The Girl in Twilight – Episode 3

Hello all, and welcome back to Why It Works! Today we’re exploring more of The Girl in Twilight, a show whose first episode intrigued me and second episode impressed me, which makes me eager to see how it expands from here. Using the handy motif of shifting between radio frequencies, Twilight has established a world where disruptive choices create branching parallel worlds, with each potential choice forming its own ongoing reality. But rather than get swamped in the nitty-gritty of scifi minutiae, Twilight has immediately directed its conceit towards questions of identity and society, through first shifting our heroes to a world where all women are assigned a marriage partner at the end of high school.

I was excited to see Twilight using its fantastical elements to immediately explore such a charged and identity-shaping concept. The greatest strength of Twilight’s first episode was how quickly and convincingly it established the dynamic personalities of its main characters, as well as the distinctive relationships they share. With that bedrock already set, the show is now able to explore how culture actually shapes identity – how it conditions us to see certain concepts as laudable or alien, and in this particular world’s case, how oppressive societal mandates can essentially grind down our individual personhood.

All this social commentary and reflections on identity are precisely my sort of shit, but we’ve also got a more urgent problem to deal with: Nana, who has indeed been granted her wish of “a universe of hot guys,” and now may not even want to come home. This place is strange, but she is wanted here – in contrast, she already feels like an outsider in her own original home. Let’s see how her friends deal with her current predicament!

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Kaiba – Episode 2

Kaiba’s second episode opens on a monologue that serves as both a description of its world, and an articulation of its central question. “Are memories one’s soul, or one’s spirit? This is a world where memories can be turned into data, and stored.” The age-old question of where our fundamental “identity” resides is further complicated by the next line, as the narrator explains that in this world, “bad memories are deleted, while fun memories are downloaded.” If memories can be altered, it seems inappropriate to consider them our “soul” – but if we are nothing but that collection of memories, being altered and bartered and passed from body to body, what other selfhood could we be said to possess?

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Spring 2020 – Week 8 in Review

Alright folks, pile in, pile in. This week saw my household running through a gauntlet of classic films, ranging from neo-noir highlights to Kubrickian nightmares, with a bonus pair of recent favorites tossed in for seasoning. As quarantine stretches on and time continues to lose any sense of meaning, I’ve begun measuring my life more in films than in weeks, meaning a day without a film basically ceases to exist. This is probably not good for my sense of self or long-term health, but I think we’re all doing the best we can at the moment, and if my coping mechanisms can be turned into Content, I’m happy to indulge them. Let’s see how I survived the last few days, as we storm through another Week in Review!

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Why It Works: What Anime Should You Check Out After Avatar: The Last Airbender?

With the spring season largely cancelled by COVID, the anime-adjacent thing I’ve most enjoyed recently has undoubtedly been the utterly fantastic Avatar: The Last Airbender. And fortunately, with Avatar having recently gone up on Netflix, this was also the perfect time to recommend anime mirroring a variety of its many strengths. I kinda regret I didn’t fit in a “fully articulated character arcs” segment, but there’s probably only so many times I can recommend March comes in like a lion and Monogatari before someone starts yelling at me. Mushishi will have to do this time!

What Anime Should You Check Out After Avatar: The Last Airbender?

Symphogear AXZ – Episode 2

You folks ready for some goddamn Symphogear? I know I certainly am! Season four’s first episode didn’t so much conclude as it ran out of frames mid-sentence, with the Main Gears still in the midst of battle with some nefarious alchemists, while the Auxiliary Gears squared off against a giant magical sand worm. The gang hasn’t faced a giant magical sand worm yet, but I suspect they’ll approach it using a tried and true method: singing about their feelings while beating the shit out of it with various weapons, possibly with a transformation sequence or two tossed in there for flavor. Now that we’re all back on the same page, let’s dive right into the continuing adventures of SYYYYMPHOOOOOGEAARRRRRRRRRRR!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 10

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! It has been far too long since we visited the islands of Alola, at least from my perspective, and I’m eager to dive into another episode of Pokemon Sun and Moon. And we’ve got a genuinely climactic episode in store for us, as Ash at last takes on his first Grand Trial, and hopefully completes the first major step of his island pilgrimage. Last episode saw Pikachu and Rowlet teaming up to conquer this island’s Totem Pokemon, offering perhaps the strongest demonstration yet of this production’s ability to turn the rigid, turn-based combat of the Pokemon games into energetic, tactically rewarding action scenes. Given how well this show’s art design has elevated even its slice of life material, I’m eager to see how the show illustrates its major battles, and also just happy to check in with this show’s charming cast again. Let’s get to it!

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The Big O – Episode 5

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m excited to be returning to The Big O, and once again exploring the world of Paradigm with Roger and his companions. Episode four actually shed at least a glimmer of light on some of this show’s core mysteries, as Roger’s search for a missing author led him to first encounter the mysterious Schwartzwald, and then ultimately discover both an ancient cityscape and a half-formed Megadeus in the bowels of Paradigm’s subway system. With even the subway system itself having long fallen into disrepair, it is clear that just as Paradigm’s residents are building new lives on a bed of buried memories, so too is the city itself constructed on the forgotten bones of an older world. Questions of memory and identity are baked into the core of The Big O, and whether this episode continues to tug at the threads of those mysteries, or simply offers another stylish and exciting neo-noir adventure, I’m happy to dive back into this excellent production. Let’s see what Paradigm holds in store!

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Spring 2020 – Week 7 in Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week my house powered through a couple of esteemed series, including Avatar: The Last Airbender and a good chunk of Donald Glover’s Atlanta. I was frankly surprised by just how much I loved Avatar, and will be sure to return to the series at some point – it feels like one of those rare “lightning in a bottle” productions, doubly so in light of its disappointing followup. We’ve got plenty of rambling thoughts to get through, so let’s not waste any more time as we dive into another Week in Review!

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Why It Works: Why You Absolutely Need to Check Out Pokemon: Twilight Wings!

As is often the case for Why It Works posts, the title says it all here. The new Pokemon shorts they’ve been producing to promote Sword and Shield are phenomenal, blessed by a terrific core team and the freedom to seemingly tell any sort of vignette within Sword and Shield’s universe. They’re a fantastic collection, and they’re each only about six minutes, so there’s not much excuse to check them out. But if you still need convincing, here’s my article!

Why You Absolutely Need to Check Out Pokemon: Twilight Wings!

Bodacious Space Pirates – Episode 4

Heads up folks, we’re returning at last to the starry skies of Bodacious Space Pirates. Last episode saw our heroine Marika seem to finally catch the space-faring bug, as her first space walk introduced her to the incredible grandeur and mystery of space. At the same time, Kane has been both testing and reinforcing her leadership abilities, while Chiaki seems to be slowly warming up to her chipper new classmate. But perhaps most importantly, episode three also demonstrated Bodacious Space Pirates’ satisfyingly thorough approach to conveying the mechanics of space travel itself, which seems like an excellent choice for a show centered on the dynamics of a ship’s bridge. I wasn’t really expecting such grounded, hard scifi storytelling from a show called “Bodacious Space Pirates,” but I’m happy to see it, and intrigued to find out how the show’s realistic and farcical elements continue to interact. Let’s get back into space!

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