Dorohedoro – Episode 8

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So what is it that makes Dorohedoro’s fantastical worldbuilding so special? I was just discussing this with a friend, as in general, I feel like “emphasis on worldbuilding” tends to be one of anime’s greatest narrative weaknesses. Rather than focusing on an emotionally resonant human narrative, many shows focus entirely on scaffolding and set dressing, and yet I never feel genuinely entranced by their worlds. So where does Dorohedoro succeed where all these isekai and trapped-in-a-game shows fail?

Well, first of all, it helps a great deal that Dorohedoro has genuinely unique ideas. Systems of magic and videogame-reminiscent technology only feel fresh and engaging the first couple times; in contrast, Dorohedoro fills its every episode with marvelous incidental concepts like the Hell Toilet, and its worldbuilding never feels strictly derivative of other ideas. I admit that “have a lot of unique ideas” isn’t the most actionable writing advice, but it’s certainly an area where Q Hayashida shines.

But more fundamentally, what Hayashida understands is that great fantasy should stretch our minds and inspire us, not simply flatter our ability to understand mechanical systems. Dorohedoro’s fanciful worldbuilding isn’t designed to make its world understandable – in fact, it’s rather the opposite. Through its inexplicable setpieces and vaguely alluded-to rituals, Dorohedoro constantly pushes back against our ability to categorize and contain it, positing a world that is vaster than our ability to imagine it. Great fantasy offers not just marvelous adventures, but the promise of a world undefined, with dangling, inexplicable threads that capture our imagination, and ideas that remain in view but distant, vast monoliths implying more untold stories. That is what makes great fantasy special, and it’s a quality that Dorohedoro has in endless supply. Let’s delight in its riches once more then, as we bound through one more episode of Dorohedoro!

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Winter 2021 – Week 10 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Over in the hyperbolic media chamber, this was a week of projects, as I dug into games that had been sitting on the shelf for too long, and also passively watched maybe fifty episodes of background anime. After my housemates decided to watch the Bleach live action film (my review: it’s an anime live action film), one of them was inspired enough to return to The Source itself, and power through the entire goddamn Soul Society arc. So for once, the answer to “where is Bleach” is truly “here is Bleach.” We’ve got that and more to get to, so let’s start powering through the Week in Review!

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Kaguya-sama: Love is War – Episode 6

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Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to Kaguya-sama: Love is War, which, if you’ve been following along with my articles, you know I’ve been having a pretty tough time with. The main issue is simply that I don’t really enjoy its jokes, which are presumably supposed to ingratiate me towards its cast, in order for me to feel that much more invested in its eventual dramatic turns. This is a pretty common structural trick, but if the audience isn’t amenable to your style of comedy, you run the risk of losing them entirely – like in my experience with, say, Clannad, which so utterly failed to amuse me that I instead entered its dramatic phase with a feeling of ingrained resentment.

I’m doing my best, though. The advice I received from readers was to try assessing it as a character piece now, rather than a comedy, so that’s what I’m gonna try to do. With my expectations hopefully calibrated successfully, let’s dig into another episode of Kaguya-sama!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 38

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be journeying back to the islands of Alola, as Ash and company continue their island pilgrimage. It hasn’t really felt like much of an island pilgrimage until recently – for the first thirty episodes or so, Ash was mostly just hanging around and making friends, with an occasional pokemon battle tossed in for spice. But since the team journeyed to Akala, things have really picked up speed – Lana’s gained a Z-crystal, Kaki’s caught a Marowak, and Ash has gained a Z-crystal, conquered an island trial, and evolved his Rockruff into a Ultra Rare Limited Edition Dusk Lycanroc.

I keep assuming the next episode is going to cool things down, and I keep being emphatically proven wrong in that assumption, so I’m gonna stop letting Sun and Moon own me and just say I’m happy to be here. Sun and Moon is delightful, both its action-packed and carefree episodes are a treasure, and I’m perpetually thankful that my work allows me to be your tour guide through this wonderful show. Let’s see what’s waiting on the islands of Alola!

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Space Battleship Yamato 2199 – Episode 2

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be continuing a show I last watched four friggin’ years ago, as we explore the second episode of Space Battleship Yamato 2199. My initial essay on the first episode offers a pretty instructive look at where my head’s at as we enter the second. While Yamato’s reverence for war machines doesn’t really move me, its status as a cross-generational tale of Japanese identity is fascinating, and in any case it’s such a confident, well-executed production that it succeeds purely as an adventure narrative. And with the first episode concluding on our hero literally discovering the Yamato itself as a half-buried relic of the past, I imagine the show is perfectly aware of its own thematic baggage. Let’s see what we find in episode two!

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Winter 2021 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’m pleased to report that I’ve had a delightful past week in film, running through an array of productions that were overflowing with all sorts of entertaining monsters. My house held a “monsters then and now” double feature of the original Godzilla and the new Monster Hunter, we chewed through a terrific home invasion film, and we also checked out Shudder’s mean-spirited yet hilarious new horror-comedy. Giant monsters, human monsters, goofy monsters, and monsters you hunt down in order to collect parts to make your big sword even bigger and swordier – perhaps not the most genre-diverse crowd, but an entertaining one nevertheless. Let’s break ‘em all down in the Week in Review!

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Symphogear AXZ – Episode 13

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Hello folks, and what the fuck is up. You all ready for some goddamn SYMPHOGEAR!???!?!?? I know I certainly am, and that it’s been far too long since we last checked in on the team’s adventures. Hibiki’s fist has been suspended in mid-punch for weeks now, her roar of “I’ll punch you with my song” resounding with all the force of a show’s essential pitch expressed as dialogue.

Adam is one of the most vile, irredeemable villains this franchise has concocted, and with the alchemists having already sacrificed themselves, it falls to our heroes to Finish This Fight. Having rescued Hibiki from one of those evil cocoons that our characters keep stumbling into, the team is fully assembled, and undoubtedly about to unleash some combo attack that exceeds my theatrical imagination. It’s frankly hard being a hype man for a show that’s this genuinely hype, so I’m gonna give myself a rest now, and just let the show take the reins. Let’s dive into the final episode of SYMPHOGEAR AXZ!

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The Big O – Episode 11

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into The Big O, and perhaps uncover a few more secrets regarding Paradigm’s strange history. The Big O’s last episode was actually brimming with information regarding the world of Paradigm, though in classic Big O fashion, all of that information was gracefully woven into the course of one more episodic investigation.

As Dastun sought answers regarding the identity of his destined woman, we in the audience learned a great deal about Paradigm, and the world around it. For one thing, it seems like Paradigm’s government is a sham. In spite of the city theoretically possessing a full board of representatives, all of those representatives in turn answer to the city’s true boss, with Angel at his side. Additionally, it appears that the show’s claim that the outside world has been destroyed is just another form of population control, as the episode culminated in outside forces sending a giant robot stomping through the city. Rather than the final holdout of a dying humanity, Paradigm is looking more and more like an isolated dictatorship, raising the question of whether even the mass amnesia was intentionally provoked in order to better control the populace.

But questions like that seem a little outside of Roger’s pay grade, at least while we’re still halfway through the first season. Whatever perils may come, I’m sure The Big O will convey them with genre-savvy finesse and plenty of style. Let’s get to it!

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Wonder Egg Priority – Episode 7

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[CW: Discussions of self-harm. Big Rika episode ahead!]

What did Ai mean by her flight out of home, and her announcement that she’d be going back to school? I frankly wish that was a rhetorical question, and that I was about to unload some insightful musing on her psychology at this particular moment. Unfortunately, I’m as stumped as anyone – while it was tonally clear that the conclusion of episode six helped Ai reach some personal epiphany, the actual nature of that epiphany is unclear.

After an episode that was unabashedly constructed as an exploration of gaslighting’s debilitating power, it seems unlikely that Ai’s takeaway would be “actually, what everyone else tells me I’m supposed to feel is correct.” Her entire support network is telling her to doubt her suspicions of Sawaki – so has she decided to take those suspicions underground, and investigate Sawaki herself?

That might actually make sense, in more than just a strictly narrative sense. One of my major misgivings about the whole egg saving process is that by the time they “save” these girls, they’ve already been terribly abused – and what’s more, these trials only defeat the girls’ mental images of their harassers. In the real world, their abusers are still out there, still making life miserable for new victims. To truly change the world, these abusers must be confronted in reality, before they drive their victims to suicide. So is Ai simply taking her mission to the next level, and attempting to become a real-world egg savior?

Let’s find out.

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Winter 2021 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on this cold, lonely rock. This week in non-anime media started, as many of them have tended to, with Martin Scorsese. Not because I watched another Scorsese film (I’m actually running kind of low on those, which I’m a little proud of), but because he released another terrific essay, articulating both his love for cinema and his fear regarding what’s become of the artform. Let’s start off with that article then, and carry on into my week in cinema!

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