Author Archives: Bobduh

Winter 2026 – Week 3 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been an anxious yet oddly encouraging week on the world stage, as our mad king’s ravings appear to have inspired resistance from both the brave people of Minnesota and from Europe at large. It’s been decades since the demonic Karl Rove declared us to be living in the “post-truth” era, and it seems like for Trump’s true supporters, there is no longer any possibility of drawing them back to reality. What comes next will either be an empire’s death rattle or the total deconstruction of the American right; anything short of the second will surely only hasten the first.

Apocalyptic tidings aside, my house has continued with its usual screenings, as we munched through the first half of Dragon Ball Daima and checked out some films on the side. Daima’s been fun on the whole; it’s largely holding true to a more original Dragon Ball-like tone, though I’m a little disappointed it’s so swiftly returned to the Super Saiyan-level combat that basically outscales any sort of cunning or choreography. As for the films, well, that’s what we’re here for – let’s break ‘em down in the Week in Review!

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Trigun Stampede – Episode 9

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to check back in on the evolving drama of Trigun Stampede, after our last episode revealed the tumultuous childhood of Vash and his brother Knives. As ambiguous creations with the form of humans yet the genealogy of power-generating plants, it was the pair’s caretaker Rem who taught Vash the fundamentals of true humanity, and his companions at Home who showed him that life is a continuous cycle, and that hope can spring from even the most barren of soil.

As long-living children of the stars, Vash and Knives are destined to experience many cycles of human existence, with all the good and bad that entails. But it is up to them to decide the meaning of such an existence, whether it leads them to the megalomania of Knives, the despair of Vash’s early years, or the hope he now carries for the next turn of the wheel. Can Vash’s faith in our better nature survive the endless deprivations of No Man’s Land, wherein the fragility of life so often forces us to be our worst possible selves? More so than his physical power, it seems that faith might be his greatest strength – for just as Vash’s surrogate parents taught him to treat others with compassion and dignity, so might his own ethos foster such fragile, precious values in the world at large.

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Shoushimin Series – Episode 8

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Shoushimin Series at a moment of unexpected crisis, having just learned that Osanai has apparently been abducted for ransom! It’s a development so sudden and dramatic that I’m frankly not entirely sure I believe it, but Osanai does have a habit of getting dangerously ahead of the team when it comes to these investigations, as demonstrated through her reckless actions during the bicycle thief incident. And as that adventure also demonstrated, there are stakes to these investigations beyond boredom or disappointment; our protagonists are idly toying with their town’s various crime rings, heedless of the material consequences.

But can you really blame them? Abduction aside, these last two episodes have served as a warm celebration of Jogoro, Osanai, and even Kengo in their element, flexing their wiles and enjoying each other’s company and eating a whole bunch of good cakes in the bargain. Shoushimin Series’ marvelous character chemistry should come as no surprise to any fan of Hyouka, with each conversation demonstrating layers of affection, one-upmanship, and an underlying testing of comfort levels, as Osanai continues to push their relationship in a more overtly codified, romantic direction. Well, there’s nothing like a dramatic rescue to prove your love, so let’s see where the case takes us today!

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Thunderbolt Fantasy S3 – Episode 7

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to a long-dormant adventure, as we continue to navigate the dramatic twists and turns of Thunderbolt Fantasy’s third season. Having dealt with death cults, demon lords, murder princesses, and even a goddamn dragon over the show’s first two seasons, Shang and his allies now stand in dangerous disarray, ill-prepped for the simultaneous machinations of Ming Huang’s divine swarm, Xing Hai and her sister-sword, and whatever the fuck Murder Princess and her new cyborg ally are up to.

Fortunately, we’ve still theoretically got Lin on our side, and boy is he having fun with this one. The Enigmatic Gale is fully in his element at the moment, forging bonds with fresh would-be villains and utterly infuriating Xing Hai in the process. The delicate alliance of convenience between the Divine Swarm’s allies makes it easy for Lin to play characters like the genuinely honor-driven Jun Po and utterly malice-driven Xing Hai against each other; if anything, I assume he’d complain that such foes are too simple, lacking the complexity of motivation necessary for him to really yank the floor out from under them. Nonetheless, he can at least console himself in the knowledge that his vile Nendoroid is pissing off Shang and the others, who have enough trouble as it is without suffering through Lin’s pint-sized provocations. With alliances forging and crumbling by the second, let’s see where today’s adventures take us!

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Winter 2026 – Week 2 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week my house finished our watch-through of Hayao Miyazaki’s Future Boy Conan, which unsurprisingly proved a delight from start to finish. It’s been nice getting back into just watching whatever strikes my fancy after scrambling for end-of-year screenings; Conan’s been on my list for far too long, and I’m planning to follow it up with Moribito, another long-awaited production. Aside from that, my house’s terrible experiences with Expedition 33 and inability to survive even a single day in Nightreign has led us to an old, reliable favorite: Final Fantasy X, which I actually haven’t played since way back in high school. Hanging out with Tidus and the gang has at last scratched our RPG itch, alongside giving me something to distract myself while I wait through the last, interminable week of Critical Role’s holiday break. I think that pretty much covers all the extraneous media I’ve been consuming, so let’s hone in on some films as we burn down the Week in Review!

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Scum’s Wish – Episode 12

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are returning for the last time to the tortured drama of Scum’s Wish, as our gaggle of lovelorn teenagers and their exceedingly dubious authority figures seek love, validation, or whatever else might fill the void inside them. From the initial dynamic of Hana and Mugi using each other’s bodies as surrogates for their true loves, we have spun our poor heroes through every pairing imaginable, with a mutually fulfilling and genuinely healthy relationship seemingly forever out of reach.

Well, until our last episode, at least. Scum’s Wish’s penultimate episode actually went a tremendous distance towards slotting our various leads into healthier perspectives. Having spent most of her life in a destructive spiral of self-loathing, Akane was at last reached by Kanai’s feelings, as he demonstrated that he not only loved all of her, but was moved to that love without the condition of being loved equally in return. And with their bond secured, Mugi was in turn able to move on as well, sharing his first and last date with Akane under the city lights.

So where does that leave our poor Hanabi? Well, the door is now open for a genuine Hana-Mugi relationship, although given their collective baggage, it might be best just to cut their losses and frame college as a romantic do-over. Nonetheless, we’ve got twenty minutes left to fuck everything up, so let’s see where the chips fall as we return to Scum’s Wish!

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Misadventures in Dungeons & Dragons: Part Four

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am once again beyond up to date on my outstanding reader bounties, meaning it’s a fine time to reward myself (and you all? I hope???) with a fresh reflection on my fledgling dungeon mastering career. When last we left off, the party was approaching Castle Blackmire, and my DMing prep work was already on sounder footing relative to the initial Festival of Saint Agatha. There is simply no way to avoid the gauntlet of data and experience provided by actually running sessions; even among DMs, what amounts to “sufficient preparation” can vary wildly, depending entirely on your own comfort, knack for memorization, ability to improvise, and conception of what exactly you and your players want from your campaign.

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CITY The Animation – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today it is altogether too cold for me to be tramping around outside, so we’re instead going to take a vicarious walk around the neighborhood, by enjoying a fresh episode of CITY the Animation. Keiichi Arawi and Kyoto Animation’s latest collaboration has proven an absolute wonder so far, and if anything, it seems like the show’s ambition is only growing with every passing episode.

Last episode’s concluding race served as the show’s most impressive flourish so far, combining copious kinetic animation and skillfully attention-drawing boarding to involve the entire community in Niikura’s quest to retain her dignity. What made that sequence possible was not just the production’s ability to maintain dramatic momentum across half a dozen distinct sub-narratives, but also the underlying fact that the show had set up all those narratives so well, making it easy to spend just a few seconds with any given story and pick up a bonus punchline. The best sitcoms tend to culminate in sequences that weave A, B, and C plots together into something surreal yet dramatically inevitable, and if CITY continues at its current rate, we’re likely due for future climaxes that reach all the way to F, G, and even H plots. I can only be thankful Kyoto Animation is using their terrifying powers for good, as we charge forward towards another day in the city!

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Winter 2026 – Week 1 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to hooooly shit it’s 2026. That is too large of a number, too late of a year. That’s far enough into the 21st century that I can’t actually blame The Youth for categorizing people as “from the last century,” even if such framing makes my bones creak. I’m fuckin’ old, you guys; I’m now “slept on my knee wrong and thus suffered a month of agony” old, and all that is new is strange and terrifying to me. Even the fact that I’m typing this rather than announcing it into my phone’s camera marks me as an Old Person; the written word has lost the war, but I’ll be fighting this fruitless battle until my beard descends into a cozy grey cocoon, and I’ve gained the solemnity of age to mumble indistinctly about “the war” and “back in my day” and other comforting mantras of obsolescence. But that is fortunately still a great number of movie screenings from now, and in the meantime, I’ve got plenty of thoughts on my latest viewings. Let’s get to it!

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BanG Dream! Ave Mujica – Episode 10

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Hello friends, and welcome the fuck back to Wrong Every Time. Today the curtain rises on another performance by Ave Mujica, the crowd thundering in applause as our girls curse and spit and tear each other’s hair out. Though that brief CRYCHIC reunion seemed like it might stabilize our wayward quintet, the precise opposite has occurred: with the threat of CRYCHIC fueling their anxieties, Uika, Umiri, and Mortis have all rallied to demand a return of the tormented theatrical and (sometimes, if Mortis isn’t just screaming the whole time) musical extravaganza that is Ave Mujica.

The tables have turned dramatically since this group’s first incarnation. Back then, most of its members primarily joined as a favor to Sakiko – Uika was happy to feel needed by her target of obsession, Mutsumi was too desperate to say no, Umiri never says no to a new band, and Nyamu smelled an opportunity to expand her own profile. For Mutsumi, this was a chance to be with her old friend; for the rest, this seemed like a fine opportunity to pursue their otherwise well-tended personal ambitions.

Since then, all three would-be professional musicians have lost basically everything beyond Ave Mujica; Umiri has abandoned all of her superficial band engagements, Nyamu’s career has stalled, and Uika has grown increasingly dependent on Sakiko’s presence. In spite of its melodramatic trappings, there is an authentic pain expressed by Sakiko’s music, a pain that has shifted from an idly appropriated costume to the guiding star of all her bandmates. Can Sakiko save her allies from this nightmare? I couldn’t possibly say, but I’m eager to hear Nyamu’s thoughts on the matter as we return to Ave Mujica!

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