Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to report that we finally locked down a new apartment, after far too many weeks of searching and touring and failing to pull anything together. The place won’t be available until the first, and I’ve got plenty of move-in tasks still ahead, but it nonetheless feels amazing to once again have a room of my own awaiting me. I am a furtive and solitary creature, and though I enjoy sharing a common space with friends, I also need a cozy den to which I can retreat, particularly during these key months of hibernation. It’s a profound relief to know I’ll soon have a slice of personal space again, and in the meantime, I’ve been continuing to both munch through films and catch up on the year’s outstanding anime releases. Let’s break down some fresh stories in the Week in Review!
Planetes and the Night Sky
Throughout the course of Planetes, Hachimaki and his companions have pursued a variety of paths to find meaning and purpose in the face of oblivion. The simultaneous grandeur and mundanity of their labor has framed this task in sharper terms than for most; collecting garbage while spotlit against the infinite nothingness of space, it becomes hard to forget your own ultimate irrelevance. You are a speck in a universe that cares nothing for you, that cannot even recognize your presence within its all-enveloping emptiness. Against this backdrop of existential insignificance, they pick up trash and put it somewhere else, certain only that their labors will never end so long as human ambition endures. They are as ants scurrying between the footsteps of gods, but unlike ants, they are burdened with the capacity to desire meaning, purpose, and love.
The Legend of Vox Machina S2 – Episode 11
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m thrilled to be diving back into the adventures of Vox Machina, who most recently joined Grog in clobbering the shit out of the Storm Herd, and bisecting his Vestige-clad mountain of an uncle in the process. The battle against Kevdak saw our heroes united for the first time in half a season, flexing their powers as Grog resolved both his lingering backstory and emotional journey. It was a fine demonstration of how DnD’s narrative and mechanical elements can be harnessed to work in service of the players’ character arcs – of course, such a collaboration requires a player who’s interested in portraying a character arc, which brings us to the current conundrum of our irreverent Scanlan.
Scanlan has time and again been offered a call to grow into a greater sense of responsibility as a character, and has time and again resisted the offer to be anything more than an irreverent prankster. That’s a fine approach to DnD in a campaign where the players are intended to be static reactors to external conflict, but Vox Machina’s campaign is clearly designed around the player avatars overcoming their fatal flaws, be they Percy’s obsession with revenge, Grog’s heedless pursuit of strength, or Vex’s lingering regrets regarding her father. While most of the players have taken to this process with enthusiasm, Scanlan has time and again turned away from the brightly lit signs stating “character growth this way,” prompting the eventual introduction of Kaylie as a daughter-shaped representation of the consequences of his actions.
Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that my own campaign is again chugging along, with my Cloud-based player having recently triumphed in the final battle against their Sephiroth-esque nemesis. Though my initial thinking ran along lines like “how can I integrate my players’ desires into the narrative I have planned,” the course of our campaign has revealed a pretty obvious truth: player desires will always inform the most passionate and effective collaboration, so they should be built as centrally into the campaign’s structure as possible. With our next session coming this very afternoon, my mind is abuzz with further plans for paying off my players’ desires, but this intro has already run too long as it is. For now, let’s dive back into the journeys of Vox Machina!
Spy x Family – Episode 24
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d say we’re about due to check back in on the Forger family, after a two episode arc that saw Loid and Frost competing in the most high-stakes and dangerous of semi-professional tennis tournaments. Their participation in the Campbellian offered an opportunity for both Wit and Cloverworks’ animators to really flex their muscles, while also reveling in the sincere spy drama trickery Tatsuya Endo clearly loves.
Of course, focusing so completely on a “Spy” escapade has left this production’s “x Family” element by the wayside, so I’m looking forward to a return to our heroes’ fraught domestic life. I am happy to admit I’m an easy mark when it comes to found family drama, and the gradual transformation of each of our leads as they come to trust and rely on each other never fails to warm my heart. Loid has come to care for and even take pride in his daughter’s accomplishments, Yor is gaining greater confidence in her worthiness as a partner and mother, and Anya is beginning to believe that her parents really are her stalwart protectors, spy mission or not. It’s always a pleasure seeing lonely people find their missing pieces in each other, and Spy x Family’s eminently likable crew are seeming more unified and whole by the episode. Let’s get to it!
Fall 2023 – Week 3 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week saw me once again consumed by the seemingly impossible task of finding an affordable apartment, while generally attempting to come to peace with the vast, foreboding uncertainties that seem so unavoidable of late. Twitter being consumed by Musk, Crunchyroll being consumed by Sony, my house being consumed by fire; lately it’s seeming like everything I build is erected on a bedrock of sand, making it tough to feel like I’m actually moving forward. I suppose all I can really measure my time in is pride in the work I complete, and I’m certainly proud to still be maintaining my essay-per-week pledge in the midst of all this chaos. And in spite of still lacking stable lodging, my crew’s movie screenings have at last regained their prior regularity, offering a welcome jolt of stability in these difficult times. I’m hoping I’ll have positive housing news to report next week, but for now, let’s break down some fresh feature films!
The Liberation of Study in Witch Hat Atelier
With every return to Witch Hat Atelier, it is a rush and a comfort to again be guided by Kamome Shirahama’s skillful hands, her ability to lead the eye across visual compositions with such grace that the trick becomes invisible, only noticed by those who spend too much time thinking about things like panel blocking and negative space. As the apprentice witch Agate steps up to a bluff’s edge and then leaps off, briefly falling and then soaring into the distance, the effect provoked by each carefully chosen shape offers guidance for visually navigating this experience: the triangle of the bluff in the first panel leading the eye up towards Agate’s shock of dark hair, the way that curving bluff and Agate’s arched form guide us up, over, and down through the following two panels, the effortless way geography and panel lines combine to show motion across stable, inviting landscapes.
BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! – Episode 4
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d say it’s past time to return to the tortured drama of BanG Dream! It’s MyGO, after a third episode that ripped my heart out and tore it to pieces. After two episodes of watching Anon stumble around the periphery of CRYCHIC’s messy fallout, MyGO’s third episode offered an intimate detailing of not just that particular catastrophe, but also Tomori’s entire life story leading up to it. Literally trapped in her headspace via the episode’s relentless perspective, we got to experience a lonely lifetime of knowing you can’t quite interact on the wavelength of your peers, but still desperately wishing to form meaningful connections. And then came Sakiko, with her promise of understanding and praise for your unmediated confessions, with her offer of a place where you truly belong.
Episode three was a tiny masterpiece of perspective and characterization, and also a welcome explanation for the former CRYCHIC members’ current circumstances. The light Sakiko brought into Tomori’s life, and the subsequent crashing fall when she suddenly decided to leave the band, have more than clarified Tomori’s hesitance to form a similar bond with Anon, as well as Taki’s violent reaction to any such suggestion. Whatever prompted Sakiko to kill the band, it feels difficult to forgive her for exploiting Tomori’s isolation and then thoughtlessly casting her aside; Sakiko is clearly socially savvy enough to understand just how much Tomori invested in her promises, pushing her unilateral separation beyond the realm of selfishness and into outright cruelty. In contrast, Anon’s interest is genuine, but idle; she may want to be in a band, but I’m not sure she’s prepared to take on the weight of the hopes that Sakiko left behind her. Let’s see how this messy crew fumbles forward as we return to MyGO!
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You – Episode 1
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a brand-spanking new production, as we explore the first episode of the currently airing 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You. Just by that title, it seems we’re in for a tongue-in-cheek take on the distinguished harem genre, a genre that was actually instrumental in both my original induction into anime fandom (Love Hina), as well as my migration to professional anime writing (Bakemonogatari). Though the base concept of “one protagonist surrounded by a crowd of romantic prospects” might not seem like the most thoughtful or poignant of premises, the genre frequently exhibits uncommon flexibility, ranging from hilarious sex comedies to trenchant explorations of the human condition.
As for The 100 Girlfriends, I’ve heard plenty of positive things about its manga, which fans praise as both funny and frequently heartwarming, with a cast who all seem to like each other on the whole, and not just exist in parallel orbit of our central protagonist. That all sounds like a good time to me, so let’s dispense with the preamble here, and see what these hundred girlfriends have in store for us!
Fall 2023 – Week 2 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With the fall season now fully underway, it seems the community has already settled on Frieren as the current must-watch production, earning such praise that I’m already feeling inclined to see what all the fuss is about. In the meantime, I’m currently catching up on Vinland Saga, and have already screened and thoroughly enjoyed the preposterous first episode of The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You. Along with a great sense of genre-savvy humor, 100 Girlfriends understands the secret underlying the most powerful of harems: that it is the protagonist who must seem most lovable of all, not any of his/her prospective paramours. Anyway, I’ll have more on 100 Girlfriends when my post arrives, but for now, let’s chow down on a fresh selection of films!
Kiss x Sis – Episode 2
Honestly, at this point, bring on the little sister fetish shows. I at the time thought they were generally as artless as television anime was going to get – utterly lacking in any sort of meaningful character writing or thematic intent, but at the very least siloed within a specific realm of fetish-driven content, proudly offering no reason or incentive for actual critics and art enthusiasts to engage with them. They were valueless, but they were also harmless; a clear reflection of a particular sub-subculture’s fetishization of their difficulties connecting with the opposite sex, nothing more or less.
I was wrong. Dear reader, I was so, so wrong.