Dear Brother – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re returning to Dear Brother, and continuing to explore its fusion of Ikeda’s propulsive storytelling and Dezaki’s expressive direction. I’ve seen scattered fragments of Dezaki’s work before (his Cobra film, his Ganso Tensai Bakabon episodes), but I was still not prepared for the visual imagination elevating every scene of that premiere, and framing the drama of Seiran Academy at precisely the fever pitch Nanako was experiencing it. In Dezaki’s hands, anime embraces the tools of both theater and traditional painting; rather than attempting to mediate the distance between art and audience via an illusion of realism, Dezaki embraces formal artifice to create something that is both visually striking and emotionally authentic.

Also, Ikeda’s story! I was curious to learn how a boarding school would provide the necessary flint and tinder to spark a proper melodrama, and that premiere felt like a masterclass in efficiently establishing conflict and intrigue. Between Nanako’s relationship with this mysterious brother, the approaching chaos of the sorority proving, and the larger-than-life auras of Seiran’s three champions, it seems Seiran is stuffed to bursting with conflicts and dark histories just waiting to be revealed. I’m eager to see how these mysteries unfold, so let’s quit with the rambling and dive back into the show!

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Winter 2023 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. I hope everyone’s been having a reasonably agreeable week so far; as for myself, I am happy to report that after a couple yanks on the chain, my dormant DnD campaign has leapt back into action, with our second post-break session proving one of the most exciting of the campaign so far. My intent was to create a Seven Samurai-style quest wherein the players fortify and then defend a village against bandits, and things went off swimmingly – the players clearly felt invested in their various defensive arrangements, my attempt to define separate front and rear battlefields succeeded without issue, and the session ended with players brimming with future ideas for their characters, which is always a heartening sign. We also went for five and a half goddamn hours, so apparently my dungeon mastering stamina has not suffered greatly from my time away from the board. But don’t let all this ecstatic table talk mislead you into thinking I’ve neglected my cinematic duties! I’ve got a pile of gooey features for you all, so let’s not waste any more time, and get right into the week’s selections.

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The Demon Girl Next Door S2 – Episode 6

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Holy shit, ring the alarms, evacuate the facilities, we’re in full crisis mode. Sakura Chiyoda has appeared on the scene, confounding all my pacing and structural expectations for this season, and rocketing us to within striking distance of actually learning about Shamiko’s father. I was fairly confident we’d be spending most of this season chasing Sakura’s footprints, but now that she’s here in the flesh (or at least whatever equivalent of flesh applies to a mental projection within Shamiko’s memories), it seems like we might be moving right onto the secondary task of dismantling her barrier, and establishing true freedom of interaction between demons and magical girls.

Granted, that initial plan was hatched before Shirasawa revealed that this town is literally the world’s only demon sanctuary, raising some question as to whether undoing Sakura’s work is the wisest choice. But regardless, I’m eager to hear from this story’s most hyped-up heroine. Let’s get to it!

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Spy x Family – Episode 14

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re diving right back into the drama of Spy x Family, in the midst of a high-stakes adventure involving psychic children, future-sighted dogs, and an attempted political assassination! The show is certainly wasting no time in its second cour, and appears to currently be charging towards the fulfillment of one of its most tantalizing promises: the whole Forger family in full battle array, coordinating their powers to solve some grand political crises.

This lever was pulled only once before, during that purse-snatching incident near the beginning of the series, but it’s looking like preventing this assassination will require all hands on deck once again. The key staff also look quite strong for this one; episode director Takahiro Harada has credits ranging from Idolmaster to Birdy the Mighty, while storyboarder Takahiro Miura appears to be something of an action specialist, with regular Ufotable credits on Demon Slayer and the various Fate adaptations. Given Spy x Family’s split studio production, I imagine the team has been afforded plentiful time and resources for what is essentially a “second premiere” of the second cour. Let’s see what they’ve got on offer!

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The Legend of Vox Machina S2 – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am just pleased as punch to be returning to The Legend of Vox Machina, and continuing alongside the DnD-derived adventures of our intrepid heroes. The first season proved to be a delightful experience on the whole, with the party’s confidence as a unit seeming to echo its players’ growing confidence in guiding them, all leading up to a dynamite fusion of resolving player arcs and murder-rich visual theater.

That season also offered me plenty of food for thought regarding my own nascent dungeon mastering, though I’ve of course still got a long, long way to go. Humility established, I’m also quite proud to have completed the first act of my own campaign, having guided my players from unknown adventurers to local heroes of the realm, with a continent on the brink of war now stretched out before them. Having spent much of December and January plotting out upcoming quests, I’m eager to see how my players confound my expectations and muck up my best-laid efforts. We literally just conducted the first session of act two last week, so this seems like the perfect time to hop back into Vox Machina, and see how Mercer and his crew grapple with the peculiarities of this collaborative medium. Let’s get to it!

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Winter 2023 – Week 6 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’re somehow halfway through the winter season at this point, meaning airing shows have now produced a meal-worthy chunk of episodes, which suits my modern viewing habits much better than weekly releases. That means I’ll probably be checking out The Fire Hunter soon enough, but in the meantime, I’ve been following up my rewarding journey through Mobile Suit Gundam with a dive into Tomino’s followup, Space Runaway Ideon. I’ve repeatedly heard that Ideon is an essential pre-Evangelion production, but to be honest, the first dozen or so episodes were fairly underwhelming. Ideon’s conflict and characters remained static for quite some time, but the show’s fortunately been gaining momentum in its middle stretch, so I’m looking forward to a more positive report next week. Tomino aside, the movie screenings continued as always, with this week’s viewings spanning westerns, sea dramas, and one of the most improbable revenge films I’ve ever seen. Let’s get to it!

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Anxiety in the Plague Years: Bo Burnham’s Inside

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It’s a little tricky for me to go about “unpacking” Bo Burnham’s Inside, as the special is largely concerned with Bo Burnham unpacking himself. What does Bo feel, and how does Bo feel about that, and how does Bo feel about feeling that way about that – all these questions and more are answered as the special progresses. Across an hour and change of songs and sketches, Burnham offers a wildly self-conscious reflection on the already self-conscious ways we present ourselves as modern, perpetually online human beings, exacerbated by the forced solitude of the COVID age. Through cataloging and critiquing his every wayward thought, Burnham seeks to paradoxically create something universal, something that speaks to a common experience of watching the world burn from inside your own shrieking brain. It’s harrowing, hilarious, and maybe even a touch profound. 

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Star Driver – Episode 15

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we arrive at Southern Cross Isle in a moment of crisis, with Kiraboshi having at last discovered the identity of their missing shrine maiden. Though Marino did everything she could to hide the secret identity of her sister, the fact that she denied seeing any western maiden with Ayingot’s eyes nonetheless gave the game away. All of the maidens are assigned within a year of the king’s birth, so if Marino can’t see the western maiden, that simply means she’s lying – and who, if not Mizuno, would Marino be lying to protect?

As such, I imagine Mizuno will soon be drawn into the active Kiraboshi drama, and be forced to grapple with greater obstacles than finding the courage to smooch Takuto. I’m eager to see how integrating Mizuno into that side of the narrative will change our overall group dynamic, and also keeping close tabs on Sugata’s evolving relationship with the newly reinstated Head. All signs seem to point to an approaching act two climax, so let’s not waste a moment more, and dive back into the evolving drama of Star Driver!

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Dear Brother – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to announce we’re checking out one of the most essential anime series I’ve yet to see, Osamu Dezaki’s adaptation of Riyoko Ikeda’s Dear Brother. Both of these names are legends in their own right, who can rightfully be said to have shaped the course of their relative mediums. Ikeda was one of the key mangaka of what has been retroactively dubbed the Year 24 Group, a collection of female mangaka who elevated the ambitions of shojo manga, introducing new complexities of storytelling and pointed themes regarding sexuality, politics, and much else. Alongside Dear Brother, Ikeda also wrote the massively acclaimed The Rose of Versailles, a story set alongside the French Revolution that counts among the great works of shojo history, and even earned her a Legion of Honor from the French government.

And then, of course, there’s Osamu Dezaki. One of the greatest, most iconic directors in anime history, a man who essentially pioneered a visual vocabulary of melodrama. Dezaki’s influence on anime ranges far beyond individual techniques like his “postcard memory” freeze frames. His visual philosophy of drama, his deft employment of abstraction, and his manipulation of the frame via splitscreens, dutch angles, and shadows would all go on to influence countless future artists, from Tomino to Ikuhara to Shinbo. Any anime education is incomplete without a healthy dose of Dezaki, so I’m eager to dive into this beloved work.

As far as Dear Brother itself goes, my understanding of its narrative is “elite boarding school melodrama,” and I’m content to let the show itself flesh out that impression. Let’s get to it!

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Winter 2023 – Week 5 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. How are you all holding up as we march into February? It’s been a busy week on my end, as I’ve been hammering a bunch of ambitious drafts into shape, and trying to keep this streak of long-form essays going. A few months ago I couldn’t have imagined maintaining this sort of pace, but rearranging my schedule and simply embracing the challenge has carried me through so far, and I frankly feel a lot better mentally now that I’m tackling all these major projects.

Work aside, I’ve also continued storming through the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and at this point have just a handful of episodes to go. The show continues to impress me at every turn; by now you can really feel the weight of exhaustion hanging over the whole crew, making each new battle feel that much more desperate and unpredictable. I’ll likely take an opportunity to ramble about Gundam at length sometime soon, but for today, let’s explore a fresh selection of films. It’s time for the Week in Review!

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