Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am tossing and turning in the maelstrom winds of the apartment hunt process, which has understandably got my nerves a-frazzling. As such, I’m feeling hungry for some animated comfort food, and fortunately the second season of Spy x Family has arrived just in time to wrap us all in a collective blanket of familial cheer. Spy x Family’s first season was consistently funny, often surprisingly thrilling, and perpetually brimming with love for its awkward protagonists. Tatsuya Endo has proven to be an inventive sculptor of both spy and family drama, and the combined talents of Cloverworks and Wit Studio have made for a persistently generous animated adaptation. With last season having concluded on the fateful first encounter between Loid and his target Donovan Desmond, I’m eager to see both the continuation of Operation Strix and the Forgers’ further cohesion into something resembling a functional family. Let’s get to it!
Yuki Yuna is a Hero – Episode 6
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d check in on the continuing adventures of Yuki Yuna and her hero club, and satisfy my intense curiosity regarding what exactly we’ll be doing with the rest of the season. You see, the normal procession with magical girls is generally one antagonist an episode, all leading up to an eventual showdown with the big boss somewhere near the end of the production. However, Yuki Yuna has casually flouted this assumed structure, piling the entirety of its remaining antagonists into its fifth episode, and having our heroes claim their grand victory before we’d even reached the season’s halfway point.
This is all quite exciting stuff to me, as you might guess. There’s nothing wrong with reliable narrative templates; sturdy scaffolding can allow artists to hone in on smaller details of presentation, characterization, or whatever else a story prioritizes. However, it is through breaking with convention that you often find new intersections of structure and dramatic impact, while unmooring your audience such that they experience your twists with the intensity of true surprise, no more certain of their destination than your characters. Let’s see what the horizon holds in a fresh episode of Yuki Yuna!
Fall 2023 – Week 10 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been continuing my efforts to catch up on all of the year’s outstanding, er, outstanding anime, following up on Vinland Saga and The Witch From Mercury with the recently released adaptation of Pluto. I’ve been quite enjoying the production, and will likely have full thoughts on that one for next week, which will hopefully leave me with enough time to sneak in Scott Pilgrim before the year’s end. Anything else I’m missing? I’m already mostly through MyGO, and happily munching through Skip and Loafer whenever a new episode is funded, so I suppose the last question is whether Freiren is worth a viewing. But recent anime aside, my house has also been storming through a variable hodgepodge of feature films, ranging from ‘70s thrillers to horror hot off the press, and they’ve all left me with some urgent thoughts to share. Let’s burn down a fresh collection of films in the Week in Review!
Horus, Prince of the Sun
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am thrilled to announce we’re returning to the classic films of Toei Doga, and what’s more, we’ll be watching the film that’s generally considered the pinnacle of the era: Isao Takahata’s directorial debut, Horus, Prince of the Sun.
Though even the earliest films of Toei Doga demonstrate the talent of mainstays like Yasuji Mori and Yasuo Otsuka, it was Horus where a new generation of talents really came into their own, including Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. Bonded all the closer by the ongoing labor protests, Horus’ team would create a high water mark in animation that simultaneously served as a broadening of animation’s potential. As Miyazaki would describe it, Horus embodied the world of animation shifting from one of farce to “Chishu Ryu’s world,” widening the medium’s dramatic priorities and opening the door to thoughtful, meditative works that went beyond energetic escapism.
So basically, that strain of inquisitive melancholy that so fascinates me in anime was in many ways forged in the production of Horus, owing largely to Isao Takahata’s unique and far-seeing perspective. It’s the same thoughtful approach that would lend such gravity to his later Ghibli films, that would migrate out to inform generations of future animators, that would ring through to the modern era through the works of artists like Naoko Yamada. Otsuka would happily admit that this turning point was the moment anime as a medium stretched beyond his own ambitions, and that he’d rather “let the director direct, and have fun doing my own thing.” Miyazaki’s description of this change was humble as well, as he admitted that “only Yasuji Mori” understood the essence of Horus was the melancholy girl Hilda, not the adventures of Horus himself.
Even today, anime for the most part constrains itself to stories of adolescent adventure, indulgence, and bravado. But for the productions that reach beyond such topics, that struggle to depict ordinary happiness and everyday melancholy, the substance of lives as they are lived – for those stories, Horus was a guiding star, and a triumph of animation by any standard. Let’s get to it!
BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! – Episode 7
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to jump back into the thorny drama of MyGO, as our fledgling bandmates continue to tumble over each other both literally and emotionally. Most recently, Taki’s attempt to live up to Sakiko’s band leader legacy has left her anxious and overwhelmed, with the specter of CRYCHIC clearly still haunting our new band’s every step. Taki has been holding herself to an impossible standard, so desperate not to lose Tomori that she nearly destroyed the band in the process. Fortunately, our as-yet-unnamed new group is not nearly so brittle as the last; our players may stumble, but Tomori will always be there with a bandaid for their skinned knees.
As always, MyGO has articulated the band’s latest fault lines with uncommon grace and thoughtfulness, quietly emphasizing the very different ways each member perceives this group. Soyo is still desperate to create CRYCHIC 2.0, and her increasingly vocal indifference to Anon’s presence, combined with Taki’s desire to push Anon out of the active composition altogether, have made it clear that the band is essentially composed of two discordant social groups. But Anon is not the flighty transient she once was; having committed to sharing her feelings with Tomori, she’s now genuinely invested in this group, as her retrieval of Taki well demonstrated. And Taki herself is nothing if not earnest; if she can get over her dislike of Anon, the group will possess an iron core strong enough to weather both Soyo’s machinations and Raana’s unreliable attendance. Let’s see how our heroes fare in a fresh episode of MyGO!
Hugtto! Precure – Episode 40
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into Hugtto! Precure, as we continue to soar towards its approaching endgame. It’s clear enough that the time for fun episodic larks is largely behind us; in fact, last episode felt very much like we were already at the climax, with its thunderous reveals regarding Harry and Risutol’s shared history clarifying much about Criasu’s relationship with the hamsters. Characters like Risutol and Bishin didn’t simply embrace evil, they were recruited via Criasu’s promises to save their dying village – and having embraced complicity and lost their homes anyway, they now hope simply to maintain whatever community is left to them on the other side.
Having shed some light on the origins of George’s final accomplice, I’m excited to see what the episode to come reveals about dear old Dr. Traum, who’s always struck me as one of the most charming Criasu collaborators. His ambivalence towards the future seems to come from a place of painful personal experience, while his creation of Lulu points to a fundamental disagreement with the Criasu credo. To have a child is to express a gesture of faith in the future, that it will be a safer, kinder place for the ones who follow you. As we approach the end, it seems Traum may be regretting his prior actions, and hoping to at least spend a little more time with his beloved daughter. Let’s see how this odd family is faring!
Fall 2023 – Week 9 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With my new apartment now more or less settling into a peaceful routine, all of the humbler creatures within our film screening ecosystem are at last returning to the forest. In less metaphorically incoherent terms, that means we’ve been slotting in more dubious afternoon features to accompany our distinguished evening viewings, and once again plumbing the depths of Netflix, Hulu, and Tubi’s exceedingly variable collections. To be honest, I can’t even fully blame this on my housemates – I’ve made a couple wild swings of my own with recent recommendations, and bear no small part of blame in our recent parade of trash. Nonetheless, the critiques will carry on – whether recommending new favorites or serving as a cautionary tale for others, I take my screenings extremely seriously, and come to you today with a fresh helping of carefully scrutinized cinema. Let’s get to it!
Oshi no Ko – Episode 1
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be exploring the megasized first episode of a fresh production, as we check out the premiere of last spring’s Oshi no Ko. To be honest, I was perfectly happy to let Oshi no Ko come and go without any significant commentary on my end; the show’s premise felt too contrived and insular to really appeal to my interests, and beyond that, “an idol drama that’s also a critique of the idol industry” just feels unnecessary for me personally.
Not that the idol industry doesn’t deserve a takedown; on the contrary, “the idol industry is a predatory vessel that ruins the lives of its participants and trains its fans to treat artists as property” feels as provocative a statement to me as “water is wet,” an obvious, clear-eyed assessment of a self-evidently malevolent industry. My impression was that I’d be agreeing with the show’s negative statements while rolling my eyes at every “and yet, there’s something to that idol industry” concession, all while listening to music that I have failed to find interesting across a decade covering the genre’s most esteemed productions. Considering that “Perfect Blue is my favorite idol anime” is basically the anime version of “Die Hard is my favorite Christmas film,” it didn’t seem necessary to add my predictable commentary to the flood of Oshi no Ko reactions. Nonetheless, I’m sure I’ll find some points of interest within this unique production, and I always appreciate having a clearer impression of anime’s breakthrough successes. Let’s get to it!
The Legend of Vox Machina S2 – Episode 12
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into the drama of Vox Machina, having last left the party in a moment of absolute crisis and defeat. Scanlan’s plan to leave an Immovable Rod (well, short sword, but same difference) inside a dragon has quasi-succeeded, while leaving plenty of room for an exciting followup question: how the fuck are he and Vax going to get out of this dragon’s stomach? And while they focus on avoiding digestion, their allies are presented with a different yet equally vexing challenge: how do you make a dragon fight you when it’d rather just fly away? Well, presumably it’s just going back to its lair, meaning our heroes will be facing off with both legendary and lair actions as they attempt to free their comrades from death by stomach acid.
I imagine Scanlan and Vax’s plan was a flourish of stupidity that even Mercer didn’t plan for, but I assume this battle is otherwise going pretty much how he predicted. The push and pull of player agency versus dramatic necessity expresses itself in some unique ways when it comes to major boss fights; you want your players to feel like they can gain a leg up on their opponents via clever strategizing, but also don’t want the fight to feel either formulaic or prematurely solved, necessitating a balance between controllable variables and chaotic in-fight twists. Mercer appears to have navigated this balance through the construction of a two-act fight: first this ambush, which the players largely engineered themselves, followed by a presumed lair fight finale focused more on his own scripted inventions.
Coincidentally enough, my own campaign is also currently transitioning between these moments, with the party’s planning of their allegedly final battle soon to give way to a bombastic scripted escalation. Our melee fighters are largely running on fumes and our sorcerer only has a single spell slot left, so I believe I’ve successfully calibrated the challenge towards a death-defying victory next session, and am eager to see how my players wriggle their way out of this one. I’ll get back to you on how that all plays out, but for now let’s enjoy the climax of Vox Machina’s second season!
Dear Brother – Episode 7
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into the nest of vipers that is Seiran Academy, as we bear witness to Nanako’s continuing misfortunes in the marvelous Dear Brother. The injustices of last episode, including the continuation dissolution of Nanako’s friendship with childhood confidant Tomoko, seemed to actually push our beleaguered heroine to a breaking point, prompting her to consider abandoning the Sorority altogether. Unfortunately, Miya-sama appeared to sniff out her intentions even before she did, offering her a pledge of loyalty that seemed to carry an undertone of yet another ominous threat.
So basically, it was just another day at Seiran, as larger-than-life titans like Kaoru and Miya-sama strode across the wreckage wrought by their tectonic movements, and underlings like Shinobu and Misaki scrambled for purchase upon their lofty, trunk-like garters. Riyoko Ikeda’s drama continues to wind in delightfully tortured directions, and Dezaki continues to elevate her tale with all manner of distinctive animated embellishments. It seems we’re on the cusp of Nanako beginning to seize her own destiny, rather than simply spin in the eddies prompted by larger forces, and I’m eager to see whatever fresh horrors await her. Let’s return to Dear Brother!