Category Archives: Essay

We Are Not Fireworks: A Silent Voice

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“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. 

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Chainsaw Man and the Nature of Violence

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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.

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The Honesty of Magic in Witch Hat Atelier

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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.

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Kaiba – Episode 7

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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.

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Misadventures in Dungeons & Dragons

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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!

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Bloom Into You – Volume 6

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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.

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Planetes and Ordinary Happiness

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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.

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Chainsaw Man and the Cost of Kindness

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It feels uniquely Chainsaw Man-appropriate that three volumes in, Denji could look up and see “Kill Denji” plastered as the volume title of the manga that’s literally about him. The kid just can’t catch a break – not from his enemies, and not from his allies either, for whatever that designation is worth. Aki treats him with nothing but contempt, his other coworkers view him with a mixture of fear and loathing, and the woman he believes he is in love with is simply exploiting his obvious, easily manipulated desires. Pretty much the only person who doesn’t hate or desire to manipulate him is Power, which is an undeniably sad place to be.

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The Necessity of Shingo Natsume

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“My style is to have no fixed style. Other people would accuse me of having a style, though. It may be that I understand myself the least.” – Shingo Natsume

I’ll admit, I got off on the wrong foot with Shingo Natsume. My formal introduction to his work was One Punch Man, a show that seemed to me an embodiment of anime’s increasing artlessness and lack of narrative ambition, the growing divide between animated aesthetic form and meaningful narrative, emotional, or thematic content. It was simply “man punches hard” animated as beautifully as possible, and “man punches hard” is a story anime has told countless times, a story perhaps only outnumbered in its evocations by “me horny.” And as the years have gone by, it seems this divide between form and content has only widened, with modern animator troves like Jobless Reincarnation offering nothing of substance, while sequels and indistinguishable light novel adaptations dominate the wider landscape.

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Bloom Into You – Volume 5

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The first word I’d use to describe Bloom Into You’s manga, particularly in contrast with its animated adaptation, is sparse. Panel compositions are often defined by their vast, empty spaces, leaving plenty of room for the characters’ lingering, unspoken thoughts. This is a fine choice for a story like Bloom Into You, a story so preoccupied with the sense of deficiency or emptiness that haunts its two leads. Emptiness is what Touko sees when she considers what the future might bring – a wholly empty sky, the nothingness where her voice trails off, and the blueprint of behavior left by her sister ends.

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