Author Archives: Bobduh

The Legend of Vox Machina S3 – Episode 11

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to the tales of Vox Machina, who recently suffered a schism in the wake of their dubious victory over Thordak. Fed up with her teammates’ lack of trust in her decisions, Keyleth packed up her feathers and flew home, seeking her own methods of detecting Raishan’s location. The twins then set out to find Anna Ripley, and hopefully let Percy rest in peace. Meanwhile, Grog and Pike stayed back at the half-destroyed manor, praying for a method of raising Scanlan from his apparent coma.

It’s certainly a low point for Vox Machina, but it’s a well-placed and necessary one. The battle against Thordak focused the party’s priorities, and thereby let them forget for a time the natural divisions and divergent ambitions of their constituent members. The fact that they’re splitting now is a demonstration of how well they’ve been defined as individuals, serving as both a brief cooldown of dramatic tension and an affirmation of their personal progress. The primacy of the party is a core aspect of DnD, but if you want to build a fully furnished fantasy adventure, you must also allow the space for players to define themselves as members of a larger living world, and not just vehicles for action heroics.

Granted, Vox Machina have a natural advantage in this pursuit, given they’re all professional goddamn voice actors who are perfectly comfortable sculpting emergent disagreements amongst themselves. For my own campaign, I compromised between the primacy of the party and the texturing of individual party members by eventually making the campaign a tour of their homelands; allying the Dales required visiting our ranger’s old stomping grounds, then infiltrating the home of our nemesis brought us face-to-face with our rogue’s origins, etcetera. Vox Machina’s unique strengths as a group facilitate the starkness of this separation, but in truth every group will have its own strengths, and crafting a successful campaign is ultimately less about following one strict model than embracing what you and your players enjoy and excel at. With that obvious truth established, let’s charge back into Vox Machina!

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Fall 2025 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen my house cleaning up various media odds and ends, as we finished off the two revival Slayers seasons, concluded season three of Dimension 20, and also checked out the last of the millennium era Godzilla films. This has left my slate open for munching through the year’s outstanding must-watch anime productions, and thus I’ve already started a group viewing of The Summer Hikaru Died, while polishing off the last of Shoushimin Series in my own time. My big blind spot is the year’s top anime films – both the Umetsu and Fujimoto films actually released this year, alongside last year’s Yamada film that at this point should be widely available. I’ll be sure to munch through those as soon as I can, but in the meantime, let’s break down a fresh grab bag of film selections!

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 15

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the open road lies sprawling before us, promising adventures that will undoubtedly call into question our reason for adventuring – what we hope to receive for our struggles, and what we pray not to forget in the years ahead. That’s right, it’s time for Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, that rambling tale of reflection and renewal, which through its focus on impermanence finds both sorrow and hope – the lament that all we love will eventually pass away, and the accompanying prayer that we will take this passing with grace, and embrace the endless possibilities of each new day.

When last we left off, the party were concluding a pair of vignettes regarding the enduring talismans of close bonds, contrasting Stark’s search for a birthday present for Fern with Frieren’s attachment to a ring given by Himmel. The objects are just signifiers, but signifiers are important; just as a key unlocks a door, so does a treasured gift unlock a memory, carrying within it an echo of the emotions it first inspired. With Frieren’s precious token restored, the party continues their journey north, seeking to augment those fond memories with the closure of a last conversation with Himmel. Onward, to the land of souls’ rest!

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My Dress-Up Darling – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out the first episode of a much-loved recent production, as we explore the premiere of My Dress-Up Darling. From what I understand, the story is a generally lighthearted romance centered on learning to proudly embrace your passions, as our cosplay enthusiast heroine draws her hina doll-crafting classmate out of his shell. As such, I’m expecting plenty of charming character moments, a healthy slice of adolescent social psychology, and perhaps even a closer look at the costume-making process.

As for our production team, it seems we’ve got a variety of younger figures in the key roles. Director Keisuke Shinohara has largely worked on individual episodes prior to this production, lending his talents to such distinguished productions as Bocchi the Rock!, Devilman Crybaby, and Flip Flappers. Character designer Kazumasa Ishida has also mostly worked as animation director on smaller projects, though the frequent overlaps in their resumes tells me they’ve clearly come to enjoy collaborating. This full-length production seems like a major break for both of them, so let’s see what the team has in store as we march into Dress-Up Darling!

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Shoushimin Series – Episode 6

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we are returning to Shoushimin Series, as Osanai and Jogoro continue their seemingly hopeless crusade to become normal human beings. It’s been a tough road for both of them so far, replete with backsliding and compromises, but I imagine they’re pretty used to that. After all, what they are attempting is nothing short of rejecting and replacing their own personalities, the passions that animate them and the natural talents that make them special.

So yeah, probably a bad call on the whole. But as I’ve said before, their feelings are understandable – they are weirdos who prompt friction wherever they go, uninterested in social niceties and so motivated by their off-kilter ideals that they tend to make enemies by accident (and that’s when they’re not intentionally making enemies). They belong in a smoke-filled room pouring over crime scene photos, but instead they are stuck in high school, forced to play nice with kids who seem like different organisms entirely. Adolescence is a process of defining yourself in a social context, and when you receive only negative signals from your surroundings, you’re liable to think that you are the problem. But it is a tragic, regrettable thing to abandon your reason for being, and I can only hope they’re reconsidering this whole self-lobotomy process. Let’s find out!

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Fall 2025 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the winds of winter approaching, this week saw me putting the finishing touches on my players’ Christmas DnD adventure, which will be the third installment in our mostly annual holiday tradition. These quests have traditionally been written by one of my housemates as a break in the formal narrative action, with the first installment essentially positing Santa Claus as a Futurama-style figure of terror, and the second taking The Santa Clause’s premise in a more lycanthropy-adjacent direction. This third adventure will involve us doing a Diehard scenario with Santa as Hans Gruber, a collaboration where I open the quest as dungeon master, only for the action to be “invaded” by Santa in an active DM handoff. I’m eager to see how it all plays out, and will surely inform you folks in the aftermath, but for now, let’s burn down a fresh week in films!

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Yaiba: Samurai Legend – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I think we’ve earned some lighthearted, rip-roaring adventure, as we return to the travels of Yaiba, Sayaka, and Musashi, alongside their trusted vulture, tiger, and recently acquired frog. Having either defeated or befriended the first two of Onimaru’s eight oni minions, the team now set off for the site of a legendary clash of swordsmen, intent on learning the secrets of Yaiba’s lightning blade.

Last episode’s battle offered plenty of opportunities for Takahiro Hasui’s team to show off their dynamic animation chops, with the lightning aura of Yaiba’s uncontained weapon offering a natural compliment to this production’s angular, exaggerated posing. It also provided a few key indicators regarding this narrative’s structure and thematic intent; we’ve essentially set up a Sailor Moon-style league of villains, whose abilities echo the corrupting influence of Yaiba and Onimaru’s blades. Beyond that, Aoyama’s approach to Yaiba’s training and his introduction of new variables both seem refreshingly freewheeling; the series is proceeding with the loose, rambling energy of early Dragon Ball, and that’s a very good place to be. Let’s hop back in!

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Blue Reflection Ray – Episode 12

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Blue Reflection Ray in the heat of the action, as blue and red reflectors clash while a new world struggles to be born. Driven by the seemingly apocalyptic machinations of Shino, Mio was drawn into battle against her sister Hiori and former partner Momo. Now Momo lies dying among the pews, Mio has become lost in her own feelings of despair, and the world seems poised to collide upon itself, the realm of fragments and feelings known as the “Common” collapsing upon our own world of closed, physical shells.

That’s probably not good! Though Shino claims she intends to manage the roiling emotions of the Common directly, I cannot imagine she possesses either the power or temperament necessary to install herself as perpetual ruler of human sentiment. Unfortunately, the blue reflectors have themselves done little to offer a compelling counterargument, instead hinging their philosophy on feel-good “we must embrace our trauma to overcome it” bromides that offer little of substance to lost souls like Niina. And I love that! I love that no one in this show seems to have the “correct” answer to emotional pain, I love that reflectors are being framed as inherently out-of-place intrusions on reality, and I love that we’re reaching the halfway point of this production with an apocalypse looming and no clear way to avoid it. This production’s overarching narrative is proving as confident and distinctive as its psychological inquiry, and I’m eager to see how it surprises me next. Let’s get to it!

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Trigun Stampede – Episode 8

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to the dusty ruin of No Man’s Land, as we explore a fresh episode of Trigun Stampede. When we last left off, the team was racing to prevent a massive sand steamer from crashing through Wolfwood’s hometown, and destroying the orphanage that even his former handlers recognize as his sanctuary, his connection to humanity. With their backs against the wall, every member of our crew pulled off some desperate acts of heroism, culminating in Vash directly communicating with the living plant at the steamer’s core.

In terms of its overt action drama, that episode served as an impressive celebration of Orange’s advances in CG animation. Combining dynamic cinematography with careful design and texture work, it called towards the wild highlights of Land of the Lustrous while retaining a grittiness of aesthetic that is essential for Trigun’s overall effect. At the same time, the urgency and specificity of this trial is pushing all of our leads to reexamine their philosophies – the consequences of Vash’s unerring pacifism, the limits of Wolfwood’s alleged pragmatism, and even the responsibility of Meryl as not just chronicler, but active participant in these violent escapades. Stampede continues to embody all that is most compelling about Trigun, and I’m eager to see what new moral wrinkles this adventure will offer. Let’s get to it!

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Fall 2025 – Week 6 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the original three seasons complete and the films proving a bust, this week my house munched through the 2008 Slayers revival Revolution, featuring the same director and much of the same cast as the original ‘90s entries. While the transition from nostalgic cel photography is unfortunate, this season proved itself a fine addition to the Lina Inverse canon, carrying on the spirit of the original series. Meanwhile, the introduction of Brennan Lee Mulligan into Critical Role gave us the perfect excuse to return to Dimension 20, where we’re now following the Bad Kids on their quest to retrieve the Crown of the Nightmare King. Though the team moving away from fully designed sets initially put us off, it’s actually been easy to reintegrate into this season’s Theater of the Mind-style combat, which undeniably facilitates fights of greater scope and complexity than a physical board would allow. All this DnD viewing has actually inspired me to get started on this year’s Christmas DnD Adventure, a much-loved annual tradition around my place. Perhaps more on that later, but for now, let’s run down the week in films!

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