Category Archives: Episode Writeup

Rock is a Lady’s Modesty – Episode 13

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking in with Lilisa and the gang for one final episode of Rock is a Lady’s Modesty, as our quartet face off against the repulsive tourists of Bacchus. With their total focus on external validation and blatant disregard for the sanctity of rock, they have stirred Lilisa into a defensive fury, giving her the perfect outlet for her frustrations regarding her increasingly tenuous surface life. This is not what rock is all about!

But what is rock all about? Over the past twelve episodes, this production has offered a variety of answers to that question, none of them fully encompassing the mixture of social rebellion and personal validation our leads seek on the stage. For Otoha, rock is a haven of self-satisfaction in a life spent pleasing others; for Lilisa, music connects her to her absent father, and lets her express the unsociable feelings she keeps locked behind a polite smile. Rock can mean whatever any isolated teen needs it to mean, and while this story has occasionally gestured towards the medium’s inherent political associations, it has mostly proven a celebration of these particular characters, fondly articulating the increasing mutual trust of our leads. That’s fine by me; in a world as oppressive as Lilisa’s, even just holding onto your soul is a form of protest, a blow struck against the insincere smiles and cutthroat calculations of high society. So let’s raise our middle fingers high one last time, as our girls bury these jokers once and for all!

Continue reading →

Dear Brother – Episode 18

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today the bells are tolling in foreboding harmony with the shrill calls of sparrows beyond the glass, which can only mean it’s time for a return to Seiren Academy, and all the terrible turmoil that entails. There’s a time for subtlety and a time for restraint, but sometimes all you want is the glorious dramatic and aesthetic maximalism of a sordid tale like the delightful Dear Brother.

Our last episode saw Nanako in fine form, rallying alongside her allies in the wake of Kaoru’s ill-fated return to the basketball court. In spite of Kaoru’s injury, that event ultimately served as a rallying cry for the anti-Sorority faction, with Mariko affirming her love for Kaoru while Saint-Juste regained the confidence to return to school, and even laugh off Miya-sama’s attempts at controlling her. That in turn led to Nanako’s own rejection of Miya-sama’s demands, as she proudly mailed off the letter Miya-sama demanded she destroy. The more tightly Miya-sama grips, the more determined her victims become to escape her – and having suffered so many recent defeats, I imagine she’s cooking up some dramatic acts of retaliation. Let’s see how the chips fall as we return to the battlefield of love and youth!

Continue reading →

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 21

Posted on by
3

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to the field of the First Class Mage Exam, as Frieren and her compatriots do battle with the distinguished Denken and his ruthless accomplice. Having “successfully” reduced their alleged scavenger hunt to its true nature as a grand melee, they compete to either claim their opponent’s prize or destroy them outright; either way, only a full team with Stille in hand can pass this trial.

In characteristic Frieren fashion, the battle so far has revolved less around “who is the most powerful” than “what are you willing to sacrifice for glory.” For Frieren and Denken, the prestige of a First Class Mage certificate is not a boon worth bloodying their hands for, a sentiment shared by the reluctant mercenary Wirbel. It is not a difficult thing to gain wealth or plaudits for enacting harm – but when the praise subsides, when it is just you alone with your choices, does the bargain still feel worth the price? On a long enough time span, there is little more important than acting in such a way that you can stand unashamed, proud of the changes you have wrought on the world. Let’s see how Frieren retains her pride as we return to the field!

Continue reading →

Shoushimin Series – Episode 13

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we return to the tangled mysteries of Shoushimin Series, as Jogoro and Osani continue their wandering journeys toward normalcy. Having spent a season realizing they were each enabling the other’s alleged worst tendencies, the pair have split and found new partners, with Osanai dating newspaper club member Urino while Jogoro pursues the charming Nakamura. And yet their underlying passions still endure, exemplified through both the awkward distances of their new bonds and their embroilment in the town’s latest mystery, a serial arson case that is only rising in intensity with each new incident.

It was a bold play by Honobu Yonezawa to take their stable paradigm and shatter it, but the results are already proving this franchise can survive and even thrive with its leads no longer in close contact. Frankly, their lack of physical proximity has only underlined the strength of their bond; Jogoro is constantly framing Nakamura in terms of how she differs from Osanai, while Osanai seems to be performing some kind of Vertigo-style personality resculpting of her boyfriend Urino. It’s a messy, emotionally fraught situation, and those are precisely the sort of situations that let richly realized character dramas like this thrive. With both their personal bonds and the town at large in a state of violent flux, let’s see how this case continues to develop!

Continue reading →

Apocalypse Hotel – Episode 6

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling the urge for some high-class hospitality, and thus decided it’s high time to head down to the Gingarou Hotel. Though humanity may take to the stars or perish from this earth, attentive service and comfortable accommodations will never go out of style. Such is the creed of Yachiyo and her companions, the faithful inheritors of their creators’ will, who are now pleased to offer their own signature blend of expertly aged whisky!

So it goes in the wake of last episode’s adventures in distillation, which actually covered a great deal more than the process of cultivating fine liquors. Whisky turned out to be a flexible metaphor for any journey through life, as we lose some things, gain others, and are ultimately refined into a subtle and complex blend of our endless influences. So long as we retain some long-term goal, we are inherently expressing hope for the future, a motivation to keep us from languishing in the dregs of the past. It was a poignant and expertly crafted episode, and I’m eager to see what follows as we return to Apocalypse Hotel!

Continue reading →

The Mighty Nein – Episode 5

Posted on by
1

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling a hankering for the kind of adventure only adaptations of tabletop live-play series can provide, and am thus exceedingly fortunate to be facing a fresh episode of The Mighty Nein, Amazon’s lush reimagining of Critical Role’s second extended campaign. The show has so far proven a marvelous take on its source material, polishing and rearranging and generally doing everything it can to transform a campaign marked by frequent narrative digressions into a coherent, propulsive drama. It feels like we’re receiving the best of both worlds here; The Mighty Nein at the table was a group of charming individual characters with no narrative binding them together, but the team’s thoughtful revisions are so far providing their heroes an actual journey worth undertaking.

Our last episode saw the team actually strike out on their first collective adventure, with decidedly mixed results. However, while they failed to actually save the young Tohya, that failure itself served as a powerful binding agent, helping our unlikely companions discover a variety of parallels across their histories and philosophies. Failure is a crucial tool in tabletop games; victory is gratifying, but it rarely necessitates self-reflection, while failure forces players and their characters to confront the ways they are still works in progress, and consider the methods by which they might grow as both individuals and a collective. And with a volstrucker currently charging right at them, it seems like our players might soon get even more opportunities to sample the benefits of harsh, embarrassing failure. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Journal With Witch – Episode 5

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m guessing we’re in for another brutal emotional pummeling, as we return to the painfully well-observed drama of Journal With Witch. The show has so far offered up a pair of poignant, intimate character studies, observing an unlikely duo who seem united less by their tangential genetic bond than their fellow pilgrimage through a great, forbidding emotional desert. For Asa, this desert represents the grief she still cannot name, a feeling too immense to look at directly, yet which nonetheless marks her as apart from the carefree high schoolers and confident adults surrounding her. For Makio, this desert is her personal fortress, the barricade of sand and stone that has shielded her from the unhappy truths of an isolated adulthood.

Back when Makio first suggested Asa start a journal, it seemed like that might have just been the idle, unconsidered advice of someone out of their depth in offering true consolation. But now, it seems more likely that Makio was sharing her own survival strategy – to transmute to the page that which is intolerable to the mind, and thereby exorcise her demons through the alchemy of fiction. We all develop our own coping strategies for handling life’s disappointments, but Asa’s presence is forcing Makio to reexamine the routines of her life, and ask once again if she is happy settling for what is simply comfortable. Let’s see how our desert wanderers continue to shape each other as we return to Journal With Witch!

Continue reading →

Blue Reflection Ray – Episode 16

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re heading back to the dorms for a fresh episode of Blue Reflection Ray, as our unlikely team of heroes prepare for their second stab at preventing the apocalypse. Though they had hoped to rescue their guiding star Mio from the Red Reflectors’ clutches, their ultimate confrontation revealed that Mio was actually fighting for their sake, determined to prevent a reprise of their original, disastrous final battle. Thus our Blue Reflectors are left with an impossible task, seeking to rescue a girl who doesn’t wish to be saved, and prevent a disaster whose occurrence is already settled history.

But all that stuff is still a little ways off; in the meantime, they’re simply trying to get by, cohabiting and communicating and pursuing the delicate character work that has always been this production’s great strength. Our last episode demonstrated some great strides for both Miyako and Niina, as Miyako managed to overcome her understandable fears regarding the girl who once nearly stole her feelings, and skillfully inducted Niina into their ramshackle dorm family. That welcome development was contrasted against some brutal revelations about new arrivals Amiru and Ryoka, who at this point appear to be making a kind of goodbye tour before disappearing from the earth. Can our heroes find a way to restore Fragments, saving both their new friends and the unfortunate Momo? Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Big Windup! – Episode 25

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking back in on the boys from Nishiura, and seeing if they can finally fuckin’ relax in the wake of that nail-biter of a first round. Having found themselves matched against the summer tournament’s first-seeded reigning champions, Abe and his companions had to pull out every possible trick just to stay alive, much less eke out a victory. But between their opponents’ initial underestimation of their abilities, their own clever management of their opponents’ weaknesses, and the whimsical will of the heavens themselves, Nishiura somehow managed to just pull through.

That season-long match served as one of the most impressively grounded sports spectacles I’ve ever witnessed. Rather than relying on flashy animation or melodramatic personal turns, every single twist in fortune was here founded on sturdy, coherent tactical dynamics: the difficulty of mastering Mihashi’s pitches, the strategic fundamentals of managing the bases, the impact of rain on both the field and players. Tosei’s team was presented as less of a mountain to climb than a fiendish puzzle to solve, and with every step of that journey cleanly articulated, Nishiura’s victory felt like the natural culmination of their training, tactics, and mutual trust. There is a clear art to mechanically grounded conflict, and Big Windup! is an exemplar of the form. Now let’s see how our boys handle their newfound fame!

Continue reading →

Umamusume: Pretty Derby S2 – Episode 3

Posted on by
Reply

Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m thinking we’ll be heading down to the racetrack, and seeing how the training is fairing for Japan’s most accomplished young horse girls. Yep, it’s time for more of the gleefully preposterous Umamusume, wherein young horse girl athletes race to the brink of self-destruction for that golden prize, only to subsequently put on goddamn idol performances. If we are headed for the convergence point of all fandom fascinations, then Umamusume is clearly a key step along the way; combining gacha compulsions with mecha musume-adjacent database dynamics and idol music, the production seems like an absolute fever dream of the modern anime economy, the latest bizarre innovation in media mix commercialism.

It’s also a pretty good show! While I certainly have misgivings about what Umamusume represents, this season has so far offered a reasonably compelling personal drama, digging into the painful anxieties of an athletic career derailed by personal injury. The show has refused to sensationalize its heroine Teio’s troubles, and as a result has been able to effectively sell the painfully mixed feelings of cheering from the sidelines, watching your rivals achieve the dreams your body refuses to grant you. It’s been a rough ride for Teio, so let’s lend her our support as we return to Umamusume!

Continue reading →