Terrific news, everyone – the anime wasn’t universally great this week, and so for once, I actually have something to talk about in this opening blurb. It’s frankly gotten harder and harder to come up with new ways to say “these cartoons kick ass, everything is awesome” every week, so I’m grateful for a little inspiration courtesy of this week’s contenders. While Run with the Wind and Kemurikusa pulled off a pair of their strongest episodes yet, Mob Psycho took a narrative turn that seemed weirdly out of sync with its prior material, and The Magnificent Kotobuki basically coasted on its fundamental strengths. Neither of those are particularly serious Anime Crimes, but in a season that features three of my favorite directors and JoJo besides, I’m going to take whatever quibbles I can get. Let’s get on with the grumping then, as we run down another week in anime!
Author Archives: Bobduh
Why It Works: The Magnificent Kotobuki and Its High-Flying Director Have Arrived
I’m guessing a lot of readers probably knew what this week’s post would be the moment “The Magnificent Kotobuki is now on Crunchyroll” was announced, and I’m happy to prove them right. Tsutomu Mizushima’s work has been bringing me great joy for years, and I had a great time celebrating his career with this week’s column. Let’s get to the piece!
The Magnificent Kotobuki and Its High-Flying Director Have Arrived
Girls’ Last Tour – Episode 1
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be embarking on an entirely new adventure, as we make our way through the first episode of Girls’ Last Tour.
I remember enjoying Girls’ Last Tour well enough while it was airing, though I didn’t actually follow it to the end. That’s not necessarily the show’s fault, though – it’s quite frankly just tough to find time for non-Crunchyroll shows in my schedule, as the demands of a weekly column mean I pretty much always have to be looking for new subject matter. The show was a lovely little production in its own right though, and struck firmly in that “quiet, intimate joy in the face of existential despair” niche occupied by shows like Sound of the Sky or Planetarian. I tend to love that particular tonal combination – “the world is a profoundly harsh and unforgiving place, but we still have hope and each other” might well be my general philosophy on life, and so I’m always up for narratives that temper an unflinching approach to illustrating life’s traumas with clear, emphatic sympathy for their central characters. When you couple that with the show’s beautiful environments and consistently evocative tone, you end up with an anime that I’m very happy to return to. Let’s see what there is to discover in the first episode of Girls’ Last Tour!
Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 48
Folks, it has been far too long since we hung out with Doremi and the gang. Our last adventure took us through one more harrowing Aiko-centric story, as Aiko was forced to sort out her feelings regarding her father potentially remarrying. As with the previous Aiko episode, there was no one clear moral here, and no obvious goal Aiko had to achieve in order to preserve her happiness. Growing up with divorced parents is just hard; there’s no “resolving” it, and all you can hope to do is honestly connect and communicate with the people who still love you. I really appreciate how this show gives characters time simply to pause and consider their own feelings; it feels like a natural acknowledgment that many of the trials of youth and life more generally cannot be resolved through succeeding in some defined goal. We must learn to live with injustice, learn to live with loss, learn to live with sorrow – accepting that our power to change the world is limited, and that we must find our joy in incomplete happiness, is one of the great projects of growing up.
Given all that heaviness, I’m kinda expecting this episode to be a bunch of nonsensical madness, with Doremi potentially turning back into a dog or a horse or something. But regardless of what’s coming, I’m always thrilled to return to this relentlessly big-hearted, visually engaging, and often painfully acute production. Let’s dive into another episode of Ojamajo Doremi!
The Tatami Galaxy – Episode 2
After a rambling, almost stream-of-consciousness first episode, The Tatami Galaxy follows up with one that essentially gives the game away. We soon learn that our protagonist Watashi is stuck in some kind of loop, a Groundhog Day-esque cycle that keeps him forever repeating the first two years of college. This is bad news for Watashi, but likely a necessary conceit from our perspective; after all, in a story this scattershot, fast-paced, and circuitous, it’s necessary to have some structure for the audience to hold onto. And so we find ourselves hanging desperately from Watashi’s shoulder, as he moves from the tennis club and prank-related infamy to his school’s illustrious film club.
Winter 2019 – Week 4 in Review
God damn you guys I am watching way too much anime. It’s currently almost noon on Wednesday, and I still haven’t released the Week in Review because I tripped and got buried under a pile of new episodes. Sure, I could maybe have planned the week better and gotten this work done some time before now, but then how would have I found the time to watch the latest Mob Psycho four or five times? It’s a conundrum with seemingly no answer, and considering this post is already late, we’re certainly not solving it today. Let’s roll out the list and burn down another week in anime!
Why It Works: The Adapted Vision of The Promised Neverland
I’ve got a nice, meaty topic for this week’s Why It Works, as we dig into the complexities and unique priorities of anime in adaptation. While an anime that attempted to echo Neverland’s intricate fairy tale tone would have been very interesting, it’s clear that this team are instead focused on making a tightly wound suspense thriller, and their choices bear that out. I hope you enjoy the piece!
The Adapted Vision of The Promised Neverland
Princess Tutu – Episode 20
Though Princess Tutu is a story about the nature of narratives, and how stories sculpt our lives, its sympathy has mostly been limited to the players within those stories. While characters like Rue and Ahiru try their best to write their own stories, they are ultimately constrained by the whims of their author – and Drosselmeyer himself isn’t sympathetic at all. Drosselmeyer has never hesitated in inflicting hardship upon his characters; he seems to believe they exist entirely for his amusement, and that he has no responsibility to respect their feelings or dreams. But here in its twentieth episode, Princess Tutu at last reveals that it fully understands the plight of the author, and the heavy responsibility of holding characters’ lives in your hands. Princess Tutu’s characters struggle even to choose their own paths, but if they are to succeed, they will have to embrace the power of authorship, and the responsibility of writing a happier future.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha – Episode 12
No time for lollygagging folks, we’re at the final battle! Nanoha’s uniquely meditative pacing and familial focus have offered me plenty of interesting stuff to talk about throughout these writeups, but it’s finally time to kick Fate’s mom’s ass, and I am very here for that. Last episode saw Nanoha and Fate clashing in a battle that was just as satisfying as I’d hoped, leading into the reveal that Fate was never truly Precia’s daughter at all. Designed as a substitute for Precia’s actual daughter Alicia, Fate basically never had a shot at earning Precia’s love – she was pining for a past that didn’t even apply to her, an emphatic underlining of how trying to meet your abuser’s demands will never truly satisfy them. And now, just having watched this terrible woman mock Fate to her face, it’s time for Nanoha to kick some ass. My only real regret at this point is that unlike her spiritual successor Hibiki, Nanoha fights with laser attacks and not fists – I’d seriously like to see Nanoha personally deck this woman. But that’s a minor quibble, and on the whole, I’m very excited to see this unusual and very compelling show come to a close. Let’s burn down another episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha!
Bloom Into You – Episode 7
Gosh, episode six sure was a mess, wasn’t it? It was one of this production’s crowning achievements so far, but all of its aesthetic beauty and psychological inquiry were in service of buoying up one of the most proudly unhealthy relationships I’ve seen. Framed as a joyous meeting of the minds in the most romantic possible setting, last episode’s climax was perhaps the single strongest scene of Bloom Into You, and also the most harrowing.
What was initially planned to be the moment where Yuu and Touko finally engage honestly, and Yuu actually helps Touko with her emotional hangups, turned instead into an emphatic affirmation of all the lies this relationship is built on. Touko promises to love Yuu, while thinking to herself that if Yuu were to change, she’d discard her in a moment. Yuu promises to respect Touko’s facade, while secretly praying both she and Touko grow out of their current situation. The two seem genuinely codependent at this point, and yet each of them also cannot respect the other’s most deeply held wishes, or respect all aspects of their personality at once. More than anything, they are unified by their dislike for fundamental elements of their own selves, and the fear that if they don’t have each other, they don’t have anyone. But with Touko loving Yuu for the lack of romantic feeling she hopes to outgrow, and Yuu loving Touko for the vulnerability she refuses to embrace, each of them end up reinforcing the very qualities they’re hoping to escape.
Currently, Yuu would be best off if she broke off this relationship entirely – it’s very unequal, she actively wants to change, and Touko is preventing her from embracing that change. Of course, if it were that easy to escape an unhealthy relationship, this drama wouldn’t be so deliciously messy. Having clearly stated just how bad for each other they are, I’m eager to see what tumbles down next. Let’s explore another episode of Bloom Into You!