Category Archives: Week in Review

Fall 2024 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’re truly nearing the end of the year at this point, which means it’s getting to that time when I must actually examine the animated year in retrospect, and catch up on any key productions I might have missed. Uzumaki fell apart and Dandadan’s second episode still failed to grab me, but there’s still plenty else I need to check on, from the Dead Dead Demons adaptation to the latest installments in the Monogatari and Sound! Euphonium franchises. Between those, Delicious in Dungeon, and the year’s superb film crop (Naoko Yamada and Kiyotaka Oshiyama!), this is looking to be an altogether laudable year in anime, before we even get to backlog personal projects like Sailor Moon. I’ll be starting on all that shortly, but in the meantime, I have of course continued sampling whatever films either catch my fancy or rudely invade my screen via my roommate’s craft-neutral curiosity. Let’s break ‘em down!

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Fall 2024 – Week 6 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. By the time you’re reading this, America will have decided whether we’ve decided to fast-track or slow-roll our cultural and economic collapse, and major portions of the country may well be on fire. No one really wants to live through times of great upheaval, and our historical moment feels particularly tragic, suspended as we are between an unsustainable past and an ascendant right driven by cruelty, selfishness, and proud anti-intellectualism. While I can’t fix whatever’s gone so terribly wrong with this world, I can at least offer a momentary reprieve from its horrors, as we join together in kicking the tires and testing the brakes of a fresh collection of film features. From ruinously terrible Netflix releases to bubble-era anime spectacles, let’s take a brief break from our shared struggle, and talk about some interesting films.

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Fall 2024 – Week 5 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week represents a new milestone in DnD’s ongoing invasion of my every waking moment, as we ran through our first twelve-hour session, running from three in the afternoon to way too fucking late in the goddamn morning. Assured by our guest DM (party leader of our first two campaigns, now playing second to my character in campaign three) that this would just be “a quick investigation followed by a Metal Gear Solid boat,” we found ourselves ten hours later in the midst of a fight with an unkillable barbarian, recreating the Vamp water battle in an actively sinking ship. I have lost control of my life.

That aside, this week also featured some excellent film screenings, alongside my conclusion of the beloved original Trigun. Let’s talk about all that!

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Fall 2024 – Week 4 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to finish this dang article and get the heck outside, as we’re apparently experiencing some sort of late-October summer reprise, with temperatures in the 70s even as the leaves fall from the trees. You gotta take what victories you can during our ongoing environmental collapse, but fortunately for you all, this unexpected bounty of perfect weather has not stopped me from huddling inside and watching movies all week. This week I’ve got epic adventures, sordid slashers, and also a gorgeous anime feature by a man who is rocketing up my list of favorite directors. Let’s break ‘em all down!

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Fall 2024 – Week 3 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This has been a grim week in currently airing anime, as Uzumaki’s second-episode production collapse was swiftly followed by the announcement that One Piece would be taking a six month hiatus. This delay is perfectly understandable given the franchise’s absurd string of film-quality episodes, but it also reduces my current viewing schedule from a healthy three productions to just Dandadan, which I’m not even sure I’m continuing anyway. Nonetheless, I will persevere in the way I always have: by continuing to watch lots of classic anime, and contenting myself with the enormous library of distinguished older productions still awaiting me. I’m nearly done with Trigun at this point, and still having a lovely time with it, but have of course also made time for my regular film features. Let’s break ‘em down!

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Fall 2024 – Week 2 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been a dubious week in seasonal anime, as Uzumaki’s second episode demonstrated a total collapse in animation quality, while Dandadan’s premiere proved perhaps a touch too frantic and boner-centric for my delicate sensibilities. Nonetheless, I charge bravely onward in this media wilderness, consoled by the fact that there will always, always be more fantastic films for me to watch. We hit a couple significant ones this week, pairing one of the greatest achievements of film’s early years with an intriguing recent innovation in horror cinema. And I’ve also been filling in more gaps in my anime education, by munching through the first half of Trigun’s iconic original adaptation. I’ll have more to say on that once I’m through, but for now, let’s charge through some films!

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Fall 2024 – Week 1 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. The fall anime season is now upon us, which for me means it’s time to look back on the summer season, and see if any of its brave contenders seem worthy of revisiting. I have to admit a certain nostalgia for putting my whole heart into some seasonal contender only for it to flame out spectacularly, but I’m afraid my heart can only take so much disappointment these days, and thus I generally employ the safer strategy of letting the race end and retroactively assessing the wreckage. Of course, all that personal philosophy goes out the window when money enters the equation, and thus I was happy to munch through the first episode of Hiroshi Nagahama’s Uzumaki adaptation for you faithful viewers. I’ll have a full notes article on that out soon, but for now, I present to you ravenous hounds a fresh trencher of film reflections. Let’s get to it!

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Summer 2024 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Though anime season scheduling would disagree, it is clear we have reached the end of summer at this point, making my every humble attempt to go for a jog now a struggle against the vicious winter elements. My feud with the concept of seasons is well-established at this point, but every fall has me wondering afresh why I still live in New England, when there are so many other regions less afflicted by dreaded seasonal conditions. In spite of this lamentable state of affairs, I have been doing my best to keep busy for you all, and at this point have once again brought myself up to date on outstanding reader projects. This puts me in the thrilling, terrifying position of actually having some free time to work on my own short fiction, something I haven’t done since just after college. I’ll let you all know how that goes soon, but for now, let’s break down the week in films!

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Summer 2024 – Week 12 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I hit another milestone in my reader projects, as I followed up my Evangelion episodic writeups with a piece on the final Rebuild film, attempting to put my many contradictory thoughts on this franchise revival to bed. I’m quite happy with the result, and also feel profoundly liberated in knowing that I might at long last have said everything I need to say about Evangelion. I’ve also been rewatching some One Piece and enjoying how damn good the show looks in its pre-time skip era, when absurd talents like Naoki Tate were actually regular contributors. The show continues to enrich my understanding of animation, offering more “hey, I recognize that animator” moments with each revisit. I’m still deciding on what my next major backlog project will be now that Sailor Moon is behind me, but in the meantime, I’m keeping busy as usual with film viewings. Let’s get to it!

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Summer 2024 – Week 11 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With my Sailor Moon journey almost completed and my housemate having returned from vacation, these last two weeks have seen us charging through a new Netflix arrival, the intriguing format blend that is Kevin Can Fuck Himself. The show combines three-camera sitcom and single-camera drama styles to a variety of interesting effects, and left me with a pile of thoughts for you all. We also indulged in some classic comfort food, checking out both a questionable Dolph Lundgren vehicle and a superior Argento feature. We’ve got lots of thoughts to get through, so let’s dive right into the Week in Review!

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