Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re charging right back into Hugtto! Precure, and I couldn’t begin to guess what we’ll do next. I mean, last episode’s concept turned out to be “Homare’s Dog Falls in Love with a Pet Food Mascot,” and I have to say that wasn’t even in my top twenty guesses. We’re apparently in the generous middle stretch of a Precure season, where the established nature of the team and antagonists allows Toei to get a little wild in their episodic conceits. Personally I’d love to see more of Harry’s old friends, but wherever the wind blows us, I’m sure this cast and production team will make the journey special. Let’s pile in for a fresh episode of Huggto! Precure!
Spring 2022 – Week 2 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! I’ll admit right from the start, today’s film selections are some kind of Frankensteinian abomination, the cobbled remnants of several weeks’ viewings. My inconsistent approach to building a review buffer has resulted in some odd temporal anomalies – for example, this week features the Texas Chainsaw revival film that inspired our “further research” from a few weeks ago. Fortunately, this also grants me the luxury of actual curation, allowing me to construct a sort of meta-reflection on the evolution of horror in film. Also, Texas Chainsaw aside, the rest of this week’s films are really good, so I’m eager to share them with you. Let’s get to it!
Star Driver – Episode 3
Alright Star Driver, what’s your plan here? It seems clear that we’re setting up our thematic conflicts along lines of sexual agency, but the details are a little less certain. Southern Cross Isle’s fated shrine maidens feel like a very near reincarnation of Utena’s Rose Bride: icons of the feminine, passive figures that are acted upon in the fulfillment of some ancient, patriarchal ritual. By “breaking the shrine maiden’s seal” (ie taking her virginity through the imposition of masculine power), Star Driver’s equivalents of Utena’s student council hope to extend the theoretical power of the Cybodies into the physical world.
All of that is well and good, and pretty much maps to a neo-Utena interpretation of the action so far. But calling out this show’s parallels with Utena is easy; at the moment, I’m more interested in pinning down the ways Star Driver differs from Utena, and thus might be proposing a different argument. I’d initially figured the two sides of this conflict mapped cleanly to traditional versus progressive gender presentation and sexual agency, but if anything, the nefarious student council seem more uninhibited than our fairly chaste lead pair. Of course, everyone involved here is a teenager, and thus none of them really know what they’re doing; the stark contrast of their self-presentation and stated goals might itself be part of the point, reflecting their attempts to aesthetically embody a sexual maturity that they can’t emotionally reach yet. And of course, this complex stew of thematic variables is pure candy for me, so I’ll be happy as long as the show stays weird, layered, and ambitious. Let’s get right to it!
Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 52
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am happy to announce that we’re charging back into Sun and Moon, as we near the climax of this production’s first major arc. We’re not due for another Misaaki Iwane episode for a while yet, but I’m still anticipating a glorious display of animated action as our team enter The Twilight Zone. I mean, does the zone on the other side of these wormholes have an actual name, or can we just call it The Twilight Zone? Look, it’s already taking all my strength not to make any terrible jokes about the term “Ultra Hole,” so you can at least give me this one.
Ambiguous multidimensional nomenclature aside, the team has gathered and the conditions have been met. Let’s continue our journey through Sun and Moon’s most exciting act so far!
The Demon Girl Next Door – Episode 6
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to The Demon Girl Next Door, where we last left off with Shamiko wishing for a donut pillow, so her horns won’t hurt so much when she sleeps. I feel like that wish basically sums up the Shamiko existence: even lying down to sleep is a painful and difficult task, replete with dangerous hurdles to traverse. But at the same time, that wish also illustrates her humility and indefatigable spirit. Life being tough is just how it goes for Shamiko, and though she could really use a donut pillow, she’ll surely muddle through regardless.
A girl like Shamiko could really use a friend to spoil her, and we may have found one in the reluctant Magical Girl Momo. While Momo seems to be well-off and competent in most things, she lives alone, and appears to have no friends beyond her incompetent nemesis. Her life as a magical girl has been one of austerity, loneliness, and obligation, and it seems like Shamiko might be the first good thing that’s happened to her in a long time. The two of them clearly need each other, so let’s not keep them apart any longer, as we dive back into The Demon Girl Next Door!
Spring 2022 – Week 1 in Review
Hey everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been a very Dungeons & Dragons-themed week at my house, as I continued to munch through episodes of Vox Machina, while my own campaign group convened for our first spring session. The confluence of these events had me in a focused game-design mode during our live session, as I sifted through the various motivations of our individual party members. D&D can be many things to many people, and it certainly is a variety of things for our group: one of our party members most delights in crunching their character’s numbers, while another mostly wants to express their character’s outrageous personality, while a third is largely concerned with our adventure’s fantasy worldbuilding. It’s not just “difficult” to balance these desires – it is, to some extent, impossible to satiate all of them without stepping on some toes. And that precise impossibility of “perfect form” is what makes the whole affair so interesting to me, as more a continuing thought exercise than a solvable equation.
Oh, and we also watched some movies this week! I’ve actually got quite the diverse selection for you all, so let’s not waste another moment, and charge on into the Week in Review!
Oregairu S3 – Episode 11
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be diving back into Oregairu’s final season, where when we last left off, Sensei had finally stepped in to help guide our severely mixed-up protagonist. Both Hachiman and Yukino have been laboring under Haruno’s prognosis of “codependency” all season, assuming that their implicit methods of supporting each other were in some way fundamentally childish or unhealthy.
Of course, what Haruno is actually describing is “friendship” and “mutual trust,” concepts which are undoubtedly foreign to her world, but which are nonetheless healthy aspects of any developed social life. In truth, the only thing holding Hachiman and Yukino back is their own insecurity; they’ve actually discovered the sincere bonds they were seeking, they just don’t have enough faith in their feelings to believe it. Hopefully that push from Sensei will provide Hachiman with the confidence he needs, as our long-suffering service club members only have two episodes left to sort things out. Let’s get to it!
Simoun – Episode 23
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be reviving a long-dormant article series, as we continue our journey through the fascinating world of Simoun. I didn’t really intend for this gap between entries to get so enormous; I was up to date on articles for quite a while, and by the time a new article was funded, I was far enough removed from the show that it seemed hard to reconnect with. But having read my last few episodic posts to refresh myself, I feel more or less reattuned to the trials of Chor Tempest, and ready to see this journey through to the end.
When last we left off, Chor Tempest had struck a crucial victory, having won the battle for the capital so decisely that their enemies were forced to accept a peace treaty. But given the rapid advancements of their foes in the wake of acquiring their own Simouns, as well as the plain fact that Simulacrum’s continued existence serves as a foot on the neck of all poorer nations, I can’t imagine that peace will be a lasting one. Fortunately, outside of the members that are either dead or flung into the distant past, Chor Tempest has never been more unified. Let’s see how they weather the potential end of Simulacrum society!
The Legend of Vox Machina – Episode 2
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d continue the story of Vox Machina, and see if this story has found its footing. The show’s first episode was handicapped by an insecurity that I see in a lot of these “American fantasy for adults” properties, an insecurity that tends to express itself as a reliance on vulgarity and ultraviolence as shorthand for seriousness. Along with showing off their “mature bona fides,” these displays demonstrate irreverence or contempt for the generally self-serious tone of such properties, assuring audiences that it’s okay to like this one.
If you can’t tell, I have nothing but disdain for this instinct. It is far less shameful to earnestly invest in your story than continuously apologize for it, and the instinct to associate maturity with ultraviolence seems deeply juvenile in its own right – the plaintive cry of “it’s not cartoons, it’s anime.” Fortunately, the second half of this show’s premiere saw the story finally stepping off its own cloak, and demonstrating some earnest drama across the main crew. We’re still in pretty by-the-books fantasy territory, but that’s how all D&D campaigns start; the nuance is found in how your story blooms, and I’m eager to see it happen. Let’s get back to the trail!
Winter 2022 – Week 13 in Review
Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I have at this point established perhaps a month worth of buffer in terms of film reflection pieces, and hot damn is today’s crop a good one. I don’t know what exactly inspired this week in past-Nick film screenings, but he was clearly on a roll, charging through psychosexual drama and epic Hollywood spectacle alike. In more recent news, I’ve been gobbling through my commissioned episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina, utterly seduced by the fun of tramping along with a well-balanced D&D crew. It’s been a satisfying week in film and television alike, and I look forward to sharing my future fiction-versus-game design ramblings with you all. But for now, let’s power through some films!