Why It Works: Prepare Yourselves for a Superb, Sequel-Packed Spring Season!

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Along with my own personal list of shows that appeal to my snooty critical sensibilities, this week I also wrote up a more general preview piece for Crunchyroll, highlighting the shows that your average anime fan might actually care about. I couldn’t help myself from devoting a bonus paragraph to Oregairu, but otherwise this is a pretty straightforward rundown of the upcoming season’s likely biggest hits, with an emphasis on the big friggin’ sequels in store. Let’s get to it!

Prepare Yourselves for a Superb, Sequel-Packed Spring Season!

Winter 2020 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome to another Week in Review. The film pickings were particularly generous this week, as I ended up watching two of the better films I’ve seen in months – and hey, one of them was even an anime! I finally checked out In This Corner of the World, and it turned out to be one of the best anime I’ve seen in years, reminding me once again of this art form’s boundless artistic potential, as well as its ability to make me sob like a baby. This post is already behind schedule and I’ve got plenty to talk about, so let’s not waste any more time, as we jump into one more Week in Review!

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Spring 2020 Season Preview

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Hello all, and welcome to Wrong Every Time! Today I am terrified to announce that it is some-fucking-how time for the spring previews, as the winter season is already drawing to a close. As is tradition, today I’ll be breaking down the most promising prospects of the upcoming season – though in this case, that process is somewhat complicated by the fact that spring is so entirely packed with sequels.

Seriously, just look at this friggin’ list. Re:Zero, Kaguya-sama, SAO, Fruits Basket, Food Wars!, Bookworm… heck, even friggin’ Jashin-chan Dropkick is getting a sequel. This is perhaps the point where my current policy of only continuing shows that genuinely thrill me starts to become a problem – when you combine that with the profound risk aversion built into the anime production system, you end up with over half a dozen “long-awaited sequels” to shows I dropped in their first or second episodes.

Fortunately, even if you set aside the majority of the major sequels, this is still looking to be a fine season – certainly more diverse than winter, at least, which mostly broke down into Eizouken and Everything Else. As usual, I won’t be highlighting every single show here – just the ones that I think have significant potential, either due to their staff, acclaimed source material, or whatever else catches my eye. Without further ado, let’s break down the most promising contenders of the Spring 2020 Anime Season!

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Chihayafuru S3 – Episode 20

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Folks, it is Chihayafuru time, and we do not have a goddamn minute to lose. After nearly a full goddamn season of building up the Master and Queen challenger matches, I at this point feel like a finely squeezed orange, my emotions entirely drained out of me, nothing remaining but a bruised shell of a human being. Haruka has been built up into one of Chihayafuru’s most distinctive, sympathetic characters so far, and last episode saw her defeated by Shinobu, and step off the professional stage for what is likely the very last time. My only consolation regarding that match is that, now that it’s over, the trials of competition can’t hurt Haruka or Shinobu anymore.

Over on the Masters’ side, Harada and Suo’s grueling faceoff is ending on one more goddamn luck of the draw. I definitely feel these recent matches have abused luck of the draws enough to result in some diminishing returns, but I also can’t deny that they’re one of the most powerful dramatic tools in karuta’s toolbox, and furthermore seem particularly appropriate for a match that may influence karuta’s overall destiny as a sport. Let’s see how this brutal battle ends!

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Land of the Lustrous – Episode 3

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Land of the Lustrous’ third episode opens with vivid colors in a shimmering visual stew, as Phos is seemingly digested by a great creature’s stomach acids. The scene is simultaneously beautiful and horrifying, capturing the contradiction at the heart of all this show’s many transformations, and demonstrating Land of the Lustrous’ own greatest visual strengths in turn. In conveying the roiling emotions of its gemstone heroes, Land of the Lustrous is often at its best when it leans into abstraction like this – angular shapes and colors spilling over each other, rather than direct, neutral visual representation.

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Winter 2020 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to the Week in Review! I worked through a solid pile of fresh films this week, including a mix of anime tie-ins, strong genre features, and one of 2019’s fan favorites, and I’ve got plenty of thoughts to share with you all. Incidentally, I’d like to thank you all for accepting this season’s shift in Week in Review structure, as from my perspective, it’s been very rewarding to simply write about whatever recent art has actually inspired me, rather than limiting myself to the scope of the current anime season. Anime’s great, but there’s an infinite horizon of art out there, and I plan to explore as much of it as I can. Let’s get to it!

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Why It Works: My Hero Academia’s Most Terrifying Team-Ups!

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Today I’ve got a pretty silly Why It Works feature, mostly prompted by how much fun the new My Hero Academia movie was. Inspired by that film’s generous spread of 1-A combinations, I took a crack at building my own My Hero Academia teams, along with some light commentary on the general fun of the hero team concept. Here’s the piece!

My Hero Academia’s Most Terrifying Team-Ups!

One Piece – Volume 19

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We return to One Piece in the midst of its Alabasta arc, as we’re presumably nearing the climax of the overarching “Baroque Works” era. I haven’t actually read One Piece before, but given this final confrontation will involve squaring off against the actual leader of the Baroque Works pirates, and prompt either the fruition or destruction of the plan he’s been concocting for literally years, I have at least a certain degree of confidence that this arc will resolve the overall Baroque Works saga. So how does the view look from this point, as we near the conclusion of such a crucial conflict?

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Chihayafuru S3 – Episode 19

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The Master and Queen matches have evolved into an emotionally and physically exhausting battle for the future of karuta, with all four contenders playing as though their very lives were at stake. And in a way, they are – all four of these competitors have given a great portion of their lives to karuta, and all four of them are hoping to honor that time, and validate the karuta philosophy that has carried them this far.

For Harada, this match represents his last, best chance to become the Master, before his body is no longer up to the task of holding out for full tournaments of competition. He cannot possibly match Suo in physical dexterity, but what he lacks in youth, he’s making up for in endless tactical invention, as he deploys new weapons for each separate round of play. For Haruka, her approaching third child means this is her last chance as well – and she’s fighting not just for herself, but for anyone who’d hope to balance both karuta and family life.

On the defending side, the reveal of Suo’s vision problems may imply he’s facing a physical clock as unforgiving as either of his opponents’, while simultaneously standing on the precipice of adult life and its time-sapping demands. And yet, in spite of the stress-inducing finality of all three of these positions, it might actually be Shinobu who needs this win the most – Shinobu, who has chosen never to compromise on her passion, and who has instead worked to wrap herself entirely in karuta, and build her identity solely out of love for the sport. Shinobu is strong, but her single-mindedness also makes her fragile, and her fate in this tournament may ultimately rest on those human connections she’s so long denied. However these matches end, the landscape of Chihayafuru is sure to be forever altered as we enter the final battles!

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Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – Episode 6

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am beyond excited to continue our journey into Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, as I’ve once again put off my first viewing of this episode until this very moment. Last week, Eizouken managed to turn a topic I don’t actually have much interest in (giant robots) into another essential exploration of the creative process, as the show explored the finer details of seeking inspiration for new projects, dealing with difficult clients, and finding common ground within creative collaborations.

Asakusa and Mizusaki are in large part a strong team because they bounce so easily and happily off each other – in contrast, their negotiations with the robot club were far more tense, but still ultimately resulted in a design everyone was happy with. That negotiation process also highlighted some of the natural disconnects that tend to exist between audiences and creatives – in particular, how audiences often seek a “perfectly real” fantasy that can only exist as a personal feeling, and which becomes an impossible contradiction when introduced to sunlight. A great part of the artist’s job is to massage the sharp edges of that contradiction – to present a fantasy that is technically impossible, but still feels “real” and emotionally impactful, due to the many clever tricks of presentation Eizouken has so thoughtfully explored. Whatever creative design stone Eizouken wishes to unturn this week, I’m eager to return to this charming, beautiful, and incredibly generous production. Let’s get to it!

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