Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It is fucking cold out as we enter our first week of December, and what’s more, my neighborhood’s usual street parking has been outlawed in deference to the kind of New England blizzard which may well never return to Boston. So I’m cold and I can’t park anywhere and the year’s nearly ending, which of course always heralds its own signature suite of anxieties and responsibilities and reflections on our eternal, unstoppable relinquishing of days, just in time for January to inform us that yes, it is indeed possible to be colder and more miserable than December, just watch me. So that’s where I’m at right now, but I’ve at least gotten most of my Christmas shopping done, and am also so far ahead on my reader projects that I’ve indulged in some more DnD retrospective pieces, which I’ll hopefully be sharing with you soon. In the meantime, cold weather only means more movies, so let’s see what we’ve got in the latest Week in Review!
Author Archives: Bobduh
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 7
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to the wanderings of Frieren and her companions, as the warrior Stark joins them on their journey to the land where souls rest. Having bound himself to one village due to his fear of unsuitability as a warrior, Stark ultimately learned he was far stronger than he’d imagined, dispatching the dragon that haunted him without ever requiring the assistance of his accompanying mages.
Stark’s tale served as a fine embellishment on Frieren’s core themes, emphasizing how easily our perspective can become bound by self-imposed limitations, but also how a happy life can be found practically anywhere, so long as we remain open to experience and present in the lives of those around us. It was only Stark’s untested self-image that kept him tethered to his village, but fear soon shifted to a sense of responsibility, and from that to a genuine love of his community. Whether we roam widely or commit ourselves to our homes, the world is full of wonders that only ask us to keep our eyes and ears open, ready to appreciate what is precious in each new day. Let’s see what our adventurers ramble into this time!
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You – Episode 9
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d stop back with Rentaro and the gang, and see how his sacred quest to acquire one hundred girlfriends is proceeding. Though this production has normally managed to combine preposterous farce with some unexpectedly thoughtful reflections on communication and healthy partnerships, I have to admit that it has been absolutely lunacy ever since our latest girlfriend Kusuri joined the picture. With her fondness for Rentaro only matched by her passion for mad science concoctions, Kusuri has propelled our polycule through one preposterous predicament after another, culminating in an episode-long Resident Evil parody courtesy of Kusuri’s kiss-mania serum.
Considering I’ve had multiple readers define this series in terms of its pre- and post-Kusuri tone, I’m guessing that things are only going to get more ridiculous from here on out. It seems likely the show will essentially shift into two primary modes: a somewhat more emotionally grounded style for the individual wooing episodes, and then the utter chaos of the last episode for the group escapades. Regardless, my main hope is 100 Girlfriends maintains its flourishes of genuine thoughtfulness regarding the crafting of an honest, mutually enriching bond. That’s the secret ingredient that actually makes this show special, so let’s see how Rentaro manages this balancing act as we get back to the action!
The Legend of Vox Machina S3 – Episode 2
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m happy to announce we’re diving back into The Legend of Vox Machina, and continuing our thorough investigation of tabletop gaming’s intersection of narrative and game design, as well as how all that nonsense might be translated back to a linear adapted narrative. It’s a heady stew of variables, and involves basically everything I’m passionate about – storytelling, mechanical design, constructing durable characters, roleplay and performance, and so on. The beauty of DnD is that it can be whatever you choose to bring to it; the stories you build are limited only by your imagination and mechanical ingenuity, as you seek to collectively build a fantasy where you are both authors and audience.
Our last episode pushed the story forward significantly, using the party’s aborted dragon assault to steer them towards a new quest and new ally. Failure can be an excellent teacher, particularly when you don’t want to outright force your party into some course of action; they can always try to attack the final boss at level one, but no one should feel surprised or railroaded when the obvious happens. In fact, that assumption of initial failure is basically the core mechanic of Curse of Strahd, where my current party is in the process of collecting their own quasi-Vestiges in order to be strong enough to fight the vampire Strahd.
“Collect the sacred stones/weapons” is, admittedly, a pretty simplistic and gamified style of fantasy adventure. And when combined with Strahd’s one-note NPCs, our quest leaves little room for character development within the confines of the overt narrative. As I mentioned last time, worlds that adhere to DnD’s traditional moral alignment system are inherently averse to moral complexity or character growth – they frame morality as intrinsic, not something you develop, and there’s not much room for meaningful storytelling there.
As such, we’ve been largely avoiding conversation with NPCs, and instead have been building narratives of personal growth between our party members, through things like letting our noble-hating pirate and foppish son of privilege come to respect each other, all while my put-upon goblin Tilly does her best to keep the peace. It’s been an interesting exercise in carving out dramatic agency within the space directly afforded to players, though at this point, we’re all quite eager to get to something more specifically molded towards our journeys – like, say, how Percy’s lingering insecurities are reflected through the actual character of Anna Ripley! Great transition me, let’s go with that. Onward to the episode!
Fall 2024 – Week 9 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen me fully immersing myself in 2024-in-review catch-up projects, as I’ve both torn through the first major arc of Monogatari’s Off Season and begun my viewing of the Dead Dead Demons adaptation. Both have been quite enjoyable so far; Nadeko’s latest adventure served as a surprisingly touching coda to her identity-forming adventures, and Dead Dead Demons has certainly been adapted with care, even if it feels a little superfluous in its absolute loyalty to Inio Asano’s paneling. Admittedly, it must be a terrifying thing to try adapting an artist as preternaturally gifted as Asano, but it sadly feels like such an exact adaptation only reveals the animation’s inability to match the impact of Asano’s compositions. Nonetheless, the strength of the source material still makes for a compelling ride, and I’m looking forward to catching up on the year’s key films as soon as possible. In the meantime, let’s break down the films I’ve snuck in the week’s margins!
Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 1
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re returning to the Monogatari franchise, the series that more or less began my journey as an anime critic. I’ve written about Monogatari for reddit, twitter, Crunchyroll, Anime News Network, and you folks here, and yet the series still manages to surprise me, offering fresh psychological insights and aesthetic flourishes after all these years.
It’s little surprise this series means so much to me. Monogatari embodies anime’s unique capacity to project our internal lives as ecstatic visual theater, combining a thorough exploration of human psychology with playful visual storytelling and Nisio Isin’s profound talents for thematically resonant drama and character voice. Monogatari’s characters feel both alive and compelling in a way few works of animation can match, and his insights regarding our ability to understand ourselves, each other, and the nature of a “life well lived” inspire me to seek such thematic richness and humanism in my own work.
Monogatari’s central narrative regarding the self-actualization of Koyomi Araragi has at this point concluded – though of course, as Nisio Isin is quick to assure us, everyone is a work in progress, everyone is “learning how to be happy” at their own pace. Nonetheless, Araragi’s resolution of his immediate psychological block, his long-time refusal to engage with his own self-destructive nature, has left the stage clear for Monogatari’s many other compelling characters to take the lead, and demonstrate the playfulness, compassion, and insight with which all of them have been brought to life. Let’s see what rambling adventures await in the off season!
Galaxy Express 999 – Episode 5
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am impatient to continue our journey aboard the Galaxy Express, and see what wonders await us as the edge of the solar system. Our last adventure featured an impromptu trainjacking by the Great Space Pirate Antares, who actually turned out to be a perfectly reasonable sort of guy. All he really wanted was to steal luxury items from the rich and catch a ride home, which Tetsuro and Maetel were ultimately happy to assist in. In this harshly stratified universe, the have-nots must band together if they are to survive; and as that last episode made clear, the Galaxy Express itself is not just an impartial observer of the cosmos.
The loneliness of space, the impersonal bloodlessness of a metal body, and the desperation for, if not a good life, at least a proper death – Galaxy Express 999 is as melancholy as it is marvelous, offering a vision of the future whose substance is as grim as its surface fantastical. It’s an intoxicating mixture that quite understandably stoked both the imagination and social consciousness of a generation of viewers, and I feel fortunate to explore it with all of you. Let’s hop aboard!
Yuri is My Job! – Episode 4
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return Yuri is My Job!’s fanciful Cafe Liebe, and see how Hime attempts to disentangle her latest foot-in-mouth insertion. She was actually doing quite well last episode, with the accidental reveal of her private performance ultimately resulting in a moment of genuine honesty between her and Mitsuki. Hime was even driven to admit to the past trauma that had convinced her only a flawless, all-encompassing social performance could prevent her from being despised and abandoned; unfortunately, it turned out Mitsuki herself was precisely the person who instigated that trauma, prompting a fresh rift between them.
Nonetheless, even this new conflict seems like a healthy step forward for both of them. Coming to truly know about others’ feelings will inevitably invite friction, the kind of friction that might prompt you to hide within a loveable facade like Hime, or gravitate towards ritualized performances of intimacy like the Cafe Liebe crew. But it is only by continuing to invite that friction that you might find true, earnest companionship, and discover that everyone else is muddling through just as awkwardly as you are. We cling to scripts when we believe everyone else already has one; the truth is, everyone engages in a combination of performance and sincerity every day, all of us seeking an emotional safe harbor for our flawed, imperfect perceptions of self. As with the initial reveal of her performance, Hime has once again ripped off the band-aid accidentally, leaving a raw mark to tell of her painful prior experiences with Mitsuki. This leaves them both more vulnerable than before, but it is only through embracing vulnerability that we might arrive at genuine mutual trust. Let’s see how spectacularly they fail to manage it!
Fall 2024 – Week 8 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to… dear god, it can’t really be week eight of the fall season already, can it? Is November even a real month, or just a collective hallucination that carries us directly from Halloween to Christmas? Anyway, yes, it is apparently time for the Week in Review, and I am still embarrassingly behind on my annual anime catch-up. I know I should really be watching this year’s outstanding productions rather than more Armored Trooper Votoms, but the heart wants what it wants, and right now it wants to watch Chiricho to emerge from the bloodstained field of battle only to discover his own personal war has just begun. Alongside that, we’ve been marking the encroaching holiday season with a variety of seasonally appropriate film productions, which I’m sure you’re eager to hear all about. Let’s celebrate the increasingly all-consuming Christmas spirit with the latest Week in Review!
Passion in Motion: A Handful of Favorites
Hello friends, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I recently received a request to write some sort of “sakuga article,” meaning an article relevant in some way to the exemplary individual cuts of animation we anime stalwarts refer to as “sakuga.” This has been a source of some consternation to me, as I don’t generally consider myself particularly studied or well-informed when it comes to the specific craft of animation in the abstract. I know enough to describe why a cut feels evocative or impactful to me, but my specialties are first and foremost writing-related, followed by filmic technique, with animation following behind.