With every return to Witch Hat Atelier, it is a rush and a comfort to again be guided by Kamome Shirahama’s skillful hands, her ability to lead the eye across visual compositions with such grace that the trick becomes invisible, only noticed by those who spend too much time thinking about things like panel blocking and negative space. As the apprentice witch Agate steps up to a bluff’s edge and then leaps off, briefly falling and then soaring into the distance, the effect provoked by each carefully chosen shape offers guidance for visually navigating this experience: the triangle of the bluff in the first panel leading the eye up towards Agate’s shock of dark hair, the way that curving bluff and Agate’s arched form guide us up, over, and down through the following two panels, the effortless way geography and panel lines combine to show motion across stable, inviting landscapes.
Category Archives: Essay
Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to the early films of Toei Doga, as we explore their adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Released two years after the beautiful landmark that was The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon, Gulliver echoes the transition in art design philosophy that was initiated by Little Prince, though it pulls back somewhat from the clean geometric designs and impressionist background art of its predecessor.
Toei Doga’s artists were stretched thin across multiple productions throughout this era, so it’s little surprise that there’s a touch less continuity or artistic evolution than you’d expect across these films. Nonetheless, many of Toei’s early masters are still present on key animation, including the incomparable Yasuji Mori and the ascendant Yasuo Otsuka.
Mori has essentially been the emotional backbone of Toei’s film animation right from the start, lending an intimacy of character acting to their fantastical fables that grounds them in relatable human expressions, while Otsuka had already more than proven himself through his collaboration in animating the preposterously ambitious final battle with Little Prince’s titular dragon. Meanwhile, an ambitious young upstart named Hayao Miyazaki would here swiftly jump from in-betweening to concepting, as the relationships that would inform Takahata’s approaching Horus continued to be forged. Scanning across Gulliver’s contributors, you’ll see names that reach back to the beginning of Toei’s film animation and forward to the Masterpiece Theater works and Ghibli beyond, a human timeline of the personal bonds that made anime’s early works so magnificent, in spite of the immense responsibilities heaped on each individual artist. Let’s slot one more piece into this historical puzzle, as we explore the adventures of Gulliver and his companions!
Planetes and the Dignity of Garbage Collection
Planetes’ fourth volume begins with an accounting of our heroes’ trials, all framed in relation to the profession that once united them. Hachimaki is en route to Jupiter, “committed to never again collect garbage in space.” Tanabe is now Mrs. Hoshino, and “currently collects garbage in space.” Fee “might be sick and tired of commanding a team that collects garbage and space.” And the thoughtful, quiet Yuri seems content with his lot, and “will perhaps always collect garbage in space.”
We Are Not Fireworks: A Silent Voice
“I hope I die before I get old.”
– The Who, ‘My Generation’
A Silent Voice begins with an ending, as Shoya Ishida settles his affairs and prepares to end his own life. Saturated in a cold, otherworldly light, he runs through a list of final preparations: give notice at his part-time job, sell off his belongings, close his bank account, repay his familial debts. Trembling, uncertain piano keys offer a murmur of anticipation like slipping off into a dream; bathed in soft focus, he floats like a ghost towards his terminal destination. It is a somber moment, but also an oddly liberating one. After this moment, he will no longer struggle, no longer suffer, no longer labor under the weight of guilt and self-hatred and despair. Stepping up to the edge of the bridge, he prepares to reenact a familiar ritual of his childhood, leaping out into space in a final prayer of escape.
Chainsaw Man and the Nature of Violence
With a final prayer to Aki, Himeno is consumed by her bonded devil, leaving only scraps of clothing to indicate she was ever here at all. That is the ultimate fate of all devil hunters, the fate of anyone who has been conscripted into a machine that sees them as no more than expendable fuel. Himeno allegedly served a grand purpose, but there is no trace of Himeno in the purpose she served. Only those who stood beside her remember her now, knowing and mourning the passionate, unique human being who was compressed into the shape of a devil-aimed bullet. And even that consolation is a fleeting balm; Himeno sacrificed herself to ensure Aki could leave flowers at her grave, but when he is gone, Himeno truly will be as well.
The Honesty of Magic in Witch Hat Atelier
Across its first two volumes, Witch Hat Atelier has articulated a philosophy of magic that’s quite distinct from your usual fantasy adventure, wherein practice, caution, and discretion are lauded as the key prerequisites for becoming a great mage. That is because, as any great craftsman or artist knows, there is no further secret. With careful study and diligent practice, anyone can create marvels that seem like magic to the untrained eye. Magic is no different than carpentry or painting in its method of mastery – the only thing that does separate it from any mundane craft is the profound danger of its misuse, meaning any large-scale act of magic must be initiated with the greatest of caution.
Kaiba – Episode 7
Since its beginning, Kaiba has presented little reason for hope regarding the future of its universe. Though there is allegedly some sort of rebellion pushing back against this transhumanist-by-way-of-capitalist hierarchy, from our position on a pleasure barge, such interference has amounted to nothing more than fireworks seen from a great distance. We have witnessed the full solidification of class stratum while safely ensconced in a luxury cruise liner. And though these circumstances have provided distance, they certainly haven’t offered comfort; in fact, our position has only made this world’s crimes seem all the more horrifying.
Misadventures in Dungeons & Dragons
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m trying something a little different from our usual fare, building off my recent articles on the continuing adventures of Vox Machina. A few readers have expressed interest in reflections on my own misadventures with tabletop gaming, and so that’s what I’d like to bring you today: an earnest, undoubtedly embarrassing look into my own attempt at collaborative storytelling, complete with both the original text I was working off and my own retrospective reflections on how it all went down. If that doesn’t sound like your jam, don’t worry, I’ll be back to our regularly scheduled reviews and essays next time. But if you are interested in tabletop storytelling, or at least eager to laugh at how bad I am at it, feel free to stick around!
Bloom Into You – Volume 6
Bloom Into You’s sixth volume begins with the curtain about to rise on our play-within-a-comic. After an entire series spent playing the part of her sister, Touko will in this performance be playing the part of someone who rejects that philosophy outright, and chooses to embrace their own fledgling, uncertain identity. It’s simultaneously a gradual step and a terrifying one. On the one hand, she’s only playing the part of the person Yuu wishes she could be, in the context of an established, inauthentic performance. But on the other hand, she will be performing this new self in front of a vast audience, essentially the entire student body that she has sought to “fool” all this time.
Planetes and Ordinary Happiness
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to stare up at the stars, secure and certain of your place within their grand design? To not see the cosmos as a sprawling reflection of all the opportunities you’re conceding, all the moments you’re wasting with every second not harnessed to your true purpose? To truly know who and what you are, your current self and your ultimate intended function? In a universe as vast as our own, the idea that each of us has some destiny that we must seek, some specific route that was made for us among the countless potential paths we might tread, feels more like a hopeless lament than a call to action. And yet some truly do seem to have found their calling, treading confidently forward with certainty at their side.