Category Archives: Episode Writeup

Dorohedoro – Episode 7

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re diving back into Dorohedoro, a show which has so far confounded my expectations at every turn; veering into slice of life when I expect narrative progression, accelerating through five key reveals just as soon as I’ve gotten myself comfortable, and then swerving its drama in an entirely new direction.

Instead of the dramatic Nikaido-En confrontation I was expecting, last episode instead offered us Shin’s bloody origin story, and went on to introduce a giant sneakers-clad cockroach named Johnson. The question of resolving Caiman’s curse has only gotten more convoluted over time, with the discovery and revival of the man in his throat introducing a full-on conspiracy involving a gang of cross-eyed ne’er-do-wells.

Meanwhile, the show continues to articulate a fascinating overarching philosophy of ritual and life cycles, frequently presenting death as a celebration, and meals as a kind of worship. All this combined with the gorgeous gutter punk splendor of Dorohedoro’s background art makes for a rich experience whether you’re here for the stories, the ideas, or the dazzling architecture. Let’s not waste any more time, and see where this strange journey leads!

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Adachi and Shimamura – Episode 3

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today we’re returning to Adachi and Shimamura, where I believe we last left off with our leads acting like hopeless and hopelessly gay weirdoes. Let me just confirm that…

Yep, confirmed, our very last scene was dominated by Adachi thinking about how loud her bones are while she sat in Shimamura’s lap. The girl has got it bad, and while Shimamura is a bit better at playing it cool, I can’t imagine she’s used to this level of intimacy, either. The two are a delightfully mismatched pair of messes, with Adachi clearly struggling from some deeply ingrained social phobias, while Shimamura casts around aimlessly for a “bright future.” Adachi is already beginning to wonder how much of Shimamura’s fascination with her is genuine, so I’m guessing we’ve got some rough seas approaching. Either way, I’m eager to dive back into this wonderfully character-rich production!

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Wonder Egg Priority – Episode 4

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into Wonder Egg Priority, and at last catch up on the ongoing discussions. Wonder Egg Priority is such an aesthetically compelling, intellectually intriguing production that it’s essentially brought anime blogging back to life. kVin has already written multiple essential posts regarding its production, Emily’s consistently illuminating the nuances of its flower language, Steve’s putting in overtime work over at ANN, and even my friends at Isn’t It Electrifying? have been throwing their hats in the ring.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious: Wonder Egg Priority is a critic’s delight, combining Naoko Yamada’s cinematic approach to visual storytelling with a surrealist, thematically driven narrative that juggles sharp-edged topics with ease. It is equally confident conveying the precise emotional tenor of witnessing a classmate being bullied, and also the fantastical disorientation of falling into another world. For those who see anime as a uniquely compelling vehicle for conveying intimate human feelings, Wonder Egg Priority feels like an avatar of our faith in practice.

Just as Flip Flappers illustrated the wild discord of our dreamscapes as a path to knowing ourselves, just as The Eccentric Family used a dash of magical realism to evoke the jubilant freedom of young adulthood, so does Wonder Egg Priority use its fantasy flourishes to convey the overbearing weight of social stigma, self-hatred, and alienation. Its heroines are playing a game they are presumably designed to lose; meanwhile, the steady procession of victims and villains illustrates how all young women are set up for failure, where abusers frequently benefit from institutional support, and victims are taught to blame themselves. Even if the eggs weren’t purchased from a gacha machine, it’d be clear this is a rigged game. All Ai and her friends have is solidarity, but as a group who’ve been selected precisely because they feel they drove others to suicide, can they really learn to trust each other, and love themselves?

Let’s find out.

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 37

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Hello everyone, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. This week I surged ahead on projects and actually improved my buffer, inching myself back towards that “one full month of prepped articles” that I try to maintain. And with my Why It Works articles for the next three weeks in various stages of prepping, I’m feeling exceptionally on top of things at the moment, almost like I’m a genuinely mature adult or something. And as a genuinely mature adult, it is my privilege to spend the rest of today writing about Pokemon, where I’m sure Ash and his friends are already embarking on a new adventure.

Last episode was a barn-burner, as Ash at last faced off against Akalan Queen Olivia, and completed the next stage in his Island Pilgrimage. Considering the last two episodes were both dominated by high-tension battles, I’m expecting we’ll be slowing things down a bit this week, and leaning back towards the show’s slice of life model. Fortunately, Sun and Moon tends to actually be at its best when things slow down, and it can indulge in the plentiful pleasures of the Alolan peninsula. Whatever comes, I’m sure there’ll be charming character moments and beautiful animation cuts aplenty. Let’s dive back into the world of Sun and Moon!

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Wonder Egg Priority – Episode 3

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are absolutely continuing our journey through Wonder Egg Priority, as this show kicks all the kinds of ass, and I’m frankly tired of being behind on its weekly discussion. I know, Nick Creamer caring about ongoing anime discussions in the year twenty twenty-one? It’s a shock to me as well, but Wonder Egg Priority is just that kind of show; a story that feels instantly essential, and which provokes the long-slumbering dragons of anime blogging to once more raise their feathered quills, and rise together in praise for a show that’s Genuinely Really Good.

Wonder Egg’s second episode held relatively closely to the model of the first, introducing a new egg girl for Ai to save, and establishing the beginnings of a friendship with fellow egg savior Neiru. We also received a bit more context regarding Ai’s relationship with Koito, as well as the parameters of her egg-saving missions. Given all that, I’m expecting the show to soon disrupt its episodic model, but we might be in for another episode or two of monster-of-the-week missions, if only to integrate the other girls from the show’s OP. Alright, that’s enough speculation from me; let’s dive right back into Wonder Egg Priority!

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Wonder Egg Priority – Episode 2

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Hello everyone, and welcome back. Today we’re exploring the second episode of Wonder Egg Priority, 2021’s most intriguing production so far, as Ai Ohto works to save her friend Koito. Of course, it’s questionable whether Koito can truly be “saved” at all; Ai watched her die, and though the mysterious overseer of her current task claims that salvation is possible, we have no reason to trust their words.

But while Ai’s narrative destination is still far from clear, Wonder Egg Priority has been proceeding with absolute confidence so far, making me feel confident in turn about its eventual structure. I’m not a fan of mystery for its own sake, as I feel that generally, mysteries tend to exist apart from what a show is “trying to say,” as a purely narrative hook. On the other hand, when a show’s “mysteries” are baked into the ambiguity of its themes and imagery, I’m a huge fan. Rather than distracting from a show’s thematic and emotional content, mysteries like this actually spur investment into the show’s ideas, while simultaneously aligning the audience with the protagonist’s perspective. This is the grand trick of shows like Madoka or Utena, and I’m delighted to see Wonder Egg Priority pulling it off so well. Without further ado, let’s dive into the second episode!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 36

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IT’S TIME. After braving the forests of Akala in order to take down the island’s Totem Pokemon, Ash has at last earned the right to challenge Olivia, and compete in her Grand Trial. It’s been a solid twenty-five episodes since Ash last fought in a Grand Trial, and since then he’s gained both Iwanko and Nyabby, along with plenty of fighting experience. Sun and Moon never disappoints when it comes to its action setpieces, and given the clear significance of this Grand Trial, I’m expecting some spectacular feats of animation. 

So far Sun and Moon has rarely focused on the tactical interplay of pokemon battles, which makes sense. This isn’t truly an action cartoon, it’s more of an adventure/slice of life production, and thus the stakes of its conflicts tend to focus more on character emotions and personal resolutions than combat supremacy. Characters generally “win” by growing or learning something new – but last episode, Ash’s Totem battle embraced some genuine tactical interplay, leaving me hopeful that this fight will also supplement its visual flare with some crunchy tactics. Either way we’re in for a visual feast, so let’s not waste any more time, and charge forward to the Grand Trial!

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Jobless Reincarnation – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be checking out… wait, seriously? An isekai? Don’t you folks know how I feel about those? Well, a job’s a job, so I guess today we’re checking out the industry’s latest isekai production: Jobless Reincarnation.

I don’t know anything about Jobless Reincarnation in particular, but I do know that I am flat-out exhausted by the isekai genre, and basically every one of its assumed qualities. There is definitely a strong potential isekai within the template as we know it – a show that genuinely reflects on the alienation of modern society, and interrogates the self-defeating ugliness of using fanatical fandom as an escape from reality. But even the shows that ostensibly do this, like Re:Zero, are still drenched in obnoxious otaku-isms, and simply not written well enough to keep my attention.

Characters in isekai shows speak in fan-aimed cliches, not like human beings, and the worlds they interact with are playpens filled with otaku ephemera, not convincingly realized alternative worlds. They are a warm hug aimed at a very specific set of consumers, which lack either the maturity of perspective or beauty of narrative craft to offer anything to a general audience of art-likers. As someone who has read a lot of actual adult-aimed novels, light novel storytelling is almost never going to impress me; particularly in this field, where novels are frequently written by amateur authors who are taking influence from other amateur authors, and being guided by editors whose notes presumably run the range from “needs more harem archetypes” to “mention her boobs more.” It’s the blind leading the blind while a third guy actively guides them off a cliff, and while the results of this process are understandable, they’re not generally consumable.

So that’s my opinion of isekai anime: a genre with theoretical potential, but no shows I could recommend to art enthusiasts, constructed under economic conditions that may well preclude the creation of any genuinely interesting art. Let’s see what I think of this one!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 35

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! This is my first episodic article written after winter break, so I’m planning on easing back into the rhythm of work with some lighthearted Sun and Moon. When last we left off, Kaki had joined Lana in ascending to a new power level, having rescued his home island’s ceremonial crown, and even scoring himself a powerful Marowak in the bargain. With two of Ash’s companions having essentially conducted their mid-journey evolutions, I’m guessing it’s now time for Mallow or Sophocles to earn a similar boost – or else we could just frolic on Akala for a while, and maybe check out the local beaches. Look, when you format your anime as a perpetual vacation, you end up with a lot of options for showing the audience a good time. Let’s not waste a moment then, and see what awaits us back in Alola!

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Kaguya-sama: Love is War – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. You all ready for some Kaguya-sama? I’m frankly not sure I am; after all, we’re four episodes in at this point, and the most the show’s gotten out of me is a light chuckle. I don’t find its comedy particularly funny, and its characterization hasn’t really moved much beyond the initial dynamic, meaning I can’t coast on my fondness for the leads as people. At the moment, I’m more or less clinging to the visual flair contributed by Shinichi Omata’s direction, as well as the potential for an interrogation of how class affects social dynamics that I damn well know the show almost certainly won’t explore.

I feel like I’ve conveyed all this with as much tact as possible over the past four writeups, but it seems like you folks are still enjoying them, as Kaguya-sama’s funding is as healthy as can be. In light of that, I figure people likely won’t mind if I’m a bit less diplomatic in my appraisal, as presumably you must know “gag comedy with no character or thematic focus” falls deeply outside my general interests. Is there truly something waiting down the road that makes this a “me” show, or are you folks just sending me on a long walk down a short pier? Either way, we’ve got a fresh episode ahead of us, so let’s see if my fortunes can turn!

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