Author Archives: Bobduh

BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! – Episode 3

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into the increasingly thorny drama of BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!!, wherein our heroine Anon’s carefree pursuit of a high school band has accidentally stirred up a maelstrom of drama for the former members of CRYCHIC. Through her blunt pursuit of Tomori’s support, she has conjured a hope of community that Tomori seemed to have abandoned. And though drummer Taki is wary of Anon’s unabashedly narcissistic schemes, CRYCHIC’s former bassist Soyo sees in Anon the perfect instrument of her own ambitions.

Though Anon is socially savvy enough to make friends with ease, she’s also self-absorbed and predictable and kinda stupid. This has made her a delightfully terrible perspective character, and also means she’s no more than putty in master manipulator Soyo’s hands. Soyo plans to exploit Tomori’s clear desire for a bond with Anon in order to secure both of them as bandmates, while using the threat of her own proximity to Tomori to drag in Taki as Tomori’s guardian. Having proven herself a very different but equally compelling brand of terrible relative to Anon, I’m eager to see how Soyo keeps her alleged friends dancing to her tune. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Summer 2023 – Week 13 in Review

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve returned to full apartment hunting mode, having emerged from a variety of familial obligations to find myself still lacking a goddamn home. Nonetheless, I’ve also found time to at last get back into regular movie screenings, which my diminishing buffer of older reviews must surely appreciate. Frankly, I was nearing the point of being forced to admit to my house’s collective reality television addiction, and break down the finer points of concocting a winning America’s Got Talent audition. That may still come one of these days, but for now I’m happy to be regaining another sliver of normalcy via movie screenings, while also playing as much Baldur’s Gate 3 as I can possibly slot in. I’m not sure I could ever abandon the narrative opportunities provided by a charisma-centric character, but hewing enemies in two with Karlach’s giant ax seems to have awakened something in me, and I’m seriously considering having my next character prioritize breaking stuff real good. I’ll have more Baldur’s Gate reflections once I’m deeper in, but for now, let’s break down a fresh collection of films!

Continue reading →

Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to the early films of Toei Doga, as we explore their adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Released two years after the beautiful landmark that was The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon, Gulliver echoes the transition in art design philosophy that was initiated by Little Prince, though it pulls back somewhat from the clean geometric designs and impressionist background art of its predecessor.

Toei Doga’s artists were stretched thin across multiple productions throughout this era, so it’s little surprise that there’s a touch less continuity or artistic evolution than you’d expect across these films. Nonetheless, many of Toei’s early masters are still present on key animation, including the incomparable Yasuji Mori and the ascendant Yasuo Otsuka.

Mori has essentially been the emotional backbone of Toei’s film animation right from the start, lending an intimacy of character acting to their fantastical fables that grounds them in relatable human expressions, while Otsuka had already more than proven himself through his collaboration in animating the preposterously ambitious final battle with Little Prince’s titular dragon. Meanwhile, an ambitious young upstart named Hayao Miyazaki would here swiftly jump from in-betweening to concepting, as the relationships that would inform Takahata’s approaching Horus continued to be forged. Scanning across Gulliver’s contributors, you’ll see names that reach back to the beginning of Toei’s film animation and forward to the Masterpiece Theater works and Ghibli beyond, a human timeline of the personal bonds that made anime’s early works so magnificent, in spite of the immense responsibilities heaped on each individual artist. Let’s slot one more piece into this historical puzzle, as we explore the adventures of Gulliver and his companions!

Continue reading →

The Legend of Vox Machina S2 – Episode 10

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to The Legend of Vox Machina, as Grog and his companions square off for a battle that will surely kill them. Seriously, there’s like no way Grog can fight his uncle Kevdak – Kevdak’s wielding a legendary pair of knuckles, Grog already lost this fight back in the day, and he’s currently as taut and muscular as a strip of beef jerky. As such, I’m intrigued to see in what particular fashion Mercer “cheats” for this encounter, giving Grog some productive route forward while nonetheless making it seem like Grog himself earned this victory.

Skillfully laid deus ex machina is well and good in a traditional narrative, but relying on outside interference generally strips players of agency in a tabletop setting. I’m guessing Grog’s victory might serve as a payoff for his last-episode revelation (perhaps Pike will counter his “strength is looking after the little folk” with a “sometimes strength is looking after the big folk”), but I’m eager to find out how.

As for my own campaign, the bustle of moving furniture out of our old apartment and searching for a new one has made it difficult to schedule any new sessions, so I’ve instead been hard at work plotting out the last act of the campaign. This is of course an inherently fraught proposition, as player agency and a fully scripted narrative are naturally at odds, but we’ve fortunately journeyed far enough into the campaign that it’s essentially all payoff from here, meaning I can at least script the broad beats of the upcoming adventures. To be honest, it’s actually quite similar to a common strategy for writing novels: establish the big structural beats so you can be thinking long-term, but allow the characters to surprise you as you’re filling in the individual scenes and sections. This whole process has been so invigorating that I’ll likely start working on some original fiction again once this campaign wraps up, but for now, my mind is abuzz with final boss concepts worthy of the time my players have invested in this rambling tale. Now enough of that, let’s see what Vox Machina are up to!

Continue reading →

Bocchi the Rock! – Episode 11

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d like to check back in on the status of Bocchi and the gang, who are currently gearing up for a performance at Bocchi’s school festival. From a starting point of lugging her guitar to school in the vague hope of being recognized as a Cool Rocker Chick, Bocchi has now earned the credentials to truly support that optimistic self-image. She’s in a real band! She’s played at a real club! She’s made friends with a real alcoholic bassist!

Kikuri’s support has indeed been crucial to get Bocchi this far, alongside the persistent encouragement of Seika and her bandmates. Through their steady guidance and Bocchi’s own faltering efforts, Bocchi the Rock! has articulated the evolving challenges of gaining social confidence with sympathy and precision, consistently acknowledging the fragility of new gains, inevitability of wayward digressions, and cruciality of a loving support network. With Bocchi’s initial goal now within reach, let’s see how our anxious hero is faring!

Continue reading →

Summer 2023 – Week 12 in Review

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week a project my housemates idly began years ago neared its conclusion, as we approached the very last episodes of Dragon Ball Super. Having burned through One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Boruto, and the variable Dragon Ball sagas over the last thirty-some months, I can affirm that basically all of them are worthy second-screen entertainment, with portions of each rising to the level of appointment viewing. The shonen titans are eminently munchable comfort food, and it’s been particularly rewarding to gain a better understanding of the standout animators and directors who helped elevate the highlights of each. Let’s start with Super then, as we ramble through a fresh Week in Review!

Continue reading →

Kaiba – Episode 8

Posted on by

After half a season of rambling episodic tales with diverse thematic takeaways, Kaiba’s eighth episode finds itself falling victim to that enduring foe of metaphorical fiction: narrative continuity. With our protagonist’s fate uncertain following Vanilla’s heroic sacrifice, our story turns to the planet highlighted in the show’s opening, the planet of rule and rebellion. Here, the tyrannical Warp rules from on high in a body that’s strangely familiar, while Lord Dada foments rebellion below, aided by his chief accomplices Popo and Neyro. The course of this episode resolves as so many dominoes tumbling into place, the falsehoods of both Warp and Dada breaching the surface as the friends Kaiba has long grasped towards make their final stand.

Continue reading →

Yuki Yuna is a Hero – Episode 3

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d like to check back in on Yuki Yuna and her continuing heroic escapades, with the team having just secured a victory against three simultaneous invaders. Yuki Yuna’s second episode answered some questions and raised others, affirming and expanding on its internal mythology while leaving the mechanisms and larger motivations of this conflict conspicuously vague. This ambiguity stands in contrast to the show’s highly specific sense of place: as one of my readers helpfully explained, Yuki Yuna is specifically grounded in the city of Kan’onji, on Shikoku Island.

Aside from overt reveals, last episode’s emphasis on Fu and Togo reconnecting, as well as the gamified resolutions of its final battles, made it clear that explicating personal bonds and illustrating strategically grounded conflicts are also among the show’s top priorities. I’m a little wary of the show’s emphasis on “national defense” (no Togo, high schoolers are not deserters if fighting monsters seems outside their comfort zone), but we’ll have to see if that’s an ongoing thread or just a few odd turns of phrase. We’ve got Vertices to bash, so let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Skip and Loafer – Episode 2

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I think I’m gonna treat myself to another episode of Skip and Loafer, a show whose premiere proved delightful in basically every respect. Our protagonists Mitsumi and Sousuke are already demonstrating themselves to be both inherently charming and satisfyingly multifaceted characters, endearing apart and adorable as a unit, each with clear lessons to learn from the other’s example. Rather than simple, formless infatuation, it feels like we’re moving towards that “each provides what the other lacks” sort of relationship that tends to define the best anime romances, from Toradora to Spice and Wolf to Oregairu.

And alongside the show’s strong writing and characterization, director Kotomi Deai’s production is providing a perfect aesthetic compliment to the show’s narrative fundamentals, offering art design and animation flourishes as nonchalantly accomplished as the show’s character drama. The color work is light and inviting, the character acting is playful and expressive, and even the sound design is working hard to accentuate the key emotional moments. Skip and Loafer is proving itself as charming and skillfully realized as I could hope for, and I’m eager to get back to it. So let’s do that!

Continue reading →

Summer 2023 – Week 11 in Review

Posted on by

Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. This has been a hectic week on my end, with a family wedding consuming my general film-screening time, but I’m fortunately sitting on a massive buffer of reviews to ensure you all receive your regularly scheduled ramblings. And frankly, I really can’t blame the wedding for my negligence – the genuine fact of it is that I’ve been splitting my evenings between thrilling Armored Core battles and binge watches of Dragon Ball Super, which has risen from a rough start to prove itself altogether superior to Z. Super has fully revived the mix of comedy, character drama, and action that made the original Dragon Ball so engaging, and I’ll be sure to have a full report for you all as soon as we munch through its pan-universal martial arts tournament. But in the meantime, lemme just rummage around in my sack of movie reviews for a moment, so we can break down a fresh collection of films!

Continue reading →