whatever awaits, I’m looking forward to more of this production’s sumptuous art design. Let’s get to it!

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Winter 2025 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’m pretty sure this goddamn snow-stuffed winter has inflicted me with a recent head cold, so please appreciate my suffering as I tirelessly work to supply you good people with more of my meandering opinions. This week saw me reaching the end of Black Myth: Wukong, which I frankly feel a little ashamed about even finishing; the game is a fundamentally misguided and altogether miserable experience, and I only really finished it because I still feel some regret about dropping Lies of P. I know the only way a bad game can actually get one over on you is by tempting you to play it longer than you’re having fun, but I nonetheless still possess a touch of senseless “gamer pride,” which compelled me to beat the endlessly aggravating, fundamentally anti-player experience that was Wukong. Fortunately, my week was otherwise furnished with a generous scattering of film features, so let us turn our minds to brighter topics as we burn down the Week in Review!

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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You – Episode 11

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are in for some absolute nonsense, and that’s even by the already-nonsensical standards of 100 Girlfriends’ usual fare. Having infiltrated Hakari’s house in order to rescue her from her tyrannical mother, Rentaro was eventually brought face-to-face with the tyrant herself, the imperious Hahari Hanazono. Then, after being thoroughly moved by her tale of love and loss, Rentaro tearily gazed into Hahari’s eyes – and realized that yes, she too is one of his destined soulmates.

So, both one of his fellow high schoolers and that girl’s own mother are going to end up in the Rentaro family, apparently. Well, we knew we were in for absurdity right from the start, and I suppose it’s only a small step from founding the Rentaro Family to that clan consuming other families entirely, enveloping both mothers and daughters in Rentaro’s boundless love. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure how this story was going to top the preposterousness of Kusuri’s whole deal, but they immediately found a way. God bless them, they found a way.

Anyway, enough marveling at how gloriously stupid this turn of fate is. Let’s admire the fallout!

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Agent Aika – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a new production, as we explore the first episode of late-90s OVA Agent Aika. The show falls in a venerable tradition of fanservice-laden action-adventure projects that flourished following the widespread adoption of home VHS players, which allowed artists to bypass the strict standards of TV broadcasting, and create explicitly adult-aimed entertainment for the broadening anime market. Agent Aika director Katsuhiko Nishijima was basically a legend of this era, having directed the similarly horny Megami Paradise and Najica Blitz Tactics, alongside the monumental Project A-ko (from which I suspect Agent Aika derives its name).

Nishijima wrote, boarded, and directed this first episode, so we’ll clearly be seeing about as unfiltered an example of his aesthetic philosophy as possible. He is here complemented by frequent collaborator Noriyasu Yamauchi, who would work as character designer and animation director on a number of Nishijima projects, and still occasionally lends his AD talents to modern productions like Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon (dear lord modern titling conventions are obnoxious). They are both essential figures of an oft-overlooked era in anime history, so I’m eager to get better acquainted, and Agent Aika’s tale of post-apocalyptic ruin exploration sounds like a lovely place to start. Let’s get to it!

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Galaxy Express 999 – Episode 7

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to the somber yet fanciful Galaxy Express 999, a parade of cosmic wonders imbued with a keen understanding of humanity’s self-defeating nature. Tetsuro journeys across the galaxy in pursuit of a dream that seems to invite only ruin; stop by stop, he chronicles the wreckage of others who hoped to find meaning at the end of the line, their regrets as boundless as the stars in the sky.

Tetsuro’s last excursion neatly summed up the duality of Galaxy Express, as Tetsuro found himself marveling at the strange gravity and endless volumes of the Comet Library, only to nearly become imprisoned by overwhelming medical debt. These exceedingly timely trials point to the universality of Galaxy Express’s concerns; so long as we labor under capitalism and see technology as an escape from the drudgery of our daily labors, we will continue to dream false dreams, with even our ambitions confined within the cage of what the profit motive allows. No matter how beautiful the scenery looks at a distance, drawing closer will reveal those sacrificed for the ambitions of our jailors, the endless ranks of the damned on Mars, on Pluto, or praying to “at least take my child” from the clouds of the Comet Library. No matter how far we journey, the cruelty of this world built on exploitation remains. Can Tetsuro truly hope to travel beyond the greed of mankind? Let us find out together.

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Winter 2025 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am celebrating my birthday in style, by formatting reviews, writing up this here blurb, and maybe doing some laundry later. Hell yeah, no breaks on this party train. As far as general week-in-review business is concerned, I have spent the last week getting progressively more angry at Black Myth Wukong, which appears to have been designed by thirty independent developers who were barred from any mutual conversation. As a result, none of the game’s control mechanics, enemies, or environments successfully mesh with each other, which when combined with the game’s frequent outright glitches makes for… well, it’s not Hollow Knight, I’ll tell you that much. I’ll have to let you know next week if this journey to the west ends with me crushing the disk and chewing up its shards, but for now, let’s break down some films!

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Witch Hat Atelier and the Perils of Ambition

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The cover of Witch Hat Atelier’s seventh volume sees Coco journeying forth with lantern in hand, charting the unknown while looking nervously over her shoulder. She has been integrated into this world so quickly it’s almost dizzying, and her magical future looks bright, but it is natural at times to feel out of sorts or floundering when you’re on a journey of discovery. Coco’s earnest desire to expand her understanding is perhaps the single greatest quality a would-be artist or craftsman can possess; for after all, the essence of the seeker is not mastery, but curiosity. Granted, endless curiosity can gradually foment endless ambition, and when your urge to know more outstrips your understanding of what you have already gained, tragedy can easily result.

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero (Washio Sumi Chapter) – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I announce with great trepidation that we are returning to Yuki Yuna is a Hero’s Washio Sumi Chapter, after three straight episodes that have been a delightful mix of group bonding and tactically grounded Vertex takedowns. If this were any other show, I’d at this point expect this is the tone we should assume going forward, and simply enjoy the charming vignettes shared by Togo, Gin, and Nogi. But this is goddamn Yuki Yuna, and what’s more, we know precisely the fate awaiting these girls down the line.

As such, Washio Sumi has instead been an exercise in ruthless dramatic irony, inviting us to learn and care about these heroes with full knowledge their journey will end in disaster. This unique perspective has played naturally into the sense of doomed cyclical inevitability represented by the Divine Tree system; it’s as if we’re watching Madoka Magica play out from Homura’s shoulder, certain this path will end in disaster, hoping against reason that catastrophe might be avoided. The original Yuki Yuna played like a senseless tragedy; this plays like a premeditated crime, a long con perpetrated against the most passionate and self-sacrificing among us. If Yuki Yuna is hoping to raise our hackles against the systemic abuse of the young facilitated by jingoism and organized religion, it is certainly succeeding. Good luck out there, girls!

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