Bloom Into You’s sixth volume begins with the curtain about to rise on our play-within-a-comic. After an entire series spent playing the part of her sister, Touko will in this performance be playing the part of someone who rejects that philosophy outright, and chooses to embrace their own fledgling, uncertain identity. It’s simultaneously a gradual step and a terrifying one. On the one hand, she’s only playing the part of the person Yuu wishes she could be, in the context of an established, inauthentic performance. But on the other hand, she will be performing this new self in front of a vast audience, essentially the entire student body that she has sought to “fool” all this time.
Thunderbolt Fantasy S3 – Episode 4
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to check back in on the explosive theatrics of Thunderbolt Fantasy, as our gallant hero Shang faces off with his former ally Wan Jun Po. Having been disillusioned with the selfish, chaotic orders of our murder princess, and with Shang refusing to use his sorceress sword index to interfere with the affairs of the mortal plane, Wan Jun Po made the most sensible choice he could think of: join forces with the Order of the Divine Swarm, that his evil master’s cleansing light might bring peace to this world.
Yes, it does indeed seem a little extreme, but I’m happy to see Wan Jun Po taking his place in the extensive pantheon of “I’ll take this evil upon me for the good of the world” Urobuchian heroes and anti-heroes. Season three had up until now been pretty light on Urobuchi’s usual moral quandaries, and if we can jumpstart the themey-wemey stuff while getting a duel between friends turned rivals in the process, all the better. Let’s jump right into the swordsmanship and sorcery of Thunderbolt Fantasy!
Bocchi the Rock! – Episode 8
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. The day of Kessoku Band’s long-awaited second performance has dawned cold and gloomy, a torrential rain greeting our would-be rockers. To Bocchi, this is clearly a sign of a doomed performance to come, and it’s certainly undeniable that awful weather makes folks less likely to get out and about. But Starry is a niche club with a reliable clientele, and a little rain never hurt anyone; they may not get as much foot traffic, but those tickets they sold will surely earn them some spectators.
Regardless, the big question here is not whether anyone will show up, but rather if Bocchi and company are truly ready to perform for them. The band was frankly a wreck the last time they performed, and though Nijika’s sister is accommodating, she’s not going to torpedo her club for the sake of her sister’s idle ambitions. As such, this performance will serve as a referendum on exactly how far our protagonists have grown. Are Ryo and Nijika at the point where they can trust their bandmates, and not just play in their own little world? Has Kita mastered the guitar sufficiently that she can both play and sing at once? And most of all, will Bocchi be able to look up from her guitar while playing with confidence, and experience that incomparable rush of communicating your heart’s voice to a crowd, and being met with love in return?
This concert being a disaster seems like it’d be a bit mean-spirited even for Bocchi, so I’m excited to see how all our rockers conduct themselves. The great trick of music dramas is that they can harness the power of musical performance as narrative, character-reflective statements, resulting in expressions of selfhood as powerful as the impromptu jam sessions of Kids on the Slope, or the rambling performances of On-Gaku, or the transcendent climax of Liz and the Blue Bird. All of those moments count among my favorites in animation, and I’m eager to see what Bocchi can pull off. Let’s get to it!
Summer 2023 – Week 1 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m doing my best to beat this grotesque summer humidity, while also recovering from the fatigue of running my first D&D session in a month. Scheduling hiccups resulted in an unfortunately extended gap between sessions, which then led directly into me running the party through the action-packed finale of my campaign’s second act. This oversized return to form had me so tired that when I collapsed into bed, I experienced a succession of two dreams that were each also focused on me collapsing into bed, something I didn’t think was actually possible. How can you have a dream about being asleep? Well, regardless of the specifics, my decaying frame was fortunately still able to conjure some reflections on the week’s film adventures. Let’s break down a fresh collection of features in the Week in Review!
Planetes and Ordinary Happiness
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to stare up at the stars, secure and certain of your place within their grand design? To not see the cosmos as a sprawling reflection of all the opportunities you’re conceding, all the moments you’re wasting with every second not harnessed to your true purpose? To truly know who and what you are, your current self and your ultimate intended function? In a universe as vast as our own, the idea that each of us has some destiny that we must seek, some specific route that was made for us among the countless potential paths we might tread, feels more like a hopeless lament than a call to action. And yet some truly do seem to have found their calling, treading confidently forward with certainty at their side.
Hugtto! Precure – Episode 37
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to Hugtto! Pretty Cure, for an episode that by all accounts is going to be almost incomprehensible to me. Our last episode involved the main Hugtto party linking up with about half a dozen previous Cure generations, some of whom they were already acquainted with, all of whom were essentially new to me. Having rallied these supplementary ranks, we then saw half a dozen other Cure parties get frozen in time, trapped in the re-unveiling of Dr. Traum’s totally bullshit time control robot.
For long-time Cure aficionados, I imagine these meetups are a familiar element of the Precure package. For me, this has been a somewhat overwhelming but altogether charming journey through decades of design sensibilities, with each new team demonstrating the diversity of what Pretty Cure can be. The franchise appears to possess a gratifyingly straightforward “if it’ll make for a fun crossover, do it” approach to worldbuilding, while the appearance of all these classic Cures likely gives the current animation team a chance to bring characters they grew up with to life, much like how One Piece’s current staff is stacked with lifelong One Piece fans. When you’re given a chance like that, magic frequently results, so I’m eager to see what wonders await in this pan-Precure bash. Let’s get to it!
The Demon Girl Next Door S2 – Episode 10
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to The Demon Girl Next Door, following up on one of the series’ warmest and fuzziest entries so far. Though Momo and Shamiko’s zoo date ended up sabotaged by their so-called friends, the ensuing trip to Sakura’s shrine proved just the romantic excursion they were hoping for, with Momo embracing greater honesty in expressing her feelings and Shamiko embracing more horniness all around. Plus she won her first demonic battle! A tremendous victory for Shamiko.
On a metaphorical level, Momo’s issues purifying and regulating her magic serve as a fine echo of her personal difficulty in opening up to Shamiko, and figuring out how to orient and define herself as someone within Shamiko’s life. Momo’s life of isolation has taught her to be self-sufficient, and she was comfortable enough doting on Shamiko as a helpless project, but learning how to exist as equals, with all the emotional vulnerability that implies, has been a difficult process. “Who am I when I’m with you” can be a difficult question for young lovers to answer, and for Momo, that question is lent further urgency via the harsh consequences of melding magic. Let’s see how our young couple is faring!
Spring 2023 – Week 13 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Though we’re already near the end of June, this is technically the final week of the spring anime season, making it the perfect time to learn what shows I should actually come up on. Actively watching airing anime is obviously a recipe for tragedy, given how many productions either collapse partway through or never realize their potential. As such, I’ve lately been waiting for seasons to end before checking them out, thus mitigating the likeliness of suddenly running aground on a stretch of war crime apologism or whatnot. This normally cuts down the field significantly, but it seems this season’s Witch From Mercury, Skip and Loafer, Vinland Saga, and Birdie Wing all held strong from start to finish, leaving me with a whole goddamn pile of work to do. Fortunately, with Dennou Coil complete, it’s the perfect time for me to dig into a bunch of recent anime – but in the meantime, let’s run down some films in the Week in Review!
Yasuo Otsuka’s Joy of Motion
Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be exploring a film that falls a touch outside our usual wheelhouse, but which nonetheless seems like an absolutely essential viewing. Today we’ll be watching Joy in Motion, a documentary about the impeachable animation legend Yasuo Otsuka. Otsuka was a crucial figure right from the beginning of anime’s film history, making key contributions to the early films of Toei Doga, and championing a style of animated unreality that would go on to influence countless future animators.
Along with making iconic contributions to early films like Saiyuki and The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon, Otsuka would also prove to be an essential mentor to the next generation of animators. He served as animation director on Isao Takahata’s landmark film debut Horus, Prince of the Sun, and also worked on early Hayao Miyazaki productions like Lupin III and Future Boy Conan, nurturing two talents who’d come to define prestige anime film productions. His credits stretch across a literal half-century, and his influence even further; rather than inspiring specific individual techniques, it might be more accurately said that Otsuka’s style helped define what cinematic anime would look like in a general sense. Anime would not be what it is without Otsuka, and I’m eager to hear the man himself drop some knowledge on us all. Let’s get to it!
Yuki Yuna is a Hero – Episode 1
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m pleased to announce we’ll be embarking on a brand new adventure, as we check out the first episode of Yuki Yuna is a Hero. To be honest, I don’t know all that much about this series, save its place within the industry’s overall development of genre trends.
Yuki Yuna was one of a number of “dark magical girl” dramas that followed the breakout success of Madoka Magica, typified by shows like Day Break Illusion and Magical Girl Raising Project. Most of these shows landed with little impact, in a heartening rebuke of their producers’ assumption that talent and passion are less important than following genre trends, but Yuki Yuna has flowered into a broad and successful franchise. There’ve been Yuki Yuna light novels, manga, visual novels, and even smartphone games, and I get the feeling that if its American release hadn’t been produced by the hideously overpriced and utterly shelf-averse PonyCan imprint, it might have been a commercial hit here as well.
So yeah, I actually know a fair amount about Yuki Yuna’s commercial circumstances, but almost nothing about its narrative. And as anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the magical girl genre knows, darkness and grief have always stood alongside its aspirational themes, making the optimism its heroes struggle to embody all the more meaningful. Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, Ojamajo Doremi, Pretty Cure – I’ve bawled my eyes out to a variety of magical girl dramas, and hope to find many more with the power to yank at my heart. Let’s see how Yuki Yuna fares!