Anne of Green Gables – Episode 1

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I feel privileged to begin a journey through Anne of Green Gables, one of the shimmering jewels of the World Masterpiece Theater program. The World Masterpiece Theater program ran for decades, typically selecting acclaimed works of global literature, and animating them with an eye for authenticity and general appeal. The program is frankly one of the greatest achievements of anime as an art form, and tragically has no successor in the modern era – these days, adapted animation of global literature tends to focus on characters like Batman or Darth Vader, rather than children’s literary classics.

Of course, rich and poignant source material still requires delicate execution; fortunately, in its peak years, the World Masterpiece Theater program was spearheaded by the future scions of Studio Ghibli. Anne of Green Gables was directed by Isao Takahata, who comfortably stands as my favorite Ghibli director, and also one of my favorite directors period. Through films like Only Yesterday, Grave of the Fireflies, and Pom Poko, Takahata captures both the quiet beauty of natural life, as well as the unmitigated harshness of life’s cruelty and disappointment.

I imagine his instincts will be a natural fit for a pastoral drama like Anne, and he’s accompanied by his closest and best collaborators. Hayao Miyazaki serves as Anne’s setting and layout manager, while Yoshifumi Kondo is serving as character designer and animation director. Miyazaki requires no introduction, while Kondo stands alongside Satoshi Kon as one of our most tragically short-lived masters – the director of Whisper of the Heart, he was intended to be Takahata and Miyazaki’s successor at Ghibli.

Anne’s staff ranks are undoubtedly suffused with more luminaries from across anime history, but I’m eager to get to the show. The Ghibli-led Masterpiece Theater era represents one of the clear high points in anime history, an intermingling of literary substance and animation talent that has rarely been matched since. I’ve been holding off on this anime treasure trove for too long, and am thrilled to have so much Takahata work before me. Let’s get to it!

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Summer 2021 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to the site! How are all your weeks going? I’ve personally been working harder than ever, and actually feeling pretty good about it. By pushing most of my weekly busywork tasks from the weekend to the week proper, I’ve reassigned my weekends to more long-form projects, and thus have been making great strides in articles on Spirit Circle and Toradora. I’m looking forward to releasing those, but in the meantime, we munched through some interesting feature films, as well as an excellent recent cartoon. Let’s check ‘em out!

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Big Windup! – Episode 6

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. You all ready for some baseball? When last we left off, Mihashi and his new teammates had at last pulled ahead of his former team, securing two runs while Mihashi maintained his clean shutout. Mihashi’s actual skill level was always clear to opposing pitcher Kanou, and with his teammates refusing to see it, Kanou’s nerve was badly shaken. In fact, he almost got in a fight with his catcher Hatake, before their reliable ace and apparent mediator Oda cleared everyone’s heads.

Things have been going smoothly so far, but that’s largely been a result of the Mihoshi team not taking this match seriously. With Kanou now having made clear just how much this match means to him, his teammates have rallied to his side, and Mihashi will now be facing a far more motivated opposing lineup. Even Momoe recognized the fraught nature of this moment, urging Abe to protect his pitcher the best he can. Mihashi is currently like a bright-eyed baby bird on the verge of leaving the nest, and it’s up to Abe to keep him from being… perforated with emotional buckshot? I dunno, that metaphor kinda got away from me. Regardless, we’re at a critical moment, and I’m eager to see these teams face off at full strength. Let’s get to the field!

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Bodacious Space Pirates – Episode 14

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today, if weather permits, I was thinking about taking a brief space flight, and perhaps checking in on the crew of the Bentenmaru.

Last episode saw Marika solidifying her alliance with the Serenity royal family, by which I mean she invited the princesses to her house for dinner. Marika possesses a unique combination of amiability and confidence that makes it easy for her to disarm basically anyone, turning political negotiations and pirate standoffs alike into conversations between friends. She is a master of drawing others into her pace, and as the leader of a crew of rowdy rapscallions, that skill is likely even more important than her general competency and intelligence.

Of course, Marika is at her best when she has a Spock to balance her inherent Kirk-ness – thus I’m hoping this episode will see the return of Chiaki, and more delightful bickering between our main pair. But whatever the future holds, I’m sure we’re in for a pleasant time as we return to Bodacious Space Pirates!

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Adachi and Shimamura – Episode 9

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It’s just one thing after another with these two, isn’t it? It seemed like we were making some genuine progress through their Christmas date, but then Adachi pulled her usual disappearing act, resurfacing just in time to get anxious all over again about Valentine’s Day. Then, when it seemed the two of them were actually inching towards some sort of mutual understanding, Shimamura’s original Adachi-like lamprey appears, eager to rekindle a personal relationship with her. Considering Adachi’s profound insecurities regarding her importance to Shimamura, I imagine we’re in for a real charnel house of a Valentine’s Day celebration.

That said, our leads have made some key, undeniable steps forward in terms of their psychological conflicts. Both of them have admitted that the other’s presence has “returned some color” to their world, a clear enough metaphor for rising above the muffling haze of depression. Additionally, they’re each starting to recognize the differences in how they perceive each other; Adachi understands that Shimamura doesn’t reciprocate her overwhelming passion, while Shimamura is doing her best to respect Adachi’s intense feelings. They’re close enough now that the idea of genuinely honest conversation is no longer a distant dream – so of course, here comes Tarumi to throw a wrench in the works. Let’s wince our way through the fallout for another episode of Adachi and Shimamura!

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Summer 2021 – Week 8 in Review

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Jeez, the anime seasonal schedule is all kinds of messed up, huh? According to broadcast schedules, late August is somehow just two-thirds of the way through the summer season. Well, I can’t exactly complain, and it’s frankly my own fault for not transitioning to a more appropriate title system over a year ago. I dunno, the 13-week divisions just seem like a convenient partitioning device; and at this point, it’d probably be more confusing to change the system, anyway.

That aside, you folks probably aren’t here to read me muse about the outdated framing of these vaguely defined articles. You’re here for some friggin’ reviews, and I’m here to provide, with an odd selection of features ranging from giant ants to journeys beyond the stars. There’s an insurmountably vast number of great films out there, and I’m delighted to share and reflect on just a few more of them. Let’s get to work!

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Oregairu S3 – Episode 5

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to Oregairu, where we most recently witnessed Yui once again martyring herself for the sake of her friends. Though she’s been attempting to pursue a relationship with Hachiman since the very beginning of the series, she also feels that Yukino actually needs Hachiman, and thus steps aside with a smile the moment her happiness inconveniences their relationship.

Yui’s actions aren’t really unexpected. She’s been sacrificing her happiness for her friends’ sake all series long, and one of Oregairu’s fundamental lessons is that personal growth doesn’t progress in a straight or orderly direction. Sometimes we take strange detours on the road to adulthood, and frequently we’ll find ourselves backsliding into habits we’d hoped to escape from. Hachiman himself has experienced this process a few times, but at least with Hachiman, there is generally the intent to improve. In contrast, it seems like Yui has fundamentally accepted that her needs will always come second to those she cares about, and has no plans to impose her desires on anyone. It’s a very Yui decision, but not a healthy one; kindness is a virtue, but everyone has the right to seek happiness, and Yui’s friends would ultimately want her to be happy as well.

Meanwhile, Yukino is busy locking horns with her mother, in what appears to be a proxy battle representing her overall quest for autonomy. I’m not sure how Hachiman plans to address this situation, but I’m content to watch the sparks fly as these battleships collide. Let’s return to the emotional battlefield of Oregairu!

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The Big O – Episode 15

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to The Big O, in the wake of a season premiere that was more boldly surreal than anything the show’s first season threw at us. With the revelation of his origins having shaken his faith in his own identity, Roger Smith walked the streets of a city that was alien to him, and saw his own life story refracted through theater and fiction. After a season of repeatedly dipping its toe in the water, The Big O at last took a plunge into the waters of existentialism.

The Big O has dabbled in surrealism and art-horror before. After all, these genres make for comfortable bedfellows with Big O’s central noir and giant robot influences. Noir has a tendency to embrace ambiguity of all kinds – moral ambiguity, of course, but also a more existential sort of uncertainty, a sense that this world is more vast and inexplicable than our capacity to contain it. Noir heroes know they cannot tame this world – they struggle against it, but the genre’s best moments are often acts of surrender, the “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” or “stuff that dreams are made of” moments. In these moments, the distance between noir and conventional crime dramas becomes clear – crime dramas are a fantasy of order and control, whereas noir understands this world is too strange and terrible to ever be pinned down.

Unsurprisingly, this sense of existential unease fuses naturally with The Big O’s psychological inquiry, presenting a world where the boundaries between reality and fantasy, or mystery and horror, are frequently blurred. Whether investigating his client’s requests or his own past, Roger is beginning to discover secrets that are perhaps better left undisturbed. The question is shifting from “can Roger discover the secret of Paradigm” to “should Roger discover the secret of Paradigm, and will his own sense of self survive the process?”

Let’s find out.

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The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 8

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Good day everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, as Sayo Yamamoto and Mari Okada continue to tease unexpected and fascinating results out of their twist on the Lupin formula. Last episode saw Fujiko deftly navigate a clear analogue for the Cuban Missile Crisis, spending a little quality time with “Fiadel Kastro” before Goemon cut some missiles in half. In spite of the episode’s loaded political context, Fujiko’s emphatically apolitical perspective actually resulted in a relatively lighthearted episode, more of a vacation than a revolution.

Fujiko’s disinterest in any larger political or moral framework for her actions is one of the most interesting, revealing aspects of her character. As a thief who loves her work, she obviously has no compunction to act in ways that echo larger moral principles. But beyond that, she seems to have embraced a kind of amorality that serves as an essential defense in a hostile world. Fujiko doesn’t have the luxury of principle – the world has been against her from the start, and thus anything she wants, she has been forced to claim by whatever means are available.

Rather than seeking solidarity with fellow victims and pushing back against this unfair world, Fujiko is content to manipulate the rules as she understands them, using intractable, demeaning cultural assumptions like “feminine innocence and fragility” to mislead her opponents. It’s a savvy response to a situation that is entirely outside her control, the natural deduction of someone who knows she can only depend on herself. Fujiko didn’t choose this world, but she’s happy to exploit it, and I’m eager to see where her adventures lead her next.

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Summer 2021 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! I’ve got a couple choice film cuts for you all today, as we explored an old American classic, and a more recent anime one. I’d been meaning to get to Tekkonkinkreet forever, and while I loved the film, I’m a little annoyed that watching it has only left me with even more homework, as now I must read everything Taiyo Matsumoto has ever written. Additionally, we’ve hit the second act break in Wano, which I’ve decided is a fine opportunity to take stock of the journey so far. And before you even ask, no I have not yet seen the final Evangelion movie, but I will as soon as possible! Believe me, you folks will be the first to know, so long as I see it on a Tuesday night and don’t talk to anyone else before my Wednesday post goes up. In the meantime, let’s break down some films!

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