Hugtto! Precure – Episode 18

Posted on by

Hello all, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. It has been far too long since we checked in on the stars of Hugtto! Precure, so today we’re addressing that oversight directly, and diving back into the world of Hana and her very patient friends. We arrive on the heels of an absurd run of episodes, with two of the series’ greatest animation spectacles leading directly into Lulu’s long-awaited break from Criasu Corp. In our last episode, Lulu’s story came full circle, as she once again confronted Hana in a maelstrom of flowers, and ultimately came to embrace the joy and the pain of a human heart.

All that’s well and good, but personally, I’m mostly just waiting for Lulu’s reunion with my own favorite Precure, the anxious rock star Emiru. Last episode left her stranded mid-step, as she raced to save her friend in need, so I’m hoping this episode will open with them bonking heads pretty much immediately. But however the story winds, I’m sure we’ll have an excellent time with Huggto. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Bodacious Space Pirates – Episode 9

Posted on by

Folks, I’m thinking it’s about time for more Bodacious Space Pirates. We last left off the series on the cliffhangeriest of cliffhangers, as Marika found herself on the brink of confrontation with a seemingly hostile force. Though the point of this mission was ostensibly to gain more information on the ghost ship from Gruier’s associates, their initial assumption was that this meant they’d be meeting some kind of reconnaissance ship, with no real possibility of open conflict. Instead, Marika’s now facing down five Serenity combat vessels, one of them already having taken serious damage, prompting the very real possibility of Marika causing an interstellar political incident.

Of course, Marika’s already proven herself a capable mediator, and more practically speaking, we’re only eight episodes into a two-cour production. I can’t imagine Marika getting blown into space dust quite so soon into the show, but I’m eager to see how she avoids that possibility, so let’s dive on into another installment of Bodacious Space Pirates!

Continue reading →

Dorohedoro – Episode 5

Posted on by

Hello everyone, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to Dorohedoro, a show which has swiftly established itself as one of 2020’s very best productions. Heck, Dorohedoro would still be a top show even in a year less beset by plague and isekai; from its charming cast and confident worldbuilding to its absolutely gorgeous background design, the show is an embarrassment of riches, with only the unfortunate weak point of its CG character designs holding it down. But it’s a credit to this story’s appeal that even though its actual fight scenes are pretty lousy, it’s still keeping me gripped with its narrative turns.

Dorohedoro is a fusion of many things, but one of my favorite of its combinations is how it transposes old school magical ritual to a gritty urban setting. Magic isn’t a clean or obvious process here; it’s personal and unmanageable and terribly messy, in the way you’d see in an old-school fairy tale (or more recently, something like The Ancient Magus Bride). Dorohedoro has taken that old-school woods magic and recast it as both the symptom and cause of urban decay, the dark energy that runs through the drainage lines beneath Hole’s concrete jungle. It’s a fascinating mix, like a witchier variation on cyberpunk, and I’m eager to see what else Q Hayashida can do with it. Without further rambling, let’s get to Dorohedoro!

Continue reading →

Fall 2020 – Week 9 in Review

Posted on by

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’m terrified to report that the Week in Review has grown into a wild and furious beast, and at this time I fear it’s too powerful to be contained. I mentioned last week how I’d watched too many dang movies, thus forcing me to shuffle some of my writeups over to this week – well, as it turned out, I kept watching movies this week, and now the situation’s even more out of control. I can’t just keep foisting extra reviews onto the next week’s article ad infinitum, so I’m declaring that the buck stops here, and I just keep writing until I’ve powered my way through every outstanding film. You with me? Let’s do this. It’s time for the Week in Review!

Continue reading →

Winter 2021 Season Preview

Posted on by

Hello all, and oh my god, I can barely believe it. I nearly choked up just writing “Winter 2021” for this article title, as I was faced with the enormity of realizing 2020 might one day be over. It’s not even that far off, now! After a year that has simultaneously felt momentary and endless (as Isaac Brock says, “the years go fast but the days go so slow”), it’s at last time to look forward to next year. And though 2021 isn’t exactly promising a reprieve in terms of our global pandemic or political disenfranchisement, it is offering a bunch of cartoons to at least distract us from the end of the world.

Per usual, I won’t be breaking all of the season’s coming attractions here – you can check out a full list over at anichart, along with synopses and trailers and whatnot. Instead, I’ll just be covering the shows that actually grabbed my attention, be it via a strong staff list, impressive trailer, or noteworthy source material. I think that about covers the preamble, so let’s get into it, and see what’s in store in the winter season!

Continue reading →

Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 31

Posted on by

It is currently November 18th where I’m sitting, a day which I until five minutes ago was mentally categorizing as “the day before Thanksgiving.” As it turns out, and you may already know, Thanksgiving does not fall on November 19th this year – in fact, it would be temporally impossible for Thanksgiving to ever fall on a November 19th, so I’m not really sure what I was thinking.

Anyway, the long and short of this is that I’ve been stressing about an event that I have no good reason to stress about for at least seven more days, and I’d very much like to calm down a bit. And considering there’s no better show for relaxing than Sun and Moon, it seems to me like the clear, obvious choice is to head off to Alola, and once more enjoy a lighthearted adventure in the sun with our delightful pokemon companions. That sound okay to all of you? I mean, presumably you’ll just close the tab and wait for my next article if it’s not okay, but I like to preserve the illusion of choice here. Let’s assume you agree, then, and ship off for a fresh episode of Sun and Moon!

Continue reading →

Adachi and Shimamura – Episode 2

Posted on by

Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to continue our journey through Adachi and Shimamura, whose first episode demonstrated a nuance of characterization and grace of imagery that seemed to indicate it is Exactly My Sort Of Thing.

On the character front, both Adachi and Shimamura seem like complicated and pleasingly messy people. There’s a frankness to their characterization that gives the show a real sense of impact – Adachi isn’t just a loner, she’s a genuine outcast, while Shimamura isn’t just disaffected, she acts on that dissatisfaction by openly mocking her alleged friends. Their feelings and the contexts of their lives feel petty and human, making it easy to invest in their awkward emerging relationship.

In visual terms, AdaShima combines KyoAni-reminiscent tricks like partial body shots and exaggerated soft focus with an emphasis on visual geometry, making great use of sets like the girls’ ping-pong table to visually illustrate its conflicts and relationships. It’s basically all good stuff so far, and considering the sharp edge the show already possesses, I’m eager to see how messy things get. Let’s check it out!

Continue reading →

Fall 2020 – Week 8 in Review

Posted on by

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. You’ll be pleased to learn that I ran through an absurd collection of features this week, in both live-action and animated varieties, and even finished a full anime series in the bargain. I also checked out the first two Heaven’s Feel movies, along with the usual assortment of horror features ranging from compact new thrillers to an Italian classic. It was actually such a productive week that I’m saving a couple of this week’s films for next week, so if you’ve been following my twitter and are wondering why Magnetic Rose or Touch of Evil don’t show up here, don’t worry. More reviews are assuredly coming, but in the meantime, let’s break down a fresh stack of features in the Week in Review!

Continue reading →

Kaguya-sama: Love is War – Episode 4

Posted on by

Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to keep moving on one of our more recent projects, the goofy and visually enthralling Kaguya-sama: Love is War. If you’ve been following these articles, you probably know my overall impressions at this point – I’m constantly finding new things to rave about regarding Shinichi Omata’s direction, but haven’t yet been hooked by the show’s cast, and am generally just kind of whelmed by its comedy.

That’s not unusual for me, of course. It’s a rare anime comedy that can keep my attention for long, and altogether, I think Nichijou is the only one I’d count as a personal favorite. I’ve discussed before how comedy, like horror, is built out of the element of surprise – and in order to cultivate that surprise, it relies on an assumed set of common cultural assumptions. The more complex and ambitious a joke is, the more it must assume its audience is drawing from a specific cultural and knowledge base – and as a dude from New England, I don’t really possess the experience to parse genuinely clever Japanese comedy. What is left is the stuff that’s universal – slapstick, silly faces, and everything else that translates without translation.

In the end, this means that the anime comedy which I might find genuinely clever is frequently untranslatable to me, while the stuff I do understand feels simplistic and repetitive. Honing the fundamentals can certainly ameliorate this effect (Nichijou and Sun & Moon are strong examples of that), but ultimately, I tend to watch these shows more for the characters than the jokes. So here’s to hoping for more meaty character moments, as we explore one more episode of Kaguya-sama!

Continue reading →

Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 30

Posted on by

We’ve made it, folks. Thirty episodes in, and Pokemon Sun and Moon is still pulling off delightful new vignettes every episode, and still demonstrating animation flourishes that put much shorter shows to shame. One of Sun and Moon’s principle themes is “it’s not about victory, it’s about the journey,” and that maxim comes through clearly in the show’s episodic design, as it offers adventure after adventure with no clear destination, but plentiful fun moments that serve as their own inherent reward.

At the same time, Sun and Moon’s laid-back, slice of life style is serving an ongoing dramatic purpose, the same as it does in any great, atmosphere-focused slice of life show. Through sharing adventures with these characters at the steady pace of their own lives, the audience is also being integrated into Alolan society, coming to understand its rhythms, and gaining a sense of belonging within the familiar walls of Kukui’s cabin, or the Pokemon School. The more time we spend in Alola, the more friendly and familiar it feels; ultimately, while slice of life shows frequently lack lateral narrative movement, they exchange that for a greater sense of texture, solidity, and belonging in their chosen location. The end result is that returning to a great slice of life show feels like returning home – so let’s celebrate that home once more, as we explore another episode of Sun and Moon!

Continue reading →