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!
The Legend of Vox Machina S2 – Episode 7
Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to dive back into The Legend of Vox Machina, and follow up on the chilling conclusion of last episode. After over half a season of gradually nurturing the “Grog is wielding a cursed sword” narrative, all those bad dreams and grim portents were finally paid off, with Grog stabbing right through his best buddy Pike. And with a member of the Chroma Conclave literally breathing (acid) down their necks, Keyleth was forced to cast a hasty teleportation spell, leaving our heroes stranded across multiple realms.
All that made for some delightfully crunchy mechanical drama, and I’m eager to see how these smaller sub-parties illustrate their unique relational dynamics. Though splitting the party can be risky, Mercer’s players are clearly perfectly comfortable riffing off each other in smaller groups – and at this point, I’ve gained enough experience as a DM myself to appreciate just how much flexibility splitting the group provides, as well as its potential for letting individual players shine. Two sessions ago, my team conducted a heist that involved an interrogation on one floor, an infiltration on another, and a charismatic distraction on a third, and it was probably one of the best sessions we’ve ever had. As it turns out, structural ambition is only really limited by confidence – if you can keep the flow going and make sure everyone’s engaged, there’s no limit to what stories you can construct. I’m eager to steal more of Mercer’s excellent ideas, so let’s see what drama’s cooking in the Fey Realm!
Spring 2023 – Week 12 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It is currently a muggy, clouded, altogether inhospitable day out, but I refuse to let nature’s frankly childish behavior ruin my afternoon. This has been a week marked by a variety of gratifying personal milestones: I released my last writeup of the excellent Simoun, caught up on both my Witch Hat Atelier and Chainsaw Man articles (currently in my drafts), and finished Mitsuo Iso’s fascinating Dennou Coil, while also plotting out much of the remainder of my house’s D&D campaign. I suppose it’s no great secret that accomplishing things makes you feel accomplished, but it’s nonetheless been a great source of pride and energy to see my “Current Outstanding Projects” pile diminish so significantly over the past half year. I’ve got more fun stuff coming, but for now, let’s explore some fresh films and Mitsuo Iso’s acclaimed production as we burn through the Week in Review!
Chainsaw Man and the Cost of Kindness
It feels uniquely Chainsaw Man-appropriate that three volumes in, Denji could look up and see “Kill Denji” plastered as the volume title of the manga that’s literally about him. The kid just can’t catch a break – not from his enemies, and not from his allies either, for whatever that designation is worth. Aki treats him with nothing but contempt, his other coworkers view him with a mixture of fear and loathing, and the woman he believes he is in love with is simply exploiting his obvious, easily manipulated desires. Pretty much the only person who doesn’t hate or desire to manipulate him is Power, which is an undeniably sad place to be.
Simoun – Episode 26
And so it ends. Having long held the future of Simulacrum on their shoulders, the era of the Simoun Sybillae concludes in acrimony and hope, Neviril and Aaeru soaring off in pursuit of the Emerald Ri Majoon and whatever realms await the eternal maidens. No longer is Neviril seeking to undo the past, or Aaeru to prove her worthiness; they believe in themselves and each other utterly, and this final act is an expression of that belief. Simulacrum’s faith may well have been an arbitrary set of strictures draped over a fundamentally value-neutral phenomenon, but the course of Simoun has proven that faith has a power of its own, regardless of its genesis. Even as Neviril’s companions accept their transition beyond this stage, they are still inspired by her actions – and in that faith, a point of commonality is found between them and their new priestly order.
It has been a poignant and rewarding journey riding alongside Chor Tempest, and though I’m sad we’ve arrived at the end, I’m happy it’s ending with such conclusive, elegant finality. Simoun has always possessed a grace of execution that belies its absurd thematic complexity, and thus it seems appropriate that the story ends where it begins: Neviril and her pair in flight, seeking the infinite in the fulfillment of their love.
Spy x Family – Episode 20
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to get back into Spy x Family, and see what ridiculous nonsense the Forgers have been up to in our absence. Our last episode proved an intriguingly frictious experience, pushing against the presumed boundaries of Tatsuya Endo’s spy drama sandbox. Spy x Family is a situational comedy first, a found family drama second, and a war drama a distant third, and though it can usually juggle those aspects with relative grace, there are inherent tensions in its premise that will undoubtedly surface again. I’m particularly intrigued to see how Endo handles the characterization of Desmond’s father, whose narrative position naturally draws together all of Spy x Family’s contradictory instincts.
But for now, I assume we’re in for some more immediately gratifying shenanigans, and I’m absolutely ready for them. Genre tensions aside, Spy x Family remains immensely entertaining, Endo having proven himself a master of slapstick, deadpan, and anticlimax. Let’s see what lunacy awaits as we return to Spy x Family!
Spring 2023 – Week 11 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I come to you from the midst of a week that offers no reasons to suffer its completion, with the One Piece manga, One Piece show, and even my goddamn D&D campaign all taking the week off. It is difficult to see purpose in existence when I am denied my weekly trickle of media dopamine, but fortunately, the entire collected history of cinema was here to comfort me through it. This week featured a varied assembly of car thieves, satanic monsters, hungry sharks, and even some nazis in hiding, making it easy to forget that our lives are spent mostly in anticipation of moments that will pass even before they are fully savored. Let’s rage against the dying of the light with some delightful feature films!
The Necessity of Shingo Natsume
“My style is to have no fixed style. Other people would accuse me of having a style, though. It may be that I understand myself the least.” – Shingo Natsume
I’ll admit, I got off on the wrong foot with Shingo Natsume. My formal introduction to his work was One Punch Man, a show that seemed to me an embodiment of anime’s increasing artlessness and lack of narrative ambition, the growing divide between animated aesthetic form and meaningful narrative, emotional, or thematic content. It was simply “man punches hard” animated as beautifully as possible, and “man punches hard” is a story anime has told countless times, a story perhaps only outnumbered in its evocations by “me horny.” And as the years have gone by, it seems this divide between form and content has only widened, with modern animator troves like Jobless Reincarnation offering nothing of substance, while sequels and indistinguishable light novel adaptations dominate the wider landscape.