Author Archives: Bobduh

Star Wars Visions, Volume 3 – Episode 9

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I once again find myself in the unexpected position of screening a universally acclaimed Star Wars production, the much-heralded ninth episode of Star Wars Visions’ third season. Each of these “Visions” seasons features a sprawling collection of animators and production studios, with each individual episode offering a different team’s take on some aspect of the Star Wars universe.

While I’m generally a big fan of animated anthology projects, that overarching “Star Wars” label has kept me from checking out Visions in particular, as I’m just plain tired of the franchise’s wildly oversaturated tropes and tones. However, just as Andor successfully harnessed Star Wars’ mythology in service of an original, astonishing work of political theater, so have I heard that Visions’ most recent season offers a work of singular talent and vision, in the form of its Shinya Ohira-helmed ninth episode. 

I doubt there’s an animator in the industry who would refer to Ohira as anything less than a living legend. His fluid, ever-morphing forms possess a vitality unlike anything in the medium, and his contributions to productions ranging from Akira to The Boy and the Heron are some of the most captivating, unbelievable feats in animation history. His style of relentlessly shifting full animation is an outlier in an industry defined by compromise, and having assembled a preposterous team of similarly talented animators (Kou Yoshinari! Bahi JD! Daniel Kim! Masaaki Endo! Takeshi Honda! Weilin Zhang! Vincent Chansard! Toshiyuki Inoue!) for this project, I imagine we will here see him working without compromise, demonstrating a fluidity of form, scale of visual drama, and ambition of concept that will surely boggle the mind. Let’s get to it!

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Uzumaki – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are at last concluding our journey through Hiroshi Nagahama’s ill-fated adaptation of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, a project which opened with great promise and then swiftly shifted to embodying the frustrating perils of anime’s new global funding paradigm. We all know the story at this point: after funding a perfectly paranoid first episode carrying on in the style of Nagahama’s brilliant Aku no Hana adaptation, this production’s American overseers apparently got cold feet, forcing the production team to hastily employ whatever limited animation tricks they could manage in order to fill out the ensuing episodes. What began as a labor of love became a testament to capitalism’s incapacity for it, a cold reminder that foreign investment in anime is not the same thing as genuine foreign interest in anime, beyond its thrifty capacity to furnish a streamer’s production slate.

So yeah, that’s all bad news. Nonetheless, it’s still an interesting release in its own right, both as a marvel of collapsing production trickery and a compromised yet still-compelling rendition of Junji Ito’s stories. And since I can’t track down precisely whoever decided Uzumaki was an acceptable casualty of corporate malfeasance, the least I can do is honor the wreckage, and celebrate the embers of Nagahama’s ambitions. Let’s get to it!

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Winter 2026 – Week 5 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen us brave winter’s fury and emerge victorious, after having shoveled roughly eight tons of snow from my apartment’s driveway. I’m still sniffling, coughing, and generally enduring the personal indignities of nature’s most hateful season, but it appears there may well be a light at the end of the tunnel.

That aside, this has mostly been a week of tidying up outstanding projects. My house at last finished Ranking of Kings after initially losing momentum early in its second season, and also munched through Fantasy High’s Junior Year, leaving us with just one season of Intrepid Heroes adventures to watch through. Fortunately, the great drought of Critical Role’s end-of-year vacation has ended, leading us into the distinct pleasure of Mercer versus Mulligan as we join up with the second of Campaign Four’s three separate tables. We’ve also just cracked the seal on Fallout’s second season, which has in turn prompted fresh stabs at Fallout 4’s inconsistent pleasures. It frankly boggles the mind that Bethesda has spent a straight-up decade making games nobody wanted when the next Elder Scrolls is sitting right there, but I’m doing my best to find joy in blasting mudcrabs while we wait. Oh, and movies! Yes, let’s talk about some movies.

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Legendary Creator Yasuhiko Yoshikazu

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out something a little different from our usual fare, as we watch an NHK special program centered on Yasuhiko Yoshikazu, the character designer and animation director for the original Mobile Suit Gundam. As the designer behind the most formative and iconic real robot mecha series, Yoshikazu essentially defined the style of ‘80s scifi anime protagonists, casting an enormous shadow over one of the most prolific and acclaimed eras in anime history. He’d go on to make further contributions to this wild era, creating the scifi manga Arion and Venus Wars, both of which he’d eventually adapt into film. He’d later return to Gundam as well, penning the much-loved Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin manga, which he would also personally adapt into animation.

Yoshikazu belongs to a prior generation of anime luminaries, back when the medium was almost inextricable from the pro-labor, anti-war sentiments of its young, politically conscious creators. Anime has quite frankly gotten more insular and reactionary in the years since, and Yoshikazu himself has expressed frustration with shifts like Gundam’s turn towards the more fantastical, individualist focus on Newtypes, a clear drift from the solidarity and martial antipathy of its origins. Of course, such a narrative of artistic evolution is far too simplistic to account for the ways anime has shifted over the years, and also paints a picture of Yoshikazu himself that I’m sure this program will complicate. So let’s get to it then, and see what he has to say for himself!

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Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 17

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d check back in on our ojamajos, and see how Doremi and the gang are handling the trials of raising their witch baby Hana-chan. Having recently learned how to crawl, Hana-chan spent the last episode raising all manner of hell at both the Majo-dou and Doremi’s house, screaming through the night and crawling on ceilings and generally running wild over her beleaguered caretakers.

So yes, a nightmare of an episode for our witches, but definitely a treat for us in the audience. Doremi at its most whimsical is basically prestige comedy, demonstrating ambitious, dynamic storyboarding, marvelously silly expression work, and persistent creativity of storytelling. The show is a master class in limited animation fundamentals, demonstrating that animation economy need not limit your production’s brilliance. I’d be perfectly happy with another silly one, but whether we’re due for farce or heartbreak, I’m sure we’re in good hands!

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The Apothecary Diaries – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a production that’s earned basically universal acclaim over the past few years, as we explore the first episode of The Apothecary Diaries. Based on a light novel series by Hyūganatsu, the series takes place in an alternate medieval China (apparently specifically based on the Tang dynasty), and centers on a girl named Maomao. After learning the ways of medicine (and poison) from her apothecary father, she is sold as a servant to the emperor’s palace, entering a world of courtly intrigue with only her pharmacological skills to aid her.

That already sounds like a novel, compelling premise, and from what I’ve heard, both the light novels and their adaptation ably realize its potential. Our director and series composer Norihiro Naganuma seems perfectly appropriate for the job, given their hands-on work directing, composing, and even key animating portions of The Ancient Magus Bride. It’s a rare thing to find a director who both composes and animates, and I imagine the production will feel all the more cohesive as a result; meanwhile, character designer/AD Yukiko Nakatani appears to be an old hand at Toei, having handled similar duties for both Precure and One Piece productions. An accomplished team adapting a sharp historical drama? That all sounds great to me, so let’s dive right into The Apothecary Diaries!

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Winter 2026 – Week 4 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. My house is currently buried under the biggest snowfall we’ve received in half a decade, making travel anywhere beyond a five hundred yard perimeter basically impossible. Fortunately, that only gives me all the more incentive to sit here and watch movies, thereby passing all those savings on to YOU, my beloved readers. And we’ve certainly been doing plenty of that, alongside variable anime and TUBI screenings. We actually just polished off the last season of My Hero Academia, which was forced to compete for screentime with “The Pirates of Dark Water,” an early ‘90s Hanna-Barbera relic that turned out to be an unexpected delight. I particularly appreciated how its characters just sorta kept integrating more of their own world’s lingo in the place of any child-unfriendly swear words, resulting in a production whose final episodes involved more exclamations of “chungo-lungo!” and “noi jitat!” than actual words. Anyway, that’s all on TUBI if you’re curious, but in the meantime, let’s run down some films!

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Jujutsu Kaisen S3 – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re trying something a bit unusual, as we drop in right at the beginning of Jujutsu Kaisen’s third season. Though I have actually watched Jujutsu Kaisen’s first two seasons, I haven’t really written about them at length, for a pretty simple reason: I didn’t like them, and it takes a lot to motivate me to write about things I’m not enjoying. Quickly panning a movie for a Week in Review post is one thing; writing a fully negative piece on something someone cared about enough to fund is always a terrible feeling, and something I try to avoid in general these days.

Nonetheless, my patron is well aware I haven’t enjoyed Jujutsu Kaisen so far, so I’m taking a chance on this one. As for my general impression of the show so far, I’ve been quite impressed by some of the animation, but otherwise don’t feel I have anything to grab onto here. The characters feel superficial and grating, the worldbuilding feels ill-considered, the narrative lacks strong trajectory or momentum, and the combat system is essentially Calvinball – an attempt to make a Hunter x Hunter-like system without understanding the checks and balances inherent in such a system, which thus inevitably leads to contests of characters “going bigger” without any rhyme or reason. There is nothing about the source material that grabs me, and even in adaptation, it feels like the show often falls into the glossy, weightless spectacle of something like Demon Slayer. As I said, I’m not a fan, but I will do my best to address season three on its own merits, even if I lack the emotional attachment with which one should really be approaching a third season. Let’s get to it!

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Blue Reflection Ray – Episode 13

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to the tormented drama of Blue Reflection Ray, in the wake of a grand confrontation that seemed to leave everyone worse off than before. Shino’s plans to align the realm of contiguous emotions known as the Common with our own world were ultimately thwarted, but Mio ended up paying the price, once again assuming the burden of suffering such that her loved ones might be spared. Both parties fled the church in disarray, with the fabric of reality rent but not entirely broken.

Fortunately, at least one of our poor reflectors appears to have improved their circumstances. Niina was always the most sympathetic of the red reflectors; having suffered a lifetime of exploitation and rejection, it was completely understandable why she’d cling to Mio for salvation, and agree to whatever scheme Mio’s allies had planned. When it became clear Mio herself was being exploited by Shino, the resulting guilt almost led her to embrace the emotional absolution of her allies – but through Shiori’s vindication of her emotions, she found the strength to take pride in her love, and ended up accompanying the blue reflectors in their retreat. The girl has seriously earned a break, and I’m hoping the cooldown of that confrontation will give her a chance to enjoy the lighter side of adolescence. Regardless, the threat of world convergence continues to hang overhead as we return to Blue Reflection Ray!

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The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a fresh new production, as we explore the debut of last year’s The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity. Based on a manga by Saka Mikami, the show centers on the romance between a girl from a fancy prep school and a boy from a school for delinquents. So we’ve clearly got some elements of class conflict to complicate our would-be romance, alongside a school rivalry that puts this drama somewhere between West Side Story and Romeo & Juliet.

Not that I’m expecting anything quite so tragic as that; by all accounts this is a charming and gentle narrative, and also a genuine hit for Netflix, where it stayed among the top rankings for a significant portion of the year. That all sounds fine by me; I’m a fan of romances of all stripes, and adaptation director Miyuki Kuroki’s work boarding and key animating for productions as visually impressive as The Idolm@ster and Fate/Grand Order, as well as animation director Kōhei Tokuoka’s prior work as AD on Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, gives me ample reason to assume we’ve got a delicate and character acting-rich drama ahead of us. Let’s meet our lovebirds!

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