The Demon Girl Next Door – Episode 4

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Hello everyone, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Y’all ready for some Demon Girl Next Door? After two episodes of ineffectually stalking her magical girl prey, our last episode saw Yuko discovering that her family has never, ever won against a magical girl, at any point in history. Yuko isn’t just a scrappy weakling: she is the inheritor of a perpetual weakling legacy, with her weakling ancestors stretching back into prehistory. For untold centuries, Yuko’s people have been bravely sallying forth to fight magical girls, and have gotten their shit kicked in every single time.

Yuko’s ancestral uselessness is a fine joke in its own right, but also serves as a natural continuation of Demon Girl’s interrogation of the magic/demon girl binary. Purely because of the conditions of her birth, Yuko has been destined for poverty, devilry, and failure from the start. Though her ancestor urges her to succeed where others failed, it’s clear that this system is designed to produce specific winners and losers; self-determination is simply a lie that demons tell themselves, in order to cope with the underlying hopelessness of their situation. When given a chance to truly express her own wishes, Yuko’s feelings don’t seem particularly demonic at all: her main wish is “I hope we can all be friends.” But society demands heroes and villains, and so Yuko is forced to play a role she’s unsuited for, destined for a failure that’s been predetermined all along.

Meanwhile, the last episode also got terrific mileage out of brilliant concepts like Yuko is Short, or Momo is Bad at Cooking. With the show’s comedic and thematic layers each shining in their own way, let’s return to The Demon Girl Next Door!

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Eureka Seven – Episode 10

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. You all ready to dive back into Eureka Seven? Personally, I’m ready and then some; Bones’ early classic has lain dormant in my Current Projects for half a goddamn decade, but I never lost my interest in this unique and beautiful property. With one of my generous, lovely, intelligent readers having offered it the breath of life, I’m not planning on wasting this opportunity – I’m charging forward as far and fast as I can, buoyed by the wings of financial incentive to ride among the gallant Gekkostate crew.

Episode nine served as a clear turning point in the narrative, as Renton at last learned the true history of Gekkostate, and was formally inducted into the team as a full crewmate. Learning that the team were former military agents actually explains a great deal; their hardware all seemed oddly advanced for a group of beach bums, and odd details like Eureka’s children now make perfect sense. But while the path behind is now clear, the road ahead remains a mystery. I’m hoping Renton’s new position means we’ll at last be learning something of Gekkostate’s true objectives, as we return to the exhilarating Eureka Seven!

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The Hakkenden – Episode 1

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Alright, now we’re getting into some shit. Based on the legendary epic novel, the OVA series The Hakkenden is known as one of the great classics of anime history, an “animator’s masterpiece” that is as revered among Japanese animators as it is unknown to international audiences. It is widely regarded as one of the great works of anime’s OVA era, that period of the late eighties/early nineties where the medium’s most daring works were embracing the potential of direct-to-video, broadcast guideline-circumventing media, and Japan was still enjoying an impressive economic bubble

 Even just a brief scan down the show’s credits reveal that this first episode possesses key animation by legendary figures like Norio Matsumoto and Mitsuo Iso, all working in service of a bold revision of a literary classic. The Hakkenden is an essential screening for any self-respecting animation nerd, and I’m eager to find myself utterly out of my depth in assessing its greatness. Let’s get to work!

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Winter 2022 – Week 3 in Review

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Whew, it has been a week. I finally got my COVID booster, which had me basically incapacitated for forty-eight hours. That, of course, invoked a rolling cascade of delayed responsibilities, meaning I’ve been rushing to catch up on projects while handling a variety of other outstanding responsibilities. It turns out as an adult, when you have a sick day, that day’s responsibilities don’t just float away into the ether; they get compacted into all your other days, punishing you for the audacity of possessing a feeble, mortal frame. Fortunately, I’ve mostly caught up at this point (or will have once I finish this article, then write up the first half of the next Week in Review, then watch the last four episodes of Sonny Boy, then write it up for my Year in Review), and believe I have managed to keep my external pandemonium from tarnishing the sanctity of my weekly film reflections. With all that bellyaching off my chest, let’s dive into the Week in Review!

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Top Anime of 2021 (and Year in Review)

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I was going to open this article with “it’s been a year, huh,” but then looked back and saw that’s exactly how I opened my last Year in Review, which pretty much tells you how things are going. You’d think we might have a handle on this whole global pandemic thing by now, but with my country currently enjoying its greatest surge so far, it looks like we’ll be living with the plague for some time to come. With the external world having compressed itself into a perpetual “now” of shelter-in-place routine, it becomes all the more important for us to handle our own marking of time, through celebrations like the summing up of the year in retrospect. So in that regard, I suppose you should all be thanking me for adding some unique dynamics to your weekly routine. You’re welcome, don’t mention it.

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Symphogear XV – Episode 7

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are storming right back into Symphogear, as it has been far too long since I watched a girl punch a tank, assault the moon, or sing a laser barrage into existence. Regardless of the specifics, you can be certain any given episode of Symphogear will contain at least one preposterous impossibility, frequently complimented by a commentator grimly explaining that Ah yes, when the Shroud of Turin is draped over the Nimblypimbly of Gertrude, of course a giant laser explosion will result. Guided by excess and grounded by its charming idiots, Symphogear is one of anime’s greatest works of pure, gleeful indulgence.

Last episode was certainly no slouch in that regard, as we witnessed the introduction of Ogawa’s glorious Car Clone Jutsu. It’s a rare show that can introduce boob missiles only to immediately eclipse them with something sillier, but Symphogear is a rare show indeed. With an ominous light now piercing the horizon, let’s return to the battlefield of SYMPHOGEAAAARRRRR!

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A Dream of Justice: Knives Out

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As we continue our perilous journey through the twenty-first century, it seems clear that the idea of satire as it was previously understood is essentially dead. Effective satire requires not just a coherent target, but also some common framework of experience; a lens of viewing society we all recognize, through which the effective satirist can lampoon that which is both outrageous and mundane. Satire presents the world as we assume it to be, but twisted so as to reveal the perversity of our assumptions. Satire, ultimately, is a tool through which one person can turn to another and say, “look, now do you understand my point of view?”

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Winter 2022 – Week 2 in Review

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Oh god, it’s already week two of the new year? But I haven’t done anything yet! As long as we were still adrift in that post-Christmas/New Year haze of temporal ambiguity, I could avoid the anxiety of feeling insufficiently gung-ho about seizing the new year by the horns, and immediately accomplishing all my long-dormant life goals. But now it’s Week Two, and I’m still the same person I was last year, and clearly that means I am incapable of commitment or self-improvement or any of the other things we annually demand of ourselves. Fortunately, our house did indeed run through a fresh collection of films, so at least my cinematic education is still burbling along. I’ll do my best to internalize the fact that personal growth is a gradual process, and in the meantime, please enjoy this fresh collection of film takes!

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86 – Episode 7

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today you will have to forgive me, as we’re stepping back into the world of 86, and almost certainly have a tragic journey ahead of us. 86’s last episode certainly didn’t pull any punches; a momentary tactical error resulted in Daiya’s senseless death, while even before the fresh tragedy, flashbacks to our unit’s first deployment offered a melancholy reminder of all that we’ve lost.

That episode exemplified 86’s thoughtful, compassionate approach towards portraying the horrors of war. While many stories use the depiction of graphic violence as their central markers of horror and tragedy, 86 understands that how these characters die is only noteworthy in how pointless it is, not how graphic. Rather than laboring over gore, 86 celebrates its characters for how they lived, focusing chiefly on the vibrant characters we’ve lost and the empty spaces they leave in their communities. It can be difficult to convey violence without in some way glamorizing it, particularly since the excitement of high-stakes action is one of anime’s chief exports. But 86 is determined to celebrate its characters as multifaceted people, not simply effective warriors, and thus both its lack of glamorous action and resultantly mournful tone are intentional and essential to its purpose.

Last episode also served as an aesthetic high water mark for the series so far, proving that young director Kuniyasu Nishina is a talent to look out for. I’m looking forward to seeing more of their work in a few episodes, but for now, I’m eager to see how Spearhead handle their doomed current assignment. Let’s return to the world of 86!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 49

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C’mon, we can’t stop right there, can we? Lillie’s in jeopardy! After fighting hard to overcome her pokemon phobia, an unexpected confrontation with Silvady has left her as traumatized as ever, and unable even to hug the bundle of light and joy that is Snowball. Alola is supposed to be a place of peace and comfort, and I cannot accept abandoning our heroes in their hour of greatest need. Indeed, it seems the only honorable choice is to keep watching Sun and Moon until all of its characters are happy again.

Alright, you caught me, I’m just fishing for more excuses to watch Sun and Moon. The show is delightful, spending time with its cast is fun even in moments of crisis, and I’m sure Lillie will overcome this trial with her usual can-do spirit. Let’s settle in for another episode of Sun and Moon!

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